The God Virus at Purdue

Thursday the local Non-Theists Society here at Purdue sponsored a lecture by Dr. Darrel Ray, author of The God Virus. He is also the founder of Recovering from Religion. The lecture was a condensed summary of the ideas he puts forth in his book. Those ideas being that religion is comparable to a virus in how it spreads through a society and how it causes people to react to it.

Dr. Ray used many different examples throughout his talk such as comparing viral vectors to how different religions spread or how people easily get sick when their immune system is low is comparable to how some people “get religion” when their “rational immune system” is low. It was clear he has put a lot of work into this hypothesis that religion can be metaphorically compared to a virus. But I left with the feeling of “So What?”, but I will come back to this later.

He began his talk with one of things that atheists do that really annoys me, he implied “atheism” = “free thinking” when he mentioned bringing theists into the freethinking community.* Nothing like going to a talk to only have the first thing said imply your reasoning skills are handicapped. In fact, he implied theists are stupid quite a bit (at least in comparison to atheists, yes he whipped out the “atheists have higher IQs than theists” mantra). He also brought up that a person’s intelligence is negatively related to their religiosity. This one especially amused me as the exact opposite is true for LDS members. It has been shown that Mormons tend to be more highly educated than other Christians. It has also been shown that the more highly educated LDS members are, the more likely they are involved in Church.

He was also fond of talking about theist’s “invisible friends”. I generally will instantly tune out an atheist talking about religion when they bring up this phrase or any of its variations (e.g. Pink Unicorn, or FSM). But since I knew this talk was geared towards atheists, and not theists, I kept listening. Although I did not miss the irony in how he kept insisting that his fellow atheists not intentionally piss off theists when talking to one.

With a little audience participation Dr. Ray gave us an experiment to try on someone (or I should say he gave the atheists an experiment to try on theists as he claims it will not work on atheists). He told them that should they randomly meet a religious person, such as on a plane, this is something they should try. It is supposed to illuminate the inner “demon” that is caused by religion within a religious person. First, you talk with them about something they like and pay attention to how they physically respond. They will most likely make lots of eye contact and have generally relaxed posture. Then you bring up their faith. They should instantly tense up as they are unsure if you are a friend or enemy. Then, after getting a confirmation of their faith, bring up one challenge to it. The person should get defensive. Then go back to talking about something they like. This should cause the person to go back to a relaxed state. Now, I do not doubt that the reactions that Dr. Ray described in the person who is unknowingly undergoing a physiological experiment are true. I am believed him that what he described is most likely what would happen. What I do doubt, however, are the reasons for the reactions he gives, and his claim that the more secular a person is, the less this experiment will work.

He claims that the change in demeanor in the person when their faith is brought up is due to some kind of religious demon, he compared it to the demon that possessed the girl in The Exorcism, that the person has been conditioned to respond this way by religion. I think there is a much simpler and much more logical explanation; people are sensitive about things which others may have a tendency to ridicule. It is not because of some kind of complex conditioning, the person is just not sure if they are going to be made fun of or attacked. I bet if you were to tell that person you shared their faith they would instantly go back to their relaxed state. And this is not something that is unique to theists; atheists would react in the same way to this experiment. I have read comments from many different atheists talking about how they are hesitant to share their atheism for fear of ridicule.

A persons “rational immune system” is another thing he kept hitting on. He claimed that when under stress a person is more likely to “get religion” because their “rational immune system” is lowered. He compared it to when a person is more likely to get sick under stress because of a lowered immune system. I noticed how he was implying that the choice to become religious is a negative one by setting up the initial condition to be negative. Negative cause A will lead to a negative choice B. But he gave no actual evidence that the cause he gave, lowered “rational immune system”, is true. All he did was compare it to someone getting physically sick which he himself claimed was metaphorical only. He also said nothing of religious people who lose their religion during times of stress. Are their choices to become atheists also negative and a result of a lowered “rational immune system”? Somehow I think he would try and cast their choice to lose religion as somehow positive despite the fact that it occurred in identical conditions.

He also brought up Mormonism several times throughout his talk. One thing he brought up was something called the “Fear of Mormonism” being used to keep people in the Church. Unfortunately, being Mormon, I have no clue what he was talking about. Yes, we would like to have people stay in our Church but I have yet to hear of anything called the “Fear of Mormonism”. Such a thing is especially strange when you consider that the LDS faith is one of the most, if not the most, universal faiths in Christendom when it comes to salvation. We do not believe in Hell. According to us, nearly everyone will end up in Heaven regardless of their religion or lack thereof. Now, he did bring up another point about Mormonism that I have heard and do know about. He claimed drinking caffeine is considered a sin. It is not. It is true some Mormons will abstain from all caffeinated drinks but that is a personal choice. Just about every Church function I have gone to has had Mountain Dew.

Another point he mentioned was about Catholic priests and their choice to become celibate and never have children. He compared this to a kind of genetic suicide. He then said that should we ever have a disease spread through America making people infertile we would attempt to eradicate it. This struck me as very strange considering I have been reading several atheist blogs lately talking about their choice to become childless and how it is a good thing.

Now back to my reaction to his talk that I mentioned earlier. Near the end of the lecture I was thinking “So what?”. Yes, religion may be comparable to a virus in a metaphorical sense but what is the point of the comparison? It cannot be that it somehow proves religion false for that would need to assume that anything that can be explained cannot be religious, which is false in and of itself (Read Finding Darwin’s God for more on that). It was at this point that I thought he was trying to take this metaphor of religion being comparable to a virus farther than it should be. In fact, if you think about it, religion having similar characteristics to viral behavior should not be all that surprising. Just apply a little logic to the situation. Nearly all religions believe there is a genuine reason for a person to hold their beliefs, whether it is to get to Heaven or something else. So if a person truly believes in their religion then they should truly wish for others to join them. In doing so the techniques that religions come up with would logically have become perfectly suited for this purpose over time. A virus’ goal is to spread itself as well. Over time its techniques should, logically, also become perfectly suited for this purpose. Thus, it is not religion having something in common with a virus, but religion and the virus having the same underlying goal.

There are several more points I would want to address about his talk but I think this post is getting long enough already. Overall I did enjoy Dr. Ray’s talk and he did seem like a genuinely nice guy. He also had a very good point at the end of his talk, “don’t confuse the personal with the political”. I just think his metaphor of the God Virus, while having some points, tries to take things farther than there is reason to.



* I have talked about the issue of atheists implying that to be a “free thinker” or “skeptic” one must reject religion before.

Non-Thesits and LDS

The local Society of Non-Theists got an article in the Exponent today. The article was written by the group’s founder, Jennifer McCreight, who you can find over at Blag Hag. In the article she describes her experiences being an atheist and some of the things she has had to deal with when other people found this out.

She talks about how she grew up in a town in Indiana that was very tolerant of differing beliefs. Upon arriving at Purdue she began to have people express surprise and disbelief upon learning she was an atheist. She even quotes a person who upon learning about her atheism asked her, “But how will you ever find a husband?”.

After feeling like she was the only atheist around, along with seeing the innumerable number of religious student groups including the one or two preachers we get each year who stand on the mall and yell everyone is going to hell, she started the Society of Non-Theists back in 2007. She explains that many of the club members are afraid to “come out” as atheists and many share stories about being stereotyped or shunned from their families.

As I was reading this I was surprised at how similar these experiences from being an atheist were to my own experiences being a Mormon. I lived in Utah till I was 15. The majority of the population (~65%) is Mormon. All my friends were Mormon. Most (not all) of my family are Mormon. Because nearly everyone shared the same belief system religion was never really a topic that came up outside of Church in any serious manner. Also, no one really treated those who were not Mormon any differently (at least not that I witnessed). So I mainly grew up thinking that while religion is important in your private life, it really never comes up in public. And then the summer before my freshmen year I moved to Tennessee.

Tennessee was definitely a culture shock in the beginning. I had to grow accustomed many new things such as being instantly soaked in sweat when I step outside in summer (I hate humidity with a passion), learning to decipher southern accents, realizing rain truly can fall in sheets, and going from being in the majority (Mormon in Utah) to being in the extreme minority (Mormon in the Bible Belt).

When I lived in Utah most of the kids in school where Mormon. In Tennessee I could count the number of LDS students on one hand, two of them being myself and my sister, out of a student population of about 2000. And with Utah’s reputation of being “Mormon country” whenever someone learned where I was from the conversation would usually go something like this:

Person: “Where are you from?”
Me: “Utah”
Person: “Are you Mormon?”
Me: “Yes”
Person: (In disbelief and with a serious tone) “Are you going to have 10 wives when you get older?”

