It’s getting a little afield from the original topic, but your response doesn’t address the concerns I listed for the validity of the meme hypothesis nor the appearance that it is a handy way to justify one’s pre-existing notions explaining utility or success. For example, nothing in what you wrote requires either the term “meme” or the idea of “meme selection”. It doesn’t add anything of substance, it just re-phrases an observation in psuedo-Darwinian terminology and makes speculative assumptions about the nature of how knowledge is formed and re-formed in each generation. Currently meme-talk (named and promoted by Dawkins) is an under-developed extension of the selfish gene view of evolution (also named, shaped and popularized by Dawkins). Eventually it may have a chance to “grow up” as a useful voice in behavioral and social science, but for now it doesn’t have the weight. The danger with the over-application and loose usage of ideas such as Darwinism is that an idea that can be continually altered and fitted to accomodate and explain everything ultimately reveals little but our own preconceptions (and this is no less true in theology than in science!). I am not wishing to demolish meme-talk, I merely wish to sound a cautionary note that is often missed in an the excitement of applying a novel concept or paradigm.

Actually, some of the most successful “memes” have features that protect them other competing “memes”:

** some discourage their hosts from questioning the ideas in the meme — reduces threat from competition

** some memes provide rewards for compliance and punishments for noncompliance (e.g. heaven and hell)

This may explain why religions that discourage questioning, are promoted with an air of certainty, and offer heaven/hell in the afterlife are more successful memes than liberal religion.

so i’ll just say ditto to jeff wilson’s posts.

I’m certainly aware of them. On even-numbered days I’m probably even one myself (except for the “in seminary” part). Nevertheless, it seems to me that to be a UU Christian necessarily implies at least a certain degree of dissent from the central doctrinal tendency of Christianity, and even the central tendency of liberal Protestantism, especially as concerns christology. We might think our dissenting views are more rational or persuasive than the consensus position, but it would surprise me if anyone also considers it more successful.

I think Jeff is correct that some religions may supplant others in part because of social or political convenience, but questions remain - why did they persist prior to being supplanted and don’t the supplanting traditions have more to offer than political expedience? The issue of quality is one of “proof in the pudding” and a matter for each conscience to probe and explore, but in the larger debate here we see a classic dilemma in explaining cultural stasis and change. On the one hand, society is shaped by the collective will of its members (even if some members have a disproportionate influence), yet each member is shaped in part by society.

While one underpinning of the debate is centered on the process of justifying the outcome (related to the aforementioned meme debate - the one that persists the longest and spreads the furthest is “best”), it seems like another significant underpinning of the current discussion is the perceived value of a belief or institution to the individual and the perceived value of a belief or instution to the society. Fausto and Peace Bang appear more sympathetic to the influence of the former, while Jeff is stressing the influence of the latter. Historians, sociologists, and anthropologists have been trying to unravel that knot for a while now. I fall back to simplicity, if not elegance, when asked what this kind of discovery means - “Err, uhhh…It’s complicated.”

I have a hard time imagining that many UU grad students deem conventional Christianity to be right, just because it is successful. Nor can I imagine them deeming contemporary UUism to be particularly successful, at least if they are being objective about it, even though we may think we are right.

Over on his blog, Anthony David traces the UU sense of righteousness not to our present success but to our origins in the puritanical Standing Order of New England. I think he’s on to something there.

(1) that no specific information is available on its provenance (”probably found near the Dead Sea” doesn’t quite do it for me); and

(2) that no details are provided on carbon dating of the ink or analysis of the stone.

As such, this “news” brings to mind the faked Lost-Tomb-of-Jesus “documentary” designed to financially profit from people’s fascination with the “real” Jesus, as well as the larger scandal of the biased and misleading way the Dead Sea scrolls are being presented in museum exhibits around the world, with an antisemitic nuance emerging on a government-run North Carolina museum’s website. See, e.g.,

http://spinozaslens.com/libet/articles/dworkin_ethicsofexhibition.htm (article critical of exhibits)

and

http://blog.news-record.com/staff/frontpew/archives/2008/06/dead_sea_scroll.shtml (discussion and further links)