"Blind faith can justify anything."

Technology has become increasingly important in our society throughout the years. In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins demonstrates his open-mindedness by saying that technology and other cultural aspects like religion, fashion, architecture, art, etc. can be considered to evolve. Again, a pattern in this book appears: How mistakes make something new. Dawkins explains that it is only through mistakes that new "memes" (see below for definition) are created. For example, in birds, when a tune is misconstructed, a new one is created.

Another pattern is also portrayed once again: Competition. He in a way implies that the only way for a meme to survive is through survival of the fittest. In other words, it must get rid of competition - or at least minimize it - in order to become popular and prevail through generations. For example, if a religion is to last, it must reduce the amount of people who believe in others. It could be said, that different religions are rivals of each other,  and so are different styles of architecture, different types of art, etc.

I'm not the only one who decides to use the example of definition, though. Dawkins does as well, and it seems like he criticizes it at every chance he gets. Out of all the examples he could use - fashion, art, music, architecture, technology - the one he uses the most is religion. And not to boast about it, or even favor it in any way. It could be even be said that he mocks it. He portrays God as something that would die out easily if it weren't for popular belief in him (which could be said to be true, but still adds to his criticism) when he says "God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or ineffective power, in the environment provided by human culture." (P. 193) Not only is he attacking religion but also presenting God merely as man's fictitious creation.

It doesn't stop here, though. Afterwards, to show how memes help each other to propagate themselves, he doesn't use inventions or anything of the sort; he uses religion again. He uses one of the church's most criticized aspects: How it utilizes fear to control the people. Then he explains that the idea of hell and the "God meme" help each other prevail. He describes this technique as "nasty", and then considers whether it could have been a psychological technique arranged by priests, but then decides they couldn't be "that clever."

He does this one last time. He uses the example of celibacy and describes a priest trying to convince young kids to follow this idea. However, he  doesn't just say children, but a"young boys who have not yet decided what they want to with their lives." (P. 198) This implies that the children are still very young and maybe even quite naïve, leading the reader to agree that the priest is manipulating the children since they don't know much about what everything is like. They would probably come to regret their decision later, but the priest has earned followers for the celibacy meme, and that is what every meme wants: More followers than the rest.

Vocabulary

Cultural mutations (P. 190): The rearrangement of a cultural aspect.

Meme (P. 192): A replicator of human culture.

Psychological appeal (P. 193): Appeal to brains.

Imitation (P. 194): "How memes can replicate." (P. 194)

Idea-meme (P. 196): "An entity that is capable of being transmitted from one brain to another." (P. 196)