A Brave New World: Religion and its Society

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Society in all cultures share a common trait: Religion. Studying religion in any society reveals many of their traits and explains the actions of the individual. For example, Jewish people live their lives according to what was written in the Talmud and the Torah. They respect the Sabbath and also eat Kosher meat. Even when looking at Huxley's A Brave New World, analyzing religion still helps us understand the actions of the societies and characters within the book.

When analyzing religion in any society, one must consider what god the society worships and what purpose that god holds. The `civilized' people in A Brave New World worship the automotive pioneer Henry Ford as their god. But, why is Ford the center of their religion? Henry Ford revolutionized industry altogether by implementing the assembly line. The assembly line brought forth a more efficient way of manufacturing goods through mass production for consumption by the public. It was well known to the `civilized' society that this ideology was incorporated into their daily lives. Even the Director says, "We condition the masses...so that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport" (23). Their society even engineer babies in an assembly-line like fashion and one of their main motives in life is to buy and use many consumer goods. Therefore, Ford would be the ideal god for their society.

The `civilized' society is not the only society in A Brave New World. An analysis of the `savage' society must be made as well in order to fully understand how religion plays a part with the characters in the novel. In the `savage' society, the gods worshipped are Pookong and Jesus. Pookong is the God of War to the Hopi Indians and Jesus is the central figure in Christ...

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...on from a past society might not understand his society. "One of the numerous things in heaven and earth that these philosophers didn't dream about was this, us, the modern world." (233)

Huxley's theme of religion shows religion's ability to describe the behavior of society. Society strives to advance forward and with advancement must come change. Religion is something that is not static but that dynamically changes with the times. In Catholicism, the Vatican has changed its policies throughout the times. From paying a tribute for forgiveness of sins to being able to eat meat on Sunday, the policies and religion itself has evolved in order to accommodate to modern principles. So by looking at the religion of a certain society and its history, one can understand the current principles and behavior of the society and also how the society has evolved over time.

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