Is religion a memetic disease?

[Eudoxus]

Hey, more static.

 

I attempt to explain religion, so as to understand why such a large percentage of the human population can behave so irrationally and so dangerously. I don't claim to totally understand religion. I don't know if it's a causative factor for human violence, or a second or third order by-product of human nature. I don't know. So I try to understand it.

 

I wouldn't mind religion. People can believe what they want. Except that these violent religious folks vote, and vote against the liberties that my ancestors died to give us. They seek to destroy the system that makes life good for everyone else. In other places violently religious people are dictators and use their religion to justify, and get away with, the oppression of women, the destruction of civil liberties, and even plan, straight-up mass murder.

 

For these reasons, I must oppose religion, I must seek to understand it and construct a model that explains its behavior. If enough of us try to do this, someone may succeed in discovering how to prevent violent psychopaths from being able to use religion to their own ends; we may discover a way to let peoples' crazy beliefs and our modern scientific society coexist peacefully. But for now religious dictators and people like Westboro Baptist Church still exist, and the damage these people do is real.

 

 

 

Peoples' beliefs affect more than just themselves. Live and let live is a noble proposition, but not intelligent when the other fellow is coming at you with a bomb strapped to his chest.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Eudoxus

[bravox]

I attempt to explain religion, so as to understand why such a large percentage of the human population can behave so irrationally and so dangerously.

Dangerously? Where do you live, Afghanistan?

 

Real danger in the Western world comes from criminals. I'm worried about robbers, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, con men. I have to keep my doors locked, watch where I go, prevent my kids from going out at night, buy property insurance. Crime takes away my liberties and costs me money.

 

Religious people? Come on! Who's being irrational here?

 

I don't claim to totally understand religion. So I try to understand it.

The best way to understand religion is to join a church. Seriously. As an outsider, you can only have a misinformed opinion.

 

I wouldn't mind religion. People can believe what they want. Except that these violent religious folks vote, and vote against the liberties that my ancestors died to give us.

You mean, they vote republican? What's the problem? If you don't like democracy you can always move to China.

 

(I'm assuming you're American. It seems it's mostly Americans who have this irrational fear of religion)

 

In other places violently religious people are dictators and use their religion to justify, and get away with, the oppression of women, the destruction of civil liberties, and even plan, straight-up mass murder.

Why can't you be honest and say you are actually afraid of Islam? I don't know any Christian, Buddhist or Hindu society where those things happen. And need I point out that the greatest genocide in human history was promoted by an officially atheist regime? (I'm talking about the USSR)

 

For these reasons, I must oppose religion,

That is your right in a democracy.

 

we may discover a way to let peoples' crazy beliefs and our modern scientific society coexist peacefully

May I suggest a trip to India? Mexico perhaps? How about Thailand?

 

In any of those places you can learn a lot about "crazy beliefs" coexisting peacefully with modern science. As a bonus you can have a good time.

 

Live and let live is a noble proposition, but not intelligent when the other fellow is coming at you with a bomb strapped to his chest.

I agree. Problem is, the fellow with the bomb strapped to his chest also believed in live and let live. He died believing he was defending his people's way of life.

 

You may have trouble accepting this but Muslims actually like their way of life. They have a deep desire to preserve their values and their traditions. They see the individualistic, materialistic, oversexualized and, worst of all, aggressive behaviour of Western nations as a threat to their way of life. Killing innocent people is wrong, but we do the same thing to protect our way of life, and it has nothing to do with religion.

 

Hey, more static

That is not my intention. You say you want to understand religion, I'm saying this meme thing won't help, it's more complicated than that.

[Qfwfq]

Except that these violent religious folks vote, and vote against the liberties that my ancestors died to give us. They seek to destroy the system that makes life good for everyone else. In other places violently religious people are dictators and use their religion to justify, and get away with, the oppression of women, the destruction of civil liberties, and even plan, straight-up mass murder.

You are assuming that this is the effect, religion causes it and is its only cause.

 

The cause of those things is in human nature. So is that of religion. Very often religion is abused for those purposes. Most of all, you don't solve those problems by trying to prove that religion is false. Further, you will never succeed in proving this to all the perpetrators of those troubles. What undertaking will you embark upon after that, anyhow? Eliminating every specimen of all pathogens in the biosphere?

