Effects of Technology and Belief Systems on the Individual

Technology and belief have a great deal to do in making a good science

fiction novel. Frank Herbert's Dune and Isaac Asimov's Foundation series

give excellent examples of this. Belief systems are defined as religious

beliefs in a society. Technology is defined as the level of science

achieved in a society. These two factors play separate roles in a society.

Yet, at times, they fall into the same categories like in the book Dune

where science reflects religious aspects or in Foundation where the society

depends on religion and social behavior to survive the onslaught of

advanced technology. Religion might be a fuel to achieve a specific level

of technology. Such as in the Bible, "Seek and you shall find." May mean

that God wants all Christians to achieve the highest amount of experience

that they are capable of. Religion gives an individual, morals and control,

while science gives an individual the medium under which he can explore the

hidden. "Dune" is a fine example that shows the mingling of religion and

science and how it affects the individual or society.

Religion is the main idea in the book Dune. The author states the

different types of religions that come to pass since the beginning of this

age. Before the coming of Muad'Dib (a savior), the desert people on the

planet of Arrakis practiced a religion whose roots came from an

undetermined source. Many scholars have traced the extensive borrowing of

this religion from other religions. Many people were confused to find that

so many ideas in one religion easily reflected another. From this

confusion, the people of Arrakis formed a committee known as the Orange

Catholic Liturgical Church. This church was the first to introduce a type

of religious belief in which there was one god, and the book of revelation

was known as the Orange Catholic Bible. After this church, came the Bene

Gesserit, who privately denied that their order was a religious order, but

in fact, all of their teachings and beliefs were quite religious. Following

this religious order, came an age of agnostic rule. In this time, people

thought religion was a type of theatrical way to keep the people amused and

believed that all phenomenon even unexplained phenomenon could be reduced

to simple scientific explanation. As time changed, the fourth religious

movement was the Ancient Teachings. These ancient teachings included

Zensunni Wanderers, the Navachristianity of Chusuk, the BuddIslamic

Variants of the types dominant at Lankival and Sikun, the Blend Books of

the Mahayana Lankavatara, the Zen Hekiganshu of III Delta Pavonis, the

Tawrah and Talmudic Zabur and the Muadh Quran. Frank Herbert's imagination

takes us through all of these religious orders to show the chaos in our own

society's religious failings. All of these religious beliefs have shaped

the final religion of Arrakis which is called the religion of the Muad'Dib.

Yet, there is still one truly final religion of sorts that has

affected the people of Arrakis more than any other spiritual religion and

this following is known to many of us as Space Travel. Mankind's movement

through deep space amazed the people of Arrakis and slowly these people

thought of space travel as a religion and not a science. This is due to

actual science of space travel being hidden and portrayed as being

mystical. From the idea of space, different churches had their own ideas of

creation. The religious faiths have the feeling that the sacred is touched

by anarchy from the outer dark, and this outer dark is space. There was

never a clear decision on religious matters after space travel was

introduced because the individual always had doubts as to the authenticity

of the revelation. During this period of space travel, high bishops of the

Orange Catholic Bible reinterpreted, Gods word from Genesis and stated it

as "Increase and multiply, and fill the universe, and subdue it and rule

over all manner of strange beasts and living creatures in the infinite

airs, on the infinite earths and beneath them."

As technology evolved on Arrakis, so did religion and social behavior.

The idea of God being a machine and infinitely logical was overthrown by

the masses and a new concept was raised "Man may not be replaced."

Throughout the decades, the leaders of the several religions met to

exchange views due to all the wars that followed in the name of religion.

When interstellar travel was achieved, a new commission was formed known as

the Commission of Ecumenical Translators. This commission's goal was to

weed out the true, one, and only revelation. The people of Arrakis did not

invite the idea of a commission made to form all religions to one final

religion. When this new bible was formed, eighteen of the commission's

delegates were killed. Finally, in the errors that sprang from this

commission, came the man known as Muad'Dib. The people were overjoyed to

see that there was a true religion and nothing crafted together by a few

dozen poets.

Science greatly effected the religion part of this book. The main

export of Arrakis is spice. This spice enables mankind to travel in space.

This particular spice is known as orange spice. But the melange spice is a

particular spice revered by the people of Arrakis, due to it's ability to

extend life and wisdom. Genetic breeding has also been achieved, but the

only way that people have been affected by this, is through religious and

mystical ways. The people that are selected for genetic breeding have

offsprings of the female sex. Oddly, discrimination is not created because

of this. Since Arrakis has the only supply of spice in the known universe,

spice is a valued commodity that is worth dying for. The people of Arrakis

need a great deal of water. Arrakis is the only planet in that particular

galaxy which is covered entirely with desert. The effects of technology on

the people of Arrakis only goes far as the religion does. In that, any and

all values that the people share are reflected upon religion. Because of

the great greed that exists between the people, overlords will do anything

to achieve their final goal. Killing and stripping family honor are one of

the ways to achieve this goal.

The people of Foundation are very much like the people of Dune, in

that both try to achieve a certain goal. The people in Foundation try to

answer one man's dream. This man is Hari Seldon. In the known galaxy,

wealth is the one thing that separates life from death. In the beginning,

at the center of the galaxy, there was a planet named Trantor which was

densely populated and industrially advanced. All the land surface of

Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent was a single city. All the

people of Trantor devoted themselves entirely to the administrative

necessities of an orderly government known as the empire. Daily, fleets of

ships in the tens of thousands would bring the produce of twenty

agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor. The people of Trantor

depended upon these other worlds for food and necessities of life. Before

the fall of this empire, these people took all of these things for granted.

The people of this world did not give homage to any God but their own

materialistic and living necessities. Perhaps through this loss of

religion, society grew very obnoxious and lost themselves in their pursuit

of a so-called good life. But, Hari Seldon realized this and predicted the

decline of this empire through his new science called psychohistory. In

short what psychohistory is defined as, is that branch of mathematics which

deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and

economic stimuli. Seldon determined that in a few thousand years, the

Empire will fall due to its' blindness of economic pressure and social

decline. The aristocracy will slowly feel themselves being turned into the

lower class and no hope for return to their past stature. While Seldon

tries to spread this information to the populace of Trantor, he is stopped

by the Empire and told to stop his absurd attempt of over-throwing the

great Empire. Only a select people believe Seldon and ts. While the

majority of Trantor disbelieves Seldon's methods and continue to live on

their worthless lives. Technology is the cornerstone of this society.

Without it, they would not have been anything. The society is quite ordered

and moral value is high. But each individual is selfish and does not live

for the common good. Instead the individual lives for himself and solely

respects the Empire. There is no religion or God but the God of greed. Both

societies clearly show their greed because of the religious and

technological implications that they are being strained under. With the

people of Arrakis, searching for one true religion. While the people of

Foundation not knowing their true selves and giving in to the enemy, which

is their own government. It is hard to think of what the individual might

think in both types of situations, because what makes a person is the

individuality that sets one person apart from the other. In these two

novels both societies accomplish a new life by relating religion and

technology together, however this accomplishment is steady only if the two

factors work together interchangeably. In other words religion and

technology have to become a part of each other. In Foundation, these is a

lack of religious beliefs and a lack of social behavior among the people

and the government known as the Empire, until the savior discovers the

truth and proves that a society cannot rely upon technology alone. In the

book Dune on the other hand religion and technology are the cornerstones of

the society and the people think of scientific events such as space travel

as a religious event. However, this relationship becomes fragile as the

greed among the people destroys those cornerstones and as a result, the

society. In every community, religion and technology are together in

harmony which brings order to an individual's mind, therefore it is very

important to maintain that order in a society.