How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Part.Paragraph)
Quote #21
The Savage interrupted him. "But isn't it natural to feel there's a God?"
"You might as well ask if it's natural to do up one's trousers with zippers," said the Controller sarcastically. […] One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons—that's philosophy. People believe in God because they've been conditioned to." (17.29-30)
This is a great point—and it's passages like these that make some scholars believe Brave New World is a critique of any sort of religion. As readers, we rebel against the notion of hypnopaedia because it seems to us like brainwashing; but from this point of view, religious doctrine isn't too different.
Quote #22
"Do you remember that bit in King Lear?" said the Savage at last. "'The gods are just and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us; the dark and vicious place where thee he got cost him his eyes,' and Edmund answers—you remember, he's wounded, he's dying—'Thou hast spoken right; 'tis true. The wheel has come full circle; I am here.' What about that now? Doesn't there seem to be a God managing things, punishing, rewarding?"
"Well, does there?" questioned the Controller in his turn. "You can indulge in any number of pleasant vices […] and run no risks of having your eyes put out." (17.34-5)
Mustapha refuses to take into account any conception of divine justice or the afterlife. If there are no punishments during life, in Mustapha's mind there must be no punishments at all.
Quote #23
"The gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; Providence takes its cue from men." (17.35)
Again, Mustapha represents religion as a purely invented social construction used to keep people in line. Since the Controllers have hypnopaedia and soma to maintain order, religion just isn't needed.
Quote #24
"Christianity without tears—that's what soma is." (17.47)
This is a pretty explicit summation of what was previously subtle and nuanced. Mustapha said essentially the same thing—but with less obvious didacticism—in Chapter 3.
Quote #25
When morning came, he felt he had earned the right to inhabit the lighthouse; yet, even though there still was glass in most of the windows, even though the view from the platform was so fine. For the very reason why he had chosen the lighthouse had become almost instantly a reason for going somewhere else. He had decided to live there because the view was so beautiful, because, from his vantage point, he seemed to be looking out on to the incarnation of a divine being. But who was he to be pampered with the daily and hourly sight of loveliness? Who was he to be living in the visible presence of God? All he deserved to live in was some filthy sty, some blind hole in the ground. Stiff and still aching after his long night of pain, but for that very reason inwardly reassured, he climbed up to the platform of his tower, he looked out over the bright sunrise world which he had regained the right to inhabit. (18.32)
John sees God in nature more than in any other place. His religion is a very personal and solitary internalization of the institutional beliefs to which he's been exposed.