Right you are Eric. I think we've all benefited from the discussion.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/
Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
Free newsletter! Visit Meme Central at
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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
Of Eric Boyd
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 1999 7:08 PM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re: virus: The Alleged Virtues of Faith
Hi,
From: Deron Stewart <deron@direct.ca>
<<
BEGIN THOUGHT
<faith is bad> is a memetic loser -- a real dog, regardless of its truth value.
Since CoV is supposed to be memetically engineered for success, why is
it betting on such a loser as its fundamental creed?
>>
Well, I think you've mischaracterized the CoV. Not all that long ago, (a year?), during the "great faith war" with John Williams, the virus web page on ethics was changed from having "faith" as a sin to having "dogmatism" as the sin. The text was changed to read "dogmatic faith", which I think is the sin we point it out to be. Nowhere does virus rule that "faith", as a synonym for confidence or trust, is a sin, or even bad.
http://virus.lucifer.com/ethics.html
"Dogmatism
Through some twist of fate, western society has come to regard
dogmatic faith as a virtue. To hold an idea as true despite all
evidence to the contrary is an abdication of reason. Convictions are
the end of knowledge, not the beginning; they are the enemy of truth
more than lies."
ERiC