>But don't traditional religions use such prescriptions all the time, more
>or less successfully? I agree it is somewhat dishonest and hyprocritical,
>but in some cases can the end justify the means? One instance where I
Not if the end is to excoriate dishonesty and hypocrisy.
>think it did is Richard B.'s use of button-pushing in _Virus of the Mind_
>to teach people how to avoid having their buttons pushed (you brought up
>this example a week or two ago).
I don't think Richard B. was being dishonest or hypocritical when he
did that.
>Sure, a Virian religion that made use of the Virian sins to draw people in
>would be less elegant than one that didn't, but I'm willing to bet it would
>be more successful. And perhaps its hypocracy would be forgivable if in the
More popular maybe, but that isn't the only criterion for success.
>long run it made pan-critical rationalists out of its members. If Virus
>doesn't adopt the tactics of conventional religions at some point, I doubt
>it it will ever move beyond the stage of choir practice. (Yes, even though
>we often don't sing in tune, the members of this list are the Virian Choir ;-)
One of the purposes of the CoV experiment is to falsify the hypothesis that
it is necessary to use dishonest methods to propagate a religion. I concede
that the spread of Virus is going slower than initial estimations but I'm
not ready to give up yet. :)
If you and Tom Parsons would like to pursue the same agenda along another
vector (The Church of Perpetual Revelation, for instance) then I will gladly
set up a mailing list and website for you.
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/