One of the more fascinating aspects of religiosity was brought to light by
Richard Dawkins in his book, "The Selfish Gene." In that monograph he greatly
refined and developed a concept originally advanced by bio-chemist Jacques
Monod: that the human brain is susceptible to infection by mind-viruses.
The most general and ubiquitous example is the meme. This is defined as a
unit of transmission for cultural customs, rituals, icons and especially -
beliefs! Just as genes occur within a changing gene pool, memes occur within
an evolving meme pool. In this pool, their survival is directly related to
their appeal to diverse human brains.
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Amongst the most powerful and insidious memes are those dedicated to the
spread of religious beliefs or faith. Their infectious power can be assessed
on the basis of three main attributes:
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1) Performance value: What change does the meme or meme complex bring
about in behaviors? (For the person or group that adopts it.)
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2) Propagation Value: How far and wide is the meme spread, and what
means are employed to achieve this? (i.e. Islam in the past has used
beheading of infidels and other punishments; Christians have burned
heretics.)
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3) Infectious Value: How easy is it to infect other brains? What
attributes of the meme facilitate this infection?
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In the case of the faith meme, part of its appeal resides in automatically
warding off too close rational scrutiny. It achieves this by either insisting
reason is "inferior to faith" or that any scintilla of doubt must emanate
"from Satan - the ultimate unbeliever."
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Having debated Christian ministers (in Barbados) I can attest to encounters
with the faith meme.
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I recall one particularly memorable debate when my opponent actually asked
the audience: "How can we be certain that he isn't possessed by Lucifer and
doing Lucifer's bidding? I am supposed to be here to debate a human lecturer
- but of course I can have no chance against an agent of Satan."
Another referred to me as "arrogant" because I was prepared to argue
vigorously against his delusions. (I believe I had referred to calculations
disclosing the number of demons that would have to be created per second to
tempt each human in an ever burgeoning human population.) He warned the
audience that he could not "be responsible for their immortal souls" if they
listened to me.
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In each instance, of course, what we behold is the operation of a mind virus
that has efficiently parasitized a brain. Now, while it can't be
scientifically proven that god doesn't exist, the burden of proof is on the
believer to support his insistence on adding to physical reality. Since we
already have relatively satisfying naturalistic hypotheses -- on everything
from the origin of the cosmos to the origin of life to whatever order we
see-- all supernatural hypotheses become redundant. It is incumbent upon the
religious believer to demonstrate why his particular version merits being an
exception.
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In light of its mind-virus origins, religion cannot be regarded as a wholly
beneficent phenomenon based on some non-linear "reason" or insight. If all
religion is ultimately based upon a god meme, then it is totally subject to
rational scrutiny and criticism. The sooner that we recognize this, the
sooner we can liberate humanity from its superstitious baggage.
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