Had this image in my head for about a week. Needed to excise it.

"Why are you praying?" Fitzpatrick screamed, activating the neural whip in her hands. The bright blue pulse entered her prisoner's skull, arresting the flowing intonation in his throat. But only for a moment. He swallowed, spat, then continued on as if it had been nothing.

"Holy Mary, mother of God..."

They'd been at this for a while. At first, she'd been cheered when it started. Former priests, as this man was, were high on her list of least favorite subjects. It was odd, because the perverted faggots should have been wonderful to experiment on. She should have been able to draw immense satisfaction from working them over, forcing them to realize that God did not exist, that their determination to cling to such illegal modes of thinking was nothing but cowardice, but it was hardly ever the case. Sometimes they broke fast, and could be gold mines on occasion, as the unthinking reactionaries still tended to place their trust and their secrets in their illegal clergymen, but mostly they were just pains in Fitzpatrick's ass. Her initial cheer evaporated when the actual words dutifully recorded by her computer penetrated, and the cadence in which he said them was recognized.

Out of all the gall, the bastard was praying at her. In her indignation, what few scruples she had evaporated.

"God...does...not...exist!" she said, punctuating each word with another pulse from the whip. Fitzpatrick had been exposed to the whip, once, during her training. Every pain receptor in her body seemed to flare at once with the stimulation, her stomach muscles going strangely slack or tight as the pulse flat refused to allow her body to vomit. That one touch haunted her dreams for years, but it gave her a real understanding of the work she did everyday. This priest had been exposed to hundreds of such stimulation in the last hour. She was slightly in awe he could even speak, let alone remember whole prayers. Perhaps he couldn't. He seemed to be saying the same one over and over a lot. "Why do you still call to a figment of your imagination?"

He'd met her eyes, once or twice during the session, but didn't even acknowledge that remark with a frown. He simply carried on.

"Pray for us sinners..."

"Prayer is nothing! It does nothing! Gives you nothing!" she cried. "Are you blind? Are you stupid? How much more proof do you need that God is nothing but a lie? Your kind says miracles happen, but what miracles can come from a being that can do nothing, not even stop your pain?"

"Amen," he said. Then he looked up, meeting her eyes. "But He is. He is doing something. And if you cannot see it, you are the one blind." He turned away, and resumed his pace. "Glory be to the father..."

Fitzpatrick sighed. There was nothing for it. That was the only reaction she'd gotten in a session long enough to drive almost any other person to madness. The only explanation she could see was that he was already crazy, and so they could not trust anything out of his mouth anyways. She hated the waste on her time, but at least she finish up. She stepped back, and with a smooth motion extracted her sidearm.

"...is now, and ever shall be, a world without--."

***

Now that's out of the way, how about I say a few offensive things, yes?

I blame the Old Testament for the misunderstandings people have about Christianity. Catholicism in particular, at least as I understand it, but Christianity in a wider sense too. The Old Testament made things too easy for it's adherents. It is easy to have faith when faith alone kept fire from touching you. Shadrach in the charnel, singing of His glory, must have made a terrible impression on the Babylonians. It is equally easy to follow a god who provides a 60' pillar of sand to act as your GPS navigation device. Who will turn rivers into blood in protecting you and yours. Who can, will, and does provide tangible proof when such proof is demanded. I encountered someone who told me that God cannot exist, because if He did, the world would have no problems, since he'd provide miracles enough to keep his followers in the style in which they'd like to be accustomed.

I thought, My God, what a moron.

Christianity isn't like that. Christ performed miracles yes, in front of thousands sometimes, but on the whole, they were quiet ones. Do you really think all 5000 people knew there was only a scattering of bread and fish in that basket? That people who saw the corpse didn't think they might have been mistaken when the soldier's daughter lived? Yes, people said, people testified, but it wasn't like they had EEG devices back then. Even people who witnessed might have been able to doubt the evidence of their eyes. The Bible says they believed, but I'm sure some did not. Many, I'd think.

If Christianity isn't about pillars of flame, it is about more quiet forms of faith. A grown, important man taking them time to speak to children. It's about the head of a saint rolling just so to stare accusingly at his murderer. It is about a woman giving her last coin in the faith that it will make a difference in her life. It is a man, dying, finding it in himself to offer comfort to another. A woman in mourning wiping the sweat and blood from the brow of the condemned.

Instead of a man defying fire, it is a man chained, yet still singing to His glory.

The martyrs are telling, I think. In the Old Testament, the martyrs would have been saved. The bitter cup would have passed their lips. It is a bit grim that we wear crosses to show our faith. It is a reminder of the greatest miracle performed for our sakes, yes, but also the cost that our beliefs sometimes carried, because God would not save us from that fate. Not on this world.

There is a reason St. Peter is the father of Catholicism. Yes, yes, his name signifies that he is the rock upon which the church was built, but any biblical scholar, or even someone who's read a Dan Brown novel, knows the Bible we have wasn't all we had to work with. I feel confident the church patriarchs could have done a bit of editing, should they have felt the need. Paul, from the perspective of someone who thinks in Old Testament terms, would have made a much better example, which is why he did most of the proselytizing. But Peter, ah, Peter was the man who denied. Who, before Thomas, doubted. Who failed himself, when the chips were down and when Christ himself reached out a hand and asked him to step forward. We are told that it was John whom Christ loved best. But it was Peter, that sank beneath the waters, who became the rock.

Faith isn't supposed to be an easy thing. It isn't supposed to be blind. That was the miracle of Saul/Paul, after all. Faith is supposed to be tested, and sometimes found wanting. But it is also supposed to be a light in dark places. It cannot save us from the gallows. But it can touch us, let us walk to our deaths in peace.