#it's 3AM and I gave myself a migraine writing this x_x

[clusterduck28]

Analyzing one line said by a gag side-character in a kids' cartoon - An Owl House Essay

Belos is supposed to know everything, but why should he know what the Titan wants? Maybe the Titan doesn't even know what he wants. Maybe he's just some normal guy, you know?

I'm just sat here, still endlessly contemplating this line delivered by Steve and its implications on the nature of religious belief in the real world. I feel like there's a pretty nuanced take