The question that I decided to investigate based off of Dan Gilbert’s chapter, do we still allow false beliefs to propagate simply because they promote stability within our society?

My first source: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/20/richard-dawkins-memes

This source basically explains Richards Dawkins coining of the word meme, and of course what it means. The word meme is basically anything that goes viral, though the internet uses it to describe pictures that demonstrate an extreme behavior or idea. It isn’t quite wrong from the original definition, as obviously a lot of memes have gone viral. The article goes on to show how Richard Dawkins himself has become the main part of a few different internet memes. One such meme that he is involved in, the one comparing him to Emma Watson, he believes to have been changed to make them look more alike. Memes have become quite popular over the internet and some of them are certainly viral.

These memes show some different beliefs to many different people. People make these memes, normally with humor in mind, and so they are certain to pass around some false beliefs. These beliefs may not always be about society, and when they are, I would say that they aren’t used to propagate a stable society. Memes often criticize and make fun of things, especially political drama. So if these memes are calling out politicians when they make mistakes than they aren’t really propagating a stable society at all. Memes may propagate false belief, however I don’t think that false belief is ever to provide a stable society. Memes are more often trivial things like the one that was most likely changed to make Richard Dawkins and Emma Watson to look the same. However, I think that perhaps some memes actually call out some false beliefs that have been allowed to propagate to promote a stable society.

My second source: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-jonathan-haidt

This post talks a lot about religion. Not only present day religion but it calls into question the religions of dead people’s such as the aztecs and the mayans. Both of these societies and many others practiced sacrifice and even cannibalism. Haidt wonders why these things continued to happen, for so long and in so many different cultures. The article goes on to say that most religious practices are the direct result of what people think are happening in the world. This article also delves into the fact that many religious people don’t always speak of the bible in a literal sense. It says that they have no choice however because the books are self contradictory. This article shows Haidt’s beliefs on religion, and looks into many others beliefs about religion.

This post calls out a lot of false beliefs that have been propagated by religion throughout the years. When it talked about past cultures who had practiced sacrifices for years to appease their Gods lust for flesh, it sort of mocks this belief as one that is clearly false. This source really gets into questioning the ins and outs of religion and will be important in my paper. It talks about how humans have a hive like philosophy. That is that they join together and help each other out even at the same time as they are fighting against and trying to take down their opposition. When this is applied to religions, you can see it all throughout history. The behavior of this is my faith so therefore your faith is wrong. The holy wars show this very literally, with so many people fighting and dying simply because they didn’t agree with the people they were fighting against. I believe that many false beliefs within our society that are propagated by religion and even ones that aren’t are still told to us when we are too young to question them, like religion is in most cases.