Just got a copy of The God Virus and met its author, Dr. Darrel Ray

[backscatter712]

Being somewhat new to full-fledged atheism, I've been catching up on reading. Last month, I read The God Delusion by Dawkins, and before, I read Godless by Dan Barker (and met Mr. Barker, a very nice guy to meet in person, BTW.)

Last night, I ended up going to another talk sponsored by my university's Leaders In Free Thought club, this time, by Darrel Ray. He's an awesome guy, I got to chat with him and drink beer with him after the talk, and I got a signed copy of his book, The God Virus.

This book is interesting (I'm not done reading it, but I did watch Mr. Ray's talk, which goes over a lot of what's in the book) in that Ray approaches religion both from the biological viewpoint, of religion as a memetic virus, and also from a psychological standpoint - Ray is a psychologist, and explores religion extensively from the psychological perspective - by explaining religion as a memetic virus that behaves much like biological, parasitic viruses, that causes an observable set of changes in behavior.

He presented this simple psychological experiment that anyone could do. Go and talk to an person who happens to be religious. Start by talking about the vacation in Hawaii or the football game or some other smalltalk - he'll behave normally, with relaxed body language and facial expressions. Change the subject to religion, or say anything that challenges that person's religion, and BOOM, the virus kicks in. The facial expression changes (right out of The Exorcist), the religious programming kicks in, reason is shut off like a switch, and the person goes into religious-defense mode. And it doesn't matter whether the religion is Christianity (Protestant, Catholic, doesn't matter), Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism or anything else - the behavior is the same, the memetic virus spreads in much the same way, the defense mechanisms are the same, the guilt-cycle of religion's the same.

Take a rant from Osama Bin Laden, filled with references to Mohammed, ranting against evil Americans. Take that rant, substitute Jesus for Mohammed, substitute Muslims for Americans, and the result is something that could come out of the mouth of Pat Robertson.

There's religion in a nutshell - a memetic virus that spreads from person to person, exploiting psychological phenomena to spread and thrive. And it keeps evolving.

What do you think?

[JNelson6563]

1. I think it all makes perfect sense.

Sounds like you're on a journey. Enjoy all the enlightenment! I found it to be empowering, hope you do too.

Julie

[cleanhippie]

2. I think you are spot on.

[backscatter712]

3. Another thing that was interesting was seeing the guilt cycle.

Darrel Ray showed it for all to see, being a trained psychologist, how religions exploit the guilt cycle.

They create a sex-negative environment - because it helps the virus thrive, by prohibiting perfectly natural sexual activities like homosexuality and masturbation.

That makes everyone freak out because of having normal sexual urges, then going to them to get their forgiveness fix, which only lasts about seven days or so, before tension builds up again and they have to come back next Sunday for their religion fix.

It's a continuous cycle, which serves to make people keep coming back for more of the virus.

What's really interesting is what happens when germ vectors, aka preachers, especially prominent ones like Ted Haggard, get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. If you're just a random schmuck, and get caught violating a sexual prohibition, your life is made hell by the church. If you're a preacher, the reaction is "Hey, don't sweat it too much, he's a fallible human being, let it slide!" After all, good virus vectors are expensive and tough to cultivate - it'd be a shame to waste one just because he hires male prostitutes and does meth...