richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

T HE ROOTS OF RELIGION 199
ambiguity, and so on in cascade. In this second stage of the
process, memes were selected against the background of already
existing meme pools, building up a new memeplex of mutually
compatible memes.
We are finally equipped to turn to the memetic theory of
religion. Some religious ideas, like some genes, might survive
because of absolute merit. These memes would survive in any meme
pool, regardless of the other memes that surround them. (I must
repeat the vitally important point that 'merit' in this sense means
only 'ability to survive in the pool'. It carries no value judgement
apart from that.) Some religious ideas survive because they are
compatible with other memes that are already numerous in the
meme pool - as part of a memeplex. The following is a partial list
of religious memes that might plausibly have survival value in the
meme pool, either because of absolute 'merit' or because of compatibility
with an existing memeplex:
• You will survive your own death.
• If you die a martyr, you will go to an especially wonderful
part of paradise where you will enjoy seventy-two virgins
(spare a thought for the unfortunate virgins).
• Heretics, blasphemers and apostates should be killed (or
otherwise punished, for example by ostracism from their
families).
• Belief in God is a supreme virtue. If you find your belief wavering,
work hard at restoring it, and beg God to help your
unbelief. (In my discussion of Pascal's Wager I mentioned the
odd assumption that the one thing God really wants of us is
belief. At the time I treated it as an oddity. Now we have an
explanation for it.)
• Faith (belief without evidence) is a virtue. The more your
beliefs defy the evidence, the more virtuous you are. Virtuoso
believers who can manage to believe something really weird,
unsupported and insupportable, in the teeth of evidence and
reason, are especially highly rewarded.