And the multiple wives question was usually just the tip of the ice berg. I could not believe how many strange outlandish questions I got asked about being LDS. It got to the point where I almost dreaded telling someone else I was LDS because of the various stereotypes and nonsense people would then assume about me. This was also when I began to meet LDS members who have had their families and friends shut them out of their lives because they became Mormon. I also met a girl here at Purdue who told us of her conversion and how her parents had cut off all contact with her because of her decision to become LDS.

So after reading Jennifer's article I began to relate to what she was talking about. I could even relate to the preachers who stand out on the mall preaching hellfire and damnation on all those they disagree with because, surprise, they think Mormons are going to hell as well. Whenever you see one of the street preachers holding a sign with a list of “damned” groups of people, look at the names and you will see Mormons listed along with atheists, pedophiles, democrats, and homosexuals.

Send an Atheist to Church (Part II)

 The Send an Atheist to Church charity event I mentioned in a previous post has been going on since yesterday. You can read a thorough update on it over at Blag Hag. So far is seems the Baptists (due to someone donating $40) and the LDS are in the lead. I stopped by and donated $10 to the LDS cup before my class today (I am glad the Union has an ATM as I never carry cash with me). I look forward to reading the responses from everyone attending the different church services.

Send an Atheist to Church

The local Non-Theists Society is doing a charity event called “Send an Atheist to Church”. On Feb. 18 and 19 they will be in the Union with some different Christian denominations (I do not know which ones). They will be taking donations that will go towards the Food Finders Food Bank of Tippecanoe County. With each donation they will ask to which denomination the donation should be associated with. This is to figure out how many non-theists will be attending each church, the more money that is donated on behalf of a specific church, the more non-theists who will attend that church’s services. Afterwards each person who attended a particular church service will write a short piece on their experience. I look forward to reading them. I will most likely stop by and donate on behalf of the LDS Church to see if anyone will attend our services.

Final Letter Over FSM Demonstration

Another letter appeared in the Exponent yesterday about the FSM demonstration by the Non-Theists Society. Unfortunately the Exponent has a limit on the number of letters it will publish on any particular subject and this letter reached that limit. So there will be no more letters in the Exponent about this topic. It would be nice to have another forum of communication on campus for these kind of subjects.

Here is the final letter for those interested. Note, I do not necessarily agree with all of it's points.

Jennifer McCreight: First of all you talk about persecution as if non-theists have gone through years of hardships. The only persecutions non-theists endure are the religious nutcases who state their radical views. As for your satire, which was a blatant attack on religions that does nothing to educate, all it shows is that your group feels that life is one big joke and that those who seek more in life and after life are crazy. So yes parading a flying spaghetti monster is discriminating towards religion not just Christianity. My feelings are far from hurt because of childish antics, but it is sad organized attacks are now being planned as campus activities.
Jennifer McCreight: “It’s impossible to communicate with someone whose beliefs are based on emotion.” But as far as I can tell you know neither about belief nor faith. You’re too concerned with how things work instead of looking at why they do; yes, science can show us how living organisms ADAPT over time. But when asked why or even how life started on this earth you have no guesses, no beliefs, and no “evidence” as to what started it all. I’ve listened to so-called rational arguments and none disprove a god.
Evidence by definition, does not mean the answer. Through my faith I may not be able to run tests in a laboratory to prove to anybody but myself. But that’s what faith is and if I am wrong so be it; Religion has made my life better and gives me a moral center. What has non-theism done lately besides give you a reason to dress up like pirates?
Also why Blasphemy Day? What was the need for segregating rights away from religious individuals? Absolutely none, just some whiny brats’ attempt to gain attention.
Michael Ebert
Senior in the College of Consumer and Family Sciences

Blasphemy Day Posters

The posters placed up during last weeks Blasphemy Day by the local Non-Theists student group have been placed online. Here are a few of them. The comment I left is in the center of the last poster shown bellow. You can view all the other posters, and there are quite a few, here.

