Got a link for this "theory"?
I thought it was more or less mandatory to at least provide a link to even well accepted science, let alone spurious theologising?
Anyway....a Bishop (who is a Emeritus Professor of Genetics) has found scientific evidence that religious belief is a viral mental illness which is passed on from parents to children and spreads rapidly through schools where already infected families choose to send the off-spring.The virus is most prevalent amongst the poor and uneducated populations of third world countries but has maintained a strong foothold even in the developed world, having been endemic when these countries also exhibited high ratio's of poor and uneducated.
There is evidence the virus has been prevalent since humankind inhabited caves in the rift valleys of southern Europe and Africa but there was an explosion of cases, leading to a Pandemic with the first appearance of the resistant X1AN strain about 2000 years ago in the middle east. The X1AN strain was assisted in it's spread by the establishment of "Carrier Colonies" which arose in the 3rd and 4th centuries, which actively promoted the gathering of whole communities weekly to aid the spread of the virus.
I read that somewhere I think....