Edited March 22, 2012 by Qfwfq
ooops!

[Qfwfq]

Why can't you be honest and say you are actually afraid of Islam? I don't know any Christian, Buddhist or Hindu society where those things happen.

This is the thing you say which I disagree with.

 

Methods vary and they have changed through history, there are subtle differences and the whole thing is very complicated and always depends on who is on the defensive. Today the focus is on Islam, especially as people don't see similarities with past and present occurrences and stand by their own point of view.

[bravox]

Why can't you be honest and say you are actually afraid of Islam? I don't know any Christian, Buddhist or Hindu society where those things happen.

This is the thing you say which I disagree with.

I should have said "where those things are happening today". I'm not arguing for the superiority of any creed (although Hinduism seems to have a good record of being non-violent)

[Eudoxus]

Dangerously? Where do you live, Afghanistan?

 

Just the southern US, until recently, where not accepting Jesus can get you ostracized, your car vandalized, and bricks thrown through your window. Try living in Mississippi as an atheist, mate.

 

 

The best way to understand religion is to join a church. Seriously. As an outsider, you can only have a misinformed opinion.

 

I've been in many churches. Do you really think many people in the US start as atheists? No. I was born into a Christian family, had Christian friends (of various creeds), have been to Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, and Methodist services and spoken to adherents to many more sects, as well as Muslims, Jews, and Wiccans.

 

You mean, they vote republican? What's the problem? If you don't like democracy you can always move to China.

 

(I'm assuming you're American. It seems it's mostly Americans who have this irrational fear of religion)

 

Nice framing of the question. Republican politics are almost defined by the views of the churches, at least as far as social politics go. The Republican party isn't something that just existed, and then the religious decided, "Hey, this is a good thing."

 

The very religious on both sides of the party lines are among the most anti-democratic and anti-civil liberties in the US government, in my estimation at least.

 

 

Why can't you be honest and say you are actually afraid of Islam?

 

Sigh.

 

I don't know any Christian, Buddhist or Hindu society where those things happen. And need I point out that the greatest genocide in human history was promoted by an officially atheist regime? (I'm talking about the USSR)

 

You must be very young. Don't you remember Ireland? As for Buddhism: http://rupeenews.com/about/muhammad-in-the-christian-context-concentrating-on-the-commonalities-between-the-abrahamic-faiths-the-arian-influences-on-islam-the-muslim-influences-on-martin-luther-locke-and-jefferson/the-urban-myth-there-are-no-buddhist-terroristsall-religions-have-terrorists/ And for Hinduism, your history classes must not have covered the bloody conflicts that occurred during the separation of India and Pakistan.

 

 

May I suggest a trip to India? Mexico perhaps? How about Thailand?

 

In any of those places you can learn a lot about "crazy beliefs" coexisting peacefully with modern science. As a bonus you can have a good time.

 

Mexico and Thailand aren't exactly hotbeds of cutting edge scientific research. And in India you will find that many people practice the traditions, but have little real belief, in Hinduism, at least in the cities and especially in the universities.

 

 

I agree. Problem is, the fellow with the bomb strapped to his chest also believed in live and let live. He died believing he was defending his people's way of life.

 

The difference is that his religion tells him that the civilians killed by his actions are of no concern, that they are an acceptable price to be paid. His religion tells him his actions are justified. If I were defending my peoples' way of life with violence, I would not use so indiscriminate a killing tool as a bomb. I would use a rifle. And every accidental civilian death would weigh enormously on my conscience. I do not try to justify the killing of innocent civilians.

 

That is not my intention. You say you want to understand religion, I'm saying this meme thing won't help, it's more complicated than that.

 

Here's something you may not understand.

 

When trying to understand a complicated system, you start by creating simpler systems that account for some of the data. You test which systems have descriptive and predictive value and the more successful systems become more elaborated and incorporate successful parts of otherwise unsuccessful systems. By this process you narrow down your models by discarding faulty ones and preserving and merging successful ones to arrive at a unified, successful theory.

