fandomhigh | Heroes v Villains | Period 1 | Wednesday

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?"

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Like you're groggy from your dreams!

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

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?

After he pings in!

He's around before and after class!

Oh, Loki. Babble on, brother.

Raven

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.

"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."

"Even if they'd never been dangerous before?" Loki questioned. "How do you think that'd make your friend feel?"

"My father is evil," Raven said, squirming a little. She wasn't hiding what she was anymore, but it still wasn't easy to talk about her father. "If someone worshiped him, they would either be misled completely or embrace destruction and violence and death. If it were the former, I would attempt to correct them. If it were the latter...that is not the kind of person I would wish to be friends with, even if they had hidden their beliefs until now."

Loki, wisely, held off on arguing about her father since he didn't know her father and she did. It would be a futile battle, there.

"And if they listen to your attempts to correct them but still believe your father's the one they want to follow?"

"Then I could not trust them," Raven said. "It would be regretful if I had believed we were friends until then. Perhaps someone else could make them see the truth, but for my own safety I would have to keep my distance from them. And...I would be devastated." Especially if she found out that someone like Karla or Dinah or Joan was a secret Trigon worshiper.

"What would you think of them as in the aftermath?" Loki wondered curiously. "Someone who was misled or someone with that villainous streak the entire time?"

Calvin

Rosalind

"It would depend on their actions," Raven said, shaking her head. "I would hope they were misled, and that I had not been tricked."

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.

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

"It's not really fun to think about, is it?" Loki asked, not sounding apologetic about making her think about it. "Think it'll ever happen?"

"Distance yourself without question?" Loki asked, raising an eyebrow. "Would you tell them why?"

Karla

"No," Raven said. She shook her head again, quite emphatically. "My friends are not so easily fooled." Nor was Trigon exactly subtle.

"My affiliation is obvious in my world," she said, glancing down at her suit before looking up. "They would be aware of it. More than likely, in that case, they would have been attempting to use me without my being aware of it."

This was what you got when Rosalind took the God v. Satan comparison and transposed it to relate more to her world which meant it was between... a corporation with severely immoral operating standards and the terrorist group determined to wipe them out.

"They would not need an explanation."

Edited 2010-07-14 12:58 (UTC)

Karla was tired, but that wasn't going to stop her from leaning over and poking Raven. "Just in case we weren't clear before," she whispered, "I'm not fond of your dad. I have no plans to follow him, listen to him, or have you call me Step-Mommy."

Even if that would be sorta funny.

"We clear on that?" she asked, offering Raven a small smile.

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Heroes v Villains | Period 1 | Wednesday | July 14

Sign In [HvV 07/14]

During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

Class Activity | Religions Revelations [HvV 07/14]

The TA [HvV 07/14]

Loki [HvV 07/14]

OOC [HvV 07/14]

Re: Sign In [HvV 07/14]

Re: During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sign In [HvV 07/14]

Re: Sign In [HvV 07/14]

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

Re: During the Lecture [HvV 07/14]

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

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

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

Re: Sign In [HvV 07/14]

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

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

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