Religion is a virus quote

Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods. There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.

Do you know where the wicked go after death? Can you tell me that? If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong. Or God merely a mistake of man? When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. Browse By Tag. Love Quotes Even if they were published, their books were often hard or impossible to find because bookstores were under pressure not to stock them.

Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic. Everywhere Europeans went, their diseases caused staggering death rates: fifty percent, eighty percent, even ninety-nine percent of indigenous people would die.

This is the story about how humans shaped God's image rather than the other way around. We're going to learn how the transformation of Abraham's god-of-armies to our God Almighty is the result of an evolutionary process, the powerful and inexorable forces known as "survival of the fittest.

And it wasn't just Yahweh who was shaped by cultural evolution; these same forces created and refined all of our religious beliefs. The Religion Virus explains the development and proliferation religion as a meme a unit of information that evolves and spreads from person to person within a culture , akin to a virus. James shows how religions have evolved over time, becoming more likely to be passed on from mind to mind. The idea is a reasonable one and does explain some aspects of religion and its cultural prevalence.

I think where James falls short is in failing to take the physical nature of the brain into account as part The Religion Virus explains the development and proliferation religion as a meme a unit of information that evolves and spreads from person to person within a culture , akin to a virus. I think where James falls short is in failing to take the physical nature of the brain into account as part of the explanation. In addition to the idea of religion itself, the human brain is naturally predisposed to supernatural explanations.

This predisposition itself was likely shaped by evolution and plays a powerful roll in religions continuing proliferation. As others have stated it builds on Dawson's concept of "memes" and for me pretty much tells it like it is.

I also generally agree that religion has no foundation in anything factual and this, along with other books helped to make that clearer to me. Sep 09, John rated it it was amazing.

A must read for anyone who cares about what they believe. I think this book explains perfectly why religion has a stranglehold on humanity. Aug 31, Ulysses rated it it was amazing Shelves: factual-literature.

How God origin morals turned normal human instincts into sins. Dawkins realized there was something deeper, that even though biological life and ideas are radically different, there is an important underlying theory that ties the two together.

Because these self-replicating ideas were so much like genes, Dawkins coined the term meme a "mnemonic gene". A century earlier, Charles Darwin had spelled out the principles of natural selection, which in spite of the staggering amount that has been written, boil down to three simple ideas: reproduction, mutation, and natural selection survival of the fittest.

If we rephrase these three ideas in information-theory terms, we would call it transcription copying , transcription errors mutation , and filtering natural selection. And these concepts apply to both genes and memes. Instinct is knowledge that is inborn. Nobody has to teach you to be afraid of heights, to go to your mother in a time of danger, to fear snakes, or that bitter foods shouldn't be eaten.

Nobody has to tell a teenager to have sex quite the contrary! This knowledge is "hard wired" into our brains, and also into the brains of many animals. Experience teaches you that grass feels nice under your feet, that thorns hurt if you prick your finger, and that fire is hot. Experiential knowledge is information that you learn by interacting with the world and the people around you.

The knowledge itself isn't inborn. Cultural learning, our highly developed ability to transmit ideas memes from one person to the next, is a uanimals. There has been some work showing that other animals such as chimpanzees and gorillas also pass information culturally, but their abilities are primitive compared to humans.

When you were born, you didn't know anything about religion or gods it's not instinctive knowledge , and you didn't learn about religion by interacting with nature it's not experiential knowledge. Someone taught you about religion and god. Even if you don't believe in God, you still have a god meme in your head. It's a meme that was put there by your parents and community, and they got it from their parents and community, and so on down through history.

Fascinating The author presents a fascinating perspective on why religion particularly Abrahamic religions has been so successful. His ideas around how and why religion behaves as an enormously successful, self-replicating meme, are a must read for anyone interested in these topics.

Jul 01, Calin Iuliu rated it liked it. Monotonous craftsmanship coupled with exceedingly repetitive fragments. I had higher expectations. The author compares the behavior of "memes" to theory of evolution and shows that memes follow the same pattern of survival and growth, spreading through human culture in the same way that a virus might spread through a biological organism. Religious memes aren't necessarily right or even good for us just because they survive and proliferate.

Interesting idea but book needs polishing. Mar 23, BethK rated it it was amazing Shelves: nonfiction , atheism. I have read many books about various religion, comparative religion, atheism, and the deconversion process.

Uniquely, this book goes into showing just how or why many things are the way they are with the expanding role of religion in US society and in other parts of the world. Moreso, why certain reactionary political movements exist and want what they seem to want. Never though, have read a book that goes into the details of how ideas about gods and religion evolved from the early days of human I have read many books about various religion, comparative religion, atheism, and the deconversion process.

Never though, have read a book that goes into the details of how ideas about gods and religion evolved from the early days of humanity, through historical periods, conquest, and why it is that religions all claim to be the only religion which can serve, save, or protect their followers — or how it is that it can be used to direct followers to kill through war and conquest, then force conversion on survivors.

This book explains the word meme very well. Meme is to idea what gene is to an organism. Memes which have attractive ideas thrive, and memes which have unattractive ideas die. So too, do memes that carry with them punishments for not accepting them, and memes with a more "live and let live" attitude wither away. This book explains how it was that religion got the hold on humans that it does, and how it maintains it. It explains why things are the way they are sociologically, and just why it is that there is such pressure to "change things back" so that religion and government become or stay intertwined with one another: If government gets its authority from God, no one can object to it or criticize it.

