The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture (5 page)

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Giordano Bruno is often cited as one of the earliest proponents of freethinking. He lived from 1548 until he was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1600. Over the centuries, he was followed by many who questioned the suppositions of religion at their peril, including Galileo, Voltaire, Molyneux and Diderot.

“The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.”

-Albert Einstein, letter to Gutkind, Jan. 3, 1954

In this chapter we will build a historical foundation for understanding religion in society. We will examine strategies religions use to propagate and perpetuate themselves. We will also look at parasitic and symbiotic propagation and compare some non-theistic religions to more traditional ones.

A religion always functions to ensure its own survival. While it may espouse various ideas about brotherhood, love and community, these are always secondary to religious survival. No religion dissolves itself because another religion is suddenly seen as “more true.” The Baptists don’t close their doors because they realize the Mormons are the true church. Muslims don’t convert the mosque to a cathedral in recognition of Jesus as the true messiah. Religions simply do not give up. They modify and mutate. They do whatever it takes to keep the virus alive and viable in a changing environment.

In some cases, individuals are sacrificed in the service of the survival of a religion. This is exemplified by the extreme case of suicide bombers in the Middle East. Suicide in the service of the virus is also seen in the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka and in the Japanese Kamikaze in WWII. The host is deeply indoctrinated to believe there will be an individual reward in the next life for the ultimate sacrifice on earth and, therefore, complies.

Self-sacrifice also occurs in the celibacy of priests and nuns who commit genetic suicide to be efficient vectors of the Catholic virus. While this is a less violent approach, it serves the same function for the virus. The respective societies support both types of vectors. The suicide bombers' families often receive support and payments, and the non-procreating priests and nuns receive support from the church as they go about the business of infecting new hosts.

In both of these cases, the behavior of individuals is controlled by the virus in the service of survival. Just as surely as the
Toxiplasma gondii
takes over control of the rat brain, the god virus takes control of the suicide bomber, priest, preacher or nun and directs behavior to ensure survival or advancement of the religion.

A religion must protect itself from internal mutations and external threats. To accomplish this, it creates antibodies for every known competing
god virus on the outside and possible mutations on the inside. Heresy is an internal mutation that threatens to weaken the religion from within by splitting off large groups. The Gnostic, Arian and Nestorian Christian heresies of the second and third centuries were major challenges to Catholicism.
¹
The Catholic response was to create a written creed the Apostle’s Creed against Gnosticism (early 2
^nd
century) and later the Nicene Creed against Arianism and other heresies (325 CE). The creeds were designed as an antibody to weed out those who adhered to heresy, to excommunicate and, if political powers were available, execute them. Just as your body uses antibodies to identify and kill foreign invaders, a religious creed can be administered to determine if someone is a heretic and eliminate them.

In 381 CE the emperor Theodosius published an edict that all his subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria (i.e., take the Nicene creed) or be handed over for punishment. Even though large numbers of bishops opposed the Nicene Creed at the time, Catholicism was able to use the political structure to gain supremacy over these growing heresies. Many people were excommunicated or otherwise isolated – or even executed – in the effort to purify and control the flock.

A great deal of religious literature is a response to heresy. Most religions claim their literature was handed down by a god, but the god seems to be very concerned with all the heresies of the particular day and time when the scriptures were written. Reading the religious literature of any period in history is a study in the religious protection strategy of the day. Much of the
literature, after a canon
²
has been established, is concerned with the heresies that crop up. Paul and others showed great concern for heresy which shows how common heresy was even in the earliest church.

1
Arianism is most commonly used to refer to the theological positions made famous by the theologian Arius (c. 250–336 CE), who lived and taught in Alexandria, Egypt, in the early fourth century. The most controversial of Arius’ teachings dealt with the relationship between God the Father and the person of Jesus and conflicted with trinitarian christological positions. For a time, Arianism rivaled all other forms of Christianity in popularity, especially in the east. Nestorianism is the doctrine that Jesus exists as two persons, the man Jesus and the divine Son of God, or Logos, rather than as a unified person. This doctrine is identified with Nestorius (c. 386–451 CE), Patriarch of Constantinople. This view of Christ was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and the conflict over this view led to the Nestorian schism, separating the Assyrian Church of the East from the Byzantine Church.

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

-NSV Galatians 1:6-7

But false prophets arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

-NSV 2 Peter 2:1

By 180 CE, Irenaeus of Lyons had written five books against several different heresies. Many more books were to follow over the next three centuries. The Catholic god virus had many mutations to stamp out.

Any god virus is susceptible to new, radically different viruses. Persian Zoroastrianism and Hinduism were not prepared for the highly parasitic Islam that swept out of the Arabian desert in the eighth and ninth centuries CE. The result was rapid Islamic conquest and conversion of large populations. Rulers like Xerxes and Alexander the Great had conquered many of these same communities in earlier centuries, but they generally left the local religion intact. The new Muslim virus was so powerful that it easily swept local gods and even ancient religions like Zoroastrianism and Hinduism aside.

