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The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture
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The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture
Darrel W. Ray - Publication Date: December 5, 2009
Book Description
What makes religion so powerful? How does it weave its way into our political system? Why do people believe and follow obvious religious charlatans? What makes people profess deep faith even as they act in ways that betray that faith? What makes people blind to the irrationalities of their religion yet clearly see those of others? If these questions interest you, this book will give you the tools to understand religion and its power in you, your family and your culture. For thousands of years, religion has woven its way through societies and people as if it were part and parcel to that society or person. In large measure it was left unexplained and unchallenged, it simply existed. Those who attempted to challenge and expose religion were often persecuted, excommunicated, shunned, or even executed. It could be fatal to explain that which the church, priest or imam said was unexplainable. Before the germ, viral and parasite theory of disease, physicians had no tools to understand disease and its propagation. Priests told people disease was a result of sin, Satan, evil spirits, etc. With the discovery of microbial actors, scientists gained new tools to study how it spreads. They could study infection strategies, immunity, epidemiology and much more. Suddenly the terrible diseases of the past were understandable. The plagues of Europe, yellow fever, small pox, pneumonia, tuberculosis, syphilis, etc. were now removed from the divine and placed squarely in the natural world. This book owes a great deal to Richard Dawkins concept of viruses of the mind, but it seeks to go a step further to personalize the concept of religion as a virus and show how these revolutionary ideas work in everyday life. The paradigm can explain the fundamentalism of your Uncle Ned, the sexual behavior of a fallen mega church minister, the child rearing practices of a Pentecostal neighbor, why 19 men flew planes into the World Trade Center or what motivates a woman to blow herself up in the crowded markets of Baghdad. Learn how religion influences sexuality for its own purposes, how and why it protects pedofile priests and wayward ministers and how it uses survivor guilt to propagate and influence and how it might influence a person's IQ.
In The God Virus, the author uses the metaphor of religion as a virus to explain how religious ideas pass from individual to individual and infiltrate society.
The idea of ideas or systems of ideas as "viruses" was first described by Richard Dawkins, who coined the term "meme" to mean a "postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, gets transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena". They are analogous to genes (hence the similarity in spelling and pronunciation), in that they are said to self-replicate and respond to selective pressures. In this book, the author explains religion through this viral/meme metaphor.
The author first explains exactly how religion can be appropriately viewed using the viral metaphor, and then uses this metaphor throughout the book, explaining how different religions survive and dominate others, and how some of the strategies religion uses to survive and propagate are very similar to actual, biological viruses. He explains that religious conversion can affect individuals on the personality level, taking over critical thinking and causing an individual to be "immune" to other religions by being able to point out the flaws in other religions while simultaneously being unable to see the flaws in their own religion. The author speaks of the importance of "vectors" (priests, ministers, etc) in propagating religious ideas and how religious people and organizations will protect those "vectors" even in the case of abuse or other crimes.
In the second chapter, the author explains the types of strategies the "god virus" uses to survive and spread, and how advanced religions are more effective than other religions, which is why they continue to survive and replicate. The author says that one of the tools to fight the "god virus" is science and critical thinking education, which is something that religion tends to rally against, especially if the science concerns ideas that seem counter to religious belief, I.E. Evolution.
The third chapter deals with how religion infects and persuades groups and political structures as well as individuals, and underlines religion's influence on public and civil culture. The fourth is about guilt and shame and how religion uses mixed messages to create a cycle of guilt in which the religion reduces feelings of guilt by promising an elimination of it, yet individuals continue to feel guilty and return to religion to have their guilt temporarily suppressed. The author gives a long list of some of the conflicting messages in religion, such as:
*God loves you, but he will send you to hell if you do not do exactly what he says.
*God loves you, but you were born unclean and can never be clean without god.
*Allah loves you and created women as beautiful creatures that you are forbidden to enjoy, except in marriage and behind closed doors.
Similarly, the fifth chapter deals with sex, and religion's attempt to control sex by creating a sex-negative environment. He mentions that even though religion uses positive terminology such as "focus on the family" really the message of "focus on the family" is a message of focusing on the rules and tenets of religion, which cause feelings of guilt and negativity towards sex. The function of this is not to create happy, dynamic family structures, but to propagate religion.
Chapter six is particularly interesting, as the subject is morality and how even though religionists insist that morality is objective and defined in concrete terms by their god, morality is an ever-changing product of culture in which the only way a given religion can survive is by adopting and changing its morality to fit in with the culture enough to continue to propagate. People who are religionists find it difficult to see this changing morality and believe they are more moral than others, and this blinds them to real-world data which shows that religionists are nor more or less moral than atheists. The author specifically shows how various studies such as studies on divorce and prison populations how that religion has little effect on morality and even that non-theists may be slightly more moral.