 

It's a part of the scientific method in the broader sense, in case you didn't know.

 

The idea of religion as a memetic "disease" or "virus" has some descriptive value; I'll need to conduct experiments to see if it has predictive value. It's not a perfect model, but it does show some utility so far.

[Turtle]

good grief. rather than go about quoting y'all, i'll presume readers have read the thread and get my drift.

 

#1) i see 840,000,000 results @google for "religion as a meme", so it's not like the idea is some recent hairball coughed up here at our humble science forum.

 

#2) in the past & on the whole i really didn't give a rat's *** about believers at least to the degree to bother to decry them. i was raised christian and read in & about other holy books on my own & at the collegiate level lo these many years. for all intents & purposes i have been an atheist since young adulthood. (more of my life is behind me than before me.) my immediate "problem" is religion here on the science forum (which i joined to discuss Science) where i have seen in the past 7 years no end of believers joining up to bash science. i suspect, but cannot prove, that few atheists sign up to religious forums to bash them, so that makes the believers trouble makers in my mind at the very least.

 

#3) yes a lot of the fooflaw over this is in the US, but as i am in the US and see believers periodically bombing abortion clinics, attempting to legislate the teaching of religion (creationism) as science, promoting religion (say christianity) as the basis of law, demeaning and legislating against women, gays, and lesbians, science, secularism, and yada yada yada, i have to again conclude believers are the ones making trouble, notwithstanding that many believers are not of that ilk.

 

#4) Hindus do not get a (historical) push.

Members of lndia’s Thuggee sect strangled people as sacrifices to appease the bloodthirsty goddess Kali, a practice beginning in the 1500s. The number of victims has been estimated to be as high as 2 million. Thugs were claiming about 20,000 lives a year in the 1800s until British rulers stamped them out. At a trial in 1840, one Thug was accused of killing 931 people. Today, some Hindu priests still sacrifice goats to Kali.

source @ listverse

 

#5) we have a thread that addresses the "whys & wherefores" of religious belief as best as modern science has been able to pin it down. >> Biotheology (link to last post). you're welcome.

 

#6) a witty word from a noted republican which those of today might attend.

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to Infidelity.

-- Abraham Lincoln, Manford's Magazine, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 144

source

 

#7) to you believers. i kindly don't swim in your toilet; kindly don't piss in my pool.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Turtle

[Rade]

There was a request early in this thread for experimental data on the relationship between neural process and memetic replication and storage. See this link, the claim is made that such a relationship can be measured:

 

http://www.frontiersin.org/evolutionary_neuroscience/10.3389/fnevo.2011.00001/full

[sigurdV]

Why does religion have to be explained, in terms of memes or whatever? Does anybody attempt to "explain" science? What if science is a memetic "disease"? Who cares?

 

I find it amusing that religion is such a constant topic in forums like this. I don't understand why people who aren't religious worry about it so much. I don't like vegetarianism, rap music, marijuana, I think those things are detrimental to a person's mental or physical health, but I don't stretch my mind trying to figure out why people enjoy those things. Whatever floats their boat. Why does it matter?

 

Now of course someone will say that religion is harmful to society, look at the Twin Towers, the Inquisition, the Crusades, Galileo, yada-yada. As if humans would suddenly become perfectly moral if it weren't for their irrational beliefs. Ironically, since most religions provide an explanation why humans are so morally corrupt, the problem must have existed before those religions were developed.

 

I say, let people believe what they want, do not try to rationalize away their thoughts since you are not inside their minds. Do not assume you're an atheist because you are so smart, because that is absolutely not true. The world is full of smart believers and stupid atheists.

Perhaps you would care to make a list of what should be explained so we have something to guide us?

 

Im thinking of "Jonestown" a place somewhere in South America where a prophet "Mr Jones" gathered his followers ...

 

Only to make them all sucide!

 

You dont feel a need for an explanation do you? -Let people believe what they want!

[Qfwfq]

There is no denying that many folks are driven to violent acts with religious preaching. The same occurs with soccer and with politics for instance.

 

The difference is that his religion tells him that the civilians killed by his actions are of no concern, that they are an acceptable price to be paid. His religion tells him his actions are justified.

