[extropy-chat] Religious fanatic? Blame it on 'god gene'

[Kevin Freels]

Whoa! This is too cool. I had my suspicions, but I didn;t expect any
research, let alone discoveries about it any time soon. I actually have a
post-it note on my computer that reads "Story - Anti-Religion virus?
Religion=drugs. Kill religious peeps/change them? Can get rid of religion?"

I know this is probably incoherent jabber to you, but I have had a story in
the back of my mind about such a weapon, but never narrowed it down to a
specific gene. I expected it to be something more pleiotropic and/or hugely
polygenic. If it is indeed related to one, or even a few genes, this could
really get my story going. WOOHOO!

Kevin Freels


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Religious fanatic? Blame it on 'god gene'


> --- Zero Powers <zero.powers at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "[World News]: London, Nov 15 : "God genes" are
> > responsible for
> > creating religious fanatics, says new scientific
> > research - much to
> > the chagrin of church representatives.  The findings
> > of Dean Hamer,
> > director of the US National Cancer Institute's Gene
> > Structure and
> > Regulation Unit, also claim that Jesus, the Buddha
> > and Prophet
> > Mohammed are likely to have carried the gene."
> >
> > If this is true, the chances of us ever wiping out
> > the FTB's would
> > appear to be very remote indeed.  Sad.
>
> ...what about the possibility for biological weapons
> designed to target everyone with - or everyone without
> - this gene?  (Fundies might target everyone without
> it, accepting that pious members of other religions
> might be spared "but they worship God in their own
> ways", and accepting that "less faithful" members of
> their own religion would also be affected.  OTOH, if
> the rabidly faithful were incapacitated - not killed,
> but clearly not blessed - en masse around their holy
> days...)
>
> To be clear, I'm not actually suggesting the above as
> something to do.  Just pointing out how (and why)
> certain people might abuse this.
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat