AT - Discursive Exemplar On George Orwell\'s (Module C) PDF

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RELIGION REIMAGINEDAt their heart, most religions exist for the same reasons. They may disagree on who God or Allah is, but they believe in a higher power. Their followers may go to churches or temples to worship, but they go to feel a sense of connectedness with their community and themselves. Thei...

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RELIGION REIMAGINED

At their heart, most religions exist for the same reasons. They may disagree on who God or Allah is, but they believe in a higher power. Their followers may go to churches or temples to worship, but they go to feel a sense of connectedness with their community and themselves. Their rituals and customs may vary, but they create tangible practices that bring their spiritual values to life. Their sacred texts and doctrines may be written differently, but they establish codes of ethics, principles, stories of origin and teach their followers what is right and wrong.

Religions exist to answer the questions that humanity cannot – about existence, purpose, identity, death. They may answer differently, but they answer. This is the nature of religion now and historically always has been. But as the world rapidly modernises, we begin to understand concepts that all of humanity has previously failed to comprehend, questions we relied upon religion to answer for us. Such drastic changes in our societies and our understanding of the world have challenged and changed our interpretation of and need for religion.

Each religion enshrines its history, origins, values, practices and stories into sacred texts that are read, repeated and shared through their communities. The Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Tripitaka, the Veda – the sacred scriptures for the world’s largest religions. These tomes dictate the principles, stories and rules of each religion and ensure they remain as existent in the future as at the time of their creation. They have been read and reread for centuries, consumed and interpreted by millions of people past and present. They should be timeless documentation of the nature, practices and existence of religion. But how can these texts convey what they must to sustain humanity in a modern world? How can these principles, stories and rules be timeless when the world is so different?

It is not what is written that must change, but the way we read what is written. The relationship between the meaning enshrined in the words written and the meaning we take from the words through our modern lens is intricate, and we cannot read these texts alone. We must read them through the perspectives of the followers, the disbelievers, the past , the present. In order to maintain any cultural heritage or uphold any religion ’s significance, we

must allow their texts to remain unchanged in their purpose and value. Conversely, we must understand that spiritual and social guidelines for humanity outlined in these texts are not as relevant and necessary in our world as they once were, and only some aspects can realistically be taken and adapted to our societies.

The value that societies place on religion is rapidly diminishing and as a result, societies are slowly moving away from any alignment or faith in religious institutions and moving towards a state of secularisation. But religion at its core is good – it is our misunderstanding and misinterpretation of their words and their texts that has led us down a path of mistrust and rejection of these institutions.

We must reimagine religion and find the balance between recognising the value that religious texts have and opening our minds to the different interpretations and values placed upon them.

REFLECTION

My discursive piece Religion Reimagined aims to communicate the idea that religions can be preserved through the reimagining of their texts. The piece contains persuasive elements as it argues that an increasingly secular society can preserve religion by changing the way we read religious documents. The piece aims to specifically appeal to non-religious and cynical individuals who fail to see any value in the perpetuation of religion to provoke a profound realisation of their misguidedness. I drew inspiration from George Orwell’s persuasive essay Politics and the English Language, regarding his thesis and writing structure.

Orwell’s essay examines how writers carelessly use language, inadvertently concealing their meaning. His essay is cleverly structured; first describing the decline of language use, then discussing how one can remedy these. As my thesis is similar to Orwell’s concerning language usage to remedy misconceptions, I crafted my writing to follow a similar structure. I presented the importance and value of religions’ sacred texts, then linked it through rhetorical questions to how we can reimagine the texts to mitigate the process of secularisation and religious rejection. Orwell’s essay states “If thought corrupts language, then language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better”. I mirrored this notion of cause and effect in my piece through discussion of the modernisation process (cause) challenging pre-existing religious conceptions and forcing a need for reinterpretation (effect): “…as the world rapidly modernises, we begin to understand concepts that all of humanity has previously failed to comprehend … Such drastic changes in our societies and our understanding of the world have challenged and changed our interpretation of and need for religion”. By adopting this idea, Orwell’s essay greatly assisted me in structuring and demonstrating my thesis.

In aiming to provoke a profound realisation, I found that using asyndeton as a recurring motif was an effective way to craft my writing and emphasise the weight of the remaining words, evident in these excerpts: “Religions exist to answer the questions that humanity cannot – about existence, purpose, identity, death.” “The Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Tripitaka, the Veda – the sacred scriptures for the world’s largest religions.” “We must read them through the perspectives of the followers, the disbelievers, the past, the present.”. Omitting

conjunctions compels a reader to reflect upon the remaining words and provokes thoughts about the concepts discussed. Furthermore, I incorporated the stimulus into my writing through the keyword “alone”, though my thesis countered the stimulus. In this excerpt, “The relationship between the meaning enshrined in the words written and the meaning we take from the words through our modern lens is intricate, and we cannot read these texts alone. We must read them through the perspectives of the followers, the disbelievers, the past, the present”, the stimulus is incorporated by addressing perspectives to be considered when reading religious texts to gain a holistic rather than isolated understanding of them.

To conclude, my discursive piece Religion Reimagined discusses the necessity of religion and the process of reinterpreting their texts, through which we can preserve them. George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language greatly guided my writing craft and allowed me to further address the stimulus, advance my writing craft and illustrate my thesis to achieve the desired effect....