If religion has government on its side, it can more thoroughly control orthodoxy and squash new ideas and dissenters It explains how the infallibility meme of popular religion must control new, scientific and technological discoveries, refuse to accept them in deference to their belief.

If one part of it can be shown as false, the whole thing can fall apart - along with the power of the religion itself - very quickly. At the same time, it is shown that throughout history, religious memes do change. Judaism, Christianity, or Islam of today is not what it was in the time of Abraham even down to its core beliefs. Nor are any of them the same as they were at the start of the common era, nor at the time of Mohamed. The problem of the infallibility meme coming into contact with new discoveries, and people either having to hold two conflicting notions at the same time, or creating an anti-rationalist meme is brought into view.

In the absence of the religion not having a good hold on education and government, medicine and science, religion will either lose, or it must stop rational empirical study. Or, if it loses its infallibility meme, that religion will cease to exist after some time.

Cases of where conflicting memes come into contact with one another are discussed, and the victor's memes win out, and the conquered society must accept the conquering people's ideas - including religious ones. These memes are held very strongly by their people. It is easier to get them to go to war over them than the real reasons, such as colonialism or policies left by a prior colonialism which the other country is forcing upon them.

Religious war is a much more popular notion among would-be soldiers and their families. A very good explanation of why religion and God continue to be passed down as fact. James The Religion Virus is a well-written book that answers quite cogently the question of why religion succeeds as a meme. It's a book that takes a Darwinian approach on how religion has evolved.

The book is composed of the following ten chapters: 1. Religion's Infancy, 3. Evolution and Memes, 4. Religion Grows Up, 5. Why Do Humans Talk? Religion's Immunity System, 7. Why Is Religion So Appealing? Religion, Technology and Government, and Closing Sermon.

Positives: 1. An excellent, well-written, accessible book that answers to satisfaction why we believe in God. Great use of Darwinian concepts of evolution and cultural concepts such as memes to answer the premises of the book.

Non-confrontational, even-handed tone throughout. Excellent Kindle value. More wisdom per dollar. Great list of memes ideas that become accepted cultural beliefs and better explanations on how said memes help religion survive. Great quotes.

The evolution of the concept of god. Sound arguments, good use of logic and supporting data. Some arguments will stay with me. James does a wonderful job of tying everything up. Great references. A treat to read.

Negatives: 1. I would have liked a table that summarized all the memes. No links to references. In summary, "The Religion Virus", was a fun, educational, relevant book that exceeded my expectations. An excellent Kindle value, I highly recommend it especially for laypeople. Nov 11, Ron Joniak rated it really liked it. The truth about the human situation is just too awful.

James dives deep into religions origins and how they can be explained by Darwin's theo "Science never cheered up anyone. James dives deep into religions origins and how they can be explained by Darwin's theory of Evolution and our understanding of Memes.

I highly recommended this book to those interested in these subjects. James analyzes the rise of various religions and how we went from having Gods to a solo God. James makes convincing arguments using Evolution and supplants the material with enjoyable personal stories often located in the Interludes. Some important quotes from the book: "Even though religion may be a net burden on society, this does not necessarily guarantee that evolution will filter it out.

Our ability to speak, to pass memes from one generation to the next, gives us a huge evolutionary advantage over all other creatures on earth.

When weighed against that, the religion virus could indeed by detrimental to society, and still survive. I mention this work of fiction in the review of a nonfiction work because, while reading Mr.

James' book, I felt that I was reading the seed of a new field of science that Asimov had inspired with his writing. I can't recall the name of the fictional social science that Asimov proposed, but I do recall what it did. It applied mathematics to human aggregate behavior in order to analyze history and make predictions of what we humanity would do in the future with a high degree of accuracy.

Reading this book's application of the concepts of the Theory of Evolution to the Memes that make up the complex of behaviors that we define as "Religion" brought that nearly forgotten fable to mind.

James' definitions of the Memes, Memeplexes and analysis of how the Abrahamic Faiths evolved by mutating and absorbing Memes seemed so logical and plausible that, if he applied statistics probabilities to his process, he might be able to project the possible, and probable, future permutations of our beliefs and those beliefs effects upon our behaviors.

In short, that Mr. James may be taking the first step in making that fictional science a reality. Or maybe, I'm engaging in some myth making of my own. Either way, Mr. Mar 08, Chris Chester rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction. The basic gist of the book is to suggest that religions are no more than ideas -- memes in the common parlance.

The author suggest that memes are subject to the laws of evolution, and that they adapt over time to their surroundings. Religions today have developed a number of mechanisms, like monotheism, intolerance, indoctrination, promise of an afterlife, guilt, etc, that make them less than savory in many cases, but well adapted to survival.

It's a pretty neat idea to look at a religion as a me The basic gist of the book is to suggest that religions are no more than ideas -- memes in the common parlance.

It's a pretty neat idea to look at a religion as a meme, but the writing in this book relies far too heavily on analogy, piggy-backs on better works of non-fiction, and appears to use frequent summaries and interludes to pad the page count. Would have made for a cool magazine article; the book was unnecessary. Misnamed - Should have been titled The Religion Meme.

If you enjoy studying and analyzing religion, you'll find this book interesting. If your beliefs are strictly due to faith, you won't. These memes included monotheism, intolerance, globalization, god-given morals, kindness, and anti-rationalism