The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture (7 page)

While the two movements had different origins, they were both fundamentalist responses to perceived corruption and sought to purify the society and believers. After growing and developing inside the Afghanistan reservoir, these highly parasitic and aggressive viruses broke out in the 1990s to infect a wide geographic area. Once out of the reservoir, they had the power to gain a foothold in many countries by infecting young and even well-educated Muslims. Al Qaeda is particularly effective at infecting younger people. For example, it is rare for an Al Qaeda suicide bomber to be over 30 years old.

In centuries past, god viruses spread much like biological ones, following trade routes and armies. Today, religion can spread via the Internet and other forms of high-speed global communication. With this new electronic nervous system, fundamentalism can crop up anywhere and at unprecedented rates. It no longer needs traditional trade routes or conquering armies. Global infections can happen from remote reservoirs that are untouchable by western or any other armies.

Forms of Islamic fundamentalism have spread widely from England to Indonesia. The immune system for this type of infection has not yet been developed, and as a result, governments and other religious groups are struggling to contain it. Military response is not likely to succeed and has probably strengthened the Islamic fundamentalists. Interestingly, the development of Islamic fundamentalism has provoked Christian fundamentalism, which is now seen in strong measure throughout the U.S. military discussed more in the next chapter. When President Bush referred to “a crusade” to combat Islamic terrorism, it resonated positively with many Christian fundamentalists
and negatively with many Islamic fundamentalists. The two viruses can and do feed off one another.

In the United States, reservoirs of particularly parasitic viruses reside in places like Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University or Pat Robertson’s Regent University. For the greater part of the last 50 years, Southern Baptists seem to be the largest reservoir of fundamentalism, although it exists among Pentecostals and Nazarenes as well.

While these seem to be the obvious reservoirs, it is difficult to predict which reservoir will produce the most effective god virus. Who would have guessed in 1820 that Joseph Smith, a talented, charismatic fabricator of fantastic tales, would spawn the highly infectious Mormon virus? Who would have predicted that a small movement started in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517 by Martin Luther would upend the twelve-hundred-year-old Catholic monopoly in Europe?

When the dominant religion is weak, as Catholicism was in 1517, new religions have a chance to break out. Many new mutations tried to break out in the century before Luther but were not strong enough or did not have a leader politically powerful enough to succeed. For example, John Huss created a competing virus around 1400 and founded the Moravian movement. This movement simmered for over a hundred years and had a strong influence on Martin Luther, but it never broke out into the mainstream.
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To illustrate, when Luther visited the parishes of Saxony to determine the state of religious education he wrote in the preface to his book
The Small Catechism
(1528): “Mercy! Good God! what manifold misery I beheld! The common people, especially in the villages, have no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine, and, alas! many pastors are altogether incapable and incompetent to teach.”
¹⁰
The entire countryside was ripe for the picking. His new virus easily swept much of Northern Germany.

Marxism is another powerful god virus that smoldered for years in many small pockets of Europe and eventually broke out in Russia in 1917, because of the weakness of the Russian political structure and Orthodox Church.
Its tenets are as faith-based as any pronouncement by Jesus or Jerry Falwell. Marxism has no more empirical evidence for its validity than Mormonism. The Marxist historical imperative was as close to a faith statement as the doctrine of the Trinity. Marxism had a particularly effective vector in Vladimir Lenin. As in many cases, once the virus was well on its way to dominance, its principal vector, Lenin, was more valuable dead than alive. Stalin, familiar with the methods of religious manipulation from his own seminary training, built the cult of Lenin after his death. The peasant culture, deprived of its traditional religious outlet in Orthodox Christianity, flocked to see the entombed Lenin. Lenin became the deity of Marxism and was displayed for all to see. No Pharaoh or Caesar was more deified after his death.

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John Huss (c. 1369-1415). Advocated the elimination of indulgences, use of the local language, and independence from Rome and pacifism. His teachings were declared heretical in 1411; he was burned at the stake in 1415. His followers went underground but maintained the movement until it was formally organized in 1457.

10
Martin Luther,
The Small Catechism
[book preface on-line] (accessed 20 November 2008); available from
http://www.bookofconcord.com/smallcatechism.html#preface
; Internet.

Fundamentalism always has a reservoir quietly hidden and capable of erupting. If it not held in check by the dominant virus or other viruses, it can take over a society, with the worst of consequences.

As observers of fundamentalism, we can see these developments and help educate people about what may be happening. We can point out that when two competing fundamentalist viruses collide, rational discussion disappears. Fundamentalism is incapable of compromise. Fundamentalist movements believe that theirs is the only way and that all others are corrupt and doomed. With such deep infection, productive dialogue is unlikely. Further, the presence of fundamentalism evokes fundamentalist responses from others. Mormonism evoked strong responses in Illinois and Missouri in the 1830-1850s. A similar response happened during the Crusades of the 11th to 13th centuries, where Catholic fundamentalism evoked an Islamic fundamentalist response leading to the conquest and reconquest of the Holy Land by each. This went back and forth until the Catholic side exhausted itself and withdrew altogether from Palestine.