Chapter seven is about American Evangelism and how it has spread to the point where mega-churches are dotting the US landscape chapter 8 explains why some people are drawn into religion and others are not, and the role that intelligence and personality plays in religiosity. The second to last two chapters deal with unbinding oneself from religion and breaking free of "the virus", especially in deprogramming ourselves of the ideas that have been taught to us since an early age.
The last chapter concerns the difference between science and religion: in short, science has error-correction mechanisms and thus builds up a continuity of knowledge based on previous work, and this knowledge can be objectively tested. Religion, on the other hand, does not have these errors and instead has built-in mechanisms to change with the cultural climate. Because science is so powerful, many religions have adopted scientific language while simultaneously decrying scientific methods.
The structure of the book to be well-organized and accessible to individuals who are not well-voiced in formal argumentation. Rather than approach the god problem from a logical or hypothesis perspective A la Victor Stenger's God: the Failed Hypothesis, it approaches the problem of religion's impact on the individual and society. Thus, while it is aimed at non-theists, those who believe in god but are opposed to religion (and no, I don't mean evangelical Christians who insist they aren't religious because they really have a "relationship" with god - those people are just being deceptive) such as my friend Alien, who is a spiritualist or my friend Tim, who is "Christian" but perfectly comfortable at our local atheists meetup in St. Louis. It may not be so appealing to people who are intensely literal or who take the metaphor of the god virus as an argument rather than as a mechanism or metaphor for explanation. It is also important to note that other ideas act as "mind viruses" as well (like empiricism!), but that the religion virus acts in a particular way that is unlike other "mind viruses" - the particulars of which are outlined in the book. I think that individuals who do consider themselves religious might be offended at the negative connotations of the word "virus", and so I urge religionists who might come across this book to consider what I have said above about other ideas spreading like viruses as well. One could say that atheism is a type of mind virus, and my feathers would not be ruffled. I think that it is very accessible to people who are capable of stepping outside of religion and looking at it objectively. I think that the book could have also been titled "the religion virus" without much harm.
The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture
Darrel W. Ray - Publication Date: December 5, 2009
Book Description
What makes religion so powerful? How does it weave its way into our political system? Why do people believe and follow obvious religious charlatans? What makes people profess deep faith even as they act in ways that betray that faith? What makes people blind to the irrationalities of their religion yet clearly see those of others? If these questions interest you, this book will give you the tools to understand religion and its power in you, your family and your culture. For thousands of years, religion has woven its way through societies and people as if it were part and parcel to that society or person. In large measure it was left unexplained and unchallenged, it simply existed. Those who attempted to challenge and expose religion were often persecuted, excommunicated, shunned, or even executed. It could be fatal to explain that which the church, priest or imam said was unexplainable. Before the germ, viral and parasite theory of disease, physicians had no tools to understand disease and its propagation. Priests told people disease was a result of sin, Satan, evil spirits, etc. With the discovery of microbial actors, scientists gained new tools to study how it spreads. They could study infection strategies, immunity, epidemiology and much more. Suddenly the terrible diseases of the past were understandable. The plagues of Europe, yellow fever, small pox, pneumonia, tuberculosis, syphilis, etc. were now removed from the divine and placed squarely in the natural world. This book owes a great deal to Richard Dawkins concept of viruses of the mind, but it seeks to go a step further to personalize the concept of religion as a virus and show how these revolutionary ideas work in everyday life. The paradigm can explain the fundamentalism of your Uncle Ned, the sexual behavior of a fallen mega church minister, the child rearing practices of a Pentecostal neighbor, why 19 men flew planes into the World Trade Center or what motivates a woman to blow herself up in the crowded markets of Baghdad. Learn how religion influences sexuality for its own purposes, how and why it protects pedofile priests and wayward ministers and how it uses survivor guilt to propagate and influence and how it might influence a person's IQ.
In The God Virus, the author uses the metaphor of religion as a virus to explain how religious ideas pass from individual to individual and infiltrate society.
The idea of ideas or systems of ideas as "viruses" was first described by Richard Dawkins, who coined the term "meme" to mean a "postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, gets transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena". They are analogous to genes (hence the similarity in spelling and pronunciation), in that they are said to self-replicate and respond to selective pressures. In this book, the author explains religion through this viral/meme metaphor.