Can you say exactly where in the Qur'an one is instructed to indiscriminately kill civilians?

[Eudoxus]

There is no denying that many folks are driven to violent acts with religious preaching. The same occurs with soccer and with politics for instance.

 

Can you say exactly where in the Qur'an one is instructed to indiscriminately kill civilians?

 

I admit to not being well-versed with the Quran. It doesn't matter. Nineteen people found enough justification in it to kill 3000 others and themselves. Thousands more have imitated them (though with Semtex instead of jet fuel and kinetic energy), drawing the same interpretation from the same book. Evidence enough for me that religion can be used to justify unjust violence.

Edited March 24, 2012 by Eudoxus

[modest]

The difference is that his religion tells him that the civilians killed by his actions are of no concern, that they are an acceptable price to be paid. His religion tells him his actions are justified.

Can you say exactly where in the Qur'an one is instructed to indiscriminately kill civilians?

Of the monotheisms, I know the least about Islam, but by what I've seen I would agree that it can be interpreted and preached like Eudoxus says.

 

A civilian is a broad term... the quran seems to refer to atheists ("those who believe not in God"), and Jews and Christians ("people of the book")...

 

9.29, Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

 

9.5, Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

 

It looks like the idea was to fight them, enslave them, and encourage them to convert. Once they convert they are protected from slaughter. According to the Hadith there are then only three reasons they would be put to death,

 

"The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah and that I am His Messenger, cannot be shed except in three cases: in Qisas (equality in punishment) for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (Apostate) and leaves the Muslims."

 

-Bukhari, #9,17

Muhammad said "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him."

 

-Bukhari, #9, 57

 

I would consider that the killing of civilians. It seems like a very evil ideology to me as well.

[CraigD]

I attempt to explain religion, so as to understand why such a large percentage of the human population can behave so irrationally and so dangerously.

Dangerously? Where do you live, Afghanistan?

Just the southern US, until recently, where not accepting Jesus can get you ostracized, your car vandalized, and bricks thrown through your window. Try living in Mississippi as an atheist, mate.

Or a 14-year old Wiccan girl in the Tug River Valley of West Virginia and Tennessee.

 

Though it’s anecdotal, after reading the above exchange, I made a quick list over everyone I’ve known who has been killed or injured severely enough to require hospitalization overnight or longer due to intentional violence against them from another person, and the reason why. I counted 5 severe injuries, and 3 or 4 deaths (whether one friend’s death was a murder, accidental death, or suicide couldn’t be determined). 1 death was over drug money. 0 to 1 death may have been a rape-murder or similar crime. 2 deaths were emotionally motivated, involving estranged friends and spouses. 2 injuries were due to simple dominance, aggression, or annoyance. 1 was self defense. 1 was religion motivated.

 

Religious people? Come on! Who's being irrational here?

I don’t find the assertion that religious ideas can motivate people to behave, as “irrationally and dangerously” irrational or even unrealistic, because one of the personal experiences I summarize above was, undisputedly, religiously motivated. The 14-year old Wiccan girl I mention was my daughter, who, after unwisely talking about her curiosity-driven exploration of this religion (I expect most people, especially those with teenage kids, can imagine how provocative they can be talking about such things) was ambushed in her public school by several of her classmates, and beaten so severely she had to be hospitalized for 5 days. Several students believe that, had the attack not been heard and some students come to her rescue, her attackers would have beaten her to death.

 

While the students who attacked here were punished, the school principle honestly admitted he could not in good faith assure us that similar attacks were unlikely to occur in the future, and recommended take advantage of West Virginia’s liberal home schooling laws and withdraw her from school.

 

Even in the US, a country with a strong tradition of civil law overriding religious, admonitions like the Biblical “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18, KJV) are taken literally by some religionists.

 

I don’t mean to imply that religion provides the greatest motivation for violent antisocial behavior. In my experience, and supported by many statistical studies I’ve read, the intense emotions involving mating are the greatest motivation, followed by disputes over money and property. Religion is not, however, an insignificant source of such motivation. In their defense, all of the major religions are major providers of moral instruction against violence, leading me to the intuitive conclusion (which could well be wrong) that religion neither increases nor decreases the net incidence of violent behavior.

