Religovirology: Meme Mechanics, Virology of Religion, and Refutation of SupernaturalismIt is all about modeling. This time the model is invented to explain religion. One way of studying religions is to refer to the theological literature. The other way is studying religion as the subject of another science. In this context, we can scrutinize religion and reveal its internal mechanics in a meta-language. To do so, first we need to know why religion can be studied scientifically and why it is not untouchable. Trying to be as objective as human beings can be, we begin to see that religions behave in a way very familiar to biologists. There are organisms that behave in the same way, namely viruses. The similarity was first noted by Richard Dawkins in about 1976. I try to elaborate on that and see if a new science can emerge from Dawkins' "dangerous idea." Should that work, then we have started a new era of the demystification of religion. The resulting attempts will give birth to what I call Religovirology (read re.li.go.virology). |
