History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another.... Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained.
– Charles Darwin (1809-1882) "Origin of the Species"
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
– H. L. Mencken
It's not the religions we know today that are the most instructive; rather, it's how they compare with the ones that died out. Down through the millennia, the various religion memeplexes around the world have branched, mutated, tried out various tricks, and died out. Only the strongest, the ones best adapted to the human mind, the ones that were the most appealing (both in the positive and negative sense), have survived.
During our journey, we have covered a lot of scientific and philosophical territory. Let's take a quick look back:
Memes. We learned that ideas are "units of information" that can be replicated, and that they can mutate and compete for survival, and we learned about memeplexes, groups of mutually supporting ideas that enhance one another's survival.
Religion's Infancy. We learned of eight major memes that evolved during the time between Abraham and Jesus, and how this evolution of the religious memeplex surrounding Yahweh converted him from a regional god into the God that we know today. These memes included monotheism, intolerance, globalization, god-given morals, kindness, and anti-rationalism. Together, these memes put Yahweh onto a path to dominate the world, and to wipe out the competing polytheistic (pagan) religions that were prevalent at the time of Jesus.
Evolution Science. We took a quick tour of the fundamentals of Evolution Science, and learned about the key concepts: Reproduction, overpopulation, mutation and natural selection, that are the foundation of Darwin's brilliant insight. The same principles that Darwin discovered for biological life can be applied to ideas and culture, and to religion in particular. The religions we know today are the result of a hundred thousand years of differential reproduction, mutation, and competition between millions of memes, most of which are extinct today.
Religion Grows Up. With our new understanding of evolution and memes, we looked at religion's evolution from the time of Jesus to present day, and studied several more memes that evolved in the Religion Virus' memeplex, including a further refinement of intolerance, how guilt was turned to a major force of persuasion, the heaven/hell memes, and how St. Paul expanded Yahweh to become the god of gentiles. We also looked at the important concept of synergy, how the heaven/hell, guilt, monotheism and intolerance memes work together.
Advance Evolution Topics. Next we took a more detailed look at evolution, studying ecological niches, symbiosis, epidemics, parasitism, symbiosis, and alien-species invasions (such as the rabbits of Australia).
Religion, Technology and Government. Finally, we looked at how religion can "team up" with technology and with government, to spread faster and wider than would be possible by itself. We also examined technology itself, to learn why Western culture was so far ahead of the rest of the world by the time of colonialism, and discovered that it was mostly good luck, rather than superior intellect.
By cutting such a broad swath through so many different disciplines – evolution, culture, history, anthropology, sociology, religion, biology, zoology, politics and many more – it is inevitable that I have overlooked many important ideas, arguments, and facts. If I have piqued your interest and you want to learn more, or if you don't agree with me and need to prove me wrong, then I have succeeded. I can only encourage you to look in the bibliography for further reading, or do your own research to learn more about all of these topics.
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
When we examine our own lives, it seems we're just normal people, each of us growing up, finding work, getting married, having children, enjoying the company of friends, occasionally having a dispute, and with luck, retiring in comfort. There doesn't seem to be anything profound about our lives. The decisions we make – how many children to have, how well we take care of our health, whether we help our blood relatives in time of need – all seem very ordinary and sensible. It's hard for most people to see how their own personal lives might relate to Darwin's Evolution Science. But if we step out of our own lives, and use the looking glass of evolution science to study ourselves, we see that we are each just another tiny step in the four-billion-year process of life's evolution on this planet. Every decision we make has the potential to affect the future evolution of the human race.
To truly understand evolution, you can't exempt yourself from your studies.
The members of a particular church, and their leaders, see themselves as ordinary people, going to their house of worship weekly to pray and socialize. They discuss the Bible, Torah or Qur'an, try to interpret its meaning, make decisions about modern issues such as whether to accept homosexuals among their ranks or as their leaders, and decide whether and how to take their message to others. It all seems very commonplace. But if we step back and look at this activity through the looking glass of cultural evolution science, that is, memetics, we see that each person, and each house of worship, is just one more step in the hundred-thousand-year evolution of the various religion viruses that infect our brains. If your religion doesn't continue to evolve, to gain membership, and to appeal to more people, it will be extinct in a few hundred or a few thousand years. If your church adapts to become more appealing, and sends out missionaries to spread your message, then it may be the one that survives into the next millennium
In writing this book, I wanted to achieve one goal: That everyone who reads it to experience a "paradigm shift" when thinking about religion. It's as though you lived in a village all your life, and know all the streets and allies, houses, taverns and stores, like the back of your hand. And then suddenly one day the Mssrs. Joseph and Jaques Montgolfier arrive with their magnificent hot-air balloon, and transport you a thousand feet into the air above your village, and you see the village that you thought you knew so well in a new way. And even after Mssrs. Joseph and Jaques return you to the ground, you can never forget what you've seen, and every time you think of your village, you'll know what it looks like from the sky.
My hope that everyone who reads this will see religion from "1000 feet in the air." Instead of believing your church's particular dogma as God-given, I hope I have dropped the veil of obscurity that hides the origins of your church. I hope that I have helped you to ask questions instead of accepting the dogma. I hope that you can see the power of memetic evolution, and how it, not God, has shaped religion into the incredibly powerful and attractive Religion Virus that it is today.
Memes, like living lifeforms, are in constant competition with one another for survival. This book is my small contribution to the battle: I hope that I've created an anti-religion memeplex, a sort of "inoculation" against the Religion Virus. The goal which I share with many atheists, and also many Deists and thoughtful members of many of the newer liberal churches, is to clear the ideosphere of the harmful religion viruses that plague modern humankind. By exposing the roots of the religion virus, my hope is to weaken its grip on humanity.
All species are affected by changes in their environment, and the religion virus is no exception. As technology unraveled many of the mysteries of the universe, religion lost some of its power. The religion virus' ecology is becoming more hostile. I hope that, in some small way, I've made its environment even more hostile, so that the religion virus will have fewer minds to infect.