CHAPTER 24: SPIRITUAL WARFARE, PART 3
Every religion on Earth has had its explanations of how the universe began, attempting to explain away what has not yet been explained. Just as they have tried to find answers to the beginning of the world as they know it, however, they have also come up with their many concepts of how it will end.
To every beginning of a story, there must be an end, and religion itself is no example apart from this fact.
The very idea of the apocalypse, to see the world as it is understood by man and their life on it come to an end, is a paradoxical feature of religion that ensnares more followers within its fold. To receive a threat of certain death and the destruction of all that one loves would surely keep away any of those who would have shown interest in the faith, and eliminate any interest that once existed...
...but the threat is only a part of the pitch, presenting a problem for which they have the solution. Such a practice is easily recognized as merely a sale of snake oil and other fraudulent products; create a problem which either does not exist or did not previously exist, and sell the fix as the one and only means to solve the problem.
The 'problem' is the threat of eternal death, and the 'solution' is guaranteed life after death, and one of eternal paradise. Such a sales pitch might seem nothing short of ridiculous at face value to anyone with an eye skeptical enough of any promises that might seem too good to be true...
...but, like any such scam, it still rakes in plenty of sales, and followers who will never shed their loyalty.
And those select few, once growing fearful of the apocalypse, will instead grow to welcome it, and love it. Guaranteed to be gifted a place of endless pleasures and joy when all is said and done makes the destruction of the Earth an easy sight to swallow, even at the expense of all those still alive and not given the same guarantees of an afterlife as they are.
In response, those who are true to their faiths are given a sense of superiority, and the emboldenment to embark on their final desires before they meet their faith.
Unfortunately for those who still do not believe, the believers' final actions are not to try to convert these people, but kill them.
Madness and genocide reign all throughout the religious populaces of the world that still exist, but the one still retaining most of its population, thus making it the most guilty of these parties, is the southern United States, often colloquially referred to as the 'Bible Belt'.
Their mass murders extend not only to the non-believers, and not only to those who believe in different religions than them, but those who would disagree with them on social and political issues as well, taking these differences as seriously as those in their religious faiths. The cleansing of dissenting life is comprable to that of the fires set at the Reichstag, and the rise to power of the Nazi party in Germany...
...and it is almost equal in condemnability and loss of life.
Dark Danny has already brought destruction to many places on Earth, but he has been slacking in the homefront of his one-man war on religious populations. However, his current path of destruction has recently led back to the United States, where he can lie eyes on one of the many side-effects of his rampage.
Seeing the facilitator of the end of the world fly over their heads, the people below gave him an excited greeting, urging him to fly down and join them.
"Angel of death! Come bless us with your presence!" One person said.
"Speak to us, O' messenger of god! We live to serve you!" Another person said.
"We are the humble servants of the lord! Please, give us some holy words of god!" A different person said.
The many unwarranted titles of 'angel' were nothing but an affront to Dark Danny and would normally be rewarded with a blast of ectoplasmic energy, but the display put before him by the people of this small town gained a spark of interest from him, for a touch of curiosity he could not fully comprehend.
Unable to get any answers to the curiosity from asking himself any questions, he decided to comply with the peoples' request for him to come down, entertaining their calls with their presence. Upon flying down to town, landing his feet squarely on the ground, the townspeople quickly surrounded him, giving him cheers and praises in return for his decision to join them.
The first to properly address him was the town's preacher, giving a worshiping bow to Dark Danny as he approached.
"O' thank god almighty for blessing us, great angel. We are unworthy in your eyes. We are but dirt beneath you." The preacher said.
"Spare me your blubbery, self-depreciating attempts at flattery. What do you want from me?" Dark Danny asked.
"O' great angel, we have seen god's work being done through you, and it has been glorious. We have seen you lay waste to the heathens, the infidels, the apostates, the sinners all; we have seen you send them to damnation where god has righteously punished all those who would turn from his loving hand and deny his existence, who would defy his rules and live out the ways of Satan, we thank you for the holy work you have done, and we humbly await our time when we may join god in heaven and live in eternal paradise."
The discontent Dark Danny held with the preacher's words held even less amusement now than it did before, leading him to look at him with a face of disdain.
"You people truly are pathetic, you know that?" Dark Danny asked.
