The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture Read Online Free PDF

peaceful coexistence from both sides.

Advanced God Viruses
    Islam has some of the best defenses against other god viruses and has the potential to be more parasitically aggressive when consolidating political power with a society. More recent religions have had the misfortune of coming into a religious biota that was already crowded and somewhat balanced. For example, Mormonism began in an already crowded viral environment, and while its novelty and new defenses created an astounding opportunity for growth, it was nothing like the spread of Islam. Yet, Mormonism from its inception was designed to infect the political nervous system – Joseph Smith even ran for president in 1844. At each stage Mormons sought to take control of local political structure from its founding in New York state, to the move to Nauvoo, Illinois, then to Northwestern Missouri. However, because there were other strong religions present, they were not able to succeed until they migrated to the religious vacuum of Utah.
    “Religion does three things quite effectively: divides people, controls people, deludes people.”
    -Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney
     
    Islam developed in a fragmented society where polytheistic viruses were weak, Judaism was not parasitic, and Christian sects were fragmented. The Islamic virus was so well designed that Islam even avoided direct confrontation with other “people of the book.” 7 As a result, Jews and many Christian communities were simply bypassed as long as they did not politically or militarily resist Islam. This allowed Islam to spread withoutexpending energy fighting well-established and older monotheistic or quasi-monotheistic religions.
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    7 Mohammed held Jews and Christians above other religions because they followed the Bible. While he felt they believed their religions were corrupted, he still respected them and showed tolerance whereas he had none for other religions.
    Islam attacked Christianity as a false monotheistic religion. With its Holy Trinity – which makes it look suspiciously like a three-god religion – Mohammed claimed that Christianity was a corruption of Allah’s word and was not truly monotheistic. Islam’s clear monotheism gave it an advantage in converting even many Christians. Islam’s creed, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet,” is a powerful argument against the confusing and conflicting theories about the Trinity.
    So as not to oversimplify, we should acknowledge that Islam had its own mutations that threatened it from within – Shii’a and Sunni being the most prominent split. Nevertheless, Islam had sufficient power to overcome other religions in its expanding domain and continues to grow today with remarkable efficiency.
    Scientology is another advanced virus, but it too has had the misfortune of coming into an already crowded religious biota. Had Scientology or Mormonism been born in a less crowded or virally weakened environment, either might have swept the globe.

Fundamentalism – the Virulent Form of God Virus
    Biological viruses walk a fine line between being too lethal and too weak. A highly virulent virus like the Ebola may kill its host so quickly that it has no chance to infect another host. Conversely, a weakened virus, like the smallpox vaccine, may be so compromised that it cannot reproduce.
    God viruses face the same problem. Fundamentalism is the more virulent form of a religion. It generally must be kept in check lest it damage, cripple, divide or even kill its host society. Fundamentalism is most commonly “let loose” when the god virus is under attack or is in expansion mode. Thus, it can defend a religion from dangerous attackers, or it can create the energy to expand and defeat other religions. Fundamentalism can also turn on its own religion and cause havoc. The Iranian Revolution of 1978 was brought about by fundamentalists in Shii’a Islam to overthrow the Shah of Iran. Once this was accomplished, it continued to feed on