    10

    w

    indeed.  Who says so?  The meme.  The casual non-believer is

    supposedly setting himself up for a hot time in the old town sometime

    shortly after his death.  The meme--be it Christian or Moslem--comes

    complete with vivid images of an infinite skillet in which the unwise

    will sauté for infinity.16  (Buddhism handles the problem differently:

    fail to follow the precepts of the faith and you may spend your next

    incarnation as a sextaplegic cockroach.)

    These nifty little visions of horror work wonders.  Terrified

    humans by the score allow unprovable concepts to take up residence in

    their skulls.  After all, grabbing the meme is the only way to avoid

    ending up browned and crispy.  What about those converts who

    occasionally doubt that the religious meme is really on the up and up?

    Or those who are tempted to subject the meme to the hostile light of

    logic?  The successful meme, like any parasite, has barbs with which to

    prevent the would-be-rationalist from shaking it out of his system.

    Only those will be saved, says the religious meme, who have faith.

    And what is faith?  It is a blind and unquestioning conviction, an

    absolute willingness to harbor the meme forever, never trying to

    dislodge it from your gullet.  Spit me out, says the meme, and you will

    tempt a fate worse than death.17

    No, memes do not always sit and plot their conquests.  They do

    not have to.  In the true manner of all replicators, memes work

    automatically to resculpt as much of this lowly world as they can

    possibly grasp.  And they have an invaluable ally.

    Memes fan out across the planet carried by vigorously scheming

    hosts.   These humans, out for idealism, gain, guts or glory, spread the

    meme with a vigor and enthusiasm that would have made Johnny

    Appleseed's fruit tree planting look lazy by comparison.  The Romans

    conquered the Gauls and turned all Gaul into a Roman province.

    Roman memes leaped eagerly into Gallic minds.  The Saxons over-

    whelmed the Britons and turned them into peasants in a new England

    ruled by a Saxon aristocracy.18  Saxon memes spread through the

    brains of the subjugated tribes.  Americans took Hawaii and brought it

      ho doesn't bite the hook enthusiastically is guaranteed a dire fate

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