The people of the town let out a collective gasp at Dark Danny's question, all in disbelief that what they believed to be an angel could be so coarse.
"Have we done something to offend you, o' great angel?" The preacher asked.
"Why, yes, you have. First, I'm not an angel. There are no angels, nor are there devils, nor is there a god or any gods, nor is there a heaven or a hell. There's nothing past all this but a void of lost thoughts, hopes, and dreams. The faith you've been following is a complete lie." Dark Danny said.
The blunt and concise delivery of the truth was one that no believer in the town could accept, leading them to ask more out of their believed angel for answers.
"But... but surely that's not the truth! We've seen you bring destruction to those who defied our god! We've seen you bring forth his holy justice! Surely you must be an angel! Surely you must serve him!" The preacher said.
"'Surely' I must be, huh? Surely I can't just be just some outside actor who has nothing to do with your faith, just doing what I'm doing because I decided to do it, and no one else told me to do it? It can't possibly be the case that I'm not just someone doing what I'm doing of my own volition, it has to be part of your own faith? Why? Because you're so convinced you're right, and nothing could convince you otherwise? Not even your own lying eyes?" Dark Danny asked.
Neither the preacher nor the crowd responded to Dark Danny's question, instead choosing to stand in silence.
"But most importantly, even if I was an angel, why would you be so excited to meet me? Even when you've seen what I can do? Take a look back to your holy book, take a look at what it shows as an angel. What happens when god decides that he gets tired of a group of people and wants them gone? He sends an angel. When he wants firstborns dead, when he wants cities burned to the ground, when he punish, kill, or just make an example out of someone, he sent an angel. Haven't you ever thought about what a creature like that would be like? An eternal servant that acts as god's personal death squad? Have you ever wondered what it would mean if you faced something like that yourself?" Dark Danny asked.
He then raised a single hand to the preacher, preparing to shoot from it a blast of ectoplasmic energy.
"And the worst part about that is? With a god that doesn't even speak to you or never makes his plans clear, you never understand why he wanted you dead." Dark Danny said.
Releasing the built-up ectoplasmic energy from his hand, Dark Danny instantly eliminated the preacher standing before him, as well as a few bystanders unfortunate enough to be standing behind him. Continuing to move his hand about the town, many more townspeople befell his deadly reach, succumbing to the ethereal hellfire shot forth from his palm.
Praising his efforts of death and destruction not moments ago, the people came to turn on their praises quickly and certainly as they pleaded for their lives to be spared, thinking their beliefs would spare them of the maliciousness of their perceived angel. The hopes they have were whisked away just as quickly as their souls were; blasted into oblivion as their bodies were incinerated.
One townsperson stumbled to the ground and attempted to crawl away, only to have his efforts stopped with Dark Danny landing in front of him. As he raised his hand to the soon-to-be victim, the townsperson raising his hands up to Dark Danny, begging the all-powerful ghost for mercy.
"No! Please, my angel! Have mercy! I beg you!" The townsperson begged.
"So now you want mercy? Minutes ago, you were telling me how much you loved everything I was doing, glad I was killing so many people, even killing so many people yourself, but you won't give in so easy when it's your time to die?" Dark Danny asked.
"But... But I didn't mean for you to kill me! I just wanted to see everyone else die! They deserved it!"
"And you didn't?"
"No! I believed! I still believe! I get to go to heaven!"
"If that's the case, then why are you so scared to die?"
Simple as the question was, the townsperson knew that the answer invalidated the faith that he held so dearly and proudly proclaimed, and eliminated any excuse he could conjure up to be spared, or any reason to live. It is this final thought of intellectual and emotional defeat that sticks with him for the rest of his life, all few remaining seconds he has of it.
Then, Dark Danny fired another ectoplasmic blast, ending his life.
Thoughts and memories live on from the apparition's being to the present, when it no longer took the name of Danny Phantom, and instead began to call itself Demon Phantom. Focusing no longer on its past attempts to take over Earth and end all life on it, instead it focuses on its attempts to do the same in a world far more prepared to deal with his kind and defend itself from him.
Successfully shutting down all means of defense from other nations by their attempts to recreate their own version of Danny Phantom, Demon Phantom now has the research and development brought forth by the many nations brought to his plate at their occupied fortress of Fenton City, the airborne landmass holding Fenton Works, and at his disposal to do with as he pleased.
