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Religions have often been referred to as "memes". A meme is a
self-reproducing idea, that spreads from one mind to another. A mind-virus
is a common description, although a meme is an abstract concept rather than
a physical, tangible entity like a biological virus. Playground crazes
are memes, such as the current craze in the UK for Yo-yos. Someone sees
somebody else using a Yo-yo, thinks it looks like fun, and get a Yo-yo
themself, only to be seen by yet another person who has a similar reaction.
The meme "Yo-yos are fun, go and buy one" spreads rapidly through the
population of schoolkids. Memes like this, however, tend to die out fairly
rapidly (and reappear sporadically years or decades later). They just don't have
the staying-power of religions.
Many religions propagate themselves very efficiently through a population,
and can last for many centuries before evolving into something else or
being replaced by a stronger, more effective religion. This does not mean
that a particular religion has any more truth than the one it supercedes,
just that it is better at "infecting" a mind and spreading itself
to other minds.
There seem to be some elements that most religion-memes have in common
that enable them to survive and reproduce. So, here is a Create Your Own
Religion Manual. Most of the worlds major religions include some or all
of these attributes. (If the worlds Yo-yo manufacturers want to get really rich,
they should either try to have Yo-yos adopted by a strong religion, or
create a religion based around Yo-yos using the following guidelines.)
- Self reproduction
Obviously, this is the most important part of the meme. If your beliefs do
not spread, they will die pretty quickly. Getting others to believe is
vitally important, and many of the other elements are used to help this
one.
It is good to tell others about this belief. Not only will it make them
better people, but converting others helps justify the belief. If you have children, it is good
to make them also follow this belief. Children are a blessing from God, and will
also believe absolutely anything you tell them.
It can take a lot of work to convert some people, but it is always worth
the effort as you are doing them good. Failing to spread the good news is
a sin.
Example : the Roman Catholic church uses this to great effect, intentionally or not. The doctrinal
bans on contraception and abortion ensure that as many babies as possible
are born into religious families, and those babies will be brought up to
share the same beliefs as their parents.
- Reward
Believing is good. It will make you a better person, and you will be
rewarded in this life and the next.
Good things that happen to you are blessings from God, and you should be
grateful for them. Other good things should be seen as justification of the
truth of the belief system and of God's approval of your actions. Anything positive
that happens that does not have much to do with the belief can be claimed as
a Miracle. Good harvests, childbirth, battles won, money donated etc. may all
be seen as miracles, showing that God approves of you. Sayings such as "God
helps those who help themselves" help reinforce this.
- Faith as a virtue
Belief without evidence is good. It is a sign of virtue, purity, trust and piety.
In fact, if something is particularly hard to believe in, you require much stronger
faith to accept it and are therefore a more virtuous person as a result. Belief despite
contradictory objective evidence is especially good. Those who have trouble accepting
seemingly arbitrary and implausible things are doubters, skeptics and unenlightened.
They should take lessons from those of stronger faith who have no trouble believing.
Example:
"And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because
it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain
because it is impossible." - Tertullian, 2nd century christian
I've also heard (but not confirmed) that the Jewish Kosher rules work in a similar
way - they are (seemingly) arbitrary, complicated, difficult to implement and hard to follow, so
it requires considerable strength of faith to keep to a completely kosher diet.
- Reinforcement
Include many rituals and ceremonies that happen at regular intervals throughout
the year. Eventually, these may be incorporated into the local traditions. They
also provide a focal point for believers to concentrate on one particular aspect
of the belief. Also, it can be good to include rituals which are expected to be
performed at key stages of follower's lives. Birth/naming rituals, coming of
age, weddings and funerals can all be given a religious aspect (and many will
also become local traditions).
Almost anything positive can be attributed to God, and anything bad can be
explained as being "mysterious", thus helping people understand that
God is behind everything and even things which look bad might actually be good, if only
we could understand it from God's point of view. Which, of course, we never can so
we'll just have to trust God, won't we?
- Punishment
Failure to believe is bad. It makes you a bad person, and you will be
punished in this life and the next. Note: helping non-believers
to start believing is good, as it obviously means they will no longer deserve
to be punished. Informing non-believers of the available punishments can help
to convince them to believe (if you assume that threats of eternal torment are
going to be plausible to someone who doesn't actually believe in an afterlife,
and you deflect those awkward questions about why a loving god would want to see
someone tortured forever).
Bad things that happen to you may be either
- A blessing from God, in order to strengthen your faith. You just have to
understand the message.
- Punishment from God, for your sin.
- Attacks from the Devil, to attempt to turn you from God. You must strengthen your faith.
Remember - nothing, absolutely nothing, happens for no reason.
