(From Mark): George Orwell's 1984 is an important book, and probably deserves all the praise that has been lapped on it over the generations. But did organized religion beat Orwell by a couple thousand years? If you think about it, fundamentalist Christianity is a very Orwellian religion. Who needs Big Brother when you've got an omniscient God? Who needs the Thought Police when there are slick televangelists and ministers condemning anything that even looks like it might fall outside their narrow belief system? (Or do televangelists embody the Two Minutes Hate more? I can't decide - they go with both so well.) If you look at most Christian fundamentalists, you'll find the same unthinking obedience and duplicity of thought that characterizes the Party - and the same need to demonize anything they can't control or understand. Isn't it doublethink when you ignore scientific facts that contradict your faith? Or when you claim to spread the love and "good news" of Christ even as you encourage persecution and hate crimes against atheists, pagans, Catholics, eastern religions, and homosexuals? What about when you believe in God's faultlessness, even when the Bible itself shows him regretting things and changing his mind? Or when you rant against the "hedonist atheists" even as you yourself are guilty of fornication and fraud? How about when you rant about the Second Coming even though the Bible describes it as a ridiculous tale that any other mythology would have thrown right out, not to mention something that could never happen across an infinite universe? The Party portrays itself as infallible and Big Brother as omnipotent - and so it is with Christian fundamentalists and God. Both depend on you to ignore the evidence of your own eyes. Sin? Thoughtcrime. Satan? Goldstein. Both traitors used to be real high up before they rebelled, almost on a level with God/Big Brother himself. We should remember that fundamentalists literally believe Satan's influence is pervasive, just like Party members are made to believe Goldstein's Brotherhood is constantly working against them. Never mind that there is never anything to prove that either Satan or the Brotherhood actually exist. And while we're on the subject, hell sounds a lot like the Ministry of Love - "The object of torture is torture." (The Party is more benevolent than God, though - at least they will let you out once the pain and cruelty have broken your mind.) Both are places where cowards have sent heroes. Then there's Christ's death on the cross and the good news for mankind. Just like the Party's Revolution, where Big Brother heroically defeated the tyrant capitalists and established "freedom". Both revolutions were betrayed - the Popes of the Dark Ages were content to make kings kiss their feet, and even now the fundamentalists try to dominate every school board and political office in sight. The Party went on to instigate horrors no capitalist could ever dream of, and the Catholic Church dwarfed every persecution the early Christians ever suffered. The fundamentalists today want to keep those fires burning - sinners and those Satanic atheists and faggots should never be tolerated in society...just like how the Party can't stand a single deviant thought anywhere, no matter how secret or powerless it may be. And speaking of Catholicism, the fact that fundamentalists despise the Catholic Church - the oldest form of Christianity - never looks good. Just like how the Party eventually vaporized the Revolution's original leaders. (I don't see what the conflict is about. The fundamentalists hold all the worst attitudes the Catholic Church ever did. Oh, yeah - doublethink. I keep forgetting.) Hell, the comparison between Christian fundamentalism and the Party is so close, you don't even have to change the Party's infamous slogans. WAR IS PEACE? If you took away the delusion that humanity needs to be saved from Satanic forces, I doubt most Christian fundamentalists would know what to do with themselves. It seems they're never more at home than when they're imagining yet another specter for their followers to be terrified or outraged at. Andrew White beat me to saying it: "The main doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God." FREEDOM IS SLAVERY? Fundamentalists tell me over and over that while I might feel free for not sharing their beliefs, it just makes me a slave of Satan. The individual is always defeated, says the Party. Doing what we want or enjoy (even our basic human rights) always leads to ruin and death, say the Christian fundamentalists. As with the Party, the slogan's reverse is also believed by the fundamentalists - slavery is freedom. Believing in the absurd, repressive claptrap that they take from the Bible is supposed to make us "free". IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH? One word: Creationism. A few more: who was told not to eat from the "Tree of Knowledge"? It never fails - Christian fundamentalists always argue the hardest against what they understand the least. For example, why do many of them still think [fill in the blank] is an occult (ooops, now it's "secular humanist") lure into murder and suicide, despite having no evidence that will stand up with any secular organization even remotely concerned with murder, suicide, and mental illness? Oh, wait, almost forgot - that's because Satan's influence has got them fooled real good. There just isn't any reasoning with fundamentalists. Which is exactly the point - any good fundamentalist can tell you faith is far more important than the world's logic or knowledge. The worst ones will even say that faith is the only logic and knowledge. Kind of like how the only way to see reality is through the eyes of the Party. How many fingers, Winston? Many people saw 1984 as a warning against communism, but it's really a warning against fascism. Politics aren't the only breeding ground for it - the Christians have demonstrated this from pretty much the first moment they gained any kind of power. I couldn't help but see how easily the Party could have been a Christian theocracy - without changing a single facet of how it operates. I'm not saying the Party and the Christian right are an absolute, perfect match. But the similarities are blatant. And growing. If this is their idea of "salvation", they can keep it.
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