As the psyche of Vlad Masters is embedded in the whole of Demon Phantom's memetic makeup, he has an understanding of the scientific data and blueprints put before him, but he also has the ghost of Nicolai Technus to assist him in understanding the finer details.
"This is very sophisticated work we're looking at. My fields of study mainly ranged in math and physics, but, at face value, a lot of this looks based in mind control and brainwashing, like MKUltra; stuff that you'd see during the Cold War. I don't really see how this is going to help us in trying to turn people into gods." Technus said.
"It's like I said before. The whole idea of how to create your own god is to convince them completely and wholly that they are the very god you want them to be. Just as you are a residual image of the self you used to be when you were alive, the concept is to take that process of mental and spiritual makeup and hack it to our own ends. The research and work that these countries have done just gave us the 'Guide for Dummies' verison of how to do it." Demon Phantom said.
"But look at some of the stuff needed for the process. Psychedelic drugs? Electroshock therapy? Virtual reality? M.I.S.T.E.R. says that most people can either become or make their own ghosts right on the street just if they believe hard enough. Why is all this important?"
"Belief can be broken or strengthened by any number of outside factors. Throughout one's life, a person can go through all kinds of life-altering events that can make or break their faith in any given concept. A nutjob who thinks he's someone else is no different. You'd need plenty of therapy and medication to convince someone to shake them out of that belief. But we're trying to do the opposite. Not only are we trying to convince people that they're gods, but we're also trying to build the neural pathways in their brains to ensure that, when they die, there's a guarantee that they'll become ghosts and be so certain in their faith and so unbreakable in it, that even the strongest defenses of Earth against ghosts would have little effect on them."
"Meaning they'd have to be stronger than even you?"
"That's the goal."
"And what happens if any should try to rebel against you?"
"Once again, that's why we go over all this research with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that won't happen. You go over that now and I'll join you again in a moment."
Leaving Technus to look over the research one more time, Demon Phantom took to the rest of the ghosts and began passing to each of them paper lists.
"You four, these are the followers of the faiths that I need. I've grouped up each denomination to the continent, so that should narrow down a lot of your searches. Find them and bring them back here." Demon Phantom said.
Each of the lists passed to them contained the approximated denominations of the specific faiths he needed to complete the project, requiring one follower of each. The four ghosts, barely familiar with the religions existing in the United States alone, read through their lists with confusion, not knowing what they would be searching for.
"Uh... Boss, I'm gonna need something a little more specific than 'moron'." Skulker said.
"That's Mormon, dipstick." Ember said.
"What's the difference? All these people are morons, anyway."
"True, but these guys are a special case. Imagine if some guy made his own fanfiction of Christianity filtered through American exceptionalism, then claimed it's a lost part of the bible."
"How do you know that?"
"Knew a cute guy I wanted to screw back when I was alive. He made me do this stupid thing called 'soaking' instead."
"And what the hell's that?"
"He puts it in, but he doesn't move at all. Instead, he got a buddy to jump on the bed while he was in me. It was the worst lay I ever got in my life. I couldn't even get him to do my ass instead; that's usually what these Jesus freaks'll do to 'stay a virgin'."
"Knock it off, both of you. You two in particular are already on thin ice as it is with that little stunt at the U.N. in front of Tucker." Demon Phantom said.
"So what? We kissed in front of him as the wrong family members. What's the worst he'll do? Think the Fentons are sick bastards?"
"No. He could grow suspicious and either come see what we're up to, or send someone else to check on us. We're lucky if he hasn't sent anyone already. That's why I need you idiots to focus now more than ever to get these people."
"But, my liege, many of these faiths you require are ones I've battled against during my days of life, and would not likely still be around to this day. Are you sure that they may have surviving members?" Fright Knight asked.
"Tradition is one of the hardest human traits to kill off. As long as one person believed it at some point, they'll have passed it on down to someone else, and they'll believe it just as wholeheartedly. Even if they don't, you let me and Technus worry about that end of the deal. Now, our time is limited, no thanks to the aforementioned stunt by Skulker and Ember. I want these followers here, and I want them ASAP. Get moving."
Obeying the order given out by their leader, the ghosts, no longer needin the disguises of the Fentons' bodies, all instantly shed the skin of the corpses, leaving the bodies to fall to the ground. Keeping their lists in hand, the ghosts took off out of the hangar of Fenton City, flying to different parts of the globe for the religious peoples needed for his project.
All, that is, except for Vlad Plasmius. Upon shedding the body of Maddie Fenton, he, free of the hold of dying mortal flesh, turned to look at her idle body for one last moment before departing. Looking at her corpse once again, he was given a sad and disturbing reminder that she was taken away from him all too quickly, and he could do nothing to save her.
Her death is not something that he had desired in any way, yet he is currently under the employment of the one who personally brought her to the end of her life. The thoughts and implications of that fact still bring him objection and self-doubt, putting his ethereal form into a standstill of introspection and self-questioning.
Demon Phantom is either not perceptive to the fact, or he does not care. Instead, growing impatient with Vlad, he ordered him once again to leave.
"Vlad? Vlad?! VLAD!" Demon Phantom shouted.
Shocked out of his self-imposed trance, Vlad looked back to the irritated face of Demon Phantom, then back to the hangar, flying off and into the sky following the sharp and rude reminder of his mission. Taking to the stars, he spanned a great distance across the globe, moving to his portion of the Earth to find the specified practitioners of the specific faiths he was ordered to find.
The fruits of his thoughts were reaped, but the seeds were still sewn, and they will return to him in due time to give him further thought on his actions.
Beneath the massive flying laboratory named Fenton City, a place where the unknown is explored through science and logic, the world below it is known as Old Amity Park, where the unknown is explored through the mind and philosophy; two polar opposite viewpoints to the human understanding of the universe.
Three people are making a trek through the city of Old Amity Park to help one of them, a young man known as Danny Fenton, better known to the world as its famous superhero Danny Phantom, gain their soul back, in hopes that he can defeat Demon Phantom and his underlings to end his plot to destroy all life on Earth once again.
The other two are people who can be called his sisters: Danielle Phantom, and Jazz Fenton. The hereditary connection that they claim is debatable; one is merely a clone of Danny, and the other, while born his biological sister, is currently living as a ghost, her body dead and gone.
Despite the loosened connection that they share to Danny Fenton, they are all that he has to his name, and all that can guide him along to find his soul once again. Having his spirit ripped out and destroyed by Demon Phantom, he is but a living shell, unable to have any independent thought of his own, save for the mission instilled in him to regain his powers and defeat his enemy.
Just as there are two realms of thought that question the very nature of reality, his two sisters had carried their own languages of logic, each taking from their environments in which they grew up in, and they used both to debate on the state of the world and what role religion played upon it during their trip.
Jazz, living in the technological powerhouse of Fenton City, presented her arguments through science.
Danielle, living in the impoverished but grounded Old Amity Park, presented her arguments through philosophy.
Their journey has led them to a group of people known as Abrahamic Pacifists, a group of people living in an apartment complex together as one larger family. The complex itself is not the most spacious of buildings, but it appears to be enough to its occupants to get by in.
Their present destination has led them to another place in their debate, focusing it on the people that have now given them a temporary place of shelter and a meal each, and how their religion plays a part in their community and their actions. Just as before, Jazz makes her points in criticism of their faith, while Danielle sought to make hers in their defense.
As Danielle chewed down on her meal given to her by their hosts, Jazz posed the first out of many questions about them and their faith.
"So, who did you say these people are, again?" Jazz asked.
"Abrahamic Pacifists. They used to be called Islamic Pascifists, but they changed their name when they started getting Christians and Jews in their fold." Danielle explained.
"Muslims, Christians, and Jews all living together? Sounds kind of like a recipe for disaster, don't you think?"
"Why? All three faiths detracted from the same point. The only real disagreement they have is where how they view certain people or certain events in their respective books."
"One of the guys we talked to said they all 'follow the teachings of Jesus'. That of goes against two of those three religions. Christians are the ones who said that Jesus was the son of god."
"Yes, but he didn't say that Jesus was the son of god. He just said that they followed his teachings."
"And don't you kind of need to say that he's the son of god in order to do that?"
"Nope. You can agree with people on a lot of things, while still disagreeing with a handful of points they make. I'm sure you can disagree with people on a few things while agreeing with them on everything else, can't you?"
