This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Spark (talk | contribs) at 00:32, 3 December 2006 ((rv). You've already been told "first" is clearly wrong. You're cherry picking quote *fragments*, your references text is huge. Health effects are irrelevant to this. See talk we can discuss.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 00:32, 3 December 2006 by Spark (talk | contribs) ((rv). You've already been told "first" is clearly wrong. You're cherry picking quote *fragments*, your references text is huge. Health effects are irrelevant to this. See talk we can discuss.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)"Viruses of the Mind" (1993) is a controversial essay by Richard Dawkins using memetics, epidemiology, and an analogy with biological and computer viruses to analyse the propagation of religious beliefs. In the essay, Dawkins defines the "symptoms" of being infected by the "virus of religion", providing examples for most of them, and tries to define a connection between the elements of religion and its survival value (invoking Zahavi's handicap principle of sexual selection, applied to believers of a religion).
The second part of Dawkins' television programme The Root of All Evil? explored similar ideas and took a similar name, The Virus of Faith.
The essay is included in the book A Devil's Chaplain, and originated the term "faith-sufferer."
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