The soft links to this seem to somehow forget the
dualistic distinction between
brain and
mind. One being the
hardware (Or the
meat as
Gibson puts it), the other being the
software or
operating system.
Religion (and the whole field of
memetics) has very little to do with the physical structure of the brain, and almost entirely with the
conscious and
subconscious workings of the brain. (Of course we can't forget the
pineal gland)
As far as the
snow crash reference in the above writeup is concerned, it is either a GROSS oversimplification, or just plain wrong. Yes, there were viral connections with the basis of religion, but no where did it even suggest that athiesm was a solution (in fact, there was no defence against the religion/virus other than a counter religion/virus based on the original one)
Unfortunately, for the human mind to work, consciousness needs to have an anchor. This anchor is
religion. It could be
Allah,
God,
Zeus,
love, or a
Ham Sandwich, but somewhere, there has to be something helping us define reality. The athiest steadfastly, and
dogmatically refuses to believe in a god, the scientist holds the
scientific method as absolute, and I could go on for days...