Religovirology

Religovirology contains experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence, complementary to a project like The Impossibility of God (Michael Martin and Ricki. Monnier 2003) that contains abstract reasoning.

These are the main objectives of this book:

• To show that the relationship between our evolutionary brain, body, and environment has certain properties and configurations
  
• To show that IF those properties and configurations exists, THEN religion pops-up as a by-product of the configuration; hence the religions. To show that this by-product also evolves through the evolution of its host’s language
  
• To show that these properties and configurations are everything but supernatural; i.e. breaking down the strongest defences for the necessity of a supernatural language
  
• To argue for adapting the meme language to the biology of religion
  

And to argue that the behaviour of a typical religion can be adequately explained in terms of viral patterns.

I am going to give a rudimentary account of the evolutionary biology of the host, i.e. us, in relation to the evolution of its memes (religions in this case). To do so, I need a starting point, a framework, to study the meme mechanics, to learn how to measure, diagnose, trace, and possibly treat the disorders caused by them (I am going to call it religionitis). Therefore, I am suggesting a few ideas from which we may proceed. There is no guarantee that all of the suggestions will work. I also do not know if any project of this scale can ever take off successfully. At least I hope this work ignites some ideas, much better than mine and in much smarter people than me, which would contribute to a comprehensive understanding and possible treatments of the disorder.

This work, as a framework to study religions, might turn out to be a futile attempt. But then, we will learn something; we will know where not to go in search of an explanation. If it turns out to be working though, then we will gain another tool to improve our lives.

We are still far behind in understanding the manipulative techniques that religoviruses use to exploit us. We need counter measures, but before having one, we need to decide on the path we are going to choose. Hopefully, this book is a starting point for expanding such horizons.

Neither religious extremists nor moderately religious people are to be blamed (Currie-Knight 2008), as we never blame an epileptic patient or those who are suffering from cancer. If anything, those contaminated minds should be helped. However, we may perfectly fail to help them despite some people who claim that we, i.e. the “atheists” with our alleged “occasional faith-driven zeal” (ibid.), think that “given enough time, [science] will explain all of the things it has tried and failed to explain” (ibid.). Nevertheless, I do not see any good reason why we should give up trying.

Like many others, I am not sure if we are walking in the right direction. Even if we are, I am not sure if we will never go astray. There is no guarantee that we will ever succeed. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that we will never succeed either.

Reference:

Currie-Knight, Kevin. 2008. “What?! Who?” Customer Review. Amazon.com Customer Review. https://www.amazon.com/review/R3N2T27MOES9F8/