Heaven or Hell

Azrael · Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:07 pm

All these great walls of text are great but what do they prove? If any thing heaven and hell are no more than symbolic. One was mean't to scare the "hell" out of believers, the other was mean't to give the poor souls something to look forward to. I have ask this on other forums and I will ask it here as well. Some one post documented evidence of people who have been to either one of these mythological playgrounds. I am sure we would all like to think that there is some place your "soul" goes after passing my self included.

stahrwe · Tue Apr 20, 2010 7:17 pm

Chris,

regarding your comment about the quote buttons, I presume using the one you suggest is represented by the sample below. Who is Interbane quoting in the box? It's me of course, but how would I know that if I didn't recognize it?

I have frequently racked my brain trying to remember if a quote was mine, when something is out of context it is hard to recognize*, difference is, I don't complain about it.

* and on at least one occasion my wording was changed

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: I know that I have a very different perspective on things than most BT participants and frequently cause irritation and I know that the whole meme business is like a mantra to some of you but I have to say, since you brought it up, that the whole think seems silly. Experts can't even agree on what they are talking about and modify the definition to make it seem scientific, then, when you get down to what they are really talking about it is tradition and learning.

It's not a mantra. It's simply a different way of looking at the transmission of ideas and culture. In the end, the objects of consideration are the same, but the perspective through which we consider them is different. The basic premise is, why do some ideas spread where other ideas don't spread? What are the characteristics of an idea that gives it a greater chance of spreading? A good sample population to pull from are the chain emails that circulate the web.

Just as a fit body and good looks increase the chances of passing along our genes, there are characteristics of ideas that increase the chances that they are passed along. In the chain email example, one such characteristic would be including "pass this on to 10 friends and something good will happen to you". That's a rather simple example. So simple and easy to see through that many people ignore it. However, there are many people who buy in to such things. Another example is playing off beliefs that people already hold. There are a lot of emails that show a series of endearing pictures, then make an appeal to pass it along as an example of God's glory.

I'm skeptical of the theory, since it's so hard to disambiguate what a discrete "meme" actually is. The answer is that it is "anything that is imitated, passing from one person to the next." Yet that fails to give a precise rubric for distinguishing a clear cut example of a meme. The 'instances' are far more variant than the 'abstractions', so to speak.

If the characteristics that influence ideas to be passed along can be analyzed, then it can be studied by science. However, I would label it a soft science if anything. The kernel of truth to pull from the theory is that there are indeed characteristics of ideas(or groups of ideas) that increase their chances of being passed along. There are other aspects of the theory that ring true. As with any theory or hypothesis, it's not correct to think of it in the dichotomy of true or false. Parts of it hold true, and parts of it have proven difficult.

DWill · Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:53 pm


	Robert Tulip wrote: Hi Bill, thanks very much for this detailed discussion about memes. You certainly have a bee in your bonnet about it!

We must be ever vigiliant to keep the language from clogging up with jargonish terms!


	Quote: On my reading the critique simply fails to address the value of the concept of the meme.

This is all I feel I need to comment on. Edmonds doesn't fail to address the value of the meme. He's not concerned with whatever value the concept might have for you or anyone. Richard Dawkins didn't offer up the meme because he thought it might be a good concept. He speculated that it might turn out to be scientifically useful. In order to be so, quite obviously the meme had to prove itself as a true, not a metaphorical or analogical, equivalent of a gene. This is what Edmonds says hasn't been established, and thus using words like meme and memetics is hitchhiking on the credibility of genetics. There is an implied substantiation behind the words meme and memetics--but it is not there at all.

The addition of 'viral' just tends to accentuate the poverty (in an objective sense) of the concept. There is, of course, no viral gene. Adding contagion to the concept is arbitrary and points to a preconception that advocates have about culture, especially religion.

Interbane · Tue Apr 20, 2010 10:54 pm

DWill, do you believe humans have free will?

Robert Tulip · Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:56 pm

DWill wrote:


	Robert Tulip wrote: Hi Bill, thanks very much for this detailed discussion about memes. You certainly have a bee in your bonnet about it!

We must be ever vigiliant to keep the language from clogging up with jargonish terms!

So what term do you propose for a unit of cultural evolution?

Quote:


	Quote: On my reading the critique simply fails to address the value of the concept of the meme.

This is all I feel I need to comment on.

So you carefully avoid the substantive issue of whether the concept of heaven can be analysed as a material adaptive term, and seek to confine the discussion to the red herring of doubts about the merits of the genetic analogy.


	Quote: Edmonds doesn't fail to address the value of the meme. He's not concerned with whatever value the concept might have for you or anyone.

Well, if he is not concerned about the value of the concept why does he waste our time attacking it?


	Quote: Richard Dawkins didn't offer up the meme because he thought it might be a good concept. He speculated that it might turn out to be scientifically useful. In order to be so, quite obviously the meme had to prove itself as a true, not a metaphorical or analogical, equivalent of a gene. This is what Edmonds says hasn't been established, and thus using words like meme and memetics is hitchhiking on the credibility of genetics. There is an implied substantiation behind the words meme and memetics--but it is not there at all.

This is bizarre. It is obvious that ideas do not replicate by sex, so they are not a ‘true equivalent’ of genes. But that is hardly a ‘gotcha’ argument against the use of memes as it is rather like the atheist straw man disproof of a God that no one should believe in anyway. Dawkins argues that the defining features of evolution by natural selection are fecundity, stability and longevity, and that these features are shared by successful genes and by ideas (memes). This seems a sufficient basis to use the term meme to discuss ideas like heaven and hell. It is specifically the evolutionary content and nature of the spread of ideas that is addressed by calling them memes.


	Quote: The addition of 'viral' just tends to accentuate the poverty (in an objective sense) of the concept. There is, of course, no viral gene. Adding contagion to the concept is arbitrary and points to a preconception that advocates have about culture, especially religion.

Don’t viruses have viral genes? The memetic critique of the concept of heaven is precisely focussed on its contagious quality. The idea of a personal afterlife has spread like the plague, not because of any objective evidence of its truth, but because it is very attractive, and slots right in to human instinctive desires. The point is that the idea of heaven as personal afterlife has prospered not because of its objective truth (virility) but because of its intrinsic contagious ability to spread (virality) especially when located within a dogmatic faith.

johnson1010 · Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:59 am

I do not place any negative commentary to the phrase "viral meme". I think it is a useful term for short-handing all that is implied by the definition. RT's definition fits well with my own.

In no way do i equate the scientific validity of the concept of Meme that i do with gravity or evolution.

stahrwe · Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:29 am


	Star Burst wrote: All these great walls of text are great but what do they prove? If any thing heaven and hell are no more than symbolic. One was mean't to scare the "hell" out of believers, the other was mean't to give the poor souls something to look forward to. I have ask this on other forums and I will ask it here as well. Some one post documented evidence of people who have been to either one of these mythological playgrounds. I am sure we would all like to think that there is some place your "soul" goes after passing my self included.

If you read the early sermons being preached as the church was emerging the point was not heaven or hell it was about sin and being cut off from God. Read Acts. Even today, the idea that Heaven and Hell are merit badges awarded at the end of life is misleading. The point of Christianity is not to get to heaven, it is to be like Christ. There have been times when Heaven and Hell have been used to motivate people to be saved. Personally, I think that idea is not helpful, it is not where the focus should be.

Sorry, but you don't get a free visit. I know of only three people who have died and come back.

"Luke 16:19-31 (New International Version)

The Rich Man and Lazarus
19"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell,[a] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

25"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

27"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

29"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

30" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

31"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

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