Religions are mental viruses in the same way that every idea is a mental virus.

Viruses find a host, propogate, and are spread onto others. During this process they go through small alterations and adaptations that allow them to be passed more easily (evolution) and spread themselves more.

This is true for ideas as well. In this case, our brains are the mechanisms that allow ideas to spread, and ideas compete and evolve so that they too can be spread more widely. Some ideas die out, and some continue and thrive.

This goes for not only religion, but other ideas such as language and ideologies. Even simple everyday customs like shaking someones hand as a greeting can be considered mental viruses.

This is what the a "meme" is. An idea that acts like a virus. This concept was first proposed by Richard Dawkins.

Yes . God was made up because of the same reason santa claus was made up . To make people behave so that they may not burn in hell . if there is a god then he is an ass .

I think all of the religious people of the big three (Abrahamic) religions are pretty much the same - and that that form of religion (higerarchical religion that places an institution between you and your god) dulls the senses.

It may be that some atheist are dumb and that it is hard to teach them to understand criticism but on average religious people have lower IQ´s, have a greater percentage (of their flock) populating prisons and so forth.

I think when looking at ancient religions (old scrolls) Hermeticm, Daoism, Qabalah and etc, there is something quite different about those "religions" as apposed to modern organized religion. In short the former is much more akin to a philosophy of some kind and the adept is encouraged to look at the creeds and dogmas for himself and meditate upon them.

The Abrahamic organized religions (the big three) as we know them to day are much more focused on telling its adepts what to think and do, and how to keep in line, and how to not think to much about, well, anything. And that kind of religion I think is some form of a mental virus. That is with the meme of said religions the mind of the adept is taken over to serve its masters. In one of Daniel Dennet's lectures ( I think he talks about this in one of the TED lectures) he goes on describing how a bacteria that gets into the brain of an ant "re-wires" the brain so that the ant starts climbing as close as he can towards the sun (the light :) and therefore makes himself more vulnerable to byrds. The bacteria then gains from this for it lives well inside a byrds intestines.

I think this is a great analogy for the mentioned big three religions.

I admit the tagline is quite general (and I admit that I do like to make controverial taglines to spice things up)

But I think I make it clear in my first argument that I am talking about "the big three" and not in general. I have little or nothing against Zen, Daoism, all sorts of meditative "religious" practices, and to many religious practices to name here

To be more clear I think the Abrahamic three and Scientolgy are about the worst of the big ones, and Christianity in the USA especially scares me.

I do meditate myself from time to time and have drawn mostly from Daoism, Zen and Hermetic Qabalah concerning my methods of doing so

So it is not my aim to condem religious groups in general. The tagline was again just to get things going

I think promoters are to blame for a faulty product, and people who give them credit also share some of the blame for not thinking - following authority I think is a short cut to thinking.

I am a big fan of P2P and not so much of the classic school/lecture system and haven't attended a lecture in a while - so point well taken - school systems are corrupt too and generally promote other dangerous mental viruses such as patriotism which is a nice word for nationalism.

Just quit hiding behind what some scientists are saying and try to look for truth instead of going with what sounds good to your comfort.

I've already thrown down the gauntlet in the global warming debate, so we might as well address this too.

I am making the assumption that you are referring to evolution. If this is incorrect then let me know.

You claim that only some scientists support the theory? That is just plain wrong. Well over 99.9 percent of scientists agree that evolution is a valid theory that explains very well the mountains of evidence for evolution.

In addition, you tell people to seek the truth, yet you clearly have rejected evolution without knowing anything about it for the mere fact that you perceive it to contradict your beliefs. In effect you are being a hypocrite.

I am not criticizing you for being ignorant on the subject of evolution, only for remaining willfully ignorant when you have plenty of sources that can educate you (the internet, books, school, and if you really want me to, I can explain to you the theory).

People like you are the reason that science education in the U.S. is lagging behind the rest of the world. So if you have questions, about the subject ask and I will be more than happy to answer your questions.

I can understand if you reject this offer however, god forbid you ever actually had to think.

"I believe in Christ. Does this make me some zombie? Would you (based on that alone) assume that I am an uneducated fool that ignores science."

No I wouldn't assume you where an uneducated fool that ignores science - I would assume you where poorly educated (taught about creation "science" and such) that didn't understand science. And a semi-Zombie; yes

I see you underline "some" in "what some scientist are saying" - I am betting you are referring to that not all scientists think creation "science" is all that stupid - and that again goes to show that if I am correct with my assumptions you are poorly educated.

the hate comment, where it is coming from? - well it seems to me that irrational hatred is mostly spawned from self-righteous religious pack-mentality.

I am not being hateful calling religion a mental retardation - It does have some characteristics of retardation - it makes it so that the person who catches religion has an inability to understand basic concepts - is unbalanced - prone to violence and so on.

You are right about one thing though - Religion is really easy to criticize - the hard part is getting the religious person to understand the criticism. It is like trying to teach your dog how to play chess.

"Religion as a whole is a very, very easy thing to criticize. Because they can't all be true."

Just out of interest, what makes you think that your religion is correct?

please cite the study that states what you said about longevity and religious people

........................................................................................

Richard Dawkins idea of a meme was supposed to be analogus to a gene, not a virus.

Gene´s make up both cellular structures and viruses - viruses are in general distinct from cells in that they are parasites - i.e. not self sufficient.

I agree that meme theory is at least a great analog to evolutionary theory of genes - my point is that some cultural artifacts are meme´s and others are viruses: such as (in my opinion) the abrahamic relgions, piramid schemes of any kind, any kind of known ways to swindle, centrally controlled cults and probaby more things I cant remember.