When folks ask me about my religion I have a tendency to tell them that I was raised Southern Baptist, but I am much better now. If I am in an even more playful mood I might tell them I am a Born Again Agnostic. If I am really feeling like a stinker I tell them I belong to the Church of Later Day Hedonist, and we meet every Friday down at Joe’s Bar and Grill, please join us for evening services. Depending on the person it is either a conversational stopper or elicits a laugh and may lead to more conversation. If I am being a bit more serious I describe myself as agnostic. I choose this appellation mainly because militant atheists bother me as much as evangelic Christians or jihadists Muslims. I would like to think that what I believe is most likely true, but ultimately the answer to the god question is unknowable. I have a B.S., but no matter how much science you throw at it, the mere existence of the universe blows my mind.
It is not original with me, but I have been saying for years that religion was a form of mass psychosis. Psychosis being defined as a mental illness whereby the sufferer loses touch with reality.
Along came Dawkins, Blackmore and others with the concept of memes. Memes are defined as “analogous to a gene, was conceived as a “unit of culture” (an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc.) which is “hosted” in the minds of one or more individuals, and which can reproduce itself, thereby jumping from mind to mind.”1 Memes can be individual or complexes known as memeplexes. Religions would fall into the second category as more than a single unit is involved. When I first discovered memetic theory, I found it a powerful tool for understanding religion and the influence of religion.
Into the discussion enters Ray with his book The God Virus, and I had a major aha moment. While I have made the leap from a lukewarm religionist to a firm agnostic, it was a struggle of many years. When you are steeped in the fire and brimstone of Southern Baptists, it is not an easy rejection. Most of my relatives are still living deeply in the evangelic, fundamentalist world. Sometimes it is a real struggle to deal with them. My mother has cried in my presence more than once because I strayed from the “true path”. My brother told my Jewish wife she was going to hell because she did not accept Christ as the Savior. My response to him was that if I believed in hell I would have to be upset. I could go on with examples, but you get the idea.
Ray uses the paradigm of religion being a virus that is more concerned with replicating itself than the health of its host. This was my aha moment, equating religion to viral infections. The paradigm works wonderful.
He begins by listing the 5 characteristics of religion that are viral in nature:
- Infect people
- Create antibodies or defense against other viruses
- Take over certain mental AND physical functions and hide itself within the individual in such a way that it is not detectable by the individual
- Use specific methods to replicate the virus
- Program the host to replicate the virus
Much of the book is explaining and expounding on these points.
In regards to item 1, Richard Dawkins has made the following comment, “Religious leaders are well aware of the vulnerability of the child brain, and the importance of getting the indoctrination in early. The Jesuit boast, ‘Give me the child for his first seven years, and I’ll give you the man,’ is no less accurate (or sinister) for being hackneyed.” Grabbing the child early is the most important method of infecting humans with the religion virus. Many religions like to grab a person when they are struggling in their life. They have the answer to the problem, the answer being God or Jesus or Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
In the tradition I was raised in it was necessary to be totally immersed in water to be baptized, and it had to happen at an age where the individual could make an active choice to “accept Christ”. Religions that did otherwise were wrong and their souls were in danger. There was some acceptance of other Protestant religions, but only if they did not stray too far from these base beliefs. For all the unwashed in other lands believing in Allah, Ganesh, Buddha or whatever, they were just facing eternal damnation.
One of my favorite examples of number 3 is when I was backpacking the Grand Canyon with my evangelical brother. We hiked down through 6,000 feet of sedimentary rock worn away by the Colorado River. To him all this was caused by the Great Flood of Noah’s time. He is a smart man working in an occupation that requires logic and intelligence, but when it comes to religion he keeps it in a separate compartment in his mind.
The whole point of evangelical religions is to spread the “Word” aka replicate the virus as far as possible. This has been very well demonstrated with Christianity and Islam. One of the themes that Ray explores is the American phenomenon of mega-churches with charismatic leaders. He sees this as an especially efficacious method of spreading the god virus.
I am still trying to figure out if it is more comforting to think of religious folks, especially fundamentalist, as infected. If someone is suffering from the measles or flu, the initial response is to feel sorry for them. The secondary response is put some distance between you and them.
One of the things I really enjoyed about the book was the quotes he has sprinkled throughout by folks as diverse as Thomas Jefferson, Salman Rushdie and Butch Hancock. The last individual has one of my favorite quotes:
“Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things. One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, dirty thing on the face of the earth and you should save it for someone you love.”
Of course, if religion is a virus the question becomes what is the cure. Like a lot of viruses, it is not such much a matter of a cure, but of prevention. Ray sees a science education as the best preventive measure. He cites statistics from countries that have high degrees of science literacy and low levels of religiosity. When you consider the current trend by the Right and the religious in this country to denigrate and diminish science this makes sense. It is religion protecting itself. If too much of the light of science is shone on religion, religion does not come out looking good.
If you are like me and have abandoned a fundamentalist religion this book will give you a framework to understand what you have gone through. If you are just trying to understand the insanity that is religion the god virus paradigm does that wonderfully.
This could have been a harsh, judgmental book, but it is not. While the author has moved beyond his religious roots, he treats most religious folks with respect and suggests that the readers do the same.
1: Wikipedia article on Memetics
The God Virus available at Amazon and other fine retailers