 

Real danger in the Western world comes from criminals. I'm worried about robbers, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, con men.

My anecdotes and personal experience suggest that, in America, intentional killings and severe injuries are much more likely to be from family members and friends than from strangers. All credible statistics (The US CDC is an good source of these, especially its National Vital Statistics report) I’ve read support my anecdotal perception.

 

I believe your perception of the danger of assault by criminals is inaccurate, Bravox. However, I believe your perception of danger of property crime – theft and vandalism – is accurate, and tautological. Theft and vandalism are crimes, so by definition, are committed by criminals.

 

I have to keep my doors locked, watch where I go, prevent my kids from going out at night, buy property insurance. Crime takes away my liberties and costs me money.

Assuming that you not only prevent your kids from going out at night, but yourself, your liberty is being taken away by you, motivated by a perception of danger.

 

I know many people with this perception, but have found that in most cases, it’s accurate and unsupported by objective evidence. I live, and have gone out when and where I pleased for the past 27 years, in the Washington DC-Baltimore MD area, a place commonly believed to be among the most dangerous in the US.

 

I think it’s very important for us not to be unrealistically worried about crime, especially because so many media outlets, non-fiction and fiction both, portray it as being much more common than objective, scientific data show it to be. As various wise folk say, “fear is a prison”, and “the truth will set you free” - IMHO, a truly powerful meme.

[Qfwfq]

drawing the same interpretation from the same book.

Show me that it was actually from the Qur'an and not some devious preacher. Then tell me why the rest of the billion Muslims don't agree with these same interpretations.

 

I would consider that the killing of civilians. It seems like a very evil ideology to me as well.

You are not showing where it preaches the indiscriminate killing of civilians, which is what terrorism is. You should also be aware that interpreting these ancient texts is not simple and it can be even more misleading to quote a few things out of context. Wasn't that about the idolaters something which had been discussed in some thread a while back? Did it not refer to a specific tribe that was an acrid enemy of the first Muslims? Would you say the Book of Psalms preaches atheism?

 

EDIT: These two pages sum up things I have often found in other sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/islamethics/war.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/jihad_1.shtml

Edited March 25, 2012 by Qfwfq
factual error and addition

[CraigD]

Muhammad said "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him."

 

-Bukhari, #9, 57

 

I would consider that the killing of civilians. It seems like a very evil ideology to me as well.

“Evil” seems a loaded and unhelpful word to me, but if I were a cultural Muslim who became an atheist, that this verse existed, and might be taken literally by some people, would worry me dreadfully.

 

Being a cultural Christian who became an atheist, and being pretty well Bible educated, I’m relieved that no equivalent verse exists in it. Provided I don’t get labeled a “witch”, or accused by my parents of disobedience (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), I’m reassured that any Christian who feels religiously justified in killing me has an unsound understanding of scripture.

 

 

I admit to not being well-versed with the Quran. It doesn't matter. Nineteen people found enough justification in it to kill 3000 others and themselves. Thousands more have imitated them (though with Semtex instead of jet fuel and kinetic energy), drawing the same interpretation from the same book. Evidence enough for me that religion can be used to justify unjust violence.

Show me that it was actually from the Qur'an and not some devious preacher. Then tell me why the rest of the billion Muslims don't agree with these same interpretations.

I’d say the 9-11 suicide hijackers were motivated by far more than any devious interpretation of the Koran, mostly by political hatred of US foreign policy in Saudi Arabia.

 

I think most of the rest of the billions of Muslims don’t agree with, but rather strongly condemn on both religious and common humanitarian grounds, the 9-11 attacks, because they’re not at heart killers, because, like us, they empathize with others, and unless forced to, won’t do unto us what they would not want done to them. Like most every other religious person, they reject and ignore arguments from religious scripture or authority that disagrees with their intimate personal beliefs.

 

My reaction on 9-11 was not so much shock that such a defeat of my country’s air travel security system could be so badly defeated, as wonder that anyone could convince so many people to do such a thing, and horrified pity for anyone who could allow themselves to be so persuaded. What a horrible life a person – and the 9-11 hijackers were not mentally deranged serial killers in the model, of say, Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer – must have to have been convinced lies ahead of him for the alternative of a fiery death in the commission of murder of thousands to seem a better alternative!