"Yeah, but if I was trying to say 'Oh, you can't get into heaven unless you do X, Y, and Z', and someone said 'Actually, no, you need to do X and Y, but not Z, I'd say that would cause a pretty big disagreement between a lot of people, and it'd be a lot less likely that people would actually come together as one group."
"People can also agree to disagree, and they'll do that a lot more than you think. Admitting you don't agree with people on one or two certain points isn't the end of a friendship for people."
"But if it was something as serious as what would happen to me after I die, then I'd imagine there'd be a lot of disagreement that couldn't be reconciled that easily. You yourself just said to me moments ago how important it was for people to have a guarantee that they'll have somewhere peaceful to be after they die, and how they'll be violent if need be to secure their place. Doesn't that still apply here?"
"I said that discontent can lead to people turning to those kinds of outlets, and they'll go to anyone who promises them a place of safety and security, and they're plenty of people that would try to take advantage of that. But not everyone's as manipulative or as deceptive as that. There's still a lot of people who really do mean and believe in what they believe, and they'll actually try to use their faith to help others. That's what these people here are doing for us. They even went so far as to expand their tent further because there were people who, even though they didn't agree on the full, exact letter of their religious texts, still agreed on the overall point that the texts were trying to make."
As if to demonstrate Danielle's point by way of illustration, one member of the Abrahamic Pacifists, this one a ghost, floated towards Danny to retrieve his empty plate, offering a cup of water in its place. Trading out the plate, Danny drank down the water, responding to the ghost with a nonverbal gesture that seemed to signify the intention of thanks.
Though she could not fully comprehend the beliefs of their hosts yet, Jazz nonetheless took fondness to them when seeing them tend to her brother.
"Well, that's all good and nice, but I still don't get how they can all have wildly different interpretations of what one person said yet still agree on what they view as the important parts. Last I checked, it's only the Christians who say Jesus was the son of god, so why is he important to Muslims, too?" Jazz asked.
"Jesus is a prophet in Islam as well. They don't say he's the son of god, but they say he's supposed to be the most important prophet and direct messenger of god. That alone gives them enough room to agree and act on the message together without bickering over the minor details."
"And what exactly is the overall message that they agree on?"
"You don't remember anything about Jesus? I know that the world's mostly given up on religion, but I would've at least thought that much would still remain in the public consciousness."
"Hey, I'm a bit behind on my Sunday school. Just pretend for a minute that I don't know anything about god or gods or religion on anything, and just tell me what exactly it is that keeps these people from just killing each other."
"Simple. They disagree on what Jesus is, but they agree on what he taught: Care about others like they're your family even if they're total strangers or not from your country, never judge anyone because you aren't worthy of judging anyone, and give away all your possessions to others and live off the good faith of others. He was a Marxist before Karl Marx was ever born."
"But that's just the flowery parts of the bible. There's plenty of commandments to murder and kill throughout it, too."
"But it's not just the bible they follow. It's also the torah and quran. There's plenty of differences between those three books."
"Yeah, and I'm sure they've all got plenty of flowery, good parts about treating people good and all the stuff people can agree with, but there's also plenty of parts that flat-out justify murder and genocide. These guys might look at those books and come out as complete hippies, and I say more power to them if that's their approach, but there's also complete psychopaths who would cherry-pick every piece of violence throughout the book, and use it as an excuse to justify their own violence and bring all their screwed-up fantasies to life."
"People also try to make the same arguments about comic books, movies, music, or video games. You can make any interpretation out of those you want, depending on what kind of person you are, but you're ultimately going to take away from it what you want to take away from it."
"So, now you're comparing religion to art?"
"Where's the difference? You read a book to be entertained, to learn something out of it, to gain an experience from it. Reading a comic book is fundamentally no different from reading the bible."
"But we don't try to pretend that comic books or movies are real. We acknowledge that it's just a work of fiction. Religion tries to say that it's the one truth of the world, and it should be taken literally."
"And I never said that I agreed with that. I never even said that I was a fan of religion. I just like when people can take a good idea out of something and apply it to their lives."
"But these people don't just read their books for 'good ideas'. They do it because they wholeheartedly believe in what they're reading."
