Role of Religion and REN in Wells and Byrn - Essay Example

Role of Religion and REN in Wells’ and Byrn’s visions of progress Certain religious, race-related, ethni and nationality-based aspects influence an individual’s or a society’s future. At the same time, the counter perspective is that humans mainly sway their future without the above-mentioned external aspects. As an individual or a society can exist and function independently without external support, or based on the above-mentioned aspects, the ways Herbert George Wells and Edward Wright Byrn have dealt with those perspectives in their works and in their visions of progress will be discussed here. H.G. Wells in his work titled The Discovery of the Future and E.W. Byrn named The Progress of Invention during the Past Fifty Years discuss how future might pan out influenced by various factors. Wells examine the ways past and present determines future, with various psychological and philosophical aspects playing inducing roles. On the other hand, Byrn focus on various scientific and technological inventions and discoveries of the past and the ways those things are orienting contemporary times and might sway future as well. Although both writers take a distinct approach in formulating their vision of progress, they both deal with how religion and REN play an optimal influencing role, and in other cases, how they take a ‘backseat’ and allow humans to play their roles in future and their vision of progress. Although humans play prominent roles, there are occasions when religion subtly and even explicitly plays a role in people’s living and thereby influences their future and progress. That is, religion in the form of god or superior power is shown to influence individuals or society and in a way their future. Although humans has invented and discovered many life sustaining and useful things, there is a view that superior powers and religion mainly played the facilitating role in that process. That is, the enormity, complexity, and effectiveness of those invented and discovered things are so optimal, it is difficult to accept that only humans are behind them. Byrn toes this perspective when he states,”…the past fifty years represents an epoch of invention and progress unique in this history of the world. It is something more than a merely normal growth of natural development” (Byrn 50). However, he follows up with the lines that validates humans’ role in advancements and orientation of the future. “It has been a gigantic tidal wave of human ingenuity and resource, so stupendous in its magnitude, so complex in its diversity, so profound in its thought, so fruitful in its wealth, so beneficent in its results” (Byrn 50). So, it is evident that although Byrn accepts humans’ capabilities in bringing about positive changes and tune the future-related things, he also opines that there might be superior power’s hands in them. He again brings forward this mixed stance by pointing out how in earlier times gods are supposed to create things, while in current scientific times humans have assumed that creators’ role. “The old word of creation is, that God breathed into the clay the breath of life. In the new world of invention mind has breathed into matter, and a new and expanding creation unfolds itself” (Byrn 51). On the other hand, Wells point out that future is something that is ambiguous, complex, and difficult to grasp and so humans need god’s or religion’s support to understand and manipulate it. He particularly points out that humans might wander in the future “like a lost child in the blankness of things to come and returns empty” (Wells 21). So, they need to believe and follow superior powers to traverse the future in an efficient manner. Furthermore, Wells examine the perspective that when human lives, particularly their future, are beyond their control, they must submit to superior powers. That is, they must not analyze and reason about their future, and they instead should go with the flow and have ultimate faith in superior powers. “Our lives and powers are limited, our scope in space and time is limited, and it is not unreasonable that for fundamental beliefs we must go outside the sphere of reason and set our feet upon faith” (Wells 53). Wells stresses on the role of religion in his vision of progress or in an individual’s future life by pointing out how religion-based morality influences people’s current actions because they hope that those actions will directly impact their future. That is, certain individuals believe that if they adopt a religion-based moral code of conduct and accordingly carry out their activities in a moral way, their future would pan out positively. “Today there is a certain small proportion of people who frankly regard morality as a means to an end, as an overriding of immediate and personal considerations out of regard to something to be attained in the future” (Wells 13). So, it is evident that when it comes to the role of religion, Byrn takes a mixed stance by stressing on the role of both humans and god in delineating the future. On the other hand, Wells also initially toes the similar line, but he maximally puts the onus on religion and god for future and vision of progress. “There are those who believe entirely in the individual man and those who believe entirely in the forces behind the individual man, and for my own part I must confess myself a rather extreme case of the latter kind” (Wells 42). In certain scenarios, Wells and Byrn emphasize that REN (race, ethnicity, or nationality) play a role in their vision of progress and future as well. In that direction, Byrn is of the opinion that past and current technological inventions and discoveries accomplished by people of particular race and ethnicity would lead to better progress or future for those people. He particularly stresses on the point that people belonging to a certain race and nationality, supported by a specific religion, had a favourable environment to shine and achieve success. So, Byrn (56) states when one looks at this campaign of progress from an anthropological as well as geographic perspective, it is interesting to note that those agents of technological changes are found almost entirely “in a little belt of the civilized world between the 30th and 50th parallels of latitude of the western hemisphere and between the 40th and 60th parallels of the western part of the eastern hemisphere, and the work of a relatively small number of the Caucasian race under the benign influence of a Christian civilization”. In a way, Byrn implies that people belonging to the Caucasian race, living in Western countries, and following Christianity are the inventors and discoverers of many things that are changing one’s or society’s future. Wells also expound similar perspectives of how certain individuals belonging to particular race, ethnicity, and nationality had the potential to influence future. He even states that if those individuals belonged to different races or were born in different nations, they might have not flourished and so would not have swayed future or progress. “I must confess I believe that if by some juggling with space and time Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Edward IV., William the Conqueror, Lord Rosebery, and Robert Burns had all been changed at birth it would not have produced any serious dislocation of the course of destiny” (Wells 43). Based on the above analysis, it is possible to state that religion and REN, with appropriate contributions from humans, played a prominent role in Wells’ and Byrn’s vision of progress and humanity’s future. Although Byrn postulates the role of humans in influencing the future, he accepts religion’s part in future as well, with Wells also strongly underlining the latter point. As far as REN is concerned, both Byrn and Wells explicate race, ethnicity, and nationality’s contribution in the development of past and existing events or issues, and importantly in future as well. It is a known perspective that future is a sum or result of what happened in the past and what is happening in the current, and in that direction both Wells and Byrn validate the influence of current religion and REN aspects in future actions. Works Cited Byrn, Edward Wright. “The Progress of Invention during the Past Fifty Years.” In Ed. Josh Sakolsky. Critical Perspectives on the Industrial Revolution. The Rosen Publishing Group, 2005. Wells, Herbert George. The Discovery of the Future. B. W. Huebsch, 1913. Read More