The 'religious Virus' can be separated from the Human Host but it takes far more than mere medical treatment imho.
But I would hazard to say here that Religions are parasitic and virus like since they SOLELY depend upon 'infecting' human hosts that, by no fault of their own, have, in my opinion, a weakened or lack of immunity to them, i.e. children of parents where both are religious for example or those who, sadly, suffer from or acquire a deep seated doubt in their own self-worth, etc.
The parasitic nature of religions is patently obvious to those who choose to look deeply enough into them and their histories because they, like any virus, need and require newer and fresher hosts on a very regular basis merely to survive, e.g. the spreading of Christianity to the Native peoples of the Third World.
As was once succinctly put and stated, " IF everyone ceased to worship the Gods then both the Gods and the Priests would simply die off and disappear forever."

@Triphid I don’t think so. Religion is a human behavior pattern while humans are organisms. The virus analogy falls way short. It’s like saying that barking is a virus that infects dogs—it makes no sense. It’s like saying that banks are viruses because if people stopped using banks banks would die off. Schools would die off if people stopped going to school. If people stopped saying they were atheists atheism would die out. Therefore atheism is a virus.

The making of vicious attacks on religion by calling them viruses, mental illnesses, etc. is something pretty irrational, offensive and fruitless. Maybe you can explain to me why it is that atheists claim they are merely withholding belief and have no “burden of proof” and then turn around and proselytize and attack those with different opinions.

@WilliamFleming Firstly, it IS religions and their followers who make the claim that God/Gods exist yet they can never show empirical evidence in any shape nor form to support or prove that claim AND it IS a hard and fast rule that whom-so-ever makes a claim bears the onus of providing the proof/evidence to support that claim, i.e. Claim without evidence = logically means no claim, Secondly, Atheists, and here I speak for myself as is exactly what anyone can only truly do, I do NOT proselytize/preach or otherwise, nor do I hold/withhold belief nor attack those with differing opinions, I simply express my own thoughts and opinions which is the Right of everyone in a Civilised and Democratic Society.

@Triphid That “burden of proof” concept doesn’t hold water. There is no burden of proof. The existence of God can neither be proven nor disproven. Besides that, there’s no such thing as an airtight proof to begin with. The only “burden” if there is one, is for each person to look at the available evidence with an open mind. After doing that they might spontaneously begin to lean one way or the other, or they might remain undecided. “Burden of proof” is a bit of pseudo legal jargon with no real application. You are not sitting on a jury waiting to be persuaded. If you are waiting for proof you’ll sit there ‘til doomsday.

There is all sorts of evidence pointing to the existence of a higher intelligence in the universe, call it what you wish. There’s the fact that anything exists in the first place. There’s the enigma of conscious awareness and personal identity. There’s the unexplained appearance of life with its amazing complexity. There’re the expert opinions of physicists. It is easy to discredit the myths propagated by some religious groups but that does nothing to disprove the existence of God.

@WilliamFleming So, and correct me IF I'm wrong here, but you are saying simply that the Universe exists due to the machinations of some, as yet undefined, undiscovered, Higher Intelligence/intellect.
So where exactly is you empirical evidence for this Hypothesis, I'd be more than interested to see it, delve into and through it?
At present you ARE only offering up a mere claim, just as does the Chapter1, Verse 1 of the Book of Genesis, i.e. " In the beginning there was the WORD and the word was with God...…."
And, since ANY word is nothing more than the creation of vibrations traveling through a substance ( the atmosphere for example) and those vibrations ( compressions and expansions of the materials through which they travel btw) REQUIRE a SOURCE for those vibrations to occur and arise from in the first place ( simply easy scientific principle here btw).
So, the onus of proving your claim now DOES truly lay upon you and those who have postulated it.

@Triphid Did I make a claim? What I said is that there is evidence. It is your duty to examine all the available evidence with an open mind. I have no duty to prove a solitary thing and if you are waiting for a proof from me you’ll be waiting a very long time.

There is no proof and this issue is not about belief or disbelief. The spirit of science is to have an open mind.

Max Planck said in 1944, "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter".

@WilliamFleming Assuming/Hypothesising are one thing BUT asserting and proving it are two entirely different things, which, I'm sure you are aware of that fact.
Almost everything within and about the Universe is chaotic in its own way, NOTHING, not even life is a complete certainty, i.e. a sperm MAY fertilize an Ovum BUT that does NOT meaning that the Ovum will always grow/develop to FULL term, a Star (Solar Body) may be born today somewhere in the vast Universe BUT it may suddenly explode or simply die away tomorrow or the next year so WHERE is the Great Intellect/Intelligence behind all of that?
Where is the Great Intellect that allows 1 child to wither away from Starvation/Cancer or the like and yet allows another to thrive and grow old?
Can you or Max Planck answer these and innumerable more question like this?
In my opinion, NO, you and he cannot, you can merely offer up a mere Hypothesis, an Assumption to say the very least.

@Triphid You are right of course that the concept of Universal Consciousness is speculation only. My point is that there is evidence that points in that direction, evidence that for you, obviously is not conclusive, and that is OK. Each person will have a different reaction. I lean toward the idea.

In the first place, Universal Consciousness is not an object, a “thing” out there somewhere or a human-like entity that grants favors. The idea is that reality is made out of or is integral with consciousness and that we collectively along with everything else ARE that consciousness. This is not something supernatural or magic, rather it is a part of nature that is not clearly understood.