 

I would consider that the killing of civilians. It seems like a very evil ideology to me as well.

You are not showing where it preaches the indiscriminate killing of civilians, which is what terrorism is.

I don’t believe that the discriminate killing of people who are doing you no harm is much better or worse than their indiscriminate killing. Many of the most terrible mass killings, such as the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide, the 1938-1945 Nazi German genocides, and 1994 Rwandan Genocide, were very discriminant, and far more deadly, and in my opinion, deplorable, that the 9-11 attacks.

 

Ultimately, condemning such actions as incorrect interpretations of religious or secular moral principles seems to me to serve mainly to comfort us that these religious and secular principles protect us from such crimes, and that actions like the 9-11 attacks and great genocides are due to some sort of moral apostasy, so if we are more diligent in observing religious and secular moral teaching, we can assure such crimes and atrocities won’t happen. History, however, suggest that they will.

 

Terrible as such killing feels, from a biological perspective, it’s insignificant. We’re a fecund species. Except for instance of extraordinarily effective killing, such as the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no human action has produced periods of negative human population growth lasting for more than seconds. At about 70,000 deaths, the Hiroshima and Hagasaki bombs, by my calculations, set the modern record of a period of negative population growth averaged over about a day. By comparison, 9-11 had about 3,000 deaths in a day, for a negative population growth of about 20 min duration, while none of the great 20th century genocides killed enough people in a short period to produce if for more than a couple of minutes.

 

Biologically, our species has little to fear from ourselves. Disease, and possible giant space rocks, are our real threats.

 

EDIT: These two pages sum up things I have often found in other sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/islamethics/war.shtml

From this BBC article, the italicized part of this verse

If anyone killed a person - unless it was for murder or

for spreading mischief

in the land - it would be as if he killed the whole people

 

Qur'an 5:32

Gives me pause, as in its modern useage, nearly anyone who promotes ideas or practices disapproved of by someone in a position of authority can be judged to be “spreading mischief”.

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/jihad_1.shtml

The rules of military Jihad described in this article, while I believe an accurate description of Islamic teachings, seem to me entirely useless to any military far from parity with their enemy’s. As no Islamic state has a military more than a small fraction of the size, arms, and provisioning needed for parity with the US military, and as no Muslim leader really believes their military could win a conventional war of armies with the US or one of her close allies, such as Israel, this doctrine seems inapplicable, a relic of the small nations and militaries of past centuries.

[Turtle]

the common insidious meme at play is that people can receive information from supernatural sources; everything else is window dressing.

[Eudoxus]

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that religions cause violent impulses in humans. Religions simply, in some circumstances, provide a way to justify violence and remove inhibition. Religion won't make you want to burn a woman at the stake. But if you already don't like her, and your religion gives you an philosophical justification for it (suffer not a witch to live) then you're more likely to commit the violent crime than if that justification had not been provided.

 

Similarly, if you hate the West and Western culture and feel violent urges against Westerners, your inhibitions against violence might stop you... until a preacher with a book comes along and convinces you otherwise.

 

 

 

And frankly, a religion's holy texts are probably the least important thing about it. I mean, all the Christian denominations base their faith on (more or less) the same book, yet have totally different interpretations. That suicide bomber's religion is more based on the preacher's word than it is on the Quran. It doesn't matter what the Quran says, it matters what the preacher draws from it and what the follower hears from the preacher. Religions are not books, they're... wait for it... memes. They exist in the mind and are transmitted by words. Sometimes those words are printed, sometimes they're spoken, but the religion is the sum total of the supernatural beliefs of the believer, not just what his holy book says.

 

The bible and the Quran and the Torah are basically big quote books that can be used to justify what philosophical position one wants (within certain narrative constraints, of course). You can cherry pick and justify ANYTHING using the Bible or Quran. And Christianity were based on the Quran, and Islam were based on the Bible, I don't think the character of the civilizations and people would change all that much, beyond superficial theological changes.

Edited March 26, 2012 by Eudoxus