Letter To The Editor

It seems the recent demonstration by the local Non-Theist Society on campus has stirred up a hornets nest. So far there have been three or four letters in the Exponent about the demonstration, some respectful, some not. I sent in a letter to the editor responding to the first of these, found here, written by Josh Phillips, and to the NTS as well. In case you did not click the link to Josh's letter, summarized, it describes the NTS as a "club of whiny brats" and "bigoted assholes". However, I doubt my letter will get published as it has been two days so far and the Exponent has yet to call.

Religion and Criticism
With the recent “Pastafarian Preaching” demonstration, the appearance of Jed Smock, and then the Gideons, I have a few observations I would like to share. First, could we raise the level of discourse to a slightly more intellectual level? I completely agree with the Non-Theist Society’s main message that everyone should be able to criticize religion. But, going about criticizing religion by comparing other people’s religious beliefs to a cartoon character comprised of two meat balls, spaghetti, and two eyes, is not going cause theists to take what you say seriously. If you wish to promote atheism as a valid belief system, then by all means utilize the FSM. But using the FSM as a legitimate criticism of religion, instead of a satirical symbol for atheism, is not going draw any kind of intellectual discussion. To those such as Josh Philips, who wrote a response to the FSM demonstration on 09/28, responding to such demonstrations by calling the Non-Theists “whiny brats” and “bigoted assholes” adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. It only serves to cast you, and those you represent, as angry, bitter, and intolerant. If you have problems with their actions then list them, specifically, and state why you disagree in respectful terms. Responding with name-calling only serves to give the impression to other readers that your behavior is on the same, “kindergarten”, level that you accused them of.

Criticism vs. Ridicule: Recent demonstration by local non-theist student group

Criticism vs. Ridicule: Recent Demonstration By Local Non-theist Student Group

This past Friday the local student group of atheists held a demonstration meant to “criticize” religion. I put criticize in quotes because I question whether their actions actually led to a valid criticism of religion or merely ended up only ridiculing it instead. Criticism and ridicule are not the same things. A page on TvTropes effectively explaines the difference with the usage of “trolling” in place of “ridicule”.

"Okay, I've read your script, and I have a few things to say about it. It needs work, but you've got something going here. I wasn't impressed by the car chases, but those aren't my thing. But I do know that cheesy one-liners aren't really done anymore, unless you're spoofing those kinds of movies, and this isn't a parody. I did like the romance scenes. You should probably expand that relationship. These kinds of movies don't do relationships well, and this would help your movie stand out." "Okay, I've read your script, and it's retarded. You should just use it for toilet paper. Nobody likes car chases anymore, and your crappy jokes make Arnold look like Shakespeare. You thought that **** was funny? Oh, the love scenes were good. I always knew you were gay." The above two paragraphs aren't quotes. They're to illustrate the difference between Trolling and Constructive Criticism (hopefully, you know which is which). While trolls want to put people down, constructive criticism is meant to help an artist improve his/her work. It's rarely shown in fiction, but it's important to it, since it's meant to help people improve their writing.

An article in the campus newspaper gave a description of their demonstration. You can find it here. In the article it explains that,

Members chose to dress as pirates to satirize religious teachings that certain followers are better than everyone else by sarcastically saying that pirates are the chosen people.

While this may be a valid criticism against some specific religions, it is not valid against religion as a whole as their demonstration was publicized as. Here they make the mistake of placing religion in a box of their own design to make religion fit certain restraints.

The article goes on to explain their main purpose by quoting their president,

Our main message is that everyone should be able to criticize religion just like every other idea, especially if it is silly or hateful.

The first part is something I completely agree with but am slightly puzzled at. The only people who try to claim religion is above criticism are generally fundamentalist extremists. Also, the only people who claim that society sees religion as above criticism are generally the militant atheists. Taking a trip to your local book store can show that religion is not considered to be above criticism. I went to my local Borders this Saturday and looked through the religious section. I saw many books meant to criticize religion such as The God Delusion, God Is Not Great, God: The Failed Hypothesis, Letter to a Christian Nation, The End of Faith and many more similar titles. If the book store has these titles on the shelves and not only available through online orders then there is, at least, a sizable demand for them.

The second part of their message is also puzzling. I can find nothing wrong with criticizing hateful messages within religion. I know they exist and they deserve to be corrected. However, criticizing something because you find it “silly” seems a bit much. Simply because you may find something to be silly does not automatically make it worthy of criticism or ridicule. The following is a rule posted by on a website I frequent that explains this very well.

