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8:34

(In »From semiotics via memetics to the collapse of militant atheism«)

And so the question is: At the deepest level, is this about symbiosis or parasitism? Does the memeplex of religion mean that the odds of the host organism surviving are bettered or worsened? In his book Breaking the Spell, Dennett recounts the story of the little ant in the meadow that laboriously climbs up a straw of grass, only to fall to the ground and then immediately resume its climb, over and over again. The reason for this behaviour is not that the ant is striving to survey its surroundings in order to improve its chances of finding food, but that its little brain has been taken over by a microscopically small parasite which is called the lancet liver fluke (dicrocoelium dendriticum) and which necessarily must get to a sheep or cow stomach in order to procreate. Therefore, the parasite manipulates the ant to position itself in a way that favours its own survival but which grossly disadvantages the ant’s survival. This is Dennett’s graphic image of how religion manipulates human beings, who, he claims, have died in great numbers in their misdirected eagerness to defend and conquer holy sites or texts. That religion might be able to be of some reproductive use to us is not a theory that is closely examined by Dennett.