X-Message-Number: 20562
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Crowding out Islam in children's brains
Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 09:45:29 -0800

Islam, like every other religion, is always one generation away from 
extinction. That's why Muslims invest a lot of resources into brainwashing 
children, getting them to memorize the whole Koran -- in Arabic! -- even if 
the children don't speak Arabic as their native language.

This suggests a strategy for a kind of memetic prophylaxis. Children 
naturally absorb all sorts of cultural constructs from their environment, 
even ones against their parents' wishes. Just look at all the American & 
British youngsters who've read something like a thousand pages of Harry 
Potter novels, who know everything there is to know about this fictional 
character & his adventures, and who display an authentic, spontaneous 
enthusiasm for this intellectual exercise, often to their parents' 
exasperation & bafflement. Indeed, these kids seem to be more excited 
learning about Harry Potter than learning about their parents' religious 
beliefs, if any. If "Potterism" were being promoted as a new divine 
revelation, its spread would probably be threatening the established 
religions in Western countries in a few years. Certainly children would 
rather read the novels than some religious scripture. Of course, Harry 
Potter isn't being presented as an alternative messiah or prophet, but 
somehow the right combination of factors have come together to create this 
intriguing religion-like phenomenon in a society where religious literacy is 
otherwise in decline.

So how about this, as a long-term strategy for fighting radical Islam: 
Taking the lead from the Harry Potter craze, let's get some logists, 
evolutionary psychologists & other plausible experts on human behavior 
together to engineer an infectious, self-perpetuating mythological construct 
to introduce into Muslim societies through their popular culture so that it 
occupies enough of their children's time & energies to interfere with 
learning about Islam. If the new myth promotes some pro-social messages 
compatible with Secular Humanist ideals about the good life, so much the 
better.

Mark Plus
It's not "religious" or "science fictional" if you can do it.






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