Creationism in Orwell's 1984

rickyroma · Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:43 am Post subject: Creationism in Orwell's 1984

Is denying evolutionary biology as absurd as denying that 2 and 2 make 4?

Quite literally yes:

[Winston:] 'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.'

[O'Brien:] 'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'

'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals -- mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.'

'Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.'

'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars ! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'

'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'

George Orwell, 1984
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redraiderdude187 · Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 9:31 am Post subject: Re: Creationism in Orwell's 1984

Ophis · Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 3:34 pm Post subject:

1984 seems to me much closer to religion than to any authoritarian regime. This is especially obvious in Winston's conversion in the last couple of pages. Pretty much every theme in that book is analogous to some major aspect of Christianity.

Specus_Meretricis · Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 5:17 pm Post subject:

I would think it has a lot more to do with that societies need to "cleanse the past" and have total control over all thoughts. If they supported science, it would just naturally lead to questioning Big Brother or the leadership. By saying "there is only us and we are all that matters", you are basically saying "Nothing will change, so do not envision a world without us in control of it"
Not that it isn't a criticism of Church, but I took it more to be a way of preventing anyone from eventually wanting to overthrow the government.
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SalsaShark · Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 6:27 pm Post subject:

rickyroma · Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 12:38 am Post subject:

Everyone I know interprets 1984 to suit their own opinions. Christians will tell you it is a parable against atheistic states such as the Soviets and North Korea; capitalists that it is about the evils of communism; socialists that it is about the evils of inequalities in wealth and power; atheists that it is a metaphor for religion.
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Friend · Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 2:01 am Post subject:

The book is a response to personality cults, be they based either on the fictional super attributes given to a real-life leader figure (aka. Kim Jong-il, Mao), or fictional super attributes given to an imagined Wizard of Oz like leader figure (aka. Bible God, and other fictional religious gods). It describes a society which relies on misinformation, and ignorance to maintain authoritarian order. Which is why any form of government secrecy, or other cultish group secrecy is so pernicious. Take for example Islamic suicide bombers. A major reason why they keep coming is because they are conditioned as pubescent teens to think their cause is all holy Big Brother by middle-aged Islamic extremists who expect their young people to respect manager seniority status.

Nimitz · Guest Local time: 6:05 PM

Rickyroma said:

rickyroma · Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 7:00 am Post subject:

rickyroma · Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 7:01 am Post subject:

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