As a virus spreads, its growth eventually slows, which gives time for other god viruses to create antibodies against it. For example, the Islamic
tide was eventually stemmed in India with Hindu antibodies that gave rise to Hindu fundamentalism. Indeed, fundamentalism in most of its forms is the active creation of antibodies to some threatening virus. As long as threatening religions or mutations are present, fundamentalism will churn out antibodies to keep the population under control and prevent mutations from getting out of hand.

2
A canon is the accepted and authorized religious literature of a given religion. The canon of Christianity was officially established in 393 at the Synod of Hippo under the authority of St. Augustine but for practical purposes was probably well established a hundred years earlier. The Mormon canon was completed with the death of Joseph Smith. The Jewish canon was probably established by 200 BCE, and the Islamic Canon was established within 100 years of Mohammed’s death.

Fundamentalism is a set of prescribed thinking patterns and behaviors based on strict and legalistic interpretations of holy texts. In viral terms, it means that people are so deeply infected that they are immune to influence and generally ignore any evidence that contradicts their beliefs. Fundamentalism is exclusive in nature; individuals and groups see themselves as the only true believers or at least more righteous and accurate in behavior and beliefs. Fundamentalism is often parasitic in seeking to impose its beliefs through means of force, coercion, ostracism or political power, even at the expense of lost or ruined individual lives.

In some cases, a religion undergoes a permanent fundamentalist mutation. The Jesuits were such an adaptation for the Catholics. Faced with the heresies of Martin Luther and others, the Jesuit Order (Society of Jesus, est. 1540) quickly learned how to create strong antibodies through its sophisticated religious education and indoctrination of youth.
³
Their members have been called Soldiers of Christ and Foot Soldiers of the Pope since their founding. Through their efforts, the Protestants were stopped in Poland and Southern Germany.

The Inquisition was another such institution, also known as Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.
⁴
For centuries, its purpose has been to root out heresy, confront and eliminate it.

3
As illustrated by the famous quote by the Jesuit Francis Xavier, “Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards.”

4
In 1908 the name was changed to “The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office” and changed again in 1965 to “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” an office once headed by the current pope, Benedict XVI.

When a religion is clearly at a disadvantage, it often mutates into a form that is not threatening to the dominant religion. Just as a foreign virus in your body may cause a strong immune response, a foreign religion can evoke a strong fundamentalist response that can be fatal to the weaker religion. By mutating into something that is benign or perceived as non-threatening, the weaker religions may be able to survive. Judaism survived in Europe for centuries through such an adaptation. Since the Catholic Church prohibited usury or the collection of interest, the Jewish community provided this service to Christians. Mormonism stepped back from its virulent form in most parts of the United States after experiencing a series of strong, even violent reactions from other religions in New York, Illinois and Missouri. After most retreated to Utah, the Mormon groups that stayed behind became much less vociferous and violent.

No matter how benign a minor religion may seem, the potential for violence against the weaker religion is always present. The pogroms throughout the Middle Ages against the Jews, the Inquisition and expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, to the Holocaust, to the current threat to the Jews in the Middle East, are continuing examples of this phenomenon. Another example is the genocidal persecution of the French Huguenots, including the famous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 where 110,000 Huguenots were murdered. The persecution by the king and the Catholic Church continued for over 30 years despite edicts of tolerance and appeals to peaceful coexistence from both sides.

In a biological system, organisms may exist that are somewhat beneficial to their host in cooperation with other biota but become pathogenic when not balanced or held in check. In adults, taking antibiotics can seriously disrupt the biotic balance in the gut, giving opportunity for fungus and pathogenic bacteria to take hold. The same is true of the vagina where biotic balance keeps many pathogens at bay. Writing about this balance, Adrianus Nicolaas of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, says this:

The intestinal tract harbors a dynamic, complex bacterial ecosystem. The presence and composition of gut flora is known to be of great importance for resistance to pathogenic microbes (e.g. via competition for space and nutritional elements). The
composition of the gut flora influences the development of the mucosal immune system….
⁵

In other words, a well-balanced gut contributes to a strong immune system. If one or more gut microbes gets out of control, it can contribute to damage and disease.

Religions can also keep one another in check. In a pluralistic society, religions have difficulty usurping political power and legislating their beliefs. In the United States, the Mormon virus had total control of the political apparatus in Utah until around 1890, to such a degree that non-Mormons were murdered and driven out of this Mormon enclave. The Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 is one of the most famous examples, but is not unique in Mormon history.
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The current level of Mormon control can be seen by simply driving though any part of Utah. Beside almost every Mormon Church stands a public school. Local school boards, controlled by Mormons, try to place schools close to the church so that the children can leave school for an hour each day to receive religious instruction. Clearly, the state is in the service of the virus with respect to education.