Z e k e
Zeke lifted his coffee cup to his face inhaling the savory sweet scent and sighing contently. “You know? I almost spend as much time here as I do in the dorm. It's soothing, a nice atmosphere, and the coffee can't be beat.” George clicked her agreement as she flew up. The windowsill jut out just far enough that she could use it as a perch. It was obvious she was as used to coming here as Zeke was at this point.
“Yeah, that's the book right there,” he said, beaming with pride. “Yeah, Psalms especially reads like poetry. The first part of the book, the Old Testament, was used by a couple of different religions, actually. The Christians and the Jews both used it, but the Jews called it the Torah, that is if my studies pointed me to the right spot. It's essentially laws and the like, really giving insight as to how that particular group of people lived, long before humans figured out even ground transportation.” He explained this with the ease of someone who had read the book at least once.
“It was translated so many times simply because of the how prominent the sky god religion was. It caused wars...countless wars. Lots of massacres too, and not just Christianity. All people went to war over religion at one point, Muslims, Buddhists, you name it, the humans have probably fought over it.” He took a sip of his tea, if only to rest his mouth for a second, furrowed his brows and produced another packet of the white powder from before, dumping it in. Taking another sip, he smiled, “That's better. Sorry, was up late last night studying. Sometimes even the espresso shots don't do the trick. Anyway, yeah, I agree. Some of their views were really fucked up.”
Here, he took the book from her for a moment, flipping to Deuteronomy, “Check it out. Deuteronomy 22:28-29, If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. How fucked up is that?! A guy meets a virgin, rapes her, and doesn't make it up to her but her father?! That was a thing! That happened!” He ran a hand through his hair, once again flabbergasted that these were actually laws that were followed, and followed faithfully. Want a wife? Just rape a virgin! He was still wrapping his head around the fact that there was such a huge disparity between the sexes when his own species didn't even have sexed names. The sexes were simply for procreation and there were enough of them that procreation wasn't even a big deal anymore so even homosexuality was alright in their book. Any kind of hate for things like that...he just didn't get it. It made humans all the more fascinating for him.
He cleared his throat, a bit ashamed at his ramblings and slid the Bible back over to her, “Sorry... I uh...get excitable. I mean, it kind of makes sense, them turning to religion like that, thinking about death and looking at the sky and seeing nothing but void as opposed to opportunity. They needed to hold on to something. This invisible Sky God was their method...” He trailed off shaking his head, “And don't get me started on their practices with the dead...”