:It is true that there is option value there: Leareth agrees. He glances around. :First, how openly can we speak here? Second, is now a good time to ask you some things or are you busy?:

:Backyard:, Lev says, and leads him out there. "What did you have to say?"

Leareth leans against the wall. “I think I am running into some kind of cultural barrier, regarding the sources you provided me.” He holds up Mere Christianity. “This is an intensely frustrating book! It keeps making axiomatic statements without justification, which seem incoherent or flat-out wrong to me. So I assume I am missing some prerequisite concept, and perhaps a mental concept-transfer from you will help before I dive into the primary material.”

He folds his arms, and switches back to Mindspeech. :Also. I apologize for my bluntness, here; I wish to address the fact that you are frequently experiencing shame while around me. I assume this is because you experience attraction toward me and believe this is against God’s will?: He tries to meet Lev’s eyes. :I will probably say the wrong thing, now, because of missing cultural context, but I shall do my best. In my opinion, who one is attracted to is, in itself, not the category of thing to which ethical rules apply, any more than they apply to, say, your preferred type of ‘pizza’. One can of course act toward people in ways that lead to offense or distress, but I assure you, I am neither offended or distressed by your attraction. I am mildly distressed by your thoughts being full of shame, it is distracting and adds friction to our working relationship, and I would like to fix that if possible: 

(Leareth lets out his breath, wondering what new and fascinating kind of faux pas he’ll have managed to make this time.)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Lev's thoughts are an extremely confused jumble much of which is internal screaming, but Leareth can probably pick out that:

-I am neither offended or distressed by your attraction is, as far as Lev knows, the closest anyone has ever come to being attracted to him
-Lev is under the impression that ever having been attracted to anyone other than his future wife will distress her and make her jealous, and make their marriage less likely to be happy
-Lev is under the impression that ever having had a crush on anyone other than his future wife will have the same effect
-Lev does not particularly mind committing sexual sins, all things considered, except that he wants his future wife to be happy and thinks committing sexual sins will make this much much less likely
-the entire concept of Lev being attracted to anyone, not just men, is associated with overwhelming shame and insecurity

Well, that is one very inconvenient piece of cultural context, that he managed to miss entirely because it’s stupid.

”I am going to stop reading your mind for the next thirty seconds,” Leareth says, very calmly, “and then I will try starting that over.”

(Privately, he’s thinking a number of curse-words in various languages, and things such as why does everyone I want to ally with to save the world have some kind of horrible trauma and you would think he’d know how to handle it by now after all those years talking to Vanyel but he still feels out of his depth.)

:Listen to me: he sends finally. :Lev, I can say with great confidence that the cultural script you have been taught for how relationships work is deeply unhealthy, psychologically unrealistic and almost certainly does not represent what people actually do in successful relationships. Most likely no one tries except for a few people like you who earnestly think rules are meant to be followed: That...probably isn’t the most tactful way of saying it, oops. :I am this confident because I have two thousand years worth of understanding on how people work, and I have learned enough to judge that the people of your world are no different: 

He shrugs. :It will probably sound very arrogant to ask you to believe me because I know people better than you. I am not sure what else to say, though: 

More confused and vaguely hopeful jumble of thoughts, then:

:Well, you can read minds.:

:Are we resolved, then?:  Leareth straightens up from the walk. :I apologize for my lack of tact: he adds. :It is predictable that a society with the birthrate issues that yours has would end up with strict and bizarre relationship norms. I could have tread more carefully here and embarrassed you less if I had foreseen this better: 

He waits, hoping Lev’s surface thoughts will settle into something vaguely coherent.

Warm and fuzzy feelings about how Leareth is so good and patient with him and helpful and nice and-- (Lev is kind of starving for any sort of positive attention at all.) 

Curiosity about how relationships work if it is not the way that Lev was taught. He's mentally running through a couple other scripts, all of which also seem to be psychologically unrealistic and deeply unhealthy.

