> I try to think sometimes about the start of religions. Did some person just
> start hearing voices and decide to write down what they were saying? Or was
> it some person who actually knew that they were creating a meme (sorta like a
> memetic engineer). When i first discovered this whole deal about memes ideas
It has always been my belief that early religions were mostly the result of
wondering why things are the way they are. This is very evident in early roman
and greek mythology. Probably representative of most early "mythology", although
I don't know enough to make that kind of a judgment. Once stories were told and
believed, some people probably saw this as a way to gain power over others, and
they manipulated the stories accordingly. Others maybe saw this as a chance to
influence people in a positive manner, and did so to the best of there abilities.
Examples of the later include many of the 10 commandments, and the restrictions by
many religions against eating various meat products. If an epidimic spread
through the a specific regions animal population (pigs for example), it may be
difficult to get people to understand that they cannot eat this meat, for they
will get sick. Taking an established meme complex and adding to it is easier.
-Paul Prestopnik