The Significance of a “Brave New World” Huxley is trying to get a lesson across, that technology is destroying the basics of society: family, cultural diversity, art, literature, science, religion and philosophy. He specifically uses John for this purpose. He also uses John to get his warning across about socialist and communist attitudes and to some degree his opposition to a capitalist consumer society. He uses some of the themes of the book to warn humanity as a whole about the use of technology to control society, the dangers of an all-powerful state and the incompatibility of happiness and truth. These warnings are relevant to today’s society because technology and media are changing the way we look at human feelings and rights, trying to avoid a society where people are not so much denied human rights such as free speech and expression but conditioned to not care.
The movement towards socialism in the 1920’s for example becomes the totalitarian state, the growth in materialism transforms into a form of religion- where humans are mass produced and henry ford is god- and depicts the end of the traditional and familiar life which becomes a strange and sterile modern state. This in turn shows how the stability people were craving would result in the depravation of humanity, beauty and love and that this craved perfect world is an achievement that requires too great a sacrifice. The 1930’s also brought a new questioning of morality, especially regarding sex. The traditional Victorian values were being challenged and whilst society was split; some condemning it as the end of civilisation and others the beginning of individual freedom Huxley uses the issue to shock, mocking the trend in his novel with the depiction of ‘erotic play’ between children, and the image of Lenina being scolded for not being promiscuous enough, implying that whilst the sexual rules may well change the conventions will remain the same just in reverse. Furthermore Huxley purposely used the names of historical and political figures, who serve as inspiration for the main characters.
Society's religious beliefs of God being the only procreator were threatened by science as Victor has attempted to play the role of God by procreating, as the creature's language suggests "natural lord" "my creator", and uses religiously negative language throughout the novel, for instance "I bore a hell within me which nothing could extinguish" Through this, Shelley is demonstrating society's belief that scientific exploration cannot replace the role that nature plays in creating a natural world; it is portrayed as a threat to the natural world through Victor's line "I pursued nature to her hiding places" which shows that Victor is disturbing nature. This notion is reinforced through Victor's destructive language when describing the creature's appearance, for example "The deformity of its aspects" "demoniacal corpse"; it is evidently physically ugly and repelling. This provides a contrast to several characters created by nature,
Although they have unlike methods, both Hedges and Dawkins aim to scoff at advocates of religion by focusing on what their beliefs entail and then attempt to discredit them with their own beliefs. American Fascists and The God Delusion both discredit religion and believers but in their own ways. American Fascist primarily focuses on the modern movement used by Christians known as pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but lacks supporting evidence and does not stand by a legitimate scientific method. “The movement’s leaders dress up this ideology as scientific to discredit real science.”(Hedges 5) Hedges argument against pseudoscience is that it was only created to reassure believers that evolution is not only a myth but also there is a one-hundred percent probability that it never happened backed by what they consider scientific fact.
“God must be Evil” The question “is God evil?” is asked very often with both sides of the question offering different answers to this question with no definitive answer coming about but in both cases people coming out with very convincing arguments for both sides of the story. Some people argue that God is indeed evil because he is omniscient and because of his omniscience he knows that from the moment he decided to create us maybe even before then he knew which of us would reject him thus securing a place in hell for them or would sin again securing them a place in hell and yet does nothing about this. This is a major contradiction to his supposedly being omnibenevolent and some people even go so far as to use examples of murder and rape which are horrific events which they then use to say “how can a loving God allow such a thing to happen?” They then go further into it saying how as God is omnipresent and can see everything that has happened, will happen and is happening he must take some sort of sick pleasure in watching these events occur and so is evil. Or at the very least by allowing such a horrific event to happen without some form of justice or stopping them then he has to be evil as only an evil person would let evil acts go unpunished. Sam Harris uses this idea in one of his quotes saying that “Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes or he doesn’t care to or he doesn’t exist.
By victor claiming he can produce life, it lowers the potency of the soul itself and belittles its creation - this is blasphemy and would have been outrageous for the Victorian’s as it was seen as taboo to promote science and challenge religion. Sutton¹ says that this idea “Gnaws at the autocracy of the soul, by sporting with the possibility that man is capable of ‘making’ himself…” “Gnaws” implies that both Victor and Dr Jekyll are trying to explore deeper into the world of science in an attempt to achieve something powerful, but it connotes that this is deemed a negative thing. “Autocracy” refers to absolute authority or power, which in this case is associated with God, so if the soul can be replicated by one such as itself then this lessens its absolute authority. Whilst creating the monster, Victor gathered body parts from other dead being’s, which brings the question of where then; does the monster’s consciousness come from? This is clearly a deliberate denial of God.
By locating its concern on the issues about morality and violence andexploring the limits of human cruelty Waiting for the Barbarians challenges humanityand imperialism in several ways. Presenting a psychoanalytic discussion of Waiting for the Barbarians this study focuses on the impact of fear in human psyche andimperialism’s self destructive power. How far fear and anxiety can go and how far members of society can follow a blind power is the main concern of this essay. AsCoetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians is an allegorical novel, this essay will try tointerpret the allegories created in relation to the tensions raised in the novel. The examination of the critiques raised in the book, may be broken down into thefollowing main components.
Despite this, his synderesis rule consequently cannot be applied to all situations when dealing with issues concerning the environment as it is impossible to ‘avoid evil’ completely. When dealing with an issue such as pollution for example, a follower of natural law could interpret it as evil as it contributes to the destruction of God’s creation, and also causing harm to some humans in the form of asthma. The theory would eradicate pollution altogether, though this is very unrealistic as pollution has to be committed in some degree in order for the world to function as it does today. Therefore natural law is of no use when dealing with issues concerning the environment due to the fact that its arguments cannot be applied to every situation. A further way in which natural law
He believed that life is meaningless and that we have no souls, so we should therefore grasp everything that the world has to offer whilst we can as there is no chance of an afterlife in his perspective. Neitzche also said that everyone should strive to seek pleasure and success wherever it could be found, he also thought religious beliefs to be false. But what did Neitzche mean by God is ‘dead’? He felt that religious outlook is no longer credible for the modern intellectual person. He meant that humans had advanced their understanding of the natural world enough to realize that the literal teachings of the religions that espoused God were not true.
Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion: A Critical Review One of the great myths propagated in popular culture, but refuted by most reputable theologians, historians and scientists, is the alleged ‘conflict’ model of science and religion. As soon as one begins to properly engage with the issues at a scholarly level, the complexities and nuances of the debate are revealed. The misleading representation of the dialogue as a battle between Evolution and Creation is a complete over-simplification which leaves one cold and unsatisfied. In truth, many respected figures from theological and scientific backgrounds are willing to address the ‘conflict’ with sensitivity, intelligence and respect. Unfortunately, as is often the case in all areas of life, it is the loudest and most aggressive voices which seem to make it to the forefront of the expansive discourse.