>Hmmm, scary thought...we pass these viruses (replicate) them from mind to mind? Entirely possible. Sort-of like a country state of conciousness intead of an individual state of conciousness... of course the same could be said for the belief in God...he exists in the brains of billions of people...

Yep, religion is a pretty good meme.

By "good" I mean "very good at what it does, which is replicating from one mind to another" and not a value judgement from a human perspective in any sense.

Take a look at memetics. Its been a pretty useful concept for me in deciphering many points of view and their related actions. I think it was only conjectured sometime during the 70's by Richard Dawkins (in the book _The Selfish Gene_).

Edit- I found the chapter, though I'd read the whole book to understand memetics relation to game theory and genetics:
http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html