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Theology and stuff resulting from piracy...

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Areyar:
I'm having a torrent download spree following a major trojan induced system reload, amongst the stuff loast are numerous e-books and all my music files (not to mention all my pr0n!), anyhow, browsing a certain torrent site's 'books' section I found the title "God wants you dead' which amused me, as I was just thinking of solipsist philosophy. :D
I'm just browsing the initial pages, but one thing stands out very clearly: the authors are very deliberately avoiding the word 'meme'.
One would suppose this is to avoid being lumped together with author of 'the selfish gene' and 'the god delusion', R. Dawkins, who coined the term IIRC, were it not for the clearly provocative title they themselves have chosen.

Whatever their reasons to use sentence long descriptions for 'infectious, reproducing, mutating, parasitic idea organisms' instead og 'meme', I find it annoying and inefficient.
...
I notice the book was published 1996, while the term 'meme' originates from somewhere in the 90's IIRC, there may have been an overlap ... I'll have to check more thoroughly and find the popular book it first appeared in to be sure.

Whatever the case, this book may interest people who read (or intend to read) the God delusion as well as those who strive to understand the unlogic driving a frightening percentage of reasonably intelligent people (including many of our leaders!)

I also discovered LOCODE
(though the wikipedia entry in meme -> lolcatz -> lolcode)

Ampersand:
Lolcode doesn't hold a candle to befunge.


Hunt the Wumpus in Befunge.
http://www.stephensykes.com/wumpus.bef

Areyar:
hmm. I'll look at that wumpus code later. :)

I've read somewhat more of that book, and it is definately post-meme.
It even has a whole chapter on FSM and the meme of evolving fish bumper icons in which Dawkins and memes are mentioned.
So I'm confused about why they (the authors) did not choose to use meme instead of describing it each time.
Maybe they felt that the term has evolved beyond its plain original meaning and become a meme in it's own right.
 

Jerick:

--- Quote from: Areyar on June 06, 2009, 11:57:55 am ---Whatever the case, this book may interest people who read (or intend to read) the God delusion as well as those who strive to understand the unlogic driving a frightening percentage of reasonably intelligent people (including many of our leaders!)

--- End quote ---
There is a fair amount of evidence pointing to a biological/neurological basis to religion.
Our brains are setup to allow religious expirences, something that convinces most of those who expirence them that there is something greater out there.
We believe in what our intution tells us is likely.
And our intution(also read as subconsicous) makes predictions basised on past expirences.
Hence why you can't change a belief by presenting evidence and proof, in order for someones belief to change they must expirence something that contradicts their intution's predictions.

At least that's my understanding of belief and religion.

Areyar:
The biological basis for religion is not a proof of religion being good or true, it is just an explanation for it's ubiquitiousness in humans despite it lack of logic or proof. (humans are just prone to flawed logic)

People tend to put minds into inanimate objects. (Damn computer hates me!)

Intuition based on experience are as valid as perception is correct. (optical illusions are an example of perception fail)

Also intuition fails when faced with numbers or scales beyond the experience of a caveman. (also dealing with probabilities is very counterintuitive)

Wishfull thinking is a major part of illogical beliefs. (Orphan: My parents will come back)

dogma:
We believe what people around us impress us with. ("You need to be terrified to walk the streets at night, otherwise you will be raped or killed", In fact you are less likely to be harassed if you show no fear.)
Children believe anything they are told by authority figures, giving up a belief is hard. (Marx did not call religion an opiate for nothing)
Some people just never grow enough self reliance/confidence to think for themselves.


This is my understanding of the system and method of religion.

ps. I don't understand the point of the wombat-code...is it like red baloon?

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