I think religion is memetic only in the sense that species homo sapiens is genetic: people are highly sophisticated organisms induced by and for their genes, religions are highly sophisticated organisms induced by and for their memes. Telltale features of organsisms are that they have a lifecycle involving birth, death, and reproduction, and that the children resulting from reproduction carry on many of the replicators (in this case, memes) from their ancestors, including some preserved in recessive form. Here, you can see recessive memes in religion from, for example, all those passages in the Bible, or the Quran, that any particular sect may choose to "overlook".

Pi zero (talk)15:05, 9 June 2011