Interactive Religion [Tuesday, February 12]

[nojesusfreak.livejournal.com]

When the students met again, they were in a room with a series of low tables and pillows to sit on.

"We're going to discuss the Tao some more today," Biff said, going from table to table as he poured out steaming cups of tea. "When Josh and I were in Afghanistan, the crazy magi there was convinced that we would eventually discover the path to immortality. Josh studied philosophy. I studied the subtle manipulation of the elements--alchemy."

He waved his hand towards the cups of tea. "Drink up."

Comments

Re: Talk to Biff

[nojesusfreak.livejournal.com]

"Grow a sense of humor," Biff retorted. "It's hardly a permanent state."

Re: Talk to Biff

[the_merriest]

"It's not the blue face," she said, folding her arms. "It's here, lemme mess with my students just because I'm bored and it's amusing. But I'm wrong about religion being about control. Totally."

Re: Talk to Biff

[nojesusfreak.livejournal.com]

Biff let out a heavy sigh. "That kind of baggage is going to crush anything interesting or fun about you," he said. "You. Don't. Listen. You spent an entire class where you could have learned something about a faith that isn't your own, one that happens to do extremely useful things with alchemy, and I'm sure you spent it sulking about how mean I am instead. This is completely useless, both to me because I can't teach anything to a rock, and to you because if you're not learning, there is no reason for you to show up every week and give me a migraine. You need to learn the difference between faith and religion. The practitioners of a religion can be capricious. It doesn't mean that the faith they espouse is wrong and evil. My teachers were capricious, and in one particular case, completely out of his mind. I didn't write off Taoism because of it."

He gave her a stern look. "You need to do the same thing. Grow a little."

Re: Talk to Biff

[the_merriest]

"I spent a lot of it panicking about not being able to move," she said, folding her arms. "If you really wanted to teach us, you'd teach us, not make a point of, hey, check it out, I tricked and humiliated you. Not to teach us wariness, not to teach us to check our surroundings, not to make a point about us being restless and not listening, just ... because you felt like it. And this is important to you?"

Re: Talk to Biff

[nojesusfreak.livejournal.com]

"I spent a week not being able to move as I was taught this same information," Biff replied evenly. "An hour hardly killed you. And there were all kinds of reasons to do it, and they were different for each student. I don't have to explain my methods because I'm the teacher and evil and oppressive and blah, blah, blah. For you, it was to get you to listen. Clearly it didn't work. See you next week."