The universe doesn’t give a rat’s ass about a disadvantaged child. Nature is working perfectly—all that matters is the continuum of life. Look at nature with your intellect rather than with your emotions and you’ll see that things are on course.

Max and I can handle just about any question you ask, but it’s not just us. Here’s Edwin Schrodinger:

“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”

Study John Wheeler with his participatory anthropic principle, and David Bohm with his implicate order. Especially read about the Conscious Realism of cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman. Roger Penrose also has some new ideas about consciousness.

@WilliamFleming But true consciousness firstly requires a living, thinking entity BEFORE it can exist, does it not?
Are stars ( Solar bodies) truly aware of what they are, what they do and what will become of them?
Are planets also aware?
Does a rock know that it IS a rock?
Does a mere bead of perspiration know precisely what it is?
We could continue to 'flog' this dead horse until the seas dry up and blow away BUT that dead horse will NEVER stand up and pull a cart again, I'm sure you will agree on that.

@Triphid In order to get it you have to accept the fact that our perception of reality is based on nothing but symbols. Ultimate reality beyond the senses is not understood in terms of our space/time/matter model and any questions framed by that model are meaningless from a cosmic perspective.

That fact is an integral part of science, accepted by physicists since the time of Faraday and Maxwell.

Thanks for a stimulating discussion. My bedtime.

@WilliamFleming More often than NOT, there are those who see ONLY what they want to see as per their OWN deeply imbedded ideologies of perceptions, etc, and then there are those who seek, often endlessly to question and seek the answers despite those deeply imbedded ideologies as others would impose upon them.
And, whilst the latter seek to drive human knowledge, understanding and comprehension FORWARD, it seem that the FORMER are set upon impeding/hindering such efforts.
Speaking for myself here, I'd rather be one of Latter than one of the Former any day.

@Triphid Me too. Count me in with the latter. If anyone tries to impede your drive toward human knowledge, understanding and comprehension, pay them no mind. They have a right to their opinions but they can’t make you listen.

Here’s a quote I thought you might enjoy.

NIELS BOHR (from Wikiquote)

For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory regarding the limited applicability of such customary idealizations, we must in fact turn to quite other branches of science, such as psychology, or even to that kind of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence.

• Speech on quantum theory at Celebrazione del Secondo Centenario della Nascita di Luigi Galvani, Bologna, Italy (October 1937)

I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.

• As quoted in God Is Not One : The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World and Why Their Differences Matter (2010), by Stephen Prothero, Ch, 4 : Hinduism : The Way of Devotion, p. 144

• The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality.

Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to become more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously.

Religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.
Statements of Bohr after the Solvay Conference of 1927, as quoted in Physics and Beyond (1971) by Werner Heisenberg

• I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.

@WilliamFleming Spirituality, as per the pseudo-religious definition, is, imho, STILL a religious ideology, after all " A rose by any other name would still smell the same" would it not?
Individuality allows/permits one to actually THINK outside of the box/boxes, to speculate, delve and discover what may be truth and what is fiction there in is but one the differences between TRUE science and pseudo-science, for want of a better word.
There IS a vast difference between so-called religious reality/realities and actual Reality and the "no Man's Land between them is where only the truly brave and Individual will dare to cross.
When , imho, the thought/idea of God/Gods/Deities enter into ANY equation/idea/discovery that is where doubt and uncertainties begin to sow their seeds and those seeds grow not into useful plants but undesirable weeds/pests.
Remove God/s Deities, etc, and let logic, reasoning, etc, do their thing and we no more have those weed pests infesting and hindering advancement because the God Concept is very much akin to telling a young child that presents/gifts he/she receives every Christmas come ONLY from a Magical, Invisible and Imaginary being called Santa Claus/Father Christmas, the child believes it for a time, then questions it and finally discovers the truth, often much to his/her shock and ensuing distrust of those who perpetrated the lie in the first place.

@Triphid Yes, you are talking about iron-clad belief in supernatural, magical beings, who supposedly created the world and control our everyday affairs. That is one kind of religion, but that is not spirituality in my mind. To be spiritual is to be deeply aware of the staggering implications of existence and to live in awe, appreciation and reverence.

To turn away from church dogmas is a very courageous and intelligent decision but to live your life in anger toward religion has no effect on religion but it causes you to be unhappy. Cultivate spirituality and you’ll see joy and value in every moment of conscious awareness.

@WilliamFleming I am and always have been an Atheist, I see both the beauty and savagery of nature, the joy and the sorrow of it, the pleasure and the pain as well.
Ergo, I am ONE with Nature, I need no God/s, I need NO sense of Spiritualism for I AM Human, I AM a part of Nature in all its finest and its failings.

@Triphid Sounds great!

@WilliamFleming It IS, perhaps you might like to try it.

@Triphid You say many of the same things I say, especially about being one with nature. You sound almost spiritual. Spirituality is not necessarily about a belief in gods or the supernatural

I already said what I think spirituality is. You must not have read it.

@WilliamFleming I see being one with Nature not as being so in a ' spiritual way' but merely accepting and embracing that we ARE all one small part of the Natural World so to me there IS a difference.

Are you thinking in terms of affordance? If so, that would help us analyse the dynamics of how things came about in the way they did.

@brentan
Is this directed at me, or Matias?

@skado Sorry, I should have made it clear. It is directed to you.

@brentan
I’m not familiar with the concept of affordance. I’ll have to study up!