- Self defence
Many non-believers will laugh at your beliefs or persecute you because
of them. This is a sign that your beliefs are in fact True. The
non-believers are trying to destroy your faith because they know that this
is so. Only those who share your beliefs are good people. Converting others
to your beliefs increases the number of good people and reduces the number
of bad people. People who leave the group are bad and should be avoided if
they refuse to come back. For some people, the name "religion" is not
satisfactory as it lumps your true beliefs with the false beliefs of other
religions. Try using "relationship" or "reality" instead
(e.g. "Don't make the mistake of calling Christianity a religion - it's
reality").
You must also defend against attack from within. Encouraging belief in
Mysterious Divine Purpose is useful for this, as are the following:
- Expelling doubters from the group. If they are no longer around, no-one will
hear their arguments. Killing them is often not actually necessary, and even if the
voices in your head tell you it's okay, remember that the godless government will likely
frown on such activity.
- Claim that doubts are sent by the Devil (or as a test by God), and must
be overcome. See Faith, above.
- Encourage people to accept the teachings of those who are qualified to
interpret the message. (See Scriptural Interpretation below).
- Replies such as "It's a mystery", "We are not meant to know these things",
"God works in mysterious ways", "Do not question these teachings", and "Oh, so
you think you know better than God, do you?" are all good for deflecting tricky questions.
Revelations from Above allow you to adapt the beliefs to changing circumstances.
For instance, maybe you're bigotted and don't like people from a certain minority group,
but eventually your
congregration expands so much that many of those people wish to join, and outsiders
are making irrational claims about "racism" and "discrimination". What to do? Simple,
have a Revelation that allows people from the minority to join (possibly with some small
restrictions). This makes your movement appear to be more friendly, open-minded, and
will keep the police out of your hair for a while longer.
Example : A Jehovah's Witness I once knew, when discussing evolution and
creationism, told me that she had been warned to watch out for the particular
bemused, incredulous smile that I was unable to keep off my face. The fact that
I was amused by her beliefs reinforced her view that they were correct, as
she had been told this would happen when discussing them.
- Self righteousness
God is your side. Believers are God's chosen people, and only those who
believe will go into paradise. Things done in the name of God are, by
definition, virtuous and just. God shares your feelings and what others
call prejudices - this is how you know that you are right.
(This can lead to some of the most extreme problems with religious belief. A
tiny minority of people who sincerely believe they are doing God's work
see no problem in breaking "worldly" laws, as they answer only
to a higher power - God himself. If you perceive governments and law
enforcement agencies as tools of the devil, it makes it much easier to
justify acts of violence against your "enemies")
- Scriptural interpretation
The holy words are mysterious, and cannot be correctly read by just anyone. They must be
interpreted by a person who is trained, enlightened or gifted in these
matters. A passage that appears to mean one thing, may actually mean something
quite different, and only the interpreters can glean the correct meaning.
These people can also determine which passages are literal truth, metaphorical,
no longer relevant and which one of several contradictory passages is the true one.
They must be listened to. Questioning official interpretation is the work of a heretic.
- Revenue
If the believers are encouraged to donate generously to the cause, this will help
to spread it further. It will help pay for missionaries to travel to far-off
lands, and local concerns such as soup-kitchens and other charities. If your temples
are dripping with gold and silver, they are far more impressive to the poverty stricken
locals who are lucky to have a handful of buttons to eat. Some religious leaders make the
mistake of blowing their loot on fleets of Rolls-Royces - sometimes you can get away
with this, but more often than not it can spell the end for your meme as people
become disillusioned. Far better to spend the money on enormous Holy buildings throughout
the land if you want the meme to continue for centuries.
People who have invested heavily in their religion are more likely to want to think
of it as The One True Religion, so associating donations with piety, virtue and morality
can only help the meme to survive. Giving to the poor is also good, as it improves
your standing in the local community, and makes the poor people perceive the believers
as good, kind people, and might encourage them to join up.
If the meme deals with revenue generation well enough, most followers will donate
purely altruistically, and anyone who questions their motives will be rightly singled out
as a cynic. Of course, the cash will still come flooding in.
- Wide coverage
The beliefs should be reasonably vague and ambiguous, to allow as many people
as possible to find something in them that is acceptable. If you restrict the
meme to a strict, clear definition it will never get very widespread.
It needs to include elements which range from very touchy-feely, liberal to
extremely hard-line, no compromise positions. This allows some people to perceive
the belief as nice, gentle and uplifting but also allows room for those with extremist
outlooks. You want to get everyone from
tree-hugging hippies to crazed paranoid gunmen.
Preferably, as many possible points of view should be catered for, even
those that appear to contradict one another. People can then refer to other
members of the belief as "not real believers, not like us". It should
be as inclusive as possible, while allowing all included groups to feel that it
excludes all the other ones.
Now, all we need to do is work out how to include all the above into Atheism and
Humanism. =)
© Adrian Barnett 1999
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