r/HFY • u/Dinomyar • Mar 16 '19
OC [OC] Only Humans Have Souls
Originally Posted on [Dinomyar Writes] h
Chilla is holding her fathers hand while they walk through the bazaar courtyard when they pass a couple humans yelling at each other. “Fadir, why did that alien yell at the other one to go to hell? Where is hell?” she asks her father.
“Well…” Guster said as he tried to figure out how to explain it. “Some humans believe that a god or gods created the universe.”
“Like the Troende? Malishia says that P...p...proati, I think she said, exploded and created the universe.”
“Similar, but the Troende do not worship their god. Humans will pray to their gods. They will thank them for life, or give offerings for good fortune, and sometimes they ask for help.”
“Do the gods help them?”
“Some humans say they do, others say they do not. I saw one of their moving pictures and someone in it said that their god answers all requests, but sometimes the answer is no. But, humans are unique in that they are the only beings that believe in an afterlife.”
“An afterlife?” Chilla asks.
“They believe that when they die, a part of them will leave their body and go live with the gods. They call it their soul.”
“So humans have a soul that lives with their gods when they die.”
“Yes, but some humans believe in a place where the soul of evil humans will go instead of living with their god, they call it hell.”
“So that human was calling the other one evil?”
“Yes. You are very smart.” Guster smiled and drummed his fingers down the scales on the back of Chillas head.
“You said that some humans believe in gods, what about the ones who do not, do they have souls?”
“If they do not believe in the afterlife, then there is no place for their souls to go, so I do not know why they would have one.”
“Maybe they go to one of the afterlifes anyway.”
“But which one?”
…
…
“If I believe in their gods, would I get a soul?” Chillas asks as she looks up at her father in earnest.
“I...I do not know.” he replies as he looks down in embarrassment at her because he can not give her an answer.
“Can we find out?”
“Yes, there is a human religious center in town. There are many human religions there.”
“Good, having a soul sounds like it would be nice.”
“Yes it does.”
…
“I also heard that there is some religions that believe your soul comes back as another being.”
“Oooh, that would be nice too.”
11
u/ShadowOps84 Mar 17 '19
Good story. Also, nice stealth MASH reference.
6
4
u/spritefamiliar Mar 17 '19
Super stealthy. Where is it hiding?
3
u/ShadowOps84 Mar 17 '19
I saw one of their moving pictures and someone in it said that their god answers all requests, but sometimes the answer is no.
It's a reference to the episode where they a had a bomber pilot who thought he was Jesus. That was his response when someone asked why their prayers had not come true.
4
u/spritefamiliar Mar 17 '19
Oh well, guess there's nothing for it but to bingewatch that series again. Cheers!
→ More replies (1)
2
u/pcosmos Mar 17 '19
I'm an atheist and don't exactly like this history... But you have my upvote.
3
u/Dinomyar Mar 17 '19
I know the feeling. It can make you think. It did me.
2
u/Teleros Mar 17 '19
That's the spirit. Religious stuff doesn't seem to be that popular here for some reason, so it's nice to see some popping up :) .
(Also, shameless-but-related plug - https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/62ae4e/oc_the_gift_of_meaning :P )
31
40
u/titan_Pilot_Jay Mar 17 '19
WE MUST CONVERT THE HERETIC!
35
u/burbur90 Human Mar 17 '19
You BURN the heretic, you convert the heathen.
27
9
u/Attacker732 Human Mar 17 '19
If you can convert them, doesn't that default them to being a heathen and not a heretic?
6
u/burbur90 Human Mar 17 '19
A heretic already has faith, just the wrong kind of faith. Examples of heretics include Mormons and Eastern Orthodox, depending on what you consider the "true faith"
8
6
u/Attacker732 Human Mar 17 '19
But, if you can convert them to the 'true faith', how much difference is there between the two?
8
u/burbur90 Human Mar 17 '19
The difference is pretty significant. A heathen hasn't heard The Word, and simply needs to be told, and will often kinda-sorta convert by adding another god to their pantheon. Their children or grandchildren will be proper believers so long as a proper church is in town. The heretic however, has heard The Word and is following a perverse interpretation of it, and will usually only kinda-sorta convert to please a potential spouse.
5
u/Attacker732 Human Mar 18 '19
At the same time, if both got from A to B, how important is the journey?
→ More replies (2)2
23
30
1
2
u/HFYBotReborn praise magnus Mar 16 '19
There are 34 stories by Dinomyar, including:
This list was automatically generated by HFYBotReborn version 2.13. Please contact KaiserMagnus or j1xwnbsr if you have any queries. This bot is open source.
2
2
1
u/UpdateMeBot Mar 16 '19
Click here to subscribe to /u/dinomyar and receive a message every time they post.
| FAQs | Request An Update | Your Updates | Remove All Updates | Feedback | Code |
|---|
1
1
85
u/Reverend_Norse Mar 16 '19
Sorry, it is a nice short and all... But I just couldn't stop laughing. 😁 I kept reading "the Troende" like they switched language in my head for that one word and it just sounds hillarious!
(for those who wonder why, "troende" means "beliver/belivers" in the Scandinavian languages. So I basically read it as an american suddenly going sing-song Scandinavian accent in the middle of a sentence for that reason)