Who is more likely to create a government like that in "1984"?

The system of political ideas that is more likely to lead to a "1984-style" dictatorship that controls all aspects of its citizen/prisoners' lives and that punishes "thoughtcrime" is the system that --

(1) most effectively stamps out independent thinking and inquiry and

(2) "educates" the population to value conformity and obedience above everything else and

(3) emphasizes that the system provides safety and security for all against a common (perhaps unseen) enemy.

It should be easy to see that a theocratic religious dictatorship, of the type that some of the mullahs in Iran would like to maintain (and which the Taliban did have in Afghanistan and would like to restore), fits all of the above criteria.

And so would a "Christian Dominionist" system here in the U.S.A. Just look up "Christian Dominionism" and one of its variants, "Reconstructionism," as exemplified in the writings of two of the proponents of American Christian theocracy, R. J. Rushdoony and Francis Schaeffer. Of course, a majority of Christians in the U.S.A., the currently quiet ones, would oppose a Dominionist theocracy.

An oppressive dictatorship is in the process of returning to a Russia that is mostly secular, but with the apparent aquiescence of the Russian Orthodox Church.

It's hard for me to imagine that an Orwellian dictatorship could be established, let alone run, by modern atheists. I have actually herded cats, and I can attest that it's far easier than organizing atheists or getting them to agree on anything other than the non-existence of deities. No atheists in Europe or the U.S.A. are advocating a powerful centralized government that would enforce an "atheist vision" of the world or force it upon the citizenry.

Robert Ardrey, who was a far better essayist and screenwriter than a pop anthropologist (he got some training at the University of Chicago) believed that the "geologically recent" [my phrase] rise of individuality was in large part due to human beings' genetic heritage, and that ultimately it would be impossible for any system to really stamp out independent thinking and liberty. Sometime before 1972 [sorry, I don't have a primary source], Ardrey wrote the following about the siren song of conformity:

"Yet it is the morning that, knowing or unknowing, we strive for: You, I, capitalists, socialists, yellow, white, brown. It is the morning that professors demand in common with policemen, that the philosophers of two centuries have praised, the morning of identicality, of the commonly induced conditioned reflex, the morning of egalitarian actuality, of the brave new world, of order beyond argument, of gray shadows beyond distinction, of uniform response to uniform stimulus, the morning of a tinkling bell and sheep proceeding to pasture. Let me never wake.

"It is the morning we praise and we pray for in our industrial organization, on our collective farms, in our churchly councils, in our processes of government, in our relations between states, in our righteous demands for world government, in our most seemly prayers that someday we shall all be the same. It is the morning that the young, whether they know it or not, rise against in protest. And it is a morning, may the skies of our origin be worshipped beyond measure, that will never come."

Now, I don't give a damn about Robert Ardrey's personal politics or what else he may have gotten right or gotten wrong about human evolution or "human nature." The above two paragraphs are, for me, one of the finest and most eloquent expressions of the importance of human individualism.

In this 21st-century, it seems more likely to me that reactionary religious forces will try to establish theocratic dictatorships than that a mostly secular society would attempt to establish an autocracy.

So you're trying to associate belief in God with the desire to oppress the innocent and outlaw free thought? That's no less ridiculous as associating atheism with communism. The truth is, it's a full circle. EITHER extreme can lead to a 1984-style of government, because it is in human nature to condemn those who disagree with you.

Does the communist revolution ring a bell? You can deny it all you want, but it is a known fact that communism was partly inspired by the concept of atheism. Children were told to pray to God for candy only to have their prayers go unanswered. Their parents and teachers would proudly proclaim "God won't give you candy, but we will." If that's not "mind control," I don't know what is.

I didn't want to play the "blame-game." As you hopefully remember, I said it was equally possible for EITHER "side" could be responsible for such horrible circumstances.

It has nothing to do with religion.

Of course, it could go either way, but to me, atheism is based on questioning. The whole concept of atheism is questioning the existence of God/any other deity. Thus, 1984 is less likely to be caused by atheists.

Naturally, there are stupid atheists, as much as stupid Christians, so I can't really say.

"You could sit at home, and do like absolutely nothing, and your name goes through like 17 computers a day. 1984? Yeah right, man. That's a typo. Orwell is here now. He's livin' large."

-Cereal Killer.

How far do you really think you guys are from that? Patriot act... Guantanamo... the new ID's.. New info demands for travelers...

*shrug*

It's freaky enough to keep me from ever going to the US again... I'm not happy about the Brits either... too many cameras.

Orwell was describing the Goverments he saw around him at the time and one of his points is that they were all the same underneath the labels.

Remember he wrote 1984 in 1948 and just changed the number to make his title.