Peterson's Rule I remember going with a Muslim friend of mine to visit a chemistry professor at the University of Cairo. And this is a very educated man, obviously, holder of a doctorate, I think European educated, as I recall, and we got to talking about what I was doing there, that I was studying Islam, and so on, and he asked me, "Are you a Muslim?" and I said "No." And he asked me the question that I always dread, "Why not?" which can get you into a very awkward position. Well, I tried to answer it positively and said, "I'm a Christian, I believe in the divinity of Christ and, therefore, I can't be a Muslim."     He said, "How can you possibly believe in that? Everybody knows that God doesn't have a son. God can't have a son. 'He nether begets nor is he begotten'," he quoted from the Koran. And then he said, "And let me tell you something else. Is this what you believe? Do you believe that God had a son and that to buy himself off because he wanted to destroy and damn everybody, he had to send his son down and make sure he was tortured to death so that he wouldn't have to damn all of humanity?"     I said, "Well, that's not quite the way we typically put it but that's a relatively fair statement of the idea."     He said, "Well that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Everybody knows that's not true. It's absolutely inconceivable."     Well, what struck me about that was that religions often look silly to people outside. He said no intelligent person could possibly believe in a doctrine like that. Well, besides the fact that it was somewhat personally insulting, I thought, "But intelligent people have demonstrably believed in that doctrine, whether you think it's right or wrong." I mean, St. Augustine wasn't stupid. Thomas Aquinas wasn't stupid. Calvin wasn't stupid. Kierkergaard wasn't stupid. There are a lot of bright people who have accepted a doctrine much like this.

Dr. Peterson makes an excellent point. Outsiders view particular religions as just plain silly, one that no person in their right mind would believe. But, in fact, there are many people--good intelligent people--who believe in that particular religion. I'm sure you have had times where you have asked yourself, "how can they really believe that? I just can't believe it."

So, what is Peterson's Rule?

So the principle that came to me on this was that if you are looking at a religious tradition that has a large number of adherents...then there must be something in it that appeals to different people. Mormonism, for example, has clearly lasted long enough and has clearly appealed to a wide enough cross section of people that you don't have to concede that it's true to say there must be something there that appeals to people; bright people, practical people, highly educated people, uneducated people; all sorts of people in all sorts of cultures have found something appealing in this movement. The same is true of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity in general.

The article continues with explaining that the group carried signs with depictions of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and read verses from the Gospel of the FSM. Referencing the Gospel of the FSM the article states,

The book challenges religious teachings and contradictions the Non-theists find absurd.

Peterson's Rule applies here as well. Simply because one may find something to be absurd or silly does not, by itself, make it worthy of ridicule or criticism. Something extra is required to push it into the realm worthy of criticism. This is also the point where I think they went from attempting to criticize religion to ridiculing it. Most theists are not going to take criticism of their belief system seriously by involving the FSM. Many also consider it, in most uses, to be a thinly veiled attempt to mock religion. The Law of Charity explains this very well.

The Law of Charity When presenting any material that is negative about another's beliefs. Be sure to present it in the most positive light. That way you can critique from a position of strength without being cast as polemic. If you can explain the beliefs of another person to their satisfaction, then you are in a position to critique those beliefs.

Casting someone’s belief system as comparable to belief in a cartoon character consisting of two meat balls, spaghetti, and two eyes, and then proceeding to criticize the persons beliefs from that comparison will almost never result in positive results. Generally, the person whose beliefs are being criticized will merely ignore the criticisms as too childish or too simplistic and possibly, in more extreme situations, become severely offended and be put off from listening to anything more the criticizer may have to say.

Continuing with how I believe they did not offer criticism, but ridicule. This is a picture from this same event last year (It appears to be a yearly occurrence). In the picture you see a central figure reading from what is most likely the Gospel of the FSM surrounded by people mocking religious adherents bowed in prayer. I assume this is most likely one of those things the president was referring to when she said “silly”. Again, Peterson’s rule applies here. Simply because one may find religious ritual, or prayer, "silly" does not make it worthy of criticism.

Not to be misunderstood I am not attacking this group or their right to protest. Nor was I actually offended by their demonstrations. Their actions appear, to me, to possibly have good intentions but have become stuck in the current fad of the FSM among college students.