4 | [Video]

[reverentresistance]

The Queen's power has to be less than God's... So why do you think He lets us be brought here? This goes a little beyond giving us free will, don't you think?

[Ky's unsure herself, but there's no way to gain certainty. She can only find out what other people are thinking, and that for some reason feels particularly important.]

What purpose are we serving here?

Comments

[tosaveyou]

If there is a God, I don't think He cares what happens to us.

[reverentresistance]

Then your thinking is mistaken.

[tosaveyou]

I haven't seen any sign that anyone cares. The weak and the poor and the innocent suffer, and no one cares.

I don't agree with the Queen. She's not right to take people against their will, but it seems she only wants people to spend time here.

[reverentresistance]

When there is suffering it is our responsibility first to help, because we can and because it's our fault that there is suffering in the first place.

I've been spending time here, and it's not sufficient.

[Not for the Queen, but for Ky.]

[tosaveyou]

We should help, but when we do, it's us helping, it's not God's doing. If there is a God, He made suffering, cruelty, greed, and hate, all those things. It's God's fault, if He made people that way.

I don't want to believe in that God.

[Not that Kariya was ever religious, let alone Christian but the idea of a god like that reminds her of Zouken: ancient, bitter, and manipulative.]

It's all right. When we leave, we go back to where we were before, and this will be like a dream.

[reverentresistance]

He gave us free will and we did the rest. We should help because the responsibility for things being this way is our own.

That's no excuse not to do what I can now.

[tosaveyou]

That doesn't make sense. Then He doesn't care. I help because it's the right thing to do... But God could help more.

You can do whatever you want here, I think. I haven't seen any rules.

[reverentresistance]

He has helped so much more than you can...even imagine. He sent His son to us.

[tosaveyou]

He shouldn't have! Who would send their son away to suffer and die?

That's... He could have done it another way. That's just cruel. What kind of father would do that?

[reverentresistance]

Perhaps because we're all His children in a way, and because He wanted to redeem us. Wanted us to serve him. We're the ones who failed.

[tosaveyou]

You shouldn't make someone and then make them serve you. That isn't fair. If God can really do anything, make anything, then He's to blame for all the suffering.

[reverentresistance]

You don't understand at all. We're honored to get to serve Him.

[tosaveyou]

You're the one who doesn't understand! You're just saying these things because they're tradition. Just because something's traditional doesn't mean it's right!

[Kariya coughs. She seems more than a little agitated, breathing hard.]

I'm not honored. I won't serve that monster. If there is a God, I hate Him.

[reverentresistance]

[Ky's getting plenty agitated herself.]

Not just because it's traditional, but because it's reality! He has saved us, he's the one who created us!

You shouldn't say such things.

[tosaveyou]

It's something you were told when you were young. That doesn't mean you have to believe it.

Those old beliefs, they're responsible for so much cruelty.

[Though it's magecraft she's thinking of, more than religion, the principles are the same.]

I don't see what's wrong with saying what I think is true.

[reverentresistance]

I don't have to believe it, I choose to have faith.

It makes me a better person.

[tosaveyou]

But you chose it just because it was what you were told. Too many people blindly believe what they're told. [She hadn't believed what her family had told her, about magecraft and the way the world works, and she's glad of it.]

You didn't find it for yourself.

You can be a better person without that. On your own.

[reverentresistance]

There's nothing wrong with taking wisdom from people I trust, with not solely relying on my own experience.

Not to the extent I need to be.