Heroes v Villains | Period 1 | Wednesday | July 14

[flipped-god-off.livejournal.com]

Loki was actually up and standing when the students started filing into the room today. He looked a little cranky but that was mostly due to spending most of last night dreaming about Bartleby. Look, he loved that guy but those dreams just needed to fucking stop. He didn't need people thinking he was fantasizing about his long dead friend. It wasn't like that.

It wasn't. Shut up.

"Religion," he started once everyone had settled down, "in the simplest of terms, is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature and purpose of the universe. That's the simplest fucking terms. Obviously, that definition has grown and branched out and trying to define religion these days is near fucking impossible. Needless to say, religion is something that divides even the most harmonious of societies. People are going to have different beliefs whether their king/czar/dictator/president whatever likes it or not. Nothing can stop a person from believing in what they want to believe save for fucking extreme measures."

On this island, he suspected extreme measures might be a little more commonplace. "Christianity is one of the world's bigger religions and that has about a billion fucking branches. New ones pop up all the goddamn time. It's a wonder God can keep up what between that and His fucking skee ball habit. So, biggest heroes of Christianity? Moses, Jesus, Noah, Martin Luther, and Elijah. Now, why the fuck are they heroes? Because they listened to God. They listened to the guy who lives in fucking heaven and that makes them heroes. Why? Who said that God's the one we should all be listening to? God is an omnipotent, amazing person who most people think of as always right. That's just been what they've been told, passed down from generation from generation. From someone who knows, He wasn't always fucking right. God has screwed up. He's not human but He can be fucking fallible. He used to be full of fucking vengeance. I know that. I did His work during that time. God could be just as hell bent on fucking destruction as Satan, my friend. What's so heroic about that?"

Hopefully God didn't smite him for this. It was for education! Education! The bad guy of Christianity is Satan or, in easier terms, the fucking Devil. He's the bad guy. Why? Because God said so? Who the fuck put God in charge? Satan's not a nice guy, no. He's a fucking prick but he does his job well. That's probably why there are people out there that worship him. Satanists. So, what's making their belief system better than yours or mine? Typically, people think of Satanists as following the personification of evil, that being the devil. What if they're just following something they believe in more than God's word? Why the fuck do they get faulted for believing in that yet we're tolerant of all other sorts of religions with questionable tactics. Cults can exist and worship easier than Satanists. It doesn't make fucking sense."

Satan was a fucking prick. But, again, education! Loki wanted to see if he could get people thinking. "Satan's a different kind of thinker. The people that follow him, they're called villains. Why? What's the difference in one of you deciding you liked what Satan preached rather than what one of the many branches of Christianity preached? Does that make you incurably evil? Think about that. If you choose to worship, to join some religion that is seen as evil, you're basically being ostracized and called a villain for your beliefs. You're a villain, you have no worth, you're going to persecuted. Why does that make fucking sense?"

Religion, apparently, was something Loki could talk a lot about. Anyone that knew him should know why. "For today's activity, I want to tell me how you would feel if, after knowing someone for years, becoming close to them and trusting them, you find out their beliefs follow that of Satan or whomever might be the evil force of religion in your world. They've never been evil or violent towards you but they choose to believe something with a nasty stigma attached. Are you going to accept that? Or are you going to automatically label them a villain because they don't believe and follow the so called heroic branches of religion?"

Comments

Sign In [HvV 07/14]

[flipped-god-off.livejournal.com]

Like you're groggy from your dreams!

Re: Sign In [HvV 07/14]

[trigons_child]

Raven

Re: Sign In [HvV 07/14]

[not_tylerdurden]

Calvin

During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

[flipped-god-off.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of it today so take notes, listen, chat with others, rethink your belief system!

Re: During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

[trigons_child]

Raven wasn't exactly comfortable with the lecture. Her mother had been a Satanist for a time -- that was how she'd become Trigon's bride.

Re: During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

[give-areason.livejournal.com]

She... didn't really know much about religion, but Rosalind got around that by apply the lecture to ShinRa and AVALANCHE.

The fact that it worked fairly well was a bit... thought-inducing.

