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The MoJournal
Religion Is a Virus
Why God is a product of natural selection
The following interview is excerpted from a conversation between Mother
Jones contributing writer Michael Krasny and Richard Dawkins, the Charles
Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University
and author of The Selfish Gene, River Out of Eden, and Climbing Mount
Improbable. The interview took place on March 17, 1997, at San Francisco's
Herbst Theater at a California Academy of Sciences benefit.
Q: You're known for your atheism and your comment that "religion is a
virus." Are you more tolerant toward religion these days?
A: No. I am often asked to explain as a biologist why religion has such a
hold. The theory is this: When a child is young, for good Darwinian
reasons, it would be valuable if the child believed everything it's told.
A child needs to learn a language, it needs to learn the social customs of
its people, it needs to learn all sorts of rules -- like don't put your
finger in the fire, and don't pick up snakes, and don't eat red berries.
There are lots of things that for good survival reasons a child needs to
learn.