Freedom FROM religion (parasites)

Jason Thibeault, "Religion as a Mental Parasite"; Integral Options; Wisdom Quarterly

Free Thought Billboard Campaign signs read: Imagine No Religion, Praise Darwin, Sleep in on Sundays, Beware of Dogma, and No Religion all over Wichita (examiner.com).

Look at this picture for a moment. It looks like the Aliens chest-bursting [parasitic creature in another creature]. It is actually a rare isopod discovered off the Jersey coast that eats, then replaces, the tongue of a fish.

Interestingly, aside from having its tongue taken, the fish does not suffer many other apparetn ill effects from this horrifying parasitic behavior. Interestingly, neither do people whose reason has been eaten away and replaced by religious faith.

• Some religions and no religion shrink the brain
• Self-liberation by seeing with naked awareness

There are two prominent books on this -- Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. Both evidently deal with the concept of religion as a mental “virus,” a concept I have talked about.

Every person is born with NO intrinsic ideas about a “God” or “gods.” There are no Christian, Muslim, or Jewish babies. There are, however, babies whose parents are religious.

Dawkins asserts that people are much more likely to become members of a faith if their parents are members. It may be absolutely true, though it is certainly not the whole picture.

I was raised Catholic: circumcised, sent to Sunday School, told to say my prayers, and Confirmed in the faith before I ever thought to question why I was doing any of these things. I was made to feel guilty when I skipped my prayers... More

• Gay Catholic saint dies on 9/11?

Religion atrophies the brain?
Tom Jacobs (via Integral Option Cafe)

Aging baby boomers are using a variety of methods to remain mentally sharp, from brain fitness classes to simply staying social. Newly published research suggests another admittedly unorthodox approach to promoting brain-cell survival:

Change your religious affiliation. [At least explore other views.]

A study published in the online journal PLoS ONE found a key part of the brain atrophied more rapidly in Catholics and born-again Protestants than it did in mainline Protestants. This accelerated shrinkage was also found in people who reported a life-changing religious experience, as well as those with no religious affiliation. [There's no simple atheist solution to the brain tissue issue.]

The reason, the researchers speculate, is the cumulative stress that comes with being a member of a religious minority.

The research team, led by Amy Owen of Duke University, notes that the human brain shrinks with age, and the region known as the hippocampus, which has been linked to learning and memory, typically atrophies at an accelerated rate late in life. This shrinkage has been linked to depression, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. More