"Something else I disagree with. There's plenty of good ideas out there throughout all the religions if you take a closer look at all of them, but not one of them had ever found the right mix yet. But they're so insistent that they do have the right mix that they'll defend their belief structure until the end, just to make sure they don't lose any support. Me? I think it's better just to have the ideas, rather than the beliefs."
"But what do you constitute as 'ideas' and 'beliefs'? Those don't sound too different in a conversation."
"An idea you can change if it doesn't work, and you can be willing to try another one to find the right idea. A belief you can't change so easily, because you're so confident that it's the right belief to have, and you won't give it up until you see it work. That's what the difference is."
"And how would you get people to get out of beliefs and go towards what you would call 'ideas' instead? It's not like you can just convince somebody that their beliefs are equally in value as belief in comic books. Hell, I could make an argument that Superman's more believable than Jesus. At least the idea of an alien being the last of his kind and sent to Earth to try to find a place to live is way more believable than a carpenter from the Middle East is the son of the creator of the entire universe and came here to save us from what said creator sees as moral failings, even though they're the one who created said moral failings in the first place."
"And you might have a point when you say that. I think the solution's not just to try to show people their beliefs aren't the best. Sure, that's definitely a part of how to change minds, but you can't just try to say 'No, that's wrong' and leave it at that. Beliefs are such an innate part of a human being that you can't just remove it that easily if you tried. It becomes such a deep part of them that they can't just let go of it, no matter what you did. And if you somehow did manage to convince them to lose it, then you'd leave them with nothing in their life. They'd be left to either look in the wrong places for purpose, or they'd just end their own lives because they couldn't take that kind of emptiness anymore."
"You say that last part like you have some personal experience in the matter."
Danielle paused for a brief moment in her speech before continuing, feeling pains of worse days past brought up with their mention.
"Yeah. You could say that." Danielle said.
"So, that's what this is all about. You were in a bad place of your own somewhere down the line, you think you found the answer, and, now, you want everyone thinking the same things that you do. How does that really make you any different from any other religious person, or, anyone who 'believes' in what they think, as it were?" Jazz said.
"It doesn't. I never said that it did. In fact, I believe I said something of the opposite. I said that we could use the good ideas they put forth and use them to help each other as people, and try to learn from as many as we can to try to find the best ideas. You're a scientist, I'm sure you try to look at other people's viewpoints before you try to come to any conclusions, right?"
"I do, but I look at results and what techniques breed out the results. That's not the same thing as seeing what people consume and what it makes them do."
"It's the exact same thing. If you can put anything you want into fiction or religion or any work of art in general, wouldn't you want to use it to propagate what you think is the best idea to help people become better?"
"Well, hold on now, you just contradicted yourself. You said earlier that people can look at any work of fiction and draw any conclusions from it they want, but, now you're saying the opposite. Which is it? You can't have it both ways."
"It is both ways. You can make something as clear as day as you want in any work of art, even if it's something as plain and benign as 'puppies are cute', but there's always going to be somebody who disagrees with you no matter what you do. The goal is to try to reach as many people as you can despite all the challenges."
"But if people are going to disagree on what they think are the best ideas and morals and philosophies, then what difference does it ultimately make if none of them can all fully agree on one? If they all just end up making their own interpretations of things, then there'll never be one specific set of ideas that gets it right, as you said you wanted. There'll always be disagreements and reinterpretations of other ideas."
"I never said that I wanted one specific set. We should always try to have skepticism and questions about everything. I always question in what I believe and try to find the right answer to everything. But that also doesn't mean I try to share the ideas that I think are right and see if people agree or disagree with them. I might be a little intimidated if people aren't interested in what I have to say, or even completely prove me wrong, but I'm willing to try to see if I'm right. That's what sharing ideas are all about."
"But why share all these ideas and concepts about humans and morality in the first place? If you were trying to say 'killing people is bad', I'd agree with you for sure, but I think most people can unequivocally agree that killing other people is bad, and I wouldn't need any god or book to tell me that, I'd probably figure that out because I don't want to be killed, and I wouldn't do to anyone else what I wouldn't want done to me."
"Sharing ideas is the way to figure out who's right or not, and try to find the right answer. You're a scientist, don't you know that best out of all of us?"
