Stories also serve as a means of the articulation of ideas. We use stories to articulate and understand the world, and within these stories are the ideas that the story serves as a catalyst to justify. Religions thrive exactly on this, having an idea being presented under the paradigm of a mythological substrate. Christianity has served the idea of Jesus’ death serving as an intermediate state of uniting humanity back to God for over two millenia. While the idea remains the same, the articulation of the idea and its various symbolic explanations differ depending on the denomination. Indeed, a denomination is a group within the religion who possesses a differentiating perspective on the stories validity and interpretation.
The implication seen here is that stories have the tendency to evolve over time, giving rise to new ideas and producing differentiation in mythological frameworks, manifesting various cultural consequences and differing impact as a result. Christianity presents three main denominations: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. But why the discord? While the answer is heterogenous and multifaceted, one such explanation is what we shall explore here, the theory of memes presented by Richard Dawkins and further supported via Daniel Dennett. In this post, I shall explain the central aspects of this theory while using Christianity as a concrete example. Let us examine further.
The Meme
The idea of the meme was posited by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. In it, Dawkins proposes that genetics are not the only replicators that exist. Genes serve as the biological replicators, being composed of nucleic acid, be it DNA or RNA and serve as the code for the protein synthesis necessary for life. As a thought experiment, Dawkins proposed the idea of the meme, a cultural equivalent to genes that are composed of information and serve as replicators of ideas. Note; an idea alone is not a meme. Imagining a yellow submarine does not define the meme, but rather the idea becomes a meme when the Beatles serve to sing of the idea, replicating it and passing it on through the culture.
Just as genes are privy to mutation, ideas and their resulting memes experience mutation as well. Indeed, the mutation rate of memes is much higher than that of genes. Genes are not meant to mutate. They are designed to replicate themselves with one-hundred percent accuracy. Roughly speaking, they achieve this goal two-hundred million, nine-hundred ninety nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety nine times out of thirty-million. But every thirty million times, more or less, a base pair mutates. The majority of these mutations are neutral, having no effect on the organism overall. Some of these mutations can be harmful, resulting in dysfunction in the organism in various forms, such as cystic fibrosis or fatal familial insomnia. Finally, mutations may be beneficial to the organism, giving rise to phenotypical characteristics that aid in the organisms survival and are continued into the next generation. Memes mutate at a much faster rate than this. When one has a line of twenty people which whispers a message from one person to another and continues the message all the way down the line, the chance that the message will be completely garbled at the end is quite high. This is because each transference of the message may be considered a “generation” of the meme, with the passing of the message giving rise to the possibility of informational mutation.
In this same way, the memetic information composing stories is prone to mutation. As the story is continuously retold, details are molded and changed as the result of various environmental circumstances, be it cultural differences, discord, preference for differentiating details on the part of the listener or the forgetting/omission of information. In this, the meme is subject to change which gives rise to different information, changing the overall “phenotypical” congruence of the narrative.
While memes may be compared to the genes of organisms, a more accurate biological agent for understanding them are viruses. Viruses are the most common biological agents, being rogue nucleic acid contained inside of a protein capsid. Following only one of the five rules of life, that being reproduction, viruses are generally not considered living things. The only parallel to life that viruses have is in their objective to find a carrier and reproduce. This is the only thing that a virus does, infecting organisms and leading to epidemics in the process.
As stated, viruses contain various forms of nucleic acid. While some viruses contain deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) such as the chickenpox virus, the majority of viruses are ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, such as rhinoviruses and COVID-19. Virologists have ascertained that RNA viruses are much more prone to mutation than are DNA viruses. While this is because RNA is more unstable in its polymer syntheses, these viruses also lack the enzyme associated with allele-error correction, meaning that said viruses mutate very easily and quickly. The result is virtually parallel to that of organisms, giving rise to neutral, harmful or beneficial mutations and thereby potentially giving rise to different strains of the same virus. Memes function in virtually the same way, giving rise to various versions or “strains” of the idea.
