Viruses are dead or perhaps at a junction between life and death. They have no method of independent propulsion and cannot reproduce on their own. They cannot produce energy. All that they have in common with living creatures is a token amount of DNA or RNA, and that is devoted mostly to instructions that guide reproduction.
When a virus gets into a cell (and the cell takes it in, like a butler), then the cell allows its "brain" or nucleus to be replaced in part by the virion's "brain". The cell then devotes its machinery to reproducing the virus.
Some viruses work in a different way, incorporating themselves into the cell's DNA and remaining more or less dormant for a period of time. I have at least three such viruses that I know of, warts on the face (HPV), probably from kissing, the chickenpox and a cold sore (herpes HSV Type 1) virus. Under stress, the viruses can sometimes manifest themselves at the original site of infection. In the case of the chickenpox, shingles arose on my back once during an arduous ocean voyage. In the case of the cold sore, it is to the right of my chin. It is likely that I was infected in high school, possibly on purpose, from an infected person. I do not remember the specific incident, but there were many bad things that happened in school, and anything is possible. When the sore arose, I had no idea what it was and just assumed it was acne, and no one told me differently. There is a great deal of ignorance about such matters and even those who know prefer to be silent due to the stigma attached to kissing or so-called sexually transmitted diseases. I seldom get the cold sore anymore, though it recurred often up to my thirties. I have not gotten any wart outbreaks in over ten years.
I can appreciate the wisdom of abstinence education, because in retrospect my early sexual and romantic experiences were devoid of any deep meaning, and I would have been better off without them. I fell in love with most of my early partners, but they were only interested in sex, which seemed strange to me both then and now. I could not understand the motive. Why not masturbate, if sex is all that one is after? I do not understand why one would go to the trouble of meeting someone, getting to know them, becoming their friend or at least pretending, and then risking all the STD's and other maladies in the world in order to do a sex act, typically in the dark or in a parked car somewhere and under the influence of alcohol, only to move on to someone else for the sake of variety. It seems like an awful lot of trouble, and in the end one is left with no true friends and a lot of people that know too much.
However wise abstinence may be, I still believe it is important to teach young people the methods of safer sex, because I remember how I felt in my younger days. Young people want to experience love, romance and sex. Their entire biology is calculated to make them want to do it. In addition, all of our culture inspires them with the desire to experience these things. It is easy for old farts that never get any to sit back and say, "wait until marriage." For those that can manage to do that, the reward is, potentially, a life free from the annoyances of the HPV or HSV viruses and other maladies and the potential cancer risks arising from them. However, even in that scenario, there is no guarantee that one's marriage partner will be free of disease.
The ultimate solution is for mankind to develop vaccines and other cures for viruses and bacteria. This is a worthier goal than invading dunghills around the world and sorting out ignorant fanatics. If the West cures a disease, we do not necessarily have to go around sharing our medicine with fanatical enemies that want to kill us. I think the West could use a bit more discretion in choosing where to send aid and resources. Any aid to Uganda, for example, is an act of evil, because that nation has decided to emulate Nazi Germany.
Perhaps viruses operate in beneficial as well as harmful ways. We are aware of some of the harmful things that they do. For instance, it is now known that many viruses cause cancer by interfering with their host cell's DNA. Interfering with DNA can cause mutations, as well. Mutations are usually harmful, but every once in a while, there could be beneficial effects. Change is good, not usually on an individual scale, but on a species-wide scale.
Where do viruses originate from? My textbook does not have the answer to that, although it points out that viruses can exchange DNA with other viruses within a host cell and form different viruses. I think that the more that we learn about viruses, the more we will learn about the origins of life itself. There are many secrets remaining to be unraveled from viruses. It could be that the original life form on the planet earth was a virus that arrived from outer space on a meteorite. Viruses do not need food, and perhaps they could survive for millions of years on a galactic voyage. Of course, the endospores of bacteria do not require food either, nor the seeds of plants. Scientists have managed to cultivate colonies based upon bacterial endospores found in the intestinal gut of insects captured in amber twenty-five million years ago.
The line between living things and dead things becomes rather blurry and confused when one thinks about viruses, endospores, and seeds. Living or dead? Neither. An adjustment is required in the thinking of the student.
We are a bit of code that managed to get itself into a large apparatus, that is, our body. The code itself is nonliving--just a series of instructions, like a technical manual, without any philosophy or personality to speak of. Why did our DNA become us? What is the purpose? Perhaps looking for a purpose is a mistake. In the material world, things happen in accordance with the laws of physics. The Universe itself has a certain DNA about it, a series of unwritten rules similar to our DNA, which is a series of instructions for encoding proteins. Gravity happens because it has to happen. We happen because we have to happen. Perhaps the creative force of the Universe, God if you will, is simply an artist and a bit of a mad scientist.
Why do humans own pets? Perhaps the same reason that God chose to have bacteria, archae, plants, fungi, animals, and human beings develop on the planet Earth, and who knows what else develop elsewhere.
Maybe everything is an illusion, an imagined space in the mind of a being that is capable of creating a vast and highly detailed Universe.
I could go on. I get weary thinking about these matters. They are mind-blowing. Like most humans, I prefer to think of myself in more personal terms. Besides, I'm hungry, and my DNA has engineered me to eat when hungry.
I do feel strange writing about God, however. I am afraid that living in a community awash with religiosity and superstition has led to the insertion of memes into my consciousness. It is not possible to drive anywhere in my town without seeing signs and other manifestations of other people's religious beliefs. Also, some people of my acquaintance, including my professor, tend to talk about God.
Is there a God? I am an atheist in regard to the Christian faith, and moreover Islam and the other religions, but I do hold a possibility that there might be some kind of being beyond my capacity to understand that set all Creation into being. My opinions upon this are vague, and I intend for them to remain vague and amenable to adaptation as I reflect upon the question. I believe it is a grave error to hold fixed assumptions about the nature of God based upon ancient texts or the teachings of superstitious men that claim to know every whim and fancy of the one deity, as though they are holding his hand and have their fingers on his pulse. They know nothing. Charlatans. If I were god, I'd be angry at them. But perhaps god is amused by them and plays tricks on them.
There are many things I don't know and would like to know more about. Nothing interests me more than science, and I think that through science, mankind stands the best chance of learning the mind of God. That sentence sounds trite, and I'm a bit suspicious of it. Perhaps it is another meme from television or the internet.
God may not be such a great guy, after all. Perhaps we are more ethical than God is. God could even be a bastard. Perhaps he feels guilty for all of the bad tricks he has played on the human race and the animal kingdom. In that case, there is plenty of time for him to make amends. I could use a half-million dollars, myself. That would set me up for life.