Worry that it is bad that they're pausing Leareth's plans to deal with Lev's psychological issues. Worry that Leareth will be uncomfortable seeing all the thoughts about how great he is. Worry that maybe Leareth is wrong and getting to just have warm and fuzzy feelings about Leareth is going to break his future relationship somehow. Except he is not sure how he could get married to someone if he is also single-handedly fighting a war against God, so possibly he should just think about how Leareth is so kind and makes such interesting facial expressions.

Vague acknowledgement that he would be much much more likely to turn Leareth in if he didn't have a crush on him.

Lev is clearly trying to partition his thoughts and emotions so that they are easier to read.

All of those are much easier for Leareth to interface with than vague overwhelming shame. 

:I am not uncomfortable: he sends. :The cost to my plans of pausing for ten minutes in order to avoid copious future awkwardness is very worth it:

He hesitates. :I am...also probably not the best person to describe how healthy relationships work, because I am two thousand years old and very unusual in multiple ways and I have, in fact, never been married- well, never married for love: he corrects. :Some alliance-marriages in there. Different script, can be workable but I think is not what you wish for. I think there is no one correct way, it is simply whatever works to satisfy both people’s preferences: 

Lev is blinking at him.

:I am grateful you do not wish to turn me in: Leareth adds. :I respect you; you possess the rare trait of changing your mind in response to evidence. In fact, you demonstrating it again now. I am very glad that it was your office I stumbled into. I value your alliance:

(This is approximately the closest category of relationship that Leareth has, which is hopefully clear to Lev from his mind voice.)

:Now: Leareth finishes, :whenever you are ready, I am still hoping you can attempt to transfer whatever concept of morality I am missing, so that I can make sense of your books:

"Excuse me," he says.

He goes into the living room, smooshes his head into the couch, and spends five minutes accidentally broadcasting an enormous quantity of happiness in every direction.

Leareth waits for a minute in the backyard, and then sneaks past to Lev’s bedroom and takes out the Moody Bible Commentary. He’s shielding just enough that Lev’s emotions are present but not distracting.

He’s...still kind of confused, but at least this was a positive sort of bizarre surprise. Leareth is smiling slightly to himself.

He recovers enough to think, although he is still very smiley.

Then he attempts to push the concept of sin to Leareth.

Sin is transgression against God; sin is rebellion; sin is prioritizing something else over God; sin is failing to love God with your whole heart and mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. All humans inherited sin from Adam, a fundamental twisted nature that makes them want to disobey God. And because of this every day everyone commits dozens of sins every day, like lying and getting angry and lusting and keeping your money instead of giving it to the poor. Humans are fundamentally broken, and only God can heal them. 

(Pride is the worst of all sins, and Lev is proud. Proud of his intellectual achievements, proud of his mind, proud of his doubts; he is unwilling, in the last analysis, to turn over his mind to God. So he is going to Hell.)

That sure is a concept that Leareth did not previously have a mental bucket for. He’s pretty sure that’s because it is, also, stupid; he doesn’t endorse the part where he feels almost soiled by having it in his head, it is important cultural context, and yet.

(He wishes momentarily that he could rip it out of Lev’s head wholesale; it has to be contributing to his, well, issues.)

:I understand the concept: he admits to Lev. :Thank you for your help. I am still trying to decide if I think it is philosophically coherent. Are there by any chance different schools of interpretation?: He can’t quite hide the expression of distaste. :Sometimes different lens on a concept can clarify it. So far this sounds much more like what a jealous and petty human dictator would declare, not an omnipotent deity. I am confused:

:Yes, lots and lots and lots. But I think the-- basic outline is still the same? Also it's not just about disobeying God, God loves us and all His commandments are for our greater benefit, so when we disobey Him we're really just hurting ourselves.:

:A strange sort of love: Leareth doesn’t, quite, manage not to roll his eyes. :You would think, if your God loved humankind, he could have NOT BUILT A TORTURE REALM:

...Oops. He didn’t mean to mind-shout like that, it’s just, apparently he has some emotions about this. Somehow all the poetic bits just make the Hell part more horrifying.

