Cathy wrote:
>Time to go. I'm interfering too much with meme worship. Like
I
>said, since you call yourself an athiestic religion in
antithesis to
>Christianity (among others), I cannot wish you godspeed.
You guys have lost 2 potential converts in the past week. Maybe
your
approach doesn't work. At this rate, it'll take many centuries
for CoV to
take over the world. Speaking of taking over the world, does
attempting to
bring the world under one rule interfere with naturally emerging
complex
order?
--David R.
Dave I think your math is a little off in that you're assuming
that the 2 converts lost are a significant portion of the converts to be
gained. Note that if Cathy and Nateman go off and tell people how evil
and close minded the group is they may actually gain us converts. I
think the approach is working fine since as much of the discussion as
I've been able to glean lately seems relatively civilized given the
emotional nature of the content.
I contend that the meme paradigm is just a way of deconstructing
institutions <used in the Soc 101 circa '77 sense>. For instance my
son has just moved from being a "Tiger Cub" Scout to an official "Cub
Scout". My wife finds the dogma of the cub scout Wolf handbook very
disturbing. If you would like to see Refined Memes <TM ... much more
dangerous then Memes that haven't been through public relations
processing> in action I recommend that you purchase the Wolf handbook
at a garage sale or check it out of the library. On the other hand I
see scouting as a valuable exercise for thriving in a repressive
organization...a skill that I find more and more valuable. There are
lots of adults who are VERY into the spirit of scouting and I think
they've set up a valuable organization for indoctrinating boys with
values that will lead to success. My order of preference for my son's
beliefs would be:
1) Take it for what its worth <Dear Old Dad's Position>.
2) Become a "lifetime Scout".
3) Consider scouting to be neo-fascist organization and keep my
grandchild<ren> from joining.
4) Not caring and letting the grandchild<ren> do what they want
with no support.
I see a similar "spectrum" of options for the operation of the
C.O.V.
1) Argue reasonably with anyone for as long as they want as long as
the arguments are reasonable <What we currently seem to be doing>
2) Take our knowledge of memetics and make a real church with
degrees of enlightenment similar to the Masons. At the first level of
C.O.V. we let the church reflect whatever beliefs potential converts
currently hold. Slowly manipulate those converts until they reach the
33rd level of enlightenment and can be deemed elders of the
church....All hale Pope Richard son of the omniscient Bill....Of course
that was before the recent Meta Rule heresy ... all canonizations and
papal selections are subject to the whim of The Moderator McFadzen.
3) Flame the piss out of anyone who doesn't hold a set of rational
beliefs as outlined in the Pentateuch: The Selfish Gene, Virus of The
Mind, Conciousness Explained, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
.... suggestions for the other six books? This could provide years of
fun before people stopped rising to our bait.
4) Say "Fuck it Nateman, Cathy, and Tad are right. We're all
members of a cult that somehow causes us to use Word <Richard's program>
and all its evil progeny <Windows, Internet Explorer, ......>". Lets
all buy 45 inch TVs and get normal lives.