Beerdude26
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! SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE BOOK NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT !
This thought popped up while I was reading 1984 by George Orwell: Religion (I'm going to take Christianity as the main religion here because I am best familiarized with it) looks a lot like The Party in 1984. I'll explain why:
In 1984, The Party has been accepted by the younger generations as something unmovable, something untouchable. It will always be there, no matter what anyone ever does. Julia (in the book) also believes this without reluctance or questioning.
Recently, I read a text during religion class about God. What it described was incredibly reminiscent to the above description. More creepy than interesting. It was about a religious philosopher who was completely convinced that no matter what you did, said or thought, God would always be there. He surpassed you in any shape, way or form. He was completely untouchable; a Big Brother, permanently watching you from the sky.
In 1984, The Party had only been in power for a few decades (for around 70 years?), and already they had indoctrinised the entire population that The Party was here to stay, forever; untouchable.
It seems to me that religion (Keep Christianity in mind here) has reached the same goal, but they had MILLENIA to get to it, and while they lacked the technological prowess that 1984 possessed, this was also their strong point: people actually believed in God because there was so much left unexplained.
There are even unreal similarities drawn between the two: In 1984, sex is not to be fun; it is suppossed to be filthy, dispicable, a necessary evil to be avoided at all costs if possible. Let's look at Christianity. Ring a bell?
Another analogy: If you openly opposed The Party in 1984, the Thought Police would get you and you would be assassinated. While Christianity didn't have any actual police of the kind, they did have the zealous followers to jump in the gap (Just like Party Members in 1984 were ever-paranoid of each other). Any discrepancy was instantly noticed and scrutinized. Nowadays, we call it "superstition". Back then, it was as correct as Big Brother meant it to be: infidels, non-believers, underminers of the system, godless heathens. They stoned people because of this, they burned "witches" because of this. Even today, people murder "In the name of God". For me, it is absolutely bone-chilling to see the crystal clear parallel between the two.
But where does it end? In 1984, people have lost the right to actually live their life to the fullest. Sex is out of the picture, food and drink is incredibly low-quality and love and compassion are soon-to-be-extinct words. Anything else is undesirable, because it undermines the permanency of The Party.
This leaves us a final question:
How have 2 millenia of religion held us back? Of course, Winston was of an older generation; he had vague memories of how it used to be. But we are hundreds of generations beyond the beginning of Christianity. We have absolutely no idea at all how life was before Christianity. Sure, it probably started out of goodwill, but it has been so abused and misinterpreted that it might have twisted certain perceptions on our reality. An example would be sex. We used to think that sex was a dirty thing, a filthy thing, only to be used for procreation and nothing else. Anyone who thought anything else was denounced as a whore, a slut, a prostitute (meaning both sexes here btw). Now, we've managed to crawl out of that dogma, but there are many others. Homosexuality is still heavily discriminated by the church, as is abortion and euthanasia.
If the church had not expelled these ideas but instead approched them in a scientific way, we wouldn't have this situation. But now that Christianity feels that its permanent reign is finally fading, it is trying to stem the revolution by trying to hold back these ideas and concepts as much as possible; an absolutely ludicrous and appalling act that would be done by The Party without remorse.
Maybe Big Brother isn't forever, but a mere figure for The Party to hide behind. And if you take down either one, the other will undoubtedly follow. I wonder how life would be like after Big Brother. I wonder how life would be like after God.
This thought popped up while I was reading 1984 by George Orwell: Religion (I'm going to take Christianity as the main religion here because I am best familiarized with it) looks a lot like The Party in 1984. I'll explain why:
In 1984, The Party has been accepted by the younger generations as something unmovable, something untouchable. It will always be there, no matter what anyone ever does. Julia (in the book) also believes this without reluctance or questioning.
Recently, I read a text during religion class about God. What it described was incredibly reminiscent to the above description. More creepy than interesting. It was about a religious philosopher who was completely convinced that no matter what you did, said or thought, God would always be there. He surpassed you in any shape, way or form. He was completely untouchable; a Big Brother, permanently watching you from the sky.
In 1984, The Party had only been in power for a few decades (for around 70 years?), and already they had indoctrinised the entire population that The Party was here to stay, forever; untouchable.
It seems to me that religion (Keep Christianity in mind here) has reached the same goal, but they had MILLENIA to get to it, and while they lacked the technological prowess that 1984 possessed, this was also their strong point: people actually believed in God because there was so much left unexplained.
There are even unreal similarities drawn between the two: In 1984, sex is not to be fun; it is suppossed to be filthy, dispicable, a necessary evil to be avoided at all costs if possible. Let's look at Christianity. Ring a bell?
Another analogy: If you openly opposed The Party in 1984, the Thought Police would get you and you would be assassinated. While Christianity didn't have any actual police of the kind, they did have the zealous followers to jump in the gap (Just like Party Members in 1984 were ever-paranoid of each other). Any discrepancy was instantly noticed and scrutinized. Nowadays, we call it "superstition". Back then, it was as correct as Big Brother meant it to be: infidels, non-believers, underminers of the system, godless heathens. They stoned people because of this, they burned "witches" because of this. Even today, people murder "In the name of God". For me, it is absolutely bone-chilling to see the crystal clear parallel between the two.
But where does it end? In 1984, people have lost the right to actually live their life to the fullest. Sex is out of the picture, food and drink is incredibly low-quality and love and compassion are soon-to-be-extinct words. Anything else is undesirable, because it undermines the permanency of The Party.
This leaves us a final question:
How have 2 millenia of religion held us back? Of course, Winston was of an older generation; he had vague memories of how it used to be. But we are hundreds of generations beyond the beginning of Christianity. We have absolutely no idea at all how life was before Christianity. Sure, it probably started out of goodwill, but it has been so abused and misinterpreted that it might have twisted certain perceptions on our reality. An example would be sex. We used to think that sex was a dirty thing, a filthy thing, only to be used for procreation and nothing else. Anyone who thought anything else was denounced as a whore, a slut, a prostitute (meaning both sexes here btw). Now, we've managed to crawl out of that dogma, but there are many others. Homosexuality is still heavily discriminated by the church, as is abortion and euthanasia.
If the church had not expelled these ideas but instead approched them in a scientific way, we wouldn't have this situation. But now that Christianity feels that its permanent reign is finally fading, it is trying to stem the revolution by trying to hold back these ideas and concepts as much as possible; an absolutely ludicrous and appalling act that would be done by The Party without remorse.
Maybe Big Brother isn't forever, but a mere figure for The Party to hide behind. And if you take down either one, the other will undoubtedly follow. I wonder how life would be like after Big Brother. I wonder how life would be like after God.
