This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
Accept our Terms of Service
Our Terms of Service have recently changed! Please read and agree to the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy
A confused silver dragon meets some magical girls
+ Show First Post
Total: 427
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

He laughs, bids farewell, and wings his way towards the town to find a church. 

 

 

That building looks churchy! He lands nearby. 

Hmmm, human or dragon? He's still limited in shapeshifting and has a lot to do; he'll save his shifting unless it's strictly necessary. Anyway this might turn out to be more than a forty-minute conversation. 

Those are some small doors though. In a move that must look rather absurd to onlookers, he rears up and knocks. 

Permalink

No one is that surprised about a dragon showing up anywhichwhere "she" pleases, but, yeah, knocking is pretty odd! Someone does answer the door though.

Permalink

And they will be greeted by a very polite dragon explaining that he's a magical not-girl from another world and would like to speak to a priest! 

Permalink

A priest can eventually with some bemusement be located.

Permalink

He summarizes his background, in a little more detail this time, and asks if the priest has an hour or so to explain all of theology some key elements of the faith he didn't quite understand from reading the holy book.

Permalink

This random Anglican priest was not really expecting to have to field these questions today but can do his best.

Permalink

Excellent! Let's start with the question of what "demons" are and where they've been observed to act on this world's Prime Material...

Permalink
Permalink
Permalink

Forty-five minutes later, in a conversation involving at least eighteen unique heresies and multiple instances of "let's back up and try this a different way", Ipaxalon has learned a few things.

 

 

Well, mostly, he has learned that he should talk to a bishop. 

Permalink

But it was still informative. If it's true about demons possessing people sometimes, he should probably be running detect evil more often, though apparently they have...some...countermeasures. He was not aware they considered raise dead a necromancy spell instead of conjuration (healing), or that divination was supposedly of the Devil โ€” of which there's apparently just the one? He's still not clear on that โ€” or that there is indeed a third Good god in their some-theon who is apparently responsible for tongues in this world, only very rarely, and who is in some way the same person as the other two...

...it's at least reassuring that they mostly consider the wanton slaughter in the Old Testament to be as egregiously awful as he does, but he's still not clear on why it's still in the book. The priest doesn't seem to think it's a lesson or anything. In fact, he mostly doesn't seem to think about those bits at all. 

Permalink

...alright, what does the priest think about the whole same-sex romance thing? Surely there's some misunderstanding...

Permalink

Definitely not allowed. It is against God's plan.

Permalink

By now, Ipaxalon has learned better than to ask this particular priest questions like "Which part of the plan?" or "Who or where did this teaching come from originally?" (It's not that he won't have answers. It's that the answers won't really help.)

 

Alright. Does the town in fact have a bishop, and could he perhaps get a referral to get him out of the priest's hair facilitate a meeting.

Permalink

Yes, the town has a bishop, he's over there.

Permalink

Oh, good. He'll thank the priest kindly and go meet with the bishop.

Permalink
Permalink

There are how many religions about this one God? And they all can't stand each other? 

 

The Catholic high priest is chosen by committee? (Actually, that goes a long way towards explaining the first bit.)

Okay, but about this Hell business...

Permalink

 

 

 

...huh. If Jesus Christ dying did actually save a bunch of people who'd been languishing in Hell and pave the way for otherwise Evil people to get an Atonement at scale, that raises his estimation of this Trinity by a lot. That is the sort of insanely expensive miracle that would absolutely wipe out a planet-scale god for centuries and would be absolutely worth it. And, demons being demons, they might actually take "we get to torture and humiliate your Son for a while" in trade. It's not totally clear this is what happened, but it makes so much more sense this way. 

That would make the rapid spread of the Christian faith quite possibly a secondary effect of the redemption miracle, or else a plan the Evil gods never saw coming. Quite a feat to accomplish that without being able to regularly choose clerics. That has the look of a masterstroke. 

Permalink

...but why is even the bishop still insisting on the sex thing. It's not just homosexuality, this one is saying masturbation is a heinously Evil act! 

Was that part of the godagreement?!? Did the demons insist on getting the vast majority of sexual acts metaphysically classified as Evil?!?

...you're sure it was God's idea??? 

AUGH. 

Permalink

Well, at least this "confession" institution, if it works, seems to be much more scaleable than mass Atonements. Given the rapid spread of this religion, that and the eminently sensible "visitation of the sick" has to have saved millions.

Permalink

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY CHARGE FOR IT

Permalink

Oh it's just some of them? Sometimes? And apparently this diocese doesn't charge for absolution, but practices vary among the "dissenters." 

Permalink

THAT IS STILL SO VERY NOT OKAY

Permalink

...Ipaxalon is VERY CONFUSED BY THIS RELIGION. 

Total: 427
Posts Per Page: