The Meme Machine

RELIGIONS AS MEMEPLEXES 199
Let us take dietary habits as an example. Suppose that one group of people
eat shellfish as a major part of their diet and develop ways of cooking mussels or
clams and getting them out of their shells, while another group of people hold a
taboo against eating shellfish. People within each group are more similar to
each other, and different from people in the other group. Emigration between
groups is made difficult by long habits of taste, and the difficulty of learning
how to prepare the food. In some environments the first group may do better
because they get more protein, while in other environments the second group
may do better because they survive a lethal disease from infected food. When
disease strikes or famine threatens it is whole groups that live or die. Food
taboos are an important part of many religions. Orthodox Jews do not eat
shellfish or pork and avoid mixing meat with milk. Many Buddhists and Hindus
are vegetarians because they do not want to kill animals. The beliefs that
underpinned these taboos may have caused some groups of people to survive
and others to go extinct; and both their genes and their memes would have gone
with them.
Religions also dictate sexual practices, promote certain kinds of cooperative
behaviour, and regulate aggression and violence. Although many people believe
that primitive tribes live an idyllic and peaceful existence, this myth (like so
many in anthropology) has been exploded. The anthropologist Napoleon
Chagnon (1992) lived for many years with the Yanomamö, who live in the
Brazilian rain forest by hunting and growing food in temporary gardens. He
describes a violent life in which war between villages is common and murders
are revenged with more murders. Similar stories come from many parts of the
world. In New Guinea, a group of nomads called the Fayu live in small family
groups who only rarely meet other families because of the revenge murders that
ensue when they do. Gatherings, for example to exchange brides, are fraught
with danger. In many tribal societies murder is a leading cause of death
(Diamond 1997). Although many people in modern cities believe that they face
ever increasing risks of being killed they are in fact far safer than they would
have been in a band or tribal society. The organisation that comes with
government and religion therefore decreases these kinds of violence. However,
it also provides the justification for large-scale wars.
The history of warfare is largely a history of people killing each other for
religious reasons. Religions give people a motive, other than genetic selfinterest,
for sacrificing their lives for others – something that does not happen in
band and tribal societies. Young men may believe that it is good to die for God,
heroic to be killed in a religious war, or that they will have a place reserved for