Perpetuating religous memes - constant reinforcement. - Page 3 - Religion, God, and Theology

Id be surprised if religion didnt perpetuate through cultural reinforcement, since thats how everything cultural perpetuates. How else would it perpetuate itself?

Do you believe that it is possible for a social/cultural organization to perpetuate WITHOUT the use of psychological influences? It seems you've established (as you have a few times before) a purely tautological position. That you want to classify the functions of a social organization (such as a ritual) as "marketing" is just you trying to use weakly-defined characterization to attempt to cast a negative light on something you disagree with.

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It's interesting that you use the word 'Freudian', presumably you're aware of Freudian marketing techniques as opposed to behavioural modification techniques used in something like Skinnerian marketing? I think religions use both methods.

Almost any behavior can be described as Freudian. The breadth of his theories is what makes them so "useful" to some (and so terrible to others). It just depends on whether you've adopted that as your framework.

And Skinnerian marketing? You mean that people will change behaviors to obtain rewards and avoid punishments? Again, this is virtually tautological.

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I've made repeated attempts to keep it focused on the actual argument that I presented (unlike in this thread where I didn't really present an argument beyond the simple assertion 'the church markets itself') in the hope that my premises would be discussed.

As a result, I've had very little input in my own thread.

You did go beyond "the church markets itself." If this had been your assertion, you could have accomplished your goal by posting a picture of a billboard (which had attempted to do in the middle of the thread) and that would have been the end of it.

But that's not what you did. You made the claim "the church markets itself, and here is an example" -- then proceeded to point post a link to a BBC story about payday loans that contained ONE line that mentioned the church leaders' viewpoint on payday loans. You have not successfully argued this connection.

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11-09-2013 , 11:17 AM

#52

Aaron W.

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 30,132

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Originally Posted by Mightyboosh

Ah but now you're moving the goalposts yourself and I'm not gonna bite

(and it's when I DO bite that I get accused of 'hopping') I'm not arguing ITT that it's good or bad, simply that it's happening, because when I've asserted that in the past I've been challenged to try to prove it.