Religious fanaticism is a result of some kind of parasite taking hold of the brain.
But these are not physical parasites. They are memes. Units of social order.
To see this more clearly it is helpful to look at Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle. But at the time of Howard Bloom this was stated without the information that came to light about parasites being able to take over one's mind. as in Toxoplasmosis.
But false and evil memes do get around and do try to get into people's heads.
Howard Bloom is more or less going with the idea of the super organism which attempts to get people. Once it gets them it imprints its meme into their neural network in a way that can not be taken out afterward. But in the time of Bloom the studies by Sapolsky and others about parasites taking over one's brain were unknown.
But to me it seems clear this is what is going on in the religious world. And this explains the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication. For the Gra realized this and decided to take a drastic measure even though he was ignored afterwards.
It is sad that Rav Shach also was ignored even though he pointed out the same problems.
I ought to add that keeping Torah should have has nothing to do with religious fanaticism.However for some reason it is the insane fanatics that have the reputation of keeping Torah. But a close examination will show that the religious world is basically a fraud. They use Torah for show, rather than keep Torah.
But these are not physical parasites. They are memes. Units of social order.
To see this more clearly it is helpful to look at Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle. But at the time of Howard Bloom this was stated without the information that came to light about parasites being able to take over one's mind. as in Toxoplasmosis.
But false and evil memes do get around and do try to get into people's heads.
Howard Bloom is more or less going with the idea of the super organism which attempts to get people. Once it gets them it imprints its meme into their neural network in a way that can not be taken out afterward. But in the time of Bloom the studies by Sapolsky and others about parasites taking over one's brain were unknown.
But to me it seems clear this is what is going on in the religious world. And this explains the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication. For the Gra realized this and decided to take a drastic measure even though he was ignored afterwards.
It is sad that Rav Shach also was ignored even though he pointed out the same problems.
I ought to add that keeping Torah should have has nothing to do with religious fanaticism.However for some reason it is the insane fanatics that have the reputation of keeping Torah. But a close examination will show that the religious world is basically a fraud. They use Torah for show, rather than keep Torah.
