Gnæus Dionysius Draco wrote:Conversely, if a herbivore philosophy/religion such as christianity would become too dominant, it would also extinguish or, more likely, diverge because there wouldn't be enough memetic diversity.
Ironically, that is not too far a stretch from what actually happened, with the obvious exception being that it didn't go belly-up after it had eradicated all resistance, but actually grew stronger. After the year 312CE, despite the temporary inconvenience of Julian from 361-363, they never lost their stranglehold on power ever again, and not too surprisingly, they immediately began to reveal their true nature, not as a "herbivore, sheeplike" religion, but as a terroristic cult of ravenous wolves, which it has always been at its core.
By contrast, with the onset of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Church gradually began to lose its power and by the modern day, it is only a hollow shell (almost a spoof caricature) of what it once was; not surprisingly they're nice to us again since they know that they're no longer allowed to burn us alive at the stake anymore, and that if they aggravate people enough, they'll go out of business, or at least be strapped for cash after all the lawsuits. (Think of the sheer humour and weight of that idea for a moment: Can you imagine anyone filing a lawsuit against the Church in the 13th century?)
Ironically, the Fundamentalist "born-again" Christians have now almost completely eclipsed the Catholic Church (particularly if not exclusively in the United States) as the instrument of intolerance and terror. The Catholic Church, particularly since the Second Vatican Council, basically is a stranger to itself, since it resembles in absolutely no way shape or form that of its former self, except in outward displays of pomp and pageantry, as well as the obvious influence it can still wield in certain circles by recalling 2,000 years of history and culture, which the Protties obviously don't have.
It is now the Baptists, Pentacostals and such who terrorize people here in the United States, burn books, harrass and bully non-Christian kids at school, beat homosexuals to death and/or drag them behind pickup-trucks, blow-up abortion clinics, etc... and that is not unfair to say, because it not only happens, but happens on a frequent enough basis to warrant making such a sweeping but nevertheless accurate generalisation.
Strange in a way, considering that the Fundamentalist (radical "born-again" fringe) Christians have absolutely no Tradition to speak of, and are so hopelessly out of step with reality and their "Sola Scriptura" literal-creationist mentality (forget the fact that if it weren't for the Catholic Church, to be fair, they wouldn't have their Bible!), yet the same tendency for violence and oppression is still there.
Anyway, I know this is completely off the general topic originally intended both by the title of the thread, as well as that of your post, but I felt it necessary to clarify anyway.
Gnæus Dionysius Draco wrote:Although I am anything but a platonic or neoplatonic, I must say that this reminds me of the memes-theory. Namely, that all form of knowledge is somehow a lifeform, a virus, that is also in constant struggles with other forms of knowledge (~ analogous to Darwin's natural selection and survival of the fittest theory).
According to the memes theory, the success of ideas or thoughts like christianity or islam is explained: it can gain an easy access to most people's brains and quickly overpowers the present memetic forms of knowledge or adapts them to it. Those with an atheist mindset are immune to the theist memes but may be very influential to cynic memes, depending on the individual's predisposition.
With the above two paragraphs I strongly agree; I also believe that specific genetic defects may account for having susceptibility to one particularly unhealthy meme over another, which is why I'm doubly troubled by the fact that Christians are allowed to breed the way they do. Like a virus that must replicate itself and spread for the sake of survival, so Christianity has survived thus far exclusively by creating dogma and instituting a pogrom of violence against all resistance which, not by accident, sets the stage for such a scenario, and the past 2,000 years of history which never should've even been allowed to happen had Rome more of a clue as to the threat they posed. The very fact that emperors even as late as Diocletian (the last emperor who could've made a difference) had a chance to reverse the effects, considering that he ruled from 284-305 (21 years!) and yet only instituted the purge in his last year or two of life, when he could've accomplished far more had he started on his first day in office. Ditto on many other emperors with long reigns who never did anything about it except conveniently ignore it.
Anyway, for the sake of not being thrown off the message-boards, this is the last rant I will make about Christianity, but suffice it to say, I only feel so passionately about such matters and say the things I do because (1) They are true and accurate, and (2) because the only truly great Empire in all of history, which flourished for well over 1,000 years prior, allowed itself to succumb to this virus and in little more than a hundred years completely collapsed (and even then only officially; in reality, it collapsed the moment that Julian died fighting the Persians on the field of battle - 26th of June, 363. With him died the last hopes of resurrecting the Roman Empire to its former state of glory and grandeur.)
On a separate note, it shames me to admit that I used to have quite a respectable collection of books by Nietzsche, Heidigger, Stirner, Kant, Sartre, etc... but then lost them all in a fire. I'm beginning the slow, arduous, and sometimes frustrating process of rebuilding my library a little at a time. To be sure, the books I had were extremely frail and were literally coming apart at the seams, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before they would've had to have been discarded anyway, but still, I like old tattered books.
Vale optime,