mere christianity
I wonder:
Imagine the way people believe to be a strand of DNA; incredibly complex, intertwining, impossible to percieve sensibly when you examine the whole thing, but easy to love for its shape and complexity and mysteries.
If every new belief we encounter; every new perspective that is shown to us, alters the individual proteins, like a virus. Every new piece of information is a virus, and inserts itself into our DNA, using us to replicate.
If we could somehow distinguish between those Frankenstein opinions of our world and those we are actually born with, those we develop on our own through input instead of download.
I wonder what I would believe if I was me.
7 Comments:
way to make my head explode...
'we were rich once
before your head exploded
imagining just once the big bang did'
--the Breeders--
heya, did you have to do that paper in HS pysch on nurture vs. nature?
the ideas-as-virus idea is very similar to Dawkins' meme idea. it's all very interesting. you know, i don't really think it's all that important to be able to distinguish. do you have a certain reason you want to?
ah
the lyric actuall is
'imagining just what the big bang did'
All that important to distinguish between what? I'd just like to know what I would believe if there was no attraction to new beliefs: if I ran on pure facts and reason and what emotions I developed from them and birth, and what conclusions I'd come to with that.
hmmmmmmm... i think i know what you mean, but then again, would you really want to unlearn everything in the last 98% of your life just to see what the first 2% was? it'd be interesting, sure, but i doubt you'd remember enough language skills to even interpret what you'd be seeing/remembering.
*sigh*
You could still learn things, but by input, not download. So, I'd still learn language, I'd still learn that the stove is hot, I'd still learn to wear mittens in winter.
Can you imagine what life would be like if we just accepted what people told us about things we hadn't experienced yet, but would? That leaves so much room for error it's sickening. What if "ok temperature" to someone was fatally cold for me? I'd go out, be really cold, but then remember that I didn't need gloves because it was an "ok temperature".
We do that all the time with things we can't experience, which is more what I was talking about; beliefs, as opposed to facts.
Who's got more ego-suspenders, now!?!? Hey, don't look at me that way, it gives me the creeps.
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