Re: Extropianism as a World Meme

Chris Hind (bholat@earthlink.net)
Wed, 04 Sep 1996 04:48:15 -0700


>right in front of their face. Just like it is easy for me to ignore fashion
>polls and god-knows-what-else
hehe the meme has sunken into our language!

> Most Christians don't value truth or rational arguments, so they will simply
>ignore these things, much to the chagrin of those, like us, who do.
Then why do they claim they "seek the truth"?

At least there is one good force pushing atheism. Public school peer
pressure converts all except the MOST severe cases of christianity.

>Once they know how to reason well, they will start questioning their own
>assumptions, and you can help them through the debunking process, but not
>until they're ready, not until they start doing it on their own.
Yeah true

> Unfortanately, it doesn't seem like you've fully recovered from Christianity
>yourself.
Well, I must admit. Smidgets of the meme remain and I am squishing them when
I notice them so thanks for pointing that out.

>If their religion is stifling them, then they will move beyond it, if their
true
>commitment is to increasing Extropy.
Very True

>And I think that the best strategy (somewhat
>contrary to what I wrote previously about offending people's minds, but then I
>don't try to be consistent; I'm still learning, after all), is to quietly
>infiltrate various belief systems and insert some well-designed memes that
>will promote increasing Extropy. We must attach these memes to the religion
>itself somehow, so that it becomes a very important part of the religion, or
>at least of the belief systems of the members of the religion. Most religions
>I know of already have a lot of Extropian components, so it will mainly be a
>matter of stressing those aspects more and slightly rearranging things so that
>the Extropian Values are seen as very important by the members of the
>religion. We should bring as little foreign material into the religion as we
>can, but instead work with the religion itself to transform it into something
>more Extropian than it already is.
I believe this is already being done. I saw a book awhile back in a magazine
called "GOD wants our us to thrive" or something of the sort which
supposedly dealt with the idea that the christian GOD wants planet earth to
grow, develop, get better and better and make people happy. If only I could
find that book!

>- David Musick

(Clap) (Clap) (Clap) (Clap) Great Post!