I may very well be the one not getting it (english is not my first language and I am sleepy at the moment).

Allow me to try to rephrase your explanation: it states that religion act as a kind of shield for the brain[1] (this is bliss) while at the same time blinding him to hard facts[2] (this is ignorance). Did I read too much in your explanation or summarized too much ?

[1] external influences

[2] the ability to freely reason about data specifically and the environment generally

No, that is sort of what I meant to say, except that I would never use the word bliss for describing the state of a host brain. You could argue about the meaning of ignorance, but I really don't think this catch phrase fits well with the statement I tried to make. Competitive inhibition is a more apt term for what's actually going on.

Ah, yes! It just hit me. [Here was an incoherent rambling from someone who really should go to sleep]. Your explanation fitted my biased model but I focused on my beliefs, not yours. My mistake, sorry. Don't know if I made much sense, really sleepy now :]

On a related note, I remember Dawkins spoke about memes and how ideas can be seen as some kind of virus that are subject to evolution.

I'm willing to talk about it on your terms, you don't have to bend to my mental models. I just don't have enough data yet to reason about yours ;)

> On a related note, I remember Dawkins spoke about memes and how ideas can be seen as some kind of virus that are subject to evolution.

I haven't read his books yet, but this stands to reason. Memes share a lot of characteristics with organisms, and humanity has built a great eco system for them in recent years. The first time I realized that ideas are actually evolutionary programs was in the 90s when I read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.