Willett's Wager "This is no metaphysical proposition. This is a straight forward cash bet. The stake:- One week's income. The bet IF and when ALIEN, extraterrestrial INTELLIGENT life makes contact with us, or vice versa, the said extraterrestrial intelligence will be a mixed community of atheists and theists or deists. They will NOT be in possession of knowledge or proof of either the definite existence or non-existence of a god or creative supernatural force. Some of the intelligent beings will exhibit FAITH without proof. That is the wager. It is based on my firm contention that memetic transmission of faith and religion is literally inevitable within any community of intelligent beings. I do not have any other predictions to make about the nature of alien civilization. They could be silicon based octopoids with IQs in the 2 and a half billion range but some of them will believe in the bogeyman. I am certain that any intelligent species can only exist as a direct or indirect result of evolution. They must have either evolved or been made by entities that evolved. Given that basic premise I also think that it is inevitable that memetic evolution will have occurred. Ideas will have spread because communication is inevitable within an intelligent species. Ideas will spread because the vectors for those ideas feel reasons to spread them. Religion is inevitable once a base level of communication skills and intelligence has been achieved. The memetic adaptations required to keep an idea going within a particular community will arise. If the community has an IQ of 80 then a simple religion will emerge with simple memetic hooks, simple rewards and simple defences against contrary ideas. If the community has an IQ of 180 then the brighter minds will be able to come up with better ideas, more fiendishly complicated religions with more cunning reasons to believe in them. Ideas like the afterlife, religious tolerance, freedom of expression, faith. I see no reason to believe that brighter minds in a brighter community would not be free of religion. Their religions would be much more infectious and powerful, they will have developed better defences against logical arguments than are capable of thinking of. There is one little fly in the ointment of all this religion, it is all bullshit. In every community infected by religion would be intelligence capable of appreciating the power of religion and also capable of resisting it. The pendulum will swing between belief and doubt across the aeons but neither will be able to win in any community, at any given level of sophistication. That is my contention. And I'll put money on it." Well, I did put money on it. That bet has been taken. I am re-publishing this bet across likely sounding newsgroups in the hope that some novel and interesting ideas will have been generated since the last time. OK, maybe I am an absurd optimist. But just in case there is anything new to add to this discussion I thought I would give you the opportunity to reply. Please reply direct by email, I can't promise to be able to reply to all newsgroup messages. In searching for appropriate newsgroups I thought I had found one dedicated to the very subject, UFO.THEOLOGY, but no, it was uofs.theology, close but no cigar. Martin Author of Correct Me If I'm Wrong http://www.mememachine.cwc.net/if/

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