fandomhigh | World Religions, Wednesday, 2nd Period [10/4]]

Feet up on the desk? Check.
Coffee cup? Check.
Appears to be ~~dozing~~ resting his eyes? Check and check.

The now-standard stack of handouts is waiting with the sign-in sheet. Written on the whiteboard are two definitions:

Monotheism - the doctrine or belief that there is only one God.
Polytheism - the doctrine of or belief in more than one god or in many gods.

After the class has filed in, Jesse opens his eyes and smiles at his students. "Mornin'. First things first - two weeks from now, we'll be startin' on 'the people of the book.' Judaism, then Islam, then Christianity. I'm also gonna give y'all a take home mid-term that will be due back the following week. For y'all playin' the home game that means week seven you take the test home, week eight you bring it back to me filled with sh- stuff that's gonna knock my socks off."

"Today's religion is confusin' to many people raised in most Western traditions - Hinduism¹. Hinduism is a monotheistic religion with multiple deities. Yes, you can do that, it's just hard to understand for those of us who are used to the idea of 'One and only one God.' Or maybe not. For you Christians here, what about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Three aspects of one God.

"Hinduism just takes that idea farther. All gods are aspects of the one god, the creator, Brahman. We can understand Brahman only through direct spiritual experience.

"The idea is that when we limited humans try to think on somethin' vast and formless and capable of creatin' the universe, we project human limitations upon it. We ain't doing it on purpose - we just can't help ourselves. We're weak and we're human and we just can't conceptualize infinity. Just tryin' to do it already limits it.

"Instead of telling practitioners this is a bad thing, Hinduism teaches that it's a necessary reality. You can't fight bein' human. Go with it. These personalized, humanized faces of the infinite allow us a conduit to Brahman. Somethin' we can wrap our minds around. Somethin' more personal that we can devote ourselves to."

What follows is an extensive lecture on the basics of Hinduism including the Vedas², kharma and dharma, various deities, practices, and a very brief discussion of the caste system as a cultural artifact.

After that fascinating and stimulating lecture during which absolutely no one falls asleep, (at least not that Jesse would notice, right?) Jesse looks the class over and nods to himself. These kids weren't half bad.

"Easy class discussion for you today. What specific gods would you have? If you had to break yourself down into component parts that needed to handle separate responsibilities, what would those be? Would you have a god of the heartbeat? A god of morning afters? ~~An oh god of hangovers?~~ A god you could pray to in order to keep yourself from sticking your foot in your mouth around the person you want to ask to homecoming?

"Split up and grab a partner. If anyone's left hangin' I'll be around to talk to you ~~just ping me in the OOC thread~~, 'cause I just bet you wanna know your teacher's personal gods, huh?"

Handout links:
¹Hinduism at Wiki
²Vedas

Syllabus

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hmmm, yeah, definitely. And a god of boyfriends and girlfriends."

"And a god of being too pretty for your own good," Cally said. "Definitely."

Nadia grinned. "A god of being smarter than the guys."

Cally nodded and smiled. "Oh, and especially, a god of staying out of detention."

"And a god to ward of Ter Emyew, or whatever that thing last weekend was called."

"Ter Emyew? Is that what caused all the moodiness?" Cally asked.

"Apparently. Walter said Artie asked him and Alfred to be silly at it and make it go away."

"I'm totally disturbed by the fact I find that completely believable," Cally said.

"Apparently? It looked like a cow."

Cally blinked.

"I have a horrible derivation of a song running through my head now. I won't share it, to preserve the world's sanity."

"You think Fandom is sane?"

"Yep," Cally said. "If it wasn't, then it's mean I've gone insane."

"We have invasions of weetiny bunnies."

"Which is totally normal for Earth," Cally said. "D'uh."

"Cally, I'm from Earth. If it were normal for Earth, would I be using it as an example of Fandom not being sane?"

Cally gave sad puppy eyes at Nadia.

"Please don't tell me I'm crazy and this place is weird."

"You're not crazy. But this place is weird."

Cally whimpered.

"How about a god of keeping you sane?"

"Too late," Cally said, sighing. "I shoulda bought a straight jacket, not a dress."

"Would you cut that out?"

Cally jumped back a little. "Whoa, sorry, geeze."

Nadia shook her head. "You're not crazy, Cally."

"It's hard to tell, really," Cally said.

"There's a saying that if you think you're crazy, then you're not."

Re: Personal deities

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nadiathesaint - 2006-10-05 00:42 (UTC) - Expand

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