Your average devout church-going Baptist most likely believes that the earth and the universe are 6000 years old and that we all came from 2 people akin to Brook Shields and Christopher Atkins in Blue Lagoon. That individual is also likely to be pro-life, pro-abstinence only sex-ed, homophobic and a hard-core anti-science rightwing loon. This individual is the unfortunate product of religious brainwashing instilled by his/her family and the immediate community. Yet contrary to Dawkins and Dennett, I am not convinced that he/she was infected and here's why.

This guy was one of the pioneers in revolutionizing our information age. He was a brilliant man with amazing forsight. Indeed there may never be another one like Steve Jobs in the 21st century. But he too was allegedly infected by the "mind virus". Granted he was a Zen-Buddhist and not a Christian or Islamic fundamentalist but he was religious.  Indeed, many atheists are reading this opening thread on their favorite Mac system. If Steve Jobs was infected with a mind virus, was his viral titer simply a lot lower than say Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman?

And for former theists who are now "cured" by education, how can they resist the mind virus and others cannot? Folks, it is quite entertaining to see religion as this insidious totalitarian virus that robs us of freedom and transforms us into mindless North Korean automatons but this is simply not the case. Indeed relgion does have the ability to brainwash and destroy an individual's capacity to reason but it is far from being analogous to an infection. If religion is like an infection, then any meme is similarly so. Football, violent films, porn, alcohol, socialism are therefore also like viruses? I think not. I am most certain that on this forum there is at least one intellectual who plays Grand Theft Auto, jerks off to Jenna Jameson, consumes beer to excess, a die-hard Steelers fan and believes that the rich should pay their fare share. I would hardly say that that individual's mind is infected.