:I think the idea is that we choose the torture realm, and because He cares about our free will so much He'll let us choose the torture realm over him.:

Leareth slowly brings a hand to his forehead.

:Look: he sends, finally. :I know it seems normal ho you, and there are components that do resemble love or caring, but I think that anyone coming in from the outside, with any kind of objectivity, would not hesitate for an instant to call such a value-set evil. Not simply misaligned with my final goal of universal flourishing, but monstrous:

He sighs heavily. :Monstrous, and also baffling. I have no idea why an all-powerful God would choose to communicate these priorities to humankind. Perhaps if worship is a resource for Him, analogous to magic... But this is surely not even the path that maximizes worship and love! If He chooses commandments that are psychologically unrealistic, He has to know that people will be unhappy and as a result have less mental bandwidth to love Him:

He scratches his head. :Unless... If free will itself is the resource, if He is trying to maximize meaningful choices made by sentient beings: Leareth shrugs. :Perhaps, but I do not know how to operationalize that, and this setup still does not seem like it ought to be the optimal point:

Leareth’s mind keeps drifting back to an earlier point, a half-glimpsed thought.

:I like your pride: he sends, slowly, choosing his words with care. :How you treat puzzles as for solving. How you cannot stop trying to understand. That is - you are - are a light in the world, that burns brighter than most, and I would not wish to see that extinguished: He looks past Lev’s shoulder. :If your God would call that a sin, this alone is enough to know that I will never be on His side:

(He is, maybe, making some effort to say nice things to Lev. It has such a hugely disproportionate payoff, which is satisfying and seems efficient.)

If he keeps saying these things then Lev's brain is going to be sparkling with happiness and much less useful for conveying messages. 

:I am not sure that He... has... a goal? Really? I think He just is Goodness and this is what Goodness would do. It is good to show mercy, it is good to punish wrongdoers, it is good to value free will, it is good to help people become better. The reason not sinning is psychologically unrealistic for us is that... original sin fundamentally warped our nature away from the good.:

This just keeps getting weirder.

:Is ‘Good’ considered an ontologically fundamental entity or substance in your world?: he sends. :Because I am fairly sure that is not how our metaphysics works. Also, that does still describe goal-directed behavior, just for a bizarre goal that I am not sure is philosophically coherent:

:I think so? God is Goodness, Goodness is God, they are the same thing. --Uh, I'm not a theologian.:

:Perhaps I need to talk to a theologian, then: He sighs. :Or take a pause from this. It is making my head hurt: Leareth is finding it hard to tell if the glue is back in his head or if the concepts really just don’t make sense. 

:Could skip to something more concrete: he suggests. :Mechanics of your world itself. No magic, but direct interference from your God. You said six thousand years old. Humans here were created by God fully formed, then? What more is known of this and are their primary sources other than your God’s verbose autobiography? What do your scholars know of the physical locations of Heaven and Hell?: 

:Heaven and Hell are spiritual places, not physical, they don't have locations. Humans were created fully formed. There aren't any primary sources other than the Bible, but we can study the world and understand what happened-- for example, we know where humans were created in part because human civilization started there a few centuries later.:

:I see. We also have other spiritual planes in my world - ordinary people cannot travel there, but a mage such as myself can project their mind. Perhaps I should experiment to see if I can also visit your Heaven or Hell: 

He makes a face. :First, however, I ought to read the primary source - this Bible. I imagine it will take many hours, so if you need to go to your workplace to minimize suspicion, now would do well: 

:Seems like a good idea. We should also figure out an explanation for why you're in my house, because otherwise it looks really suspicious. Especially since they know I'm same-sex-attracted.:

...If Leareth’s head were working right, he would have thought of that. Definitely. 

:Do you have ideas? I am not sure what sorts of cover story would be considered un-suspicious: