It seems that anything worth having is also worth stealing, and therefore worth defending: A tree has thick bark to keep out bugs; your body has a complex immune system to battle disease; a landowner erects a fence to protect his property; a country posts soldiers on its borders to keep out invaders. These are all examples of the same thing: Immunity systems that have evolved (either biologically or culturally) to protect the things of value that help us survive and prosper.
The memes we've studied thus far have focused on the core beliefs of Jews, Muslims and Christians, ideas like monotheism, sin and guilt, heaven and hell, and the origin of morals. These are the "core theology" memes that assert Yahweh's existence, powers, and laws.
While these core-theology memes were evolving, a second set of memes was developing in parallel: Religion's "immune system," the memes that defend and support the core theology. In this chapter, we will go back to pre-Christian times again, and work our way forward, learning about these "militant" memes and how they enhanced the growth and spread of western religions.
Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded faith.
–Thomas Jefferson
From the philosopher's chair, all religions have a problem: They can't be proved true or false. That is, the foundation of every religion ultimately must be accepted on faith.
This faith-based foundation can be illustrated as follows:
Q: "How do you know God exists?"
A: "Because the Bible tells me so."
Q: "Who wrote the Bible?"
A: "A bunch of people, but they were writing God's literal words."
Q: "And how do you know these people didn't make mistakes?"
A: "Because God wrote the Bible."
Q: "So God wrote the book that proves His existence?"
... and so on, around and around in a circle of logic that ultimately can only end with faith.
Roughly 2,500 years ago, the Greek Rationalists had already considered, and firmly rejected, this sort of circular reasoning. The Greeks realized that to prove something true, you had to base your proof on some deeper truth, to start with known facts, and use them to illuminate the unknown. It simply wouldn't do to take two unproved facts, and use each to "prove" the other (such as God writing the Bible, and the Bible proving God's existence).
When the Greeks began to colonize the lands of the Jews in the fourth century BCE, the two cultures mixed, and the Jews began to study Greek Rationalism. By this time, the Jews were firmly convinced that their laws came from Yahweh through Moses. The Greeks, on the other hand, had a well-developed philosophy that derived moral guidelines from natural principles. When the Greeks encountered Jewish culture and law, they were fascinated by it, especially by the Jews' tradition of a written religion and written laws. But the Greeks rejected the Jewish view that ethics came only from Yahweh. Judaism was incompatible with their polytheistic beliefs, Judaism's claim that ethics came from God wasn't compatible with the behavior of the Greeks' own gods (who were not particularly well behaved!), and Jewish ethics weren't compatible with their Rational philosophy.
There was a very subtle, but critical, logical problem with the Jews' god-given morals, a circularity that Plato discovered. Plato argued: If something is good or bad because Yahweh approves, then how can Yahweh know what to approve? Yahweh himself has no rules to go by – something is good or bad because Yahweh approves of it. In other words, good or bad originates with Yahweh, and there is no foundation. Yahweh could decide that infanticide was good, and that would make it good, and because it was good, Yahweh would approve of it. According to Plato, Yahweh himself was caught in a circular argument. This was contrary to the Greek Rationalists position, who believed that all ethics had to have a foundation.
The Greeks had developed the idea that certain laws of logic were so strong that even gods couldn't violate them. For example, we know that one plus one is two, and even a god can't make it otherwise. Likewise, even a god has to have a foundation on which to decide whether something is ethical or not – he can't just decide, or else he falls into Plato's trap of circular ethics. Good and bad, according to Rationalists, must come from the human condition and human happiness.
As time went by, the Jewish philosophers and rabbis absorbed Hellenic culture and philosophy, and the rationalist logic began to creep into Jewish discourse. To some, the very foundations of the Jewish faith appeared to be shaky. The Jews had a big problem on their hands. Everything about Yahweh, from his authority to his very existence, was in question.
The solution was a new meme, one that undermined the credibility of Greek Rational Philosophy. Within a century or so of the Greek invasion, the Anti Rationalism meme had arisen. This meme asserts that logical thinking is a misguided approach to truth, that you have to have faith, and feel the truth with your heart, not in your head. The Anti-Rationalism meme asserts that logic and rational thought are not the path to truth, and that they in fact lead you away from the truth.
"Divine revelation, not reason, is the source of all truth."
– Tertullian of Carthage (150-225 AD)
In other words, the mysteries of Yahweh were beyond human understanding and logic, only acts of faith could bring understanding. The Anti Rationalism meme essentially solved the Jew's problem, and skirted Plato's logic trap. Rather than trying to prove the existence of Yahweh by logic, you must feel him in your heart. Rather than proving that the ethics of the Ten Commandments have a natural, logical foundation based on human happiness, you pray to Yahweh for guidance and truth. The problems of Greek philosophy were swept aside, and difficulties revealed by Greek Rationalism could be dismissed. The Jews, and later the Christians and Muslims, were safe again.
The Hellenic invasion of the Middle East sparked the Anti Rationalism meme, but its evolution didn't stop there. Two thousand years gave it plenty of time to mature and spread. Consider these more modern versions of the meme.
Although the Divinely infused light of faith is more powerful than the natural light of reason, nevertheless in our present state we only imperfectly participate in it...
– St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
St. Thomas' version of the Anti Rationalism meme is improved in the sense that even our faith is suspect; we can have faith, but it is imperfect. Then consider the Roman Catholic Church's more modern statement:
The Catholic Church has always held that there is a twofold order of knowledge, and that these two orders are distinguished from one another not only in their principle but in their object; in one we know by natural reason, in the other by Divine faith; the object of the one is truth attainable by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden in God, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us by Divine revelation.
-- Catholic Encyclopedia
The Roman Catholic version of the meme clearly separates knowledge into two categories: That which can be understood by reason, and that which must be accepted on faith.
Even more fascinating is this statement:
[It] is possible that God has reasons for allowing evil to exist that we simply cannot understand. In this the Christian can have confidence in God knowing that His ways are above our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).
-- Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry, www.carm.org
The one, from the Christian Apologetics, makes a bold assertion that even our logic is flawed! There may be logic that is higher than human logic, so no matter how smart we are, Yahweh may be smarter, and no amount of human reasoning can disprove anything about religion that might appear to be irrational. That is a very powerful variant on the Anti Rationalism meme; it not only says that faith triumphs logic, but in addition, our logical abilities are suspect and can't be trusted.
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
– Isaac Asimov
In 2008, the California Court of Appeals issued a surprising ruling that home schooling of children was illegal unless the teacher (usually the parents) were qualified, licensed schoolteachers. This caused an absolute firestorm of protest, from parents, the State Superintendent of Public Schools, and even the governor himself. But the loudest protests came from Christian organizations, who made statements equating the decision to an attack on Christianity itself.
The same Appeals Court overturned its own decision a few weeks later, but the firestorm caused by this short-lived decision turned a spotlight on the true motivations of many home-school families: They are avoiding secular teaching to prevent their children from leaving the Christian, Jewish or Muslim religions. A widespread rumor, repeated often by Christian writers, claims that eighty-five percent of public-schooled children leave the faith.
Conservative Christians, Jews and Muslims share a deep-seated fear of modern physics, chemistry, biology, geology, anthropology and history, because their millennia-old religions don't square with modern knowledge. Most of the sacred texts of the Abrahamic religions were "frozen" into their approximate current forms somewhere between 2,800 years ago (the Jewish Tanakh) and 1,400 years ago (the Qur'an), yet civilization and science have made huge advances in virtually all branches of knowledge. Naturally there are statements in these sacred texts that don't agree with modern discoveries, and experience has shown that exposure to these modern ideas is dangerous. It leads people, especially young adults, away from religion.
To protect their children and keep them "in the fold," they teach their children at home, thereby controlling their children's access to knowledge that conflicts with their beliefs.
This is an example of the Ignorance Is Bliss meme in action. This meme evolved to defend religion against knowledge that conflicts with religious teachings. In a nutshell, it declares, "Everything I need to know is in the Bible." It comes in various strengths; a few people make the strong claim that the the Tanakh, Bible or Qur'an contains all important knowledge, but most allow the teaching of subjects that don't conflict with the sacred texts.
