9th November 2008
“Religion is a virus sustained by fear, gullibility and a tendency to believe ones elders. Rationality is the vaccine.”
Anon.
“Religion is a virus sustained by fear, gullibility and a tendency to believe ones elders. Rationality is the vaccine.”
Anon.
November 9th, 2008 at 3:32
This is a coarser rendition of what Dawkins and Dennett have written. Dawkins has argued compellingly for the idea of Memes, distinct from but similar to genes. This forms the core of his “mind virus” assertion that religion is a unit of social inheritance in the same way a population might have a food preference or greater incidence of hair or eye color. The difference being that you can “catch” a meme. Dennett reinforces this view by asserting that credulity may have had a fitness benefit for Homo due to our neoteny, that is, automatic belief in what’s told to you can save you from falling off a cliff before you know that cliffs are dangerous.
November 9th, 2008 at 18:18
Neatly and concisely expressed.
November 9th, 2008 at 19:28
Religion is like a virus, a sickness, a disease, an infection, a plague, a pestilence, an epidemic, a curse, a pandemic, a blight, a scourge, a contagion and a pox. Religion is filthy and unclean.
We need to understanding and compassionate towards those who are already infected but we would be immoral in our own eyes if we had the slightest respect for the concept, ideas or practices of religion.
November 9th, 2008 at 23:07
Another example occurred to me this morning reading comments in the Op Ed section of my local paper. Racism is very similar to religion. Both are culturally inherited. Both can be caught later in life. Both are useful for promoting and sustaining cultural and group identity. Both can be used to incite to violence and hatred. Both are ultimately, at least in my view, harmful and divisive to society.