"Of course I know that, but I'm dealing with logic and mathematics; material concepts that we can see, touch, and use to our advantage. You're talking about immaterial things, things that deal with why we think we're here, and what people should try to be. I'm sorry, but I don't see those things as important."
"A lot of people do think that's important, including all these people taking care of us and Danny, as well as all the other people you've fought so far. There's been a serious redistribution of ideas since you guys came along and put the death sentence to all organized religion. Keyword: Organized. You didn't put an end to religion. You just decentralized it."
"So, you're blaming all of the stuff that's happened here on us? We're at fault for putting out empirical reality into the public sphere?"
"No. You're at fault for not giving people a better path to follow when you took away that crucial part of them."
"How are we supposed to be fault for just proving that ghosts are real and showing what is? It's not our responsibility to be the role models of the world."
"It's everyone's responsibility to be a role model to someone else. We have friends that look up to us, we have family members that we either look up to or look up to us, and we lead entire groups of people to follow our example in hopes of being better people."
"Except I never had any responsibilities like that. I had Danny to look after, but that was it."
"No, you didn't. You became the people who revealed the unknown questions of the universe at last, and, by default, becoming the most popular people on the whole planet. Don't you think there's plenty of people who would look to you and the Fentons as personal examples?"
"Danny had most of that down, he was a superhero who saved lives and protected people from ghosts. What could be more of a role model than him?"
"You mean the same role model that also lobbied the government for a blank check for research when you're already rich as it is, while the rest of the people in the country works 1 or 2 full-time jobs and don't make enough money to survive?"
Unable to retort the example set by Danielle, Jazz stood in silence to contemplate the response, trying to think of the best way to respond herself.
"Well, what if we weren't interested in being the role models of the world? What if we just wanted to do our own thing and not worry about the rest of the world? What difference does it make if we provide a personal example or not? People have the freedom to choose to follow whoever they want. Who'd want to follow a bunch of multi-millionaire scientists?" Jazz asked.
"Do you think Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo or any of the people of the Renaissance decided to set themselves as the examples to follow, or did you think they just left that up to other people to decide for themselves?" Danielle asked.
Once again, Jazz was stopped in contemplation from the question, but found no answer come to her to respond to Danielle's question.
"It doesn't matter if you want to be the role model to someone else or not. If you're someone who's intensely interested or passionate about any given thing, somebody who's made any breakthrough on any field of study, there will be people interested in you. The question is: Will you be somebody who uses what you learn for the betterment of the world, and show others the same path, or will you use it to enrich yourself and have no concerns about your fellow man and woman? Because, for the longest time, you've answered with the latter." Danielle said.
"But we were trying to further our research. We were trying to find more answers. We wanted to go deeper and find all the answers we could. We wanted it all. We could've discovered as much as we could then." Jazz said.
"Unrestrained freedom gets you nowhere if it comes at the cost of others, or doesn't help them at all. You're a dead woman now; you've spent your entire life living that way, only focusing on digging deeper into more research without any plans to have it help the world. Was that life worth it in the end?"
Yet again, no answer could be found from Jazz, forcing her to remain silent. Knowing there was no retort she could make to present herself in the right or justify her actions in life, there is nothing she can do to respond but turn her head and let out a metaphysical sigh.
At an example brought to her firsthand, she is given proof that Danielle's argument for philosophy, to share the best ideas with one another, is true.
But the esoteric conversation the two shared with one another had come to a pause with the sound of gunshots in the air, bringing scared reactions out of all present. The Abrahamic Pacifists, as one could deduce from their name, made no attempts to make defense measures, but instead chose to huddle against one another, joining each other in peace against the violence nearby.
Danielle and Jazz, however, shared no such agreement with their nonviolent approach, instead both huddling against Danny in preparation of self-defense.
"And who are the noisy neighbors?" Jazz asked.
"Well, we just took out the Christofascists, so that leaves only one group of people who have the most hate for Muslims: The Hindutva Militia." Danielle said.
"Hindutva? Let me guess: Fundamentalist Hindus?"
"Yep. Not many people know this, but Hindus and Muslims have had a long, bad history between one another. The problem is, unlike these guys, the Pacifists don't and won't defend themselves, even if their lives are in danger."
"So, that leaves it up to us to save them."
"Yep. Hope you kept your ghost-hunting skills after you died, because we're going to need them more than ever now."