Between Dawkins & God
John Holroyd negotiates a middle way between these two much-lauded figures.
John Cornwell picks up this point in the following way. Dawkins has given English a new word, ‘meme’. Memes are the erstwhile mental equivalents of genes: they’re ideas, habits, concepts, which compete like genes for survival, to be copied from mind to mind. Memes include everything from the corkscrew and the hydrogen bomb through to jokes, Strictly Come Dancing, and Occam’s razor. Like genes, the most useful memes in a culture survive, while others die out.
Of course, the genes we come into the world with are entirely beyond our control. Or, rather, they were until scientists of late figured out ways to "play God" and "recombine" biological components of the human genome into, well, who actually knows how far they can or will go?
Don't think you're a man? Then get an operation and become a woman.
Memes on the other hand are considerably more problematic. They evolve and change -- sometimes dramatically -- over time historically and culturally. And certainly in regard to our own uniquely personal experiences. In fact, these changes perturb some more than others. Memes are simply dismissed as "social constructs" that have little or no capacity to change what we are "naturally".
Not sure what you are "naturally"? Let these folks --
https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora -- tell you.
Dawkins might consider where his own meme, the idea that religion is a virus, might lead.
More to the point [mine] to what extent are his conclusions not themselves rooted existentially in dasein? In other words, where it leads him may or may not be where it leads you. Then the part where the "serious philosophers" among us attempt to pin down where it ought to lead those who wish to be thought of as rational men and women. Religion might be deemed a virus because [in a free will world] it can "infect" some to the point where they become religious fanatics. Think Hamas and the Israeli Zionists.
Same in regard to moral nihilists. Where did the genes stop and the memes begin when I thought myself into believing that I am fractured and fragmented?
Dawkins seems to me clearly to be a humane man who dislikes prejudice against individuals or groups. However, the character of his book, and those of other meme-buddies such as Christopher Hitchens, plus the bile of Martin Amis against Islam, for example, are a potent brew.
Or impotent if your own collection of genes and memes take you in an entirely conflicting direction. Again, however, the point is this: philosophically, what direction ought one to go in?
One of these...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy
...perhaps?
In combination with some less than reputable aspects of our media, I believe these writings have caused social harm and indirectly put at risk significant numbers of people within Islamic communities in the U.K. and elsewhere.
Unless, of course, they are "terrorists" and get what they deserve.