>Tangent 3:
>Christianity is a damn successful complex of ideas. But maybe Islam
has a
>better gig going for the long haul...of course, too much order can
strangle
>any organism. That whole phase-space analogy... the "magic region"
where
>negentropy is maximized. What religion comes closest? Which ones have
too
>much order and which ones are too chaotic? I'd be interested to hear
>conjectures.
>
>
>
>Brad
>
>
I would say that Eastern religions offer the most efficient memes for
replication and are less chaotic from a memetic standpoint.
The Eastern philosophies (Buddism,Taoism,Hinduism) are vague (to say
the least) but if you read stuff by Alan Watts he boils all things down
to a basic yearning all people are affected by.
He wrote in BECOME WHAT YOU ARE, "Is it too impossible to admit that
all our well-laid traps for happiness are just so many ways of kidding
ourselves that by meditation,psychoanalysis,Dianetics,raja yoga,Zen
Buddism, or mental science , we are somehow going to save ourselves
from that final plop into nothing?" I guess facing nothingness leads to
the utter futility of everything. No rules, just face the fact that you
are a shooting star in terms of existance and thats all.
Biblical approaches require a blind belief in supernatural events and
repititous analysis of current and past world events all pointing to
the end of the world. Evangelical Christians, Baptists, Catholics and
Islamic, Muslim, Jewish followers all use the same historical figures
in different contexts. (I wonder how many Evangelicals know how close
Islam is to their beliefs ) As science and technology permeate human
populations I think Taoism has potential for perpetuation in that it is
atheistic and paradoxical in that the more rules and conventions you
tie to it the further you stray from your unavoidable ride into
oblivion. Easy and efficient to perpetuate. For me, studying
evolutionary science doesn't prevent me from reading Taoist stuff but
it certainly has closed my mind to all others.
Marc Connolly