Keith Henson wrote:
...
> >All religions are cults. They may seem like harmless gobbledygook and
> >balderdash featuring stunning idiocies like conversations with imaginary
> >gods or fondling poisonous snakes, but behind the prattling nonsense and
> >grotesque rituals lies real evil.
>
> The distinction between cults and religions is real and useful. Cults are
> outright parasites, religions are the same mental parasites that have
> co-evolved with their hosts long enough to become more useful than harmful.
>
> Takes about 300 years.
>
> And at least one function of religions is to fill up the "religious meme
> receptor" in human mental space to make infection with a dangerous parasite
> less likely. (This may be less true in today's memetic ecosystem than it
> was in the past.)
>
> Keith Henson
Keith--
I'm not sure I agree, but I like the biological parallels
here!
Taking your last point first, I'd say that it would now be
more useful to have a safe religion as a "cult agonist", blocking
the religion receptor site, than it was in the past. For there
are many more cults around now than there were in ages past,
which increases the danger of infection. (Although if all one
needs to do is block a receptor, the blocking does not have to
be done by a religion. I seem to use a dogma-free amalgam of
several religions as a blocker. : ) )
You might get more mileage out of an analogy between cults
and diseases, rather than parasites. A cult would be like a germ
that was too virulent, and killed its host. A religion would be
like a chronic/harmless infection, which did not interfere too
much with the life of its host. Certainly there were many cults
that stopped their members from recruiting more members, for
various reasons. The Shakers died out because their cult
interfered with the reproductive cycle of its host. Most
apocalyptic cults turn inward a bit before the predicted
apocalypse. This seriously interferes with their ability to
recruit more members. And so on...
---David
And then I'll bring it all back on topic by refering to
_Heart of the Comet_.
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