The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture (3 page)

Science fiction is full of examples of aliens taking over the minds and bodies of humans to further their own ends, but where did science fiction get the idea? Fact can be stranger than fiction.
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There are many examples in biology of parasites, pathogens and viruses infecting the brain of a host and controlling the animal’s behavior. To understand our model of viral religion, let us first look at some examples in biology:

• Grasshoppers infected with the hairworm
(Spinochordodes tellinii)
are more likely to jump into water where the hairworm
reproduces. Thus, the parasite makes its host suicidal to further its own reproduction.

• The rabies virus infects very specific neurons in the brain of the mammal host to create aggressive behavior. This induces the host to attack and bite animals it might otherwise avoid or ignore. The virus takes over the brain of the host for its own purposes without regard for the well-being of the host, who usually dies.

• The lancet fluke
(Dicrocoelium)
infects the brain of ants by taking control and driving them to climb to the top of a blade of grass where they can be eaten by a cow. The ingested fluke then lays eggs in the cow gut. Eventually, the eggs exit the cow, and hungry snails eat the dung (and fluke eggs). The fluke enters the snail’s digestive gland and gets excreted in sticky slime full of a seething mass of flukes to be drunk by ants as a source of moisture.

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For a quick and enlightening read on the viral idea, I would encourage you to read Richard Dawkins’ essay “Viruses of the Mind” at
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html
; Internet. This notion is foundational for much of what we will examine in this book.

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See the novel by Robert Heinlein,
The Puppet Masters
(Doubleday, 1951) or the movie by the same title directed by Stuart Orme starring Donald Southerland (1994). Invader parasites take over humans to rule the world. This was perhaps the first of the alien parasite books and it spawned many more.

In these and many more examples, we see that parasites, viruses and many other pathogens literally take over parts of the brain and “control” the host. They reprogram the organism in the best interest of the parasite, to the detriment of the host.

A particularly interesting example is the parasitic protozoa
Toxiplasma gondii.
This protozoa causes infected rodents to lose their inborn aversion to cat smells. This behavior is beneficial to
toxiplasma,
because it reproduces in cats that have eaten infected mice and rats. Infected cats in turn spread toxiplasma through their droppings. Robert Sapolsky, writing in the March 2003 edition of
Scientific American,
says: “The infected rodents can still distinguish between all other kinds of smells but selectively lose their fear of cat pheromones, making them much easier for the cat to catch.”

Sapolsky goes on to say,

This is akin to someone getting infected with a brain parasite that has no effect whatsoever on the person’s thoughts, emotions, SAT scores or television preferences but, to complete its life cycle, generates an irresistible urge to go to the zoo, scale a
fence and try to French-kiss the pissiest-looking polar bear. A parasite-induced fatal attraction…
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Taking this well-established strategy in biology, we can apply the viral concept to religion. While the parasite takes over the perceptions of the ant, religion similarly seems to take over the perceptions of those it infects.

Imagine that a religion is a virus
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with its own unique mix of properties. Just as the HIV virus is different than a cold virus, both infect and take over the mechanisms of the body in ways that allow them to reproduce. Religions have five useful properties that are present in different degrees, including the ability to

1. Infect people.

2. Create antibodies or defenses against other viruses.

3. 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.

4. Use specific methods for spreading the virus.

5. Program the host to replicate the virus.

Every religion is more or less effective in each of these areas. Let us take a closer look at each of these properties.

Virtually all religions rely upon early childhood indoctrination as the prime infection strategy. Other infection strategies include proselytizing, offering help and financial aid with strings attached, providing educational opportunities at religious institutions and many other approaches which we encounter frequently in the media and in daily exposure to religion.

When a religion infects a person (a “host” in biological terms), it immediately begins creating antibodies against competing viruses. For example, newly minted Baptists will get Bible study that is full of verses and justifications for the rightness of their religion and a host of arguments against other
interpretations. In the early stages, it is a race to get as many antibodies as possible into the new convert so the host will have defenses against the rest of the world, and especially competing religions. Once a person is infected with Catholicism, he is rarely tempted to become a Muslim. Once a person is infected as a Baptist, she rarely becomes a Buddhist. Generally speaking, when children are infected with a specific god virus, they stay reasonably close to that religion for the rest of their lives. A Baptist may become a Lutheran or Presbyterian, but rarely Catholic, Muslim or pagan.

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An essay by Robert Sapolsky, “Bugs in the Brain,”
Scientific American
(March, 2003): 94.

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For purposes of our discussion, I will use the term “virus” although parasite might be more appropriate in some cases. I want to avoid the totally negative connotations of the word “parasite.” Most people realize that viruses can be benign, even beneficial, in some cases. That is not the general understanding of a parasite.

Religious immunity is a powerful program designed to ensure that the children are protected from outside influence. In a pluralistic society, this is important. The virus cannot control contact with other religions in the environment, so it takes prophylactic measures to keep people blind or unreceptive to other religions. This is especially important for children whose immunity is not yet complete.

