Your Take on God?

[z3s_keep_going]

I'm just wondering what your take on God in Supernatural is. Do you guys think Dean or Sam believes in God? I'm not religious, but I was just reading a fanfic following the episode "Faith" and it kind of brought this..

I really didn't think of Dean believing in God. It's probably just because I don't believe in God and this was the first episode

Comments

[slytherinblack]

The way I view it is simply a random series of events. It was neither right nor wrong for either Dean or Marshall to die, but rather it just happened.

Dean's response would probably be that it would be wrong for anyone to die. I think he'd also privately add that it was more wrong for Marshall to die than him. He seems to have a bit of a martyr complex.

As for Dean's view on God, I think he wants to believe in a higher power because of all the evil he sees...but finds it hard to believe in a higher power because of all the evil he sees. Why would a benevolent God let such evil walk the earth?

Sam, I think, is an atheist. He seems to be more of a means to an end person, so that's just my guess. They don't give us as many hints to his feelings, even in faith. Obviously he believed Roy could help Dean, but I never got the feeling he believed that Roy could help him necessarily due to any connection with God (after all, Sam himself has special abilities). And when it turned out to be Roy's wife, that certainly would have done nothing to dispel his atheism.

So...agnostic and atheist, respectively.

[z3s_keep_going]

You don't think it was either right or wrong for Dean to get hurt in the first place? That's an interesting way of looking at it.

I think it's pretty obvious in the way that Dean could see it, and why it would be more wrong for Marshall to die, I just find it so hard for him to think that it was right for him to die.

You know what you say about believing in a higher power because of all the evil he sees, it kind of reminds me something I read in a fic once. In it, someone was talking about how you never really see any good with powers. But then I thought of Mary's spirit, Missouri, and even Sam a little. The thing is though, I don't know if I agree so much with what you say because for something to actually be good you have to have something bad. You can to counteract it. In a sense- evil destroys good, but good destroys evil.

I agree with what most of your opinoin on Sam believing in God is, and that just makes me curious to know what John's take would be. You'd think he'd fall somewhere inbetween Dean and Sam- but not actually believing to the fullest.

[z3s_keep_going]

I am not asking if you believe in God, and I can see how you could confuse that with what I'm actually asking. I'm asking for you for a second to ignore what you honestly believe, and what your reasons might be and whatever you have against the counter argument. It's just looking at someone else's opinoin and I'm asking you to input your opinion of God and religious belief as little as you can.

I don't agree with you about your reasoning for Sam being an atheist. I think it's wrong to say that to have faith, you can't be an atheist. There's other things to have faith in. And honestly, I don't know if he has to have faith to make an exorcism work, because they've been dealing with all sorts of different paranormal things and come from different religions and belief systems right? But that doesn't mean they believe in them all or have faith in them all.

Sure I agree with what you say about how they believe in something, because I think belief can make you go a long way. I wouldn't go as far to say that they do or don't believe in God, but I think for the most part that this show wants to work in a more literal sense. I don't think that the show wants you to get the idea that everything in their world is so because they beleive in it, but more so because some things just are- and are unknown. I wouldn't go so far to say that the circle of sal or the exorcisms work because they believe in them- which of course they do- but because some of it is just how it is. Like alcohol burns wounds- you don't have to believe in that, it's just true.

But I do agree with some of what you're saying and I don't mean to sound pushy or rude. I do think belief does play a big part in the bigger scheme though.

[z3s_keep_going]

Sorry about that, I didn't mean to accuse you of anything. And I agree we can't make the call of whether or not they believe. It's just the idea behind it all, not actually the answer to the Question, that interests me and I wanted to see if others wanted or were willing to discuss some of it.

I think your points are valid- faith and belief probably do play a huge part in all of this. And you're right, alcohol burning a wound is a chemcial reaction- but I didn't mean to say that salt or exorcism was a chemical reaction, I meant it more of a way of explaining why it might work. I'm not really disagreeing with you- if it seems that way- that it isn't belief or faith that makes those things word, but I'm trying to look at it from a different view.

There's no science to supernatural or paranormal things, they just are. I'm a just a little iffy about your reasoning that you have to believe or have faith for them to work- because it's clearly shown on the show that some people don't believe, and still come face to face with whatever issue is being brought up that episode. Some people don't even know what hits them when it happens, and some people find out for themselves, or we've even seen Dean or Sam explain it to them. They didn't believe it before, but it still happened. A good example of what you're saying though is Hell House- people believed and it created something. Shows how strong belief can be? And yes with Sam's line of wondering how many times exsisted just because people believed in them, made me rethink that whole course.

I do think you're right that they have to believe in something, although I'm not so sure it has to be the Higher Power or what not, and I'm sure they do believe in something- they have to to some extent. Believe in belief is an interesting idea, but I'm not so sure since they had that dilema with the Hell House...

[darkspectre]

I don't think that Sam is an atheist. I think both boys believe in a Higher Power, whatever the interpretation of that Power is. I don't think they subscribe to any organized religion groupthink, though.

I concur with that. I think they believe in a higher power, but don't follow a certain religion so it therefore makes them spiritualists. If you see, believe and hunt down evil such as demons, then you have to believe in good and some form of angels, or what be it.

There actually is a lot of Catholicism involved into the show regardless of them not being religious, but then again, there's a lot of eastern religion as well.