Is Religion a Disease? -- ask Richard Dawkins

Modern science has tried to come to some consensus about what "belief" actually is.  Some scientists have adopted a genetic model, suggesting that beliefs are actually a kind of mental gene.  Beliefs are transmitted and replicated, just as genes are.  One scientist has coined the word "memes" to describe these mental genes.

      This approach to understanding the origins and transmission of religious belief systems is fairly interesting, but I suspect that it is much easier to look at the transmission of beliefs the same way you look at the transmission of disease.  Unlike those diseases of the mind that are caused by physical damage to the brain & nervous system, the disease of religion is much more subtle in the harm it causes.

      Biologists don't like to compare beliefs to disease.  It is not a popular view, to say the least.  But it is certainly a more apt metaphor than trying to think of beliefs as a mental gene.  On the other hand, it's hard to get a grant from most foundations, if your intent — as stated on your grant application — is to write: "The Origins of Religious Belief Systems: A Disease Model."

             Earl Lee is the author of Libraries in the Age of Mediocrity (McFarland 2001)