"Yo dawg, I herd you like DNA, so I put DNA in your DNA so you can replicate while you replicate." OK, no more internet memes now. |
"And God said to them [Adam and Eve], 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it."Many Christians have taken this to heart and produced more offspring than they would have otherwise. An extreme example is the Quiverfull movement, in which having many children is strongly encouraged. Then there's the ability of parents to pass memes on to their children. Christianity is as good at this as any religion out there. Here's Proverbs 22:6:
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."There's nothing wrong with this sentiment per se, but within Christianity, "the way he should go" is always going to be Christianity. In fact, this was my school's Bible verse of the year in sixth grade. And it's almost always true that children "will not depart from" the religion they've been taught; I'm the exception rather than the rule.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you."The Great Commission encapsulates horizontal meme transmission perfectly, and it takes a salient position at the end of both Matthew and Mark. And because it's such a prominent part of the worldview, missionaries are compelled to travel all over the world converting people to Christianity. Even my sister recently shared the gospel with strangers in our area as part of a school project.
"You shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God."Of course Christians don't perform similar slaughters in modern times, but there are plenty of other historical examples, such as the Crusades and the Inquisition. And in Galatians 1:8, Paul expresses a highly diluted version of the same general sentiment:
"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed."Here Paul takes the groupthink, us-versus-them mentality to incredible extremes: absolutely any idea that doesn't fit with established dogma is to be shunned, and even the most trustworthy sources become "accursed."
"For the wages of sin is death [i.e. hell], but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."It's hard to pass up a gift like that. Christianity is so deeply imbued with incentives that even I, as an atheist, occasionally feel drawn to it. Even though I know full well how unlikely it is that Christianity is true, the speck of possibility that I could be tortured forever is enough to send a chill down my spine and make me think, "Maybe I should look at this one more time, just to be sure." The pure, raw psychological power this meme wields is downright unfair; it games the system by playing with infinities.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."
"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."With a mentality like that, how could a sincere believer possibly be persuaded away from their position? The only way to even begin questioning the Christian worldview is to "lean on your own understanding." By cordoning off rational inquiry, the meme's fate is completely secure.
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