Spiders, Jesus, and Henry Ford

             Given the nature of spiders, webs are inevitable. And given the nature of human beings, so are religions. Spiders can't help making flytraps, and men can't help making symbols. That's what the human brain is there for-to turn the chaos of given experiences into a set of fairly manageable symbols. Sometimes the symbols correspond fairly closely to some of the aspects of the external reality behind our experience; then you have science and common sense. Sometimes, on the contrary, the symbols have almost no connection with external reality; then you have paranoia and delirium. More often there's a mixture, part realistic and part fantastic; that's religion. Good religion or bad religion-it depends on the blending of the cocktail (Huxley Island,).
             The quote above, by Aldous Huxley illustrates his view of religions. He thought that, in matters of religion, as well as in matters of society, the good or evil lies in the implementation, not the concept (Birnbaum Aldous Huxley's Search, 63). The implementations of religion in Huxley's novel of is symbolic of the manifestations of society in his alternative worlds. Aldous Huxley does not oppose religion or God universally, but he does oppose religions that are misleading and ritualistically useless. An analysis of the religious symbolism in Brave New World would contain ceremonies, icons, and curses. An understanding of this symbolism will help the reader to understand both of these works and their author.
             Religious ceremonies tell us much about the societies that has created them. By viewing the failures of Huxley's fictional religions, the reader gains insight into the worlds they inhabit. There are two distinct divisions of religion in Brave New World, the Fordian and the savage.
             The Fordian religious ceremonies in Brave New World display a system of efficient, but theologically empty religion. If religious ceremonies are designed only for eff...

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