Childhood religious infection is so strong that it seems to have the power to create a permanent imprint in most people. Imprinting was first identified by Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen, who won the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.
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In their work with birds and other animals, they showed that many animals learn to identify their parents remarkably fast after birth. In a famous experiment with geese, they demonstrated that substituting a parent figure like a human led to imprinting on the substitute. After imprinting was complete with the substitute, they reintroduced the real parent goose. To their surprise, the goslings could not be reprogrammed to follow the true parent; instead, they followed the substitute figure.

This powerful and rapid learning is strong in many animals and appears to be non-reversible most of the time. Perhaps religious infection is similar. Once a person has imprinted to a given religion, he does not easily change religions. The rituals, songs, ceremony, etc., have a way of sticking with some people so that they do not feel complete unless they are in that particular ritual environment.

Even an adult host who is not overtly religious can act as if the virus is alive and well in his brain. Inquire about religious beliefs, and the host will
recite many of the doctrines he learned at age 5 or 10. Just as the chicken pox virus continues to live quietly in the body after the disease is gone, the god virus may live quietly in the host until something evokes it.

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Nobelprize.org
,
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1973
[article on-line] (accessed 20 November 2008); available at
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1973/index.html
; Internet.

Stress can activate the chicken pox virus in adults, leading to the condition known as shingles. Similarly, stress tends to activate the god virus in many people. If they have a traumatic experience, they may reactivate their childhood religion. They start attending church, receiving more “antibodies” to help them stay on the straight and narrow. The virus takes over their mental functions, as illustrated by the display of new guilt-based behavior.

The god virus also has the ability to take over physical functions. For example, many religions attempt to take over sexuality, as with celibacy or abstinence vows. We will discuss this in detail in Chapter 5. To a lesser degree, the virus may change eating and dietary functions, requiring fasts or dietary restrictions.

Finally, the god virus has the ability to hide from internal detection. Once infected, the individual cannot detect major contradictions in his beliefs and behavior. Belief systems become self-evident to him, and no amount of logical discourse will move him from his belief. If a Mormon and Catholic were to debate the merits of their respective religions, neither could see his own inconsistencies and logical fallacies, but would see the other’s quite clearly.

In biology the organism that spreads disease is called a vector. A mosquito is a vector for malaria, and a tick is a vector for Lyme disease. In malaria, the mosquito bites a person with malaria and ingests the plasmodium parasite. The plasmodium then moves through the mosquito by creating a perforation in the mosquito’s gut and passing to the salivary glands. When the mosquito bites the next person, she (only females bite) injects the plasmodium into the new person.

Vectors are critical in the life cycle of many parasites. The vector may or may not be harmed in the process of transferring the parasite. Bats seem less affected by rabies than raccoons, but both can be vectors. The flea that carries the
Yersinia pestis
bacteria for the infamous bubonic plague will die in its effort to infect the next rat or human. The bacteria literally block the flea’s digestive tract to force it to regurgitate the
Y pestis
bacteria into its victim. It renders the flea incapable of digesting what it eats.

In a similar fashion, god viruses also need vectors: People can be programmed, even reengineered, to be effective carriers of the virus. We call these people priests, ministers, imams, rabbis, popes, televangelists, shamans, apostles, nuns, Bible professors and, to a lesser degree, elders, deacons or Sunday school teachers. The virus may reengineer these vectors significantly. Reengineering may include years of study in a seminary and learning massive amounts of sometimes obscure and far-fetched ideas as well as many tricks for passing the virus along. It may also include training in how to be celibate and
not
pass one’s genes along to be less encumbered with reproductive overhead (spouse and children) and, therefore, more efficient as a vector for the virus. Delusion is employed in the sense of priests and nuns believing that they are married to an invisible god or to the church.

Finally, the god virus must activate a program for replication in any host. Certain behaviors are programmed to ensure that the virus is passed on to others, especially the host’s children. These may include guilt-inducing ideas that create a sense of security in rituals. Examples include first communion, baptism, Bar Mitzvah, confirmation, daily prayer or Bible reading and confession.

In 1796, Edward Jenner demonstrated that infecting a person with the cow pox virus effectively immunized the person from the dreaded small pox virus. In other words, one virus immunizes against another.

Religions function in a similar manner. An infected Baptist is generally immunized against Catholicism or Islam. The religion creates a series of defenses within a host to prevent him from seriously considering any other religion. For example, a Baptist would rarely think of studying the Koran as diligently as the Bible. Many Catholics would not spend time studying the writings of John Wesley. A Shiite Muslim would not think to study St. Paul. A Sunni Muslim may find Buddhism unfathomable.
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The god virus builds a wall so formidable that many people can’t conceive of another religion, let alone understand it.

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Evidence is seen in the Taliban destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan, one of the cultural treasures of the world. In 2001, with the help of Saudi and Pakistani engineers, these giant sixth century statues were blown up.

From an outside observer’s view, the behavior of members of the various religions looks and sounds remarkably similar. Listen to the preaching of Osama bin Laden and Pat Robertson, for example. Both say natural disasters are a god’s judgment for some evil. Both denigrate the role of women in their respective religions. Both see Satan at work in the world. From a high-level view, all the major religions look and sound alike in many ways. With a few word changes, a Pat Robertson sermon could easily be turned into something bin Ladin might preach.