Was Wells making a religious point??

[Killraven]

"Listen..do you hear them drawing near, in their search for the sinners?!"

OK, so that was a line from the Musical. But with the character of the Curate [nee parson], are we to believe that Wells was merely describing the gradual disintegration of a man's personality and faith, and ultimately his sanity, in being presented with a horror that was beyond his understanding or imagination?

...or is the writer making a more sweeping commentary on his personal views of Christianity or religion in general??

Discuss.

[Colonel]

I've always thought Wells attacked Christianity in the WOTW book.

[Killraven]

Colonel said:

I've always thought Wells attacked Christianity in the WOTW book.

Please expand Colonel

[Colonel]

Well, I'm not a perfect reader of the english language, and I haven't read the book in a while now (cause' my friend have borrowed it too long now! ) so correct me if i'm wrong.

But I've always thought that the curate was some kind of a representation of christianity, and he's quiet unreasonable and stupid (just like religion in general, according to my opinion.). And so because he can't see the facts and is just living in his own little imagined world he get's himself killed, and almost getting the journalist killed in the process.

[Ogilvy]

Another thing to wonder about.
In the last part of Chapter 14 it reads:
"His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing-gown and shawl; her husband followed, ejaculating"!

[jeffwaynefan]

Ermmmmmm, Wells turning kinky eh!

Its just a old term referance to "utter abruptly"

[Killraven]

Methinks this is wandering off topic..

[Charles]

"What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent."

The Curate's inability to face the Martian invasion in terms other than apocalyptic reflects Wells' own disgust at the habit of the pious to meekly resign themselves to unpleasant or difficult circumstances as 'the will of God.' This is direct commentary on the kind of ultra-pious Calvinist faith his mother held and had attempted to instill in him and his brothers.

[ClaytonForrester]

I have always regarded Wells as somewhat of an intolerant prig on the subject of religious faith.He was a Rationalist,which means that he had no beleif in anything other than what he could see,touch, taste and smell.?To a degree,science was his religion,which means that his refrerence to a saving God at the conclusion of the book was probably thrown in to placate Christian readers.Of course,Herbert George was somewhat the 'eclectic' Victorian,trying out new theories,applications,and methods as if they were basically the fad of the day;I think like many of us still do,he was groping in the dark,searching for some reason to the why and wherefores of this universe.

[Charles]

Wells intolerant? Not really - though depending on what you read, it might seem so. It is true Wells was a harsh critic of 'religion,' and this has its origins in his resentment of his mother's unquestioning and unswerving devotion to her Calvinist Christianity and insistence on her boys being good devotees to what he called 'our Father.' The premature death of H.G.'s older sister was too much for her to bear, and she sank into a sort of resigned religious funk that Wells always resented. His faith was in Science, and he believed Socialism the best system for overseeing the rapidly evolving society and world around him.

As for the role of religion in "Worlds," there is absolutely no placation of Christianity, despite the ending. The bit at the end is shows us that the narrator is wholly unreliable; despite his pretensions to a philosophical enlightenment (being a writer on 'speculative philosophy'), we now see he is as bourgeois as they come and falls back into the patterns of the old life all too easily. Remember he was the one that arrogantly asked the curate "what good is religion if it collapses under calamity?" At the end he is practically as contrite and pious as the Curate himself. Does anyone still believe the narrator is supposed to be Wells himself? Ha ha...

Wells did have one episode with religion sometime later. About fifteen years later during the First World War he - like many others around the world, were distraught with the violent revelations about the war and its battle to maintain the Edwardian status quo in the form of "For King and Country," or "Fuer Koenig und Vaterland" - depending upon which side you were on. In a way it was worse for Wells because he had actually believed it would be 'the war to end war' and supported its fight against the Kaiser. Because of this he did begin to question 'where things were going.' He wrote a few books during the war which touched on the theme and established a qualified belief in God (most notably "The Soul of a Bishop" and "God, the Invisible King," but it was a stance he repudiated forcefully not too much later and considered his greatest folly.

But his religious tolerance for everyone else shines through in his formula for a New World Order and his “Declaration of the Universal Rights of Man,” which was adopted by UN and used in its own charter. Religious freedom is absolutely guaranteed by Wells, and he had many nice things to say about the foundations of Judaism and Christianity, despite his rather vocal reservations about many of the people that practice each. That said, in "Crux Ansata" (1942) he did ask rather pointedly "Why do we not bomb Rome?"

[Leatherhead]

Have any of you ever read Wells' book, "The Undieing Fire". It was based on the book of Job from the OT. It would seem that Wells had a lot of respect for religion. I presume what he was attacking in the book was not Christianity, but instead was attacking those who have liitle faith, (like the Curate).

[BrutalDeluxe]

Thanks to Charles for that insight on Wells.
I've always seen the narrator as a man with a very practical grasp on the concept on faith and Wells himself seems to have good understanding of the core of Christianity and not superfluous doctrine that has been added onto it. His digs at the Curate were not so much as an attack on Christianity itself but the type of Christianity that was ingrained in the people at the time (and no doubt his mother as Charles pointed out). The unquestioning capitulation of the Curate to the current events and seeing them as the will of God helped no one. The Curate's faith only appears to be surface level as he has none of inner strength derived from faith when he is put to the test.

[quaderni]

Charles said:

As for the role of religion in "Worlds," there is absolutely no placation of Christianity, despite the ending. The bit at the end is shows us that the narrator is wholly unreliable; despite his pretensions to a philosophical enlightenment (being a writer on 'speculative philosophy'), we now see he is as bourgeois as they come and falls back into the patterns of the old life all too easily. Remember he was the one that arrogantly asked the curate "what good is religion if it collapses under calamity?"

Thanks for that very insightful reading of the conclusion. It's very interesting how the Narrator at first finds some sense in the course of evolution - the famous line 'By the toll of a billion deaths, man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers...For neither do men live nor die in vain' (Oxford edn, p. 289) - but then concludes the chapter with the line 'At the thought I extended my hands towards the sky and began thanking God' (291). Homilies about Victorian morality triumph over the terrifying evolutionary future revealed in the Martian invasion.

Charles, building upon your insight, I am forced to pause upon one of the great curiosities of Victorian science. People usually assume that evolutionary science and religion are in conflict, and that Victorians themselves were particularly sensitive about this issue. What is astonishing, then, is not the level of criticism levelled against Darwinian evolution (as a number of historians have shown). Indeed, the _Origin_ convinced most educated Victorians in the truth of evolution, though they rejected Darwin's model of natural selection, because it threw into question most of the deeply-revered beliefs about human progress and perfection. In this sense, then, British elites neatly accomodated the Darwinian model with the old Calvinist determinism, predestination, and belief that nature (god) rewards - much as the radical Puritans and Latitudinarians did with Baconian-Newtonian science after the Civil War and Glorious Revolution.

Right now, I must muse whether _The War_ is meant to highlight this cultural dynamic.

[kingofthemorlocks]

Wells has a short story - forget the title at the moment - wherein everyone who ever lived is gathered before God and one by one, are taken up in his hand while an angel reads off a list of their doings in life, and one by one, they freak out and run up God's sleeve. Eventually everyone is in there and God starts talking about his plan, and then shakes everyone out on a new planet orbiting Sirius, and says, "now try again."

[Charles]

kingofthemorlocks said:

Wells has a short story - forget the title at the moment - wherein everyone who ever lived is gathered before God and one by one, are taken up in his hand while an angel reads off a list of their doings in life, and one by one, they freak out and run up God's sleeve. Eventually everyone is in there and God starts talking about his plan, and then shakes everyone out on a new planet orbiting Sirius, and says, "now try again."

That was "A Vision of Judgement." Great story.