Today we see Islamic and Christian fundamentalism vilifying one another from their respective pulpits. It is probably no coincidence that there has been a huge increase in fundamentalist activity in the U.S. military
even as the military is in the Islamic world to battle Islamic fundamentalists. Fundamentalist groups like Christian Embassy have infiltrated the very top of the U.S. military and gained positions of influence in the Pentagon. From the U.S. Air Force Academy evangelical scandal, to Campus Crusade for Christ attempting to send thousands of conversion packets to soldiers in Iraq, evangelicals have worked hard to use the military for religious purposes. Scott Blom of Campus Crusade for Christ says in a promotional video: “Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world. They’re government paid missionaries when they leave here.”
¹¹

Fundamentalism always seeks to infect the institutions that make its propagation easiest. Whether the U.S. military or Islamists in the Pakistani army, the purpose is always to ensure efficient propagation using already established institutions.

With the advent of the scientific method, many of the manipulations of god viruses can be exposed. The Pope can no longer claim that the earth is the center of the universe. While many believe in prayer, they would rather trust their physician to heal their illness. Scientologists may claim that their E-meter tells all sorts of things about a person, but they dare not open it to the light of scientific inquiry.
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Baptists may not like the idea that humans evolved from other creatures, but they have no way to put their creationist ideas to a test against say the Navaho or Hindu version of creation. These bastions of faith can be challenged through scientific inquiry.

Europe has not had a major fundamentalist outbreak since Hitler died, and Russia has avoided a major fundamentalist outbreak since the fall of the
Soviet Union. These societies have strong science education and, so far, have avoided wholesale infection from the more virulent god viruses.

11
Campus Crusade For Christ,
USAFA Promotional Video
[video on-line] (filmed Summer 2002, accessed 21 November 2008); available from
http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/press-releases/ccc_usafa.html
; Internet.

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The E-meter is a machine used by Scientology auditors to probe and make certain determinations about a person.

While we may never be fully safe from fundamentalism, the best prevention is solid education in the sciences. Right now, an experiment is going on in Asia and Russia. While the Marxist/communist religion has largely fallen out of favor, other religions have not been able to rush in and fill the void. This is not coincidental, as the governments of China and Russia have created and continue to develop a scientifically educated populace. They also monitor and interfere with outside religious efforts to infect their populations. In western countries where scientific education is strong, such as Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Hungary, The Netherlands, god viruses of all kinds have subsided in influence.
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Education is the key to perpetuation of the virus for the Taliban, Baptist or Catholic. If the virus cannot control public education, it will seek to divert resources from public coffers to fundamentalist school funding. From the madrassa schools of Pakistan to the Christian push for school vouchers in the United States, and the religious home school movement, religions seek to control education or to control the resources for education.

Some claim that atheism is a religion. But that poses a problem of what you call people who do not believe in Zeus, Thor, Allah or even The Flying Spaghetti Monster!
¹⁴
Atheism simply sees no evidence of any god.

Every religion we have mentioned has rituals, practices, holy writings or traditions, etc. Nothing like that has ever developed from Atheism. There are
no holy men, holidays or holy books, and no agreed-upon canons of faith. In fact, the only thing you can get some Atheists to agree upon is that there is no god.

13
National Center for Education Statistics,
Mathematics and Science Achievement of Eighth-Graders between 1995 and 2003
(accessed 20 November 2008); available from
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/results03_eighth95.asp
; Internet.

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If you are unfamiliar with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, see Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster [web site on-line] (accessed 20 November 2008); available from
http://www.venganza.org/
; Internet. I think you will be quite amused.

While Atheism may not be a religion, some non-theistic religions have holy books and godlike figures. Just as Martin Luther created the Protestant virus, Karl Marx created a Marxist virus based on tenets of faith in an historical imperative. Marx had no more evidence for his historical imperative than Christians do for a second coming of Christ. Marxism infected many hosts, mutated in ways that helped it survive and replicated in the minds of thousands, then millions. It eventually evolved into the various practices of communism that in almost all cases led to a cult of personality such as found in Stalinism, Maoism and others in Korea, Cambodia, Cuba and Romania.

While these are not technically theistic, the head is god-like in the sense that Caesar or Pharaoh was a god. Communist cults even worship their dead gods! Thus, Lenin has an elaborate tomb that is still visited by thousands of people every year. Kim Il-sung, former dictator of North Korea, died in 1994 but he is officially the “President of North Korea eternal” to this day! He is as much a god to the North Koreans as a dead Pharaoh was to the ancient Egyptians. It seems bizarre to the western mind to venerate a dead dictator, but how is that different than a Christian worshipping a dead Jesus or Shii’a Muslims visiting the tomb of Fatima in hopes of getting a blessing? The behavior looks remarkably similar whether it is worship of a Pharaoh, a dictator or a messiah.

The virus maintains strength or revives itself as long as the godhead is alive or perpetuated in some fashion. When the godhead dies, the god virus dissipates, and other religions may gain strength. Protestant churches are frantically working to gain market share in the former Soviet Union to take the place of communism and the Russian Orthodox Church. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses have had so much success that they have been taken to court, sanctioned and banned from Moscow.
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Pentecostal religions are growing and have caught the ire of the Orthodox Church and the Russian
government as well. The Orthodox virus is weak, so it enlists the help of political authorities to stop other viruses from intruding.

15
ReligiousTolerance.org
,
Jehovah's Witnesses Oppression in Moscow, Russia
[article on-line] (June 17, 2004, accessed 20 November 2008); available from
http://www.religioustolerance.org/witness9.htm
; Internet.