The author first explains exactly how religion can be appropriately viewed using the viral metaphor, and then uses this metaphor throughout the book, explaining how different religions survive and dominate others, and how some of the strategies religion uses to survive and propagate are very similar to actual, biological viruses. He explains that religious conversion can affect individuals on the personality level, taking over critical thinking and causing an individual to be "immune" to other religions by being able to point out the flaws in other religions while simultaneously being unable to see the flaws in their own religion. The author speaks of the importance of "vectors" (priests, ministers, etc) in propagating religious ideas and how religious people and organizations will protect those "vectors" even in the case of abuse or other crimes.
In the second chapter, the author explains the types of strategies the "god virus" uses to survive and spread, and how advanced religions are more effective than other religions, which is why they continue to survive and replicate. The author says that one of the tools to fight the "god virus" is science and critical thinking education, which is something that religion tends to rally against, especially if the science concerns ideas that seem counter to religious belief, I.E. Evolution.
The third chapter deals with how religion infects and persuades groups and political structures as well as individuals, and underlines religion's influence on public and civil culture. The fourth is about guilt and shame and how religion uses mixed messages to create a cycle of guilt in which the religion reduces feelings of guilt by promising an elimination of it, yet individuals continue to feel guilty and return to religion to have their guilt temporarily suppressed. The author gives a long list of some of the conflicting messages in religion, such as:
*God loves you, but he will send you to hell if you do not do exactly what he says.
*God loves you, but you were born unclean and can never be clean without god.
*Allah loves you and created women as beautiful creatures that you are forbidden to enjoy, except in marriage and behind closed doors.
Similarly, the fifth chapter deals with sex, and religion's attempt to control sex by creating a sex-negative environment. He mentions that even though religion uses positive terminology such as "focus on the family" really the message of "focus on the family" is a message of focusing on the rules and tenets of religion, which cause feelings of guilt and negativity towards sex. The function of this is not to create happy, dynamic family structures, but to propagate religion.
Chapter six is particularly interesting, as the subject is morality and how even though religionists insist that morality is objective and defined in concrete terms by their god, morality is an ever-changing product of culture in which the only way a given religion can survive is by adopting and changing its morality to fit in with the culture enough to continue to propagate. People who are religionists find it difficult to see this changing morality and believe they are more moral than others, and this blinds them to real-world data which shows that religionists are nor more or less moral than atheists. The author specifically shows how various studies such as studies on divorce and prison populations how that religion has little effect on morality and even that non-theists may be slightly more moral.
Chapter seven is about American Evangelism and how it has spread to the point where mega-churches are dotting the US landscape chapter 8 explains why some people are drawn into religion and others are not, and the role that intelligence and personality plays in religiosity. The second to last two chapters deal with unbinding oneself from religion and breaking free of "the virus", especially in deprogramming ourselves of the ideas that have been taught to us since an early age.
The last chapter concerns the difference between science and religion: in short, science has error-correction mechanisms and thus builds up a continuity of knowledge based on previous work, and this knowledge can be objectively tested. Religion, on the other hand, does not have these errors and instead has built-in mechanisms to change with the cultural climate. Because science is so powerful, many religions have adopted scientific language while simultaneously decrying scientific methods.
The structure of the book to be well-organized and accessible to individuals who are not well-voiced in formal argumentation. Rather than approach the god problem from a logical or hypothesis perspective A la Victor Stenger's God: the Failed Hypothesis, it approaches the problem of religion's impact on the individual and society. Thus, while it is aimed at non-theists, those who believe in god but are opposed to religion (and no, I don't mean evangelical Christians who insist they aren't religious because they really have a "relationship" with god - those people are just being deceptive) such as my friend Alien, who is a spiritualist or my friend Tim, who is "Christian" but perfectly comfortable at our local atheists meetup in St. Louis. It may not be so appealing to people who are intensely literal or who take the metaphor of the god virus as an argument rather than as a mechanism or metaphor for explanation. It is also important to note that other ideas act as "mind viruses" as well (like empiricism!), but that the religion virus acts in a particular way that is unlike other "mind viruses" - the particulars of which are outlined in the book. I think that individuals who do consider themselves religious might be offended at the negative connotations of the word "virus", and so I urge religionists who might come across this book to consider what I have said above about other ideas spreading like viruses as well. One could say that atheism is a type of mind virus, and my feathers would not be ruffled. I think that it is very accessible to people who are capable of stepping outside of religion and looking at it objectively. I think that the book could have also been titled "the religion virus" without much harm.
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