Language Classes, 12/21

[game-of-you.livejournal.com]

Written on the blackboard:

LAST CLASS -- Please hand in your final projects

There is a basket on Dream's desk to collect the papers; next to it sits another basket, full of red-and-green wrapped candy canes and Christmas chocolates. Dream is not visible, but a large raven is perched on his desk, watching over the students. When a paper is turned in, he inspects it with shiny eyes and seems to caw his approval.

Comments

Re: Classics, 12/21

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders turns in his final paper. The grammar is amateurish at best and he really has no concept of proper essay structure, but at least he spellchecked it.

If you don't look too closely, you might think that the religion of the ancient Greeks and the religion of my people on the Colonies of Kobol are almost identical. This would be because they seem to have the same gods: the Lords of Kobol seem like they're the same as the Greek gods, or at least some of them. At least, they have the same names.

But actually, Colonial religion is much closer to modern Western Earth religions in structure than it is to ancient Greek religion, at least the way it's practiced in its current form. People can worship privately in several ways, including using small statues of the gods or rosaries that are similar to the ones that 13th-Colony Catholics use. And some of the Colonies are stricter than others about religion. Gemenon, for instance, is way stricter than the rest. But public services are pretty close to Catholic or Orthodox services, with a priest reading from the Sacred Scrolls and responsive readings. The phrase "so say we all" is used pretty much the same way as "amen" gets used in Christian prayers and services.

We do have oracles, though, and they're less mysterious than the ancient Greek oracles were, but they serve pretty much the same purpose, and they did use a hallucinogenic drug called Chamalla. Also, the Lords of Kobol have the same names, but different stories than the Greek gods do. I'm pretty sure Athena in Greek myth didn't commit suicide because of the exile from Kobol, since Kobol isn't part of Earth history as far as I can tell, although it does seem to be pretty close to the Jewish and Christian concept of Eden.