In 1966, the Roman Catholic Church formally ended the largest censorship drive in the history of the world, formally known as the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (the Index of Forbidden Books). Formally launched in 1559 under Pope Paul IV, this four-century project was remarkably successful, even against non-Catholics. The Church was so powerful in Europe and America that many authors would avoid controversial topics, or modify their works according to the Church's dictates, in order to avoid condemnation by the Church. Authors who ignored the Church's dictates and were banned had trouble finding publishers, and even if they were published, their books were often hard or impossible to find because bookstores were under pressure not to stock them.
The Ignorance Is Bliss meme goes back much farther than 1559, though. Book burnings, the rejection of the non-canonical Gospels (the gospels of Jesus that were not accepted as part of the New Testament at the Council of Nicaea), suppression of scientific findings such as the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo – these are all further examples of the Ignorance Is Bliss meme. Censorship, and its close cousin, disinformation (such as government-sponsored propaganda), are probably as old as writing itself, and perhaps older. Virtually every organization and institution practices it to a certain degree, ranging from a "spin doctor" for a political candidate, movie star or corporation, to government military secrets, to the overt censorship practiced by repressive governments such as China and North Korea. But nothing comes close to the censorship imposed by religions throughout history.
Even though the Roman Catholic Index Librorum Prohibitorum is officially ended, censorship of anti-religious writings is hardly a thing of the past. As I write these words, a centuries-long war in America's schools to halt teaching of Evolution Science rages on. The most famous battle in this war was the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial," fought in a courtroom in rural Tennessee, which was a legal defeat for evolution (the judge ruled that banning evolution in science courses didn't favor any religion), but a public-relations victory for science. It wasn't until 1968 that the United States Supreme Court finally ruled that a ban on teaching evolution was in fact unconstitutional because its primary purpose was religious. For a while, it looked like science had won the day; creationism was banned outright from all public-school curricula, and evolution science was taught in most science classes. But Creationists invented a new, pseudo-scientific spin called "intelligent design," which again threatens the foundation of science education in America. By teaching Creationism in the guise of science, America's Christian conservatives are again attempting to censor Darwin's Theory of Evolution, not by directly prohibiting it, but by dilution and confusion.
The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
-- The Reverend Jerry Falwell
The gods of ancient religions were remarkably fluid and changeable. Not the gods themselves, but rather the concepts (the memeplexes that describe each god); stories would travel from region to region, from person to person, changing and combining, and thereby changing the very nature of the gods themselves. This syncretic process, the melding and blending of beliefs and mythological stories as cultures met and mixed, is at the heart of how memes and cultural evolution work.
The gods Zeus and Jupiter are a perfect example of this. Initially, both were sky gods, and wielded thunderbolts when angry, but they had little else in common. Zeus, like all early Greek gods, was a personal, flesh-and-blood god with many human flaws, but supernatural powers. The Roman god Jupiter started of as an animistic spirit, more of a symbol of the heavenly light, without a flesh-and-blood body and no human-like personality at all. Jupiter was ... boring. There were no lurid stories, no tales to amaze wide-eyed Roman children, no moral lessons to be learned from the bland Jupiter.
The Romans first learned about Greek gods through their Etruscan neighbors, and via Greek colonization of southern Italy around the eighth century BCE. The Greeks' Olympian gods were much more interesting than their Roman counterparts, and as we've learned from our studies of memetic evolution, became the "winners," the survivors. But it was more of a merging of gods than an outright replacement: Most of the Greek gods had existing counterparts in the Roman religion, and Jupiter more or less assumed Zeus' identity, taking on all of the great mythological stories that the Greeks had been telling for centuries. By the end of the assimilation, most of the Zeus-mythology memes had attached themselves to Jupiter, making the two gods indistinguishable. Jupiter managed to keep his name, but little else.
The Greeks and Romans were not unusual in this regard; the Israelites' early theology was subject to this same evolutionary, syncretic process. For example, the story of Noah's flood was recorded by the scribes of Mari (part of modern Syria) on stone tablets that date to almost 2,000 years BCE, except that in Mari legend it is King Gilgamesh, not Noah, who built the ark. Both Genesis and Gilgamesh stories include building an ark, a disastrous flood, riding out the flood in the ark, sending birds to discover dry land, and an offering of thanks when everyone was safe on dry land.
