#31 Theopanspermia

Hypothesis that religious belief was introduced to humanity via extraplanetary viral transmission.  
Man at bus stop: "Do you have the time?"

Me: "It's, uh, 4:37."

Man at bus stop: "Good. Now listen. Do you believe in God?"

Me: "Not really."

Man at bus stop: "The belief in God, in a God, whether it's polytheism or monotheism, it doesn't matter. The source is the same. It's a sickness."

Me: "Yeah..."

Man at bus stop: "No, I mean that literally. It's literally a sickness; it's an infection, a viral infection. From outer space."

Me: "Hmm..." 

Man at bus stop: "Religion was created by a highly advanced alien civilization. Very smart, a very smart race. Smarter than us. Way, way smarter. They were advanced enough to know that other advanced, sentient civilizations could pose a threat, eventually. So, they did what any rational civilization would do. They invented a virus that would infect the forebrain of intelligent life forms. You got a smoke?"

Me: "Sorry, no."

Man at bus stop: "Why you ask, did they do this? They did it to slow us down. What impedes progress more than religion? Few things. It's a hindrance to scientific progress, social progress, sexual progress, even moral progress. Think about it. All these people around the world killing each other in the name of religion. Been like that for a long time. Foolish, isn't it?"

Me: "Yeah, it is."

Man at bus stop: "The next obvious question is, how did they get the virus here? The universe is a big place. You can't just zip around in flying saucers like on TV. No, that's nuts. It's a waste of gas. You wouldn't have the resources to pull that off. Most civilizations don't. No sir. They did it the only way any rational civilization would do it. They built an army of solar-powered self-replicating robots to spread the virus. The robot lands on a comet, an asteroid, a meteorite. You know, they just settle in on that thing for little while, dig a hole, plant the virus. Their work is done and they move on to the next space rock. And the virus just lies there dormant. Just sits around biding its time. Playing virus solitaire. Doing push ups, you know. That's how it's devised. It just sits there waiting and waiting. It's hearty too. They build 'em hearty. Got to build 'em hearty because you got to be tough enough to tolerate the extreme temperatures of space, solar winds, radiation. All that hostile space stuff."

Me: "Wow."

Man at bus stop: "One of those little meteors eventually makes it's way to the Milky Way, sails right through the Kuiper belt, penetrates the Earth's atmosphere. Boom. Bang. Boom. You've got yourself the Chickxulub crater right off the Yucatan Peninsula. You know the rest of the story. The dinosaurs die off. Some little marmot-type critter survives, one thing leads to another, and you end up with monkeys who think they're too good to be monkeys. And, of course, you've got alien viruses lying dormant, just waiting to infect some poor mammal's brain. This is what theopanspermia is all about. It's in all mammals probably but only manifests itself in species with more advanced cognition. I'm thinking the virus uses some form of bacteria as a delivery mechanism. That would make the most sense. Oxygen, I gather, is the catalyst that brings the bacteria to life, which spreads all over the place willy-nilly. You know, that stuff's everywhere. Spores. In the gut. In the water, on land, in the sky. It's everywhere. Stuff's everywhere. It's a Trojan horse for the virus. If we ever find a cure for religion and get rid of it, like Lenon said, we'll probably start programming the viruses ourselves. You got the time?"

Root: theism + panspermia