Applicability to Christianity
While beginning as a heretical sect of Judaism as founded by Jesus of Nazareth, the future apostle Paul claimed to have had a vision of Jesus on the road of Damascus around the time of 36 a.d. It was at this point that he officially founded “paulinistic” Christianity, differentiating it from the religion of Judaism and converting followers around the Empire through the promise of faith alone and the lack of necessity of Judaic rituals. Here we see the first mutation to the message of Christianity, which was further implemented via the conversion of various political leaders, emperors and legalization of Christianity which eventually led to its officialization as the religion of Rome, “outpacing” the previous “pagan” faith which was rendered practically extinct in the process.
The officialization of Christian faith via the Nicean creed in 325 a.d brought about the definition of Christianity, allowing an official understanding of the religion that was being practiced. The memetic “viral” characteristics had been cemented, and it solidified into the institution of the Orthodox Catholic Church.
While this church was the official representation of Christianity, other denominations continued to emerge and exist, though they were outpaced by Orthodox Catholicism. However, changes slowly began to erode at the theological concordance of the church, through various doctrines such as the authority of the pope and the filioque of the trinity. This eventually led to the great schism of 1054, causing the church to split into two factions: the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. These two “strains” of Christianity still remain present today, with Roman Catholicism being the dominant denomination, upheld and believed by 1.3 billion of the current 2.4 billion Christians. Orthodox Christianity has found less success, though it is still believed by 300 million followers.
These two “viral strains” existed in rivalry for over four centuries, until Christianity experienced another “mutation” with the Protestant revolution. Martin Luther encouraged followers of Christ to interpret the gospel for themselves, have a personal relationship with Jesus and to stop relying on church authority. Now, the church was of less importance to varying degrees, with the central doctrine being scripture interpretation and personal salvation through belief. With these core characteristics and openness to interpretation, Christianity began to mutate at a much more rapid rate, giving rise to tens of thousands of denominations over the last five-hundred years, with more still appearing on a yearly basis.
Much like a virus, the idea of Christianity contains a central message: Jesus was the son of/God; He was the reconciliation between God and man; He died for our sins; He rose from the dead three days later and He shall return to judge the living and the dead. However, details of the religion are almost as variable as the believers themselves. While all Christian denominations (with the exception of “heretical” groups) share the founding doctrines of Christianity, researching the denominations even superficially shows immense difference in the beliefs, practices and cosmology of the denominations. Each denomination functions parallel to a viral strain, having different levels of fitness via transmission, preservation, infectibility and manifestation of beliefs. To this day, Roman Catholicism is the fittest of all the denominations. However, other, newer denominations are seeing rise and success as a result of cultural shifts and value change. As of this moment, Pentecostalism is the fastest growing denomination, seeing great prominence in places like South America, where passion and mystical experiences are increasingly valued.
In terms of the memetic nature of religion, let us not forget that Christianity is the dominant religion on the planet, being the “fittest” religion memetically and occupying the minds of the largest percent of religious believers. It has also been in competition with other memetic ideas throughout history, almost being superseded by Manichaeism before the thirteenth century and currently at risk of being outpaced by Islam. Finally, Christianity, like all other monotheistic religions, evolved from Polytheistic “pagan” faiths which emerged as a result of animistic thinking, the precursor to any upheld belief in supernatural agents.
Conclusion
The parallel between genetic inheritance and memetic preservation need not be elaborated; it is a ubiquitous, albeit unconscious characteristic of all ideas. We are the only creatures on the planet with the capacity to live and die for our ideas, and the same brain which allows for the generation and preservation of these ideas also allows for mutation in opinion, narrative and overall expression. As these ideas are generated by the mind, differentiation in opinions and interpretation will inevitably lead to variation in upheld belief. This is part of the beauty of being human. Whatever practices you take part in, whether it be humming a tune, a practice of greeting or subscribing to a religious faith, give thanks to the remarkable pattern-devising machine that creates said ideas for your conceptualization of the world.