Re: During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Hyne only knew what Loki was talking about. Still, Squall took notes. From Loki's description, it sounded like it was better not to worship any deity, and that pretty much squared with Squall's beliefs anyway.

Re: During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Luke was interested and pumped for the lecture when he walked into the class, but somewhere mid-way through he started zoning out. Nothing against Loki, that was just how Luke got when a lot of words about things he didn't understand were involved.

Re: During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

[vanillajello]

Having missed this last week, Kate was mostly trying to adjust to this class, and trying to kind of... figure Loki out.

She was really not in the mood for heavy stuff today, though, so she kind of ended up zoning out and doodling, eventually.

Re: During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

[dontvotemeout]

This was a pretty serious topic, but Jason couldn't stop himself from smirking as he listened to Loki swear. That really wasn't going to get old any time soon.

Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[flipped-god-off.livejournal.com]

How would you feel if you found out that, after years of knowing a person and becoming closer to a person, they believed in a religion that was associated with the devil or some other evil deity?

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[trigons_child]

"I would prefer to judge a person by their actions," Raven said quietly, "but if I found out someone worshiped my father, I would have to stay away from them. It would be too dangerous otherwise."

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[give-areason.livejournal.com]

"I would distance myself from them," Rosalind said flatly. "Either that, or use them as a way to obtain information without them knowing."

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[glacial_queen]

Karla frowned. Perhaps she was just unnaturally sensitive today, but she couldn't help framing this as more a battle between Hobart's males and her future Court. Which made her think of her parents again. Not that that was a surprising turn of events.

"We have no such thing, in my world. There are those who have forsaken the old ways, who have turned their backs on the Darkness, but there's no real persona attached to it."

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"If the person hasn't done anything any differently than anyone else? It really doesn't matter," Squall decided. "People's actions, and their results, are the only important things." He shrugged. "But if they start hurting people, that makes them an enemy."

(Seifer... Did I ever really know you? What have you become?)

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Luke shrugged. "Where I'm from, the 'bad' deity has his reasons for doing what he does. If someone agrees with him and wants to worship him, I'm not going to judge them for doing so."

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[furnaceface]

//I suppose that would depend on their reasons why, after all of those years, I still hadn't learned about it,// Jono decided, shrugging. //A person can believe whatever th'hell a person wants to. I'm more worried about actions than... prayers or incantations, or what books a person reads while trying to tune themselves with the meta-bloody-physical.//

Jono didn't much believe in anything, anymore. That probably made it a little easier for him to refrain from pointing fingers at other people for choosing to in the first place.

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[need-no-moon.livejournal.com]

Jacob shrugged. "If you've been friends for so long and you trust them, then it shouldn't make a difference. If they were assholes, you'd have noticed by then."

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[dontvotemeout]

Jason thought about the question for a moment.

"Are you talking about a situation where someone I was close to decided to start believing in a religion that was associated with the devil, or a situation where I knew someone for a while and then found out they'd been worshiping the devil the whole time?" he asked. "'Cause I don't know if I would even hang out with someone like that to begin with."

Re: Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

[azuldragon.livejournal.com]

This one confounded Azula. "There is no evil deity in my world, evil spirits, yes. But no evil deities. I don't know who would be foolish enough to worship an evil spirit bent on eating people."

The TA [HvV 07/14]

[flipped-god-off.livejournal.com]

After he pings in!

Re: The TA [HvV 07/14]

[furnaceface]

Jono was there, and looking particularly thoughtful, today. He didn't much care about God in Heaven and Satan in Hell and all of that, no. Neither of them had ever done him any great favours, after all. But there were other corners of the world that were far more real to him.

Food for thought.

Loki [HvV 07/14]

[flipped-god-off.livejournal.com]

He's around before and after class!

Re: Loki [HvV 07/14]

[vanillajello]

Loki didn't really seem like someone who would be terribly upset about anyone missing class, but Kate felt it best to check in before class, anyway.

"Hi." That was a good one to start with. "I'm Kate Gregson, and I... wasn't here last week. Because I was a cat." Again. "So, I was wondering if there was anything I had to do to make up for it."

OOC [HvV 07/14]

[flipped-god-off.livejournal.com]

Oh, Loki. Babble on, brother.