This evolutionary process came to a screeching halt when the Jews invented the idea of a written religion. Jewish tradition say that the Torah was dictated to Moses by God himself, but history shows that starting around 850-800 BCE, two writers known as the "Jehovist" and the "Elohist" began collecting the Jewish stories and writing them down. The Elohist, a Levite priest, wrote major parts of Genesis, Exodus and Numbers. The Jehovist was probably a woman, and not a priest, yet was the most prolific of the biblical authors. Her works include a great deal of Genesis, Joshua, Judges, 1Samuel, 2Samuel and Kings, and she probably contributed to Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
The Jehovist and Elohist were followed by the "Priestly source" (around 700 BCE), the "Deuteronomist" (around 600 BCE) and the "Redactor" (around 400-375 BCE). Most scholars agree that these five, often abbreviated as E, J, P, D and R, were the authors of most of the written stories that became the Torah, but there is dissension; some argue that the Torah is a compilation of many smaller texts. Either way, most scholars agree that these text were written some time in the period from around 900-300 BCE.
The real birth of The Inerrancy meme was the Great Assembly of Jewish scholars and scribes around 450 BCE. According to Jewish tradition, the Men of the Great Assembly compiled the contents of the Tanakh into its current form, which has remained largely unchanged ever since. Modern scholars say that the contents of the Tanakh continued to evolve for several more centuries, reaching its nearly-final version around 200 BCE, and continuing with smaller changes for about four hundred more years.
This was one of the most significant events in the history of religion. For the first time, there was a canonical scripture, a list of the "correct" word of God. All of the writings that were not included in the Tanakh were called false – they had been examined and rejected by the Men of the Great Assembly. Moreover, the Torah, which is the most sacred and central part of the Tanakh, was said to be written by Moses himself under God's direct inspiration. In other words, the Torah was God's own words, perfect and without errors of any kind. It was the birth of the Inerrancy meme.
The birth of Christianity was a remarkable echo of this same history. After Jesus' death sometime around 30 CE, his life and deeds became oral legends that circulated among the nascent Christian community. Like the Jewish stories of the Torah, the stories of Jesus' life were subject to the syncretic forces of human culture: Folklore and stories from far before Jesus' time were stirred into the pot, turning the man from a teacher and nonconformist into a demigod and later into Yahweh incarnate.
However, the oral period was short; the Jews' well-established tradition of a written religion meant that the early Christians (who were still Jewish) started putting the stories to paper. This continued for a couple centuries, until the Council of Nicaea, just like its predecessor at the Great Assembly, selected a few writings from the many dozens about Jesus' life, and declared these, and only these, to be the canonical scriptures, the correct scriptures, the inerrant word of God himself. The works of the Council's dissenters were confiscated and burned, so as not to corrupt and confuse "true" Christians.
The Inerrancy meme remained fairly static, doing its work but not changing much, until the late nineteenth century. The middle ages and the Renaissance brought the rediscovery of the the Greek Rationalists, and huge leaps forward in logic and mathematics. Intellectual giants like philosophers René Descartes and Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi were so excited by the successes of the modern logic that they tried to apply it to religion, "proving" that God exists through a series of deductive and inductive steps, based on known facts.
In the early nineteenth century, a second generation of modern philosophers began applying these same logic principles to "prove" the inerrancy of the Bible. This movement peaked in 1976, when Harold Lindsell's The Battle for the Bible was published, a book that was heavily critical of anyone who doubted the Bible's inerrancy. Lindsell asserted that belief in inerrancy was the true measure of an evangelical Christian, that those not willing to assert the Bible's inerrancy were not true believers. Most mainstream Christians considered Lindsell's ideas divisive, and he made the matter worse by attacking, by name, many individual Christian leaders and entire churches.
Regardless of Lindsell's motivations or methods, the topic of inerrancy is still one of the most important issues in Christianity, as well as Judaism and Islam. Dozens of papers are written every year, and thousands of web sites discuss the all aspects of the topic.
The Inerrancy meme continues to do its work. Its most important target by far is the Evolution Science itself, which is one of the few sciences that directly and obviously conflicts with biblical teaching. But it also enters into discussions of morality and laws, such as whether homosexual marriage should be allowed; opponents of gay marriage point to Genesis (Sodom and Gomorrah) and Leviticus, and since the Bible is inerrant, there can be no further discussion.
Successful memes are often "stolen" and incorporated into other religions, and the Inerrancy meme is no exception. When the Prophet Mohammad recited the words of the Qur'an to his scribe, he was said to be acting as Allah's own voice, speaking Allah's very words. Since Allah is perfect in every way, and the Qur'an is Allah's own words, there can be no mistakes in the Qur'an according to Islamic beliefs.
The Inerrancy meme adds considerable weight to the authority of the Tanakh, the Bible, and the Qur'an. Without it, any particular passage of scripture is open to interpretation, and the faithful have the option of questioning the authenticity of anything they like. Nothing can be certain. But when the Inerrancy meme is added, the scriptures become final in every way. If something is written, it is God's own words, and that is the end of it.
Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
– George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Suicide bombing is one of the greatest plagues of the modern world. Every day, it seems we read of another fanatical "martyr" who blows himself up (it's almost always men), along with dozens or hundreds of innocent bystanders who are killed or injured. These men believe that their martyrdom will get them the Golden Ticket to Heaven, and what a Heaven! Fountains, all you can eat, and seventy-two virgins. Not only seventy-two virgins, but the man himself will never run out of sexual energy taking care of all these virgins, and best of all, after each encounter, the young lady who enjoyed the martyr's attentions becomes a virgin again! Or so we are told.
Ironically, these men are not martyrs at all, at least not by almost any mainstream religion's definition. The term "martyr" means one who is killed or suffers greatly for religious beliefs or principles, usually for refusing to renounce his or her beliefs, or refusing to pay homage to another deity. Unlike the suicide bombers, true martyrs simply are true to their faith, even at the cost of their lives. True martyrs don't seek death, and they certainly don't kill innocents as part of their martyrdom.
The Martyrdom meme is another of the powerful survival mechanisms that have evolved as part of the Religion Virus. Religions are in a constant competition with one another, and part of that competition has for time immemorial involved coercion and persecution. Centuries before the time of Jesus, the Jews suffered at the hands of the Greeks when they refused to break Jewish laws, including execution for observing the Sabbath, or for refusing to honor the pagan gods of the Greek government. In a sense, martyrdom was a side effect of the Jew's Monotheism meme, because prior to the idea of monotheism, people had no problem paying homage to other gods – it was simply a sign of respect, and the various gods weren't particularly jealous of one another. But as we saw earlier in our studies, monotheism practically invites persecution in a polytheistic society.
Thus, martyrdom was an inevitable side effect of monotheism. By refusing to participate in the paganism of the time, the Jews practically invited trouble to their doorsteps, and persecution became a serious threat to the Yahweh memeplex. Religions have adapted various mechanism to resist coercion, some of which we studied with the Heaven/Hell memes (great rewards/punishment for making the right/wrong choice), and the Guilt meme. The Martyrdom meme added another weapon in the Religion Virus' arsenal to resist coercion: Those who die as Martyrs are exalted.
The Jews had a solid Martyrdom meme before Jesus arrived on the scene, but Jesus refined and exalted the concept in his Sermon on the Mount:
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven...
– Matthew 5:10-12
You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.
– Matthew 5:43-45
This is a marvelous meme. It tells Christians that the worse things get, the better off they are! This was especially important during the earliest days of Christianity when it was a minority outlawed religion, and persecutions were common. Christians who were suffering greatly for their faith needed every bit of help they could get. The Heaven meme was a good start, but the Martyrdom meme really gave Christians something to hold on to when all seemed lost.
And it must have worked, because the Christians became notorious for their stubbornness. Tertullian (~155-230 AD), a Christian leader and prolific writer, describes a group of Christians in Ephesus (an ancient city of what is now the Izmir Province of Turkey) who begged for martyrdom from the Romans. The Roman officials executed a few but, according to Tertullian, the rest were sent away with the admonition, "Miserable creatures, if you really wish to die, you have precipices and halters enough."
Consider the Roman Catholic Church's official version of the Martyrdom meme:
... those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.
– Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Two, Chapter 1, Article 1, "The Sacrament of Baptism"
The Martyrdom meme has served religion very well indeed over the years. It comes in many forms; each of the three major Abrahamic religion has various definitions for martyr, but the underlying idea – that those who suffer or die for their faith are rewarded in Heaven – is universal. The Martyrdom meme helped Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all survive, and even thrive, during times of terrible persecution.
The various forms of the Martyrdom meme also illustrate one of the most interesting benefits of using a meme theory point of view to study religion. We started this section talking about suicide bombers, and how most Americans believe that Islamic suicide bombers are from impoverished, uneducated backgrounds and are seduced into blowing themselves up by the "72 virgins in paradise" promise. In fact, many scholars have noted that this profile is wrong; that many suicide bombers are motivated by political, not religious, beliefs, and many are well-educated and from the middle class or even wealthy. But the American stereotype suicide bomber meme is itself an example of the "survival of the fittest" principle: For some reason, Americans like to believe this. They don't want to know that the hatred of American foreign policy is much more complex, and has its roots far back in the history of European imperialism. Americans would rather believe that anyone who hates them is somehow deranged, that their hatred can't possibly be rational. The "72 virgins" meme is much more likable to Americans, because it lets us off the hook. The "72 virgins" meme's survival doesn't depend on whether it's true or not, only that it has appeal to Americans.
I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.
– Jonathan Swift
The Underdog meme takes advantage of the fact that persecuted people tend the stick together and defend one another. It is a close relative of the Martyrdom meme.
In George Orwell's groundbreaking novel 1984, a totalitarian state keeps its proletariat masses in constant state of fear using surveillance, propaganda, and a constant state of war. The proletariat are taught to fear annihilation or worse at the hands of their enemies, and are kept off balance by the the constant threat of defeat. They work furiously to increase productivity for the war effort, and they don't question the oppressive policies of the government. In a war, you can't have dissent!
Orwell brilliantly captured one of humans' most primitive instincts: We draw together and act as a unit when threatened. This instinct goes back millions of years in history, long before humans even existed. Many social mammals, such as dogs, buffalo, and primates, will spend all sorts of time fighting with each other when all is well, but when an external threat, such as a predator, is detected, the animals will forget their differences and band together for the common defense of the group.
The Jews learned the value of persecution early in their history. The story of Exodus, which tells how the Israelites were driven from Egypt and forced to wander through the desert for generations, became an icon for the Jewish community's cohesiveness. Never mind that the story is probably a complete myth (unlike many other stories in the Torah, there is no archaeological evidence at all for Exodus). The story the Israelites' courage in the face of persecution and suffering are one of the most powerful and persistent memes of the Jewish and Christian religions.
The Christians were next. Their persecution at the hands of the Romans is legendary, never mind that they also persecuted each other viciously, a story that we told earlier. The persecution, cruel though it was, gave the Christians a rallying point, and brought them together into a cohesive, supportive group that few other events could have equaled.
The Underdog meme is religion's way of ensuring that, no matter how well things are actually going, people have to think they are being persecuted for their beliefs. In America today, a quick internet search for "Christian AND persecution" would make you think we'd returned to Roman times when Christians were being fed to the lions and torn apart by dogs. In spite of being by far the dominant religion in America, and enjoying more religious freedom than ever before in history, Christian writers constantly appear to be victims of persecution, discrimination, and ridicule.
This is another example of memetic evolution in action. The religions that adopted the Underdog meme, the habit of interpreting everything not in line with their dogma as an attack, have fared very well indeed. It keeps the "proletariat" off balance, and keeps the religious leaders in power. People are far more willing to follow a strong leader when they feel threatened; leaders are most vulnerable to challenges when they either fail completely, or when they bring prosperity and peace. Thus, even in times of peace and prosperity, Christians and Jews, and more recently Muslims, will maintain that they are under a constant attack, that their beliefs and way of life are threatened with extinction. They are the underdogs.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his G-d, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state.
– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
One of the most important meme-battles being waged today is for religious control of the American government. The so-called "religious right" is putting forth the idea that America was founded by Christians, for Christians, and that America should be a Christian country. On the surface, this seems like a plausible claim. According to the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), America religion breaks down like this for the year 2002:
78% Christian:
52% Protestant
24% Roman Catholic
2% Mormon
12% Non-Christian:
1% Jewish
1% Muslim
10% other
10% "none"
The Christians point to these numbers, and to the various mentions of the word "God" in our founding documents, and use these to bolster their claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, and that the secularism in today's government is a modern corruption of the founding principles of our great nation.
The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
– Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the United States Senate (June 7, 1797) and signed by President John Adams (June 10, 1797).
The Treaty of Tripoli, which was written during George Washington's presidency, ratified by the U.S. Senate, and signed by President John Adams, makes it clear that the founding fathers did not want a religious nation. This is in stark contrast with the religious right's revisionist history:
The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country
– The Reverend Jerry Falwell
The most interesting aspect of this debate is that America's religious right has convinced many Americans that their version of history is true. This, in spite of the fact that America's "founding fathers" knew all too well the evils of faith-based government, having seen first hand the troubles it causes. They very carefully crafted America's constitution to keep America's government entirely secular. They were not anti-religious; quite the contrary. The purpose of keeping government secular was to ensure American's right to religious freedom. And it worked: Due to the foresight of those who wrote the constitution, almost all Americans can worship as they please. America has members of almost every religion in the world living and worshipping freely within its borders.
So one has to ask: Why is the religious right so anxious to make ours a Christian, rather than secular, government? After all, the secular Constitution guarantees Americans the right to worship – what more could they want? What is the problem? Why is this fundamental change to the government so important to these people?
The answer is simple: During the evolution of the modern religion memeplexes, one of the most successful memes is that religion should be an integral part of government. This is one of the "good tricks" of the evolution of the religion virus. Religions that have partnered with governments, or that are the government, are far more successful than religions that keep apart from government. In other words, this meme is a survivor, one of the memes that has made Christianity far more pervasive than it would have been otherwise. (This is true of all religions, particularly modern-day Islam, but for this section, we are focusing on Christianity in America.)
Religion and government have been intertwined for at least as long as written history. However, one particular influential writer, Aurelius Augustinus, known as Saint Augustine, put the justification down on paper as well as anyone in history. Since his writings are among the most influential in the history of the Christian churches, behind only Saint Paul, they're worth our attention. Augustine said that although the cities of men were of no consequence compared with the City of God, even so:
The church could not neglect the State, but must guide it to protect human beings from their own sinful natures. The state must employ repression and punishment to restrain people, who were inherently sinful, from destroying each other and the few good men and women that God had elected to save from hell.
– St. Augustine, City of God
The partnership of religion and government is a two-way street. Religion gets an enormous advantage if it is the law of the land – after all, you won't go to prison for murder or torture in the name of your religion if you are enforcing the law. And the government gains an enormous advantage by having God on its side. Whatever decisions the government makes can be God's own words; it's hard to argue that the government is wrong when its authority comes from God himself.
Thus, it is not surprising that America's Christian Right is anxious to have their version of Christianity and Christian morals embedded into the law of the land. Their religion has evolved this as one of its best memes.
Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
As with other groups of memes we've studied, the true power of the Immunity memes becomes apparent when we see them as a synergistic memeplex.
The Anti-Rationalism and Ignorance-is-Bliss memes work together to thwart rational thought and knowledge. Combined with the Inerrancy meme, which states that the scriptures are absolutely true, the faithful are taught to trust the Bible, trust their faith, and avoid logical thought and secular knowledge. These three memes form a memeplex that is much more powerful than any one of them individually.
The Martyrdom and Underdog memes work together to ensure that the faithful always feel persecuted, and yet that same persecution will be the key to infinite rewards in heaven.
The One Nation Under God meme works to ensure that religious beliefs become the law of the land, and that religious leaders become more powerful. It also works in conjunction with the Anti-Rationalism and Inerrancy memes to keep secular teaching away from the faithful, by ensuring that political laws are in agreement with religious beliefs.
The human body has developed a magnificent and diverse set of defenses to guard against all of the bacteria, viruses, parasites and other unpleasant creatures that would take advantage of us if they could. In a very parallel fashion, religions have evolved their own immune system, the Immunity memes, that attack foreign threats that might weaken the beliefs of the faithful.