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The Virus of Faith Avijit Roy

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The Virus of Faith Avijit Roy And so too may the institutionalized rious reasons, as discharged through Anyway, that’s the music he stepped to piety of even modern science precipi- American (irrational) contrarianism, a century and a half ago, and so still do tate revolt—because, for better or for portend not simply recidivistic cultural a lot of Americans today. worse, revolt invigorates. decay but (and without gilding them If all this sounds like so much fuzzy, with any facile romantic or Neitzschean sociological impressionism, well, maybe virtue) some as yet unrecognized (and Steven Doloff is professor of humanities it is. But might there not also be, lurk- even) evolutionary function. and media studies at the Pratt Institute. ing amidst the fuzz, just a grain of (not Ralph Waldo Emerson once said of His writings on culture and education have strictly scientific) truth as well, about the perpetual fluidity of human con- appeared in the New York Times, the a peculiar American-exceptionalist sciousness that every thought was a Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher gestalt? “The heart has its reasons,” “prison” and that a heartfelt, open- Education, and FREE INQUIRY. claimed Pascal, “of which reason knows ended guess was somehow more grati- nothing.” And perhaps those myste- fying than a logically constraining fact. Global Humanism The Virus of Faith Avijit Roy Religion, a medieval form of unreason, recent experiences in this regard verify extremist by the name of Farabi Shafiur when combined with modern weaponry the horrific reality that such religious Rahman openly issued death threats becomes a real threat to our freedoms. extremism is a “virus of faith.” to me through his numerous Facebook —Salman Rushdie It all started with a book. A national statuses. In one widely circulated sta- book fair (popularly known as the tus, Rahman wrote, “Avijit Roy lives in n January 7, 2015, the world wit- Ekushey Book Fair) is held every America and so, it is not possible to kill nessed a tragic atrocity committed February in Bangladesh. Newly pub- him right now. But he will be murdered Oby soldiers of the so-called religion lished books are displayed in more than when he comes back.” of peace when two masked Islamists five hundred stalls. Literally thousands Let’s put Rahman aside for a moment armed with assault rifles entered the of people come to the fair every day offices of Charlie Hebdo (a French satiri- and enjoy buying new books. Publishers cal weekly newspaper) and killed twelve start preparing for this event quite early “. Religious extremism is like people, including two police officers, as they try to get their books ready for three cartoonists, and seven journal- the frenzy of the fair. One of my recent a highly contagious virus.” ists. The gunmen were heard shouting publishers, Jagriti Prakashani, timed the “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic) publication of my book Biswasher Virus and “We have avenged the Prophet (Bengali for The Virus of Faith) to coin- Muhammad.” A mere three weeks cide with the book fair of 2014. as I provide readers with a bit of back- before, on December 16, 2014, nine As soon as the book was released, it ground about the book. I knew there gunmen affiliated with the Pakistani rose to the top of the fair’s best-seller was a growing demand for Biswasher Taliban conducted a terrorist attack list. At the same time, it hit the cranial Virus long before it appeared in the in Peshawar, Pakistan. They entered a nerve of Islamic fundamentalists. The market. It started when I wrote a few school, opened fire, and killed 145 peo- death threats started flowing to my blogs on this particular topic on Mukto- ple, 132 of whom were schoolchildren. e-mail inbox on a regular basis. I sud- Mona (a website of freethinkers of To me, such religious extremism is denly found myself a target of militant mainly Bengali descent). Due to faith- like a highly contagious virus. My own Islamists and terrorists. A well-known based politics, a lot had happened in secularhumanism.org APRIL/MAY 2015 FREE INQUIRY 59 Bangladesh in the year before, some proportions. On September 11, 2001, that religions display behavioral control of which I attempted to cover in my Americans experienced a horrific atroc- over people in much the same way that writings. When several bloggers were ity in their own land that killed almost parasites invade organisms. For exam- put behind bars for being openly athe- three thousand people and caused at ple, the rabies virus infects very specific ist, I published articles including one in least $10 billion in property and infra- neurons in the brain of a mammalian FREE INQUIRY (“Freethought Under Attack structure damage. It was, of course, the host, later inducing the host to bite in Bangladesh,” October/November virus of religion that had persuaded or otherwise attack others. The lancet 2013). I also covered other incidents sur- Mohamed Atta and eighteen others fluke (Dicrocoelium dendriticum), a par- rounding the Shahbag Movement, such that perpetrating this bloodbath was asite, infects the brains of ants by tak- as an incident in which atheist bloggers not just a moral act but also a sacred ing control and driving them to climb including Ahmed Rajib Haider and Asif duty. In the Charlie Hebdo attack, the to the top of blades of grass, where Mohiuddin were brutally attacked by Kouachi brothers killed twelve people they can be eaten by cows. Another fundamentalists. Mohiuddin was seri- and injured several others in the name parasitic hairworm, scientifically known ously wounded but luckily survived a of Allah and their prophet. as Spinochordodes tellinii, infects grass- murder attempt in Dhaka on January The cases of the Kouachi brothers, hoppers’ brains in a way that makes 14, 2014; on the other hand, Haider Nafis, and Atta are not isolated manifes- grasshoppers more likely to jump into was found hacked to death there a tations of the religion virus. Rev. Michael water and commit suicide, allowing the month later. I found a commonality in Bray, the American minister who was worm to mate. these writings: the virus of faith was convicted of a series of abortion clinic Don’t we see similar occurrences in the weapon that made these atrocities attacks in the eighties, used biblical our human society? Take the horrifying possible. verses to defend his acts of terrorism. videos of hostage beheadings by ISIS Another interesting case concerns In 1992, Hindu fanatics destroyed Babri as an example. Regardless, President Masjid, one of the largest and oldest Barack Obama has made it abundantly mosques in Uttar Pradesh of India, clear that the United States is not at war based on a religious myth called “Ram with Islam. On laying out a strategy for Janmabhoomi.” The incident ignited dealing with ISIS (or, alternatively, ISIL), “I suddenly found myself a riots in India and neighboring countries. Obama declared: “Now, let’s make two As I am writing this article, ISIS—one of things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No reli- target of militant Islamists the most infamous extremist groups— gion condones the killing of innocents, and terrorists.” continues torturing minorities and and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims beheading people in the name of Allah. have been Muslim. ISIL is a terrorist Boko Haram, a terrorist organization in organization, pure and simple.” Obama Nigeria, is not only forcing women and also remarked, “ISIL speaks for no reli- girls into prostitution but also massa- gion. Their victims are overwhelmingly cring thousands of people mercilessly in Muslim, and no faith teaches people to Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan the name of God. These are only a few massacre innocents. No just God would Nafis, a Bengali student who came to examples of the viruses of faiths, and stand for what they did yesterday, and the United States on a student visa in they’re happening all around us. for what they do every single day.” order to wage Islamic jihad. Nafis was Whatever the motivation behind arrested in 2012 by the U.S. Federal don’t claim to have come up with any President Obama’s statements— Bureau of Investigation in a sting oper- Inew or novel concept in Biswasher whether it is simple strategy or so-called ation after attempting to set off a fake Virus. Those who are familiar with political correctness—there is very lit- car bomb outside the Federal Reserve Richard Dawkins’s revolutionary idea tle doubt that ISIS speaks exactly for building in Manhattan. He was eventu- of the meme (introduced in his 1976 Islam. ISIS is what unfolds when the ally sentenced to thirty years in prison magnum opus The Selfish Gene) are virus of faith launches into action and after pleading guilty to terrorism. In acquainted with the viral metaphor the outbreak becomes an epidemic. The my book, I tried to analyze how an for religious ideas. Based on this idea, Quran clearly states, “when ye meet the afterlife-obsessed, terrorist brain such numerous authors have suggested the unbelievers (in fight), strike off their as Nafis’s could put our civilization in religion memeplex can behave like heads” (47:4), “smite ye above their immense danger. Nafis’s deep faith in a “biological virus” acting in a living necks” (8:12), and “kill them wherever a holy text and his belief in afterlife organism. Computer scientist Craig you find them” (2:191). According to rewards led to pursue his jihadi mission James (author of The Religion Virus) and the early biography of the Prophet against the “infidels”; this can easily be psychologist Darrel W.
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