We’ll each take a chapter or two to share with everyone. There are 12 in all. Leave a comment below or email Neece with which chapters you’d like to cover:
1. Religion is a Virus
2. How Religions Survive and Dominate
3. American Civil Religion
4. God Loves You – The Guilt that Binds
5. Sex and the God Virus
6. The Myth of Unchanging Morality: Daniel
7. Jesus My Personal Savior: The Roots of American Evangelism
8. Intelligence, Personality and the God Virus
9. Understanding and Living With The God Virus
10. The Journey: Living a Virus-Free Life
11. The God Virus and Science
12. The Future of an Illusion: Daniel
Here are some reviews:
Darrel Ray has made a marvelous contribution to our understanding of ourselves. The description of religion as a cultural virus is not new, Darrel is the first to put the virus on a slide and pull out the microscope. The God Virus goes beyond analogy, offering a fascinating and detailed look at the wiggling, maddening virus itself how it moves, how it survives, and how and why it continues to thrive. –Dale McGowan, Author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, Harvard Humanist of the Year (2008)
For those hungering for more after reading the books written by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett, Dr. Darrel Ray’s The God Virus is a logical and thought-provoking follow-up. By extending the metaphor of religion as a virus, the reader gets a better understanding of the incredible power religion can have on anyone’s way of thinking (Dr. Ray shows that even your IQ is negatively affected!). Lest anyone think this is just a putdown of religion, it also gives excellent advice on how to live life without a God, from marriage to raising children. It’s a book that non-believers will enjoy and religious readers can only dare to read. –Hemant Mehta author of I Sold My Soul On Ebay (Waterbrook Press, 2007) Continue reading February Book Club Meeting →
Tim has offered to host a potluck dinner on Darwin’s birthday to celebrate the man, the work and the science.
Friday, February 12, 6:30 pm. Potluck dinner, so bring something tasty and bring your own beverages.
We will talk about Darwin and maybe, just maybe, have someone come in and speak to us.
See below for directions to Tim’s house.
Also, here is information from the International Darwin Day Foundation, sponsored by the American Humanist Association, looking for people to sign an online petition to make February 12 Darwin Day officially.
~ Update: We had a nice meeting about Darwin and evolution. We talked mainly about what people were thinking before Darwin, observable evolution since the Industrial Revolution, and all kinds of other interesting topics.
Thanks for braving the weather and roads to join us everyone!
~
We are meeting February 7 at 5pm, probably at the Blue Moose. Our Topic of the evening will be celebrating Darwin and Evolution.
Please bring something to do with Darwin, his life, his work, or evolution in general to share with us.
Darwin Day is on or around February 12, his birthday, so we’re celebrating a bit early. You might find information and inspiration to share at the International Darwin Day Foundation. They have pages on Darwin’s Life, Evolution, and even have a free online evolution course. This foundation is administered by the American Humanist Association (AHA).
Brent found another treat for those of us reading The God Virus. Darrel Ray, the author of the book, was interviewed by D.J Grothe on Point of Inquiry a few months ago. You can listen to the podcast either on the page here, or through iTunes.
Here’s what the site says about the interview:
Dr. Darrel W. Ray is author of three books, two on organizational psychology. He has been a psychologist for over 30 years. After practicing counseling and clinical psychology for 10 years, his focus shifted to organizational psychology and consulting. A longtime student of religion, his latest book is The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture.
In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Darrel Ray talks about religion being like a virus, elaborating on Richard Dawkins’ concept of the meme. He explains why the metaphor of God belief being like a virus of the mind is so useful. He details how religion is communicable, and propagated through vectors, just like biological pathogens, and why the rational “immune system” of children makes them more susceptible to the contagion. He explores why some people are immune to the God virus, and how to inoculate children from it, such as through exposure to many strains of the virus early in life. He describes the role that guilt over sex has in the success of the God virus. He discusses whether there is a skepticism virus, and why he feels atheism is a poor organizing principle, but why humanism is not. And he talks about the New Atheist agenda, and the best ways to engage in “public health measures” to protect people from the God virus.
Dave told us about this video at our meeting last Sunday. This is Julia Child cooking up a batch of Primordial Soup. Here is the description:
Julia Child cooks up a batch of primordial soup and explains how these simple ingredients produce amino acids – the building blocks of life. This video played in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Life in The Universe gallery from 1976 until the gallery closed.
I never watched her cooking show, but I’ve heard she never took herself too seriously, always made fun of herself a bit, and seemed to have fun. She is quite endearing in this video. I hope you enjoy it.
Brent sent me a link to a page on the web. It’s a conversation with Robert Sapolsky, a quiet, funny, apparently brilliant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and of neurology at Stanford’s School of Medicine. Professor Sapolsky has written several books such as:
The link Brent sent me was called TOXO and he suggested it to me, to share with you, because we’re reading The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture, by Daniel W Ray. Now the video on that page was Robert Sapolsky talking about a most interesting parasite called Toxoplasma. This is what pregnant women need to worry about, and why they avoid cats and cat feces. It can wreak havoc on their unborn baby’s nervous system.
If you’re reading The God Virus, which talks about parasites and viruses as an analogy for religion, I highly recommend watching this video. If you aren’t going to read the book I still recommend the video. The transcript is underneath it too, which will make it even more accessible for you. But the video is longer than the transcript. So take 25 minutes and enjoy it. Here’s another link to the video. I’m telling you, it’s fascinating. As I mentioned, the video is longer than the transcript. He goes into telemeres and molecular age, which I heard a study about recently confirming what he is explaining.
What he’s talking about touches on evolution, common ancestors, parasites and how they go about getting where they need to be, motorcyclists and speed freaks, and schizophrenics, as well as the government’s interest in this parasite. A wild ride indeed! Continue reading A Wild Ride With Robert Sapolsky →
This entry is part 10 of 10 in the series Other Events
The Beatles wanted take us on a magical mystery tour. On Feb. 8 the WVU Department of Mathematics would like the public to join in a musical mystery tour of its own.
The opening chord to “A Hard Day’s Night” is famous because, for 40 years, no one knew exactly what chord George Harrison was playing. It took mathematician Jason Brown, professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Dalhousie University, to figure out the exact notes and instrumentation using a formula called Fourier transform.
Brown is currently using math to determine which Beatle really wrote “In My Life.” Both Paul McCartney and John Lennon claimed authorship, and Brown aims to use mathematics to prove which musician actually composed the song.
Brown will take a break from this research to present “The Mathematics behind the Music” on Monday, Feb. 8 in Ming Hsieh Hall, room G21.
“Brown’s work really shows that mathematics and music are truly universal languages,” said Eddie Fuller, chair of the WVU mathematics department.
We are meeting February 28 at 5pm at the Blue Moose.
Our Religion of the Month is Judaism. Aaron will be talking to us all about the religion. Please comment below or email questions in so I can get them to him, so he knows what to talk about.
This entry is part 9 of 10 in the series Other Events
The Morgantown Thomas Paine Society is having a dinner in honor of Thomas Paine on his birthday, on Friday, January 29th. He was born in 1737.
A chili dinner will be held at 6pm at Kent’s home in Morgantown. Kent and Lynne will cook chili and cornbread. Guests should bring drink/desserts
The First Annual Thomas Paine Doubles Ping Pong Tourney will be held
Dinner,drinks,ping pong ,and casual talk from 6 to 8 , then some serious Paine discussion for about 1 hour starts about 8. Bring a quote, comment, reading, or just contribute/listen. The loose ‘focus’ is “the later years: 1793-1809.
This will be our first ever Religion of the Month Club.
We met at 5pm on January 31, at the Blue Moose.
~EDIT 3:
13 people showed up for our meeting! How prophetic! It was very interesting to learn about the Hittittes, the Lithuanian pagans, the American Indians, the Norse religion and the Ancient Greeks.
Thanks for showing up and making our first ever Religion of the Month Club successful!:)
~
~ EDIT 2:
Butch and I (Neece) were talking about our research for this meeting and came up with some possible questions that we all might ask of each of these religions:
The time of the religion’s dominance and greatest influence?
What was the impact on society at the time?
What is the lasting impact of the religion?
How did it influence the religions of today?
When and why did they become myths instead of religions? When did they change from the dominant religion of their area to myths?
If you have other questions we can all ask of each of our chosen religions, please comment and I’ll add it to the list.
We are meeting February 21 at 5pm at the Blue Moose.
Loading ...
Recent Comments