This Baliset is Out of Dune

Religion, religion, religion, religion, religion.

Like many of you, I had forgotten how truly excellent Dune is. Part and parcel to that forgetfulness was forgetting the strongest themes of the book, although its place(s) in our syllabus gave me enough of a clue. So, to get back on topic: religion, religion, religion, religion.

Religion receives an interesting treatment in this world. I was particularly fascinated by the chronicle of the creation of the Orange Catholic Bible in the appendix. Other sections of the appendix give clues to religion's place in the "Duniverse":

Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness. (Appendix II, p.504)

The agnostic ruling class (including the Guild) for whom religion
was a kind of puppet show to amuse the populace and keep it
docile, and who believed essentially that all phenomena --
even religious phenomena -- could be reduced to mechanical
explanations.  (Appendix II, p. 501)

Nevertheless, there are few direct references to religious belief on the part of the characters. This makes sense considering how many of those characters are of the ruling class. The only copy of the O.C. Bible that we see is the one presented to Paul by Dr. Yueh, but the gift is rife with foreshadowing. Dr. Yueh's thoughts at the same time undermine the value of the book: "I salve my own conscience. I give him the surcease of religion before betraying him. Thus I may say to myself that he has gone where I cannot go." Then he tells Paul, "You may find the book interesting. It has much historical truth in it as well as good ethical philosophy." (p. 40) The forms of religion, it seems, are tolerated at best by the ruling classes of the Imperium.

The Bene Gesserit, on the other hand, actively cultivate religion as a sort of insurance policy. Most of the religious observances of the Fremen have their roots in the Missionaria Protectiva. Their willingness to exploit the superstitions of relatively backward peoples, along with their millenia-old eugenics program, indicates a cold pragmatism poorly suited to faith. And yet, and yet, when things are at their worst, that Benest of Gesserit Jessica has only one recourse: to pray. How can this be?

I was under the initial impression that a grand collusion of religions would be a crippling thing for belief. Despite recognizing their common commandment of "Thou shalt not disfigure the soul," the religions of Dune share little else but an affinity for flowery language. I also expected that any grand religious convention that was able to come to an agreement of any sort would seek to make the agreement binding over all religions represented there, but that has not happened here. In fact, the sheer abundance of religions suggests that, rather than delimiting religious thought, the democracy of the O.C. Bible has finally opened up religion to acceptable interpretation. All are represented, but it is really up to each person (or each religious group, or whatever) to pick and choose the books that have meaning for themselves. Well, maybe I'm being a bit idealistic. But religious strife, at least, seems to have disappeared. It's just been replaced by much worse strife of a thousand different kinds, but at least all those souls are intact.