Religion as a virus
28th of September, 2008 Categorised in People, Religion, Video
Part 1 “The God Delusion”
Part 2 “The Virus of Faith” (see above)
So far those posts are getting a little bit too focused on religion, but it just happened to be that I stumbled upon Richard Dawkins – somebody I haven’t heard of until I watched his TED Talk. Richard Dawkins is also the one who coined the word meme.
The guy and the video is in my eyes somewhat controversial as he basically claims to end with respect towards religious believes and start to fight against especially anti-evolutionary trends in our society. Disrespect is something I can’t tolerate.
However the second part of the video above caught my attention.
He’s comparing religion to a mental virus (he’s a biologist) spreading from people to people, affecting especially older people and children. Religion is infectious and will harm the weakest ones first. Those infected will then spread the virus on to the next generation. I’ve to admit, that’s kind of a neat description.
So in religion people believe instead of making up their own mind based on evidences they can check by themselve. They sit down in a church, listen to someone on stage, read just one book, actively prevent to mingle with others like in the kindergartens example Dawkins mentions.
Fear among the believers is then used as a tool to keep power over people and at this point I come in and say it doesn’t stop at religion. I extend this idea of gaining power over people to todays politics. This blog will be all about it.
The film also gives great insight on how some American churches are run. It’s quite a good level of entertainment on stage.
On great quote from the documentary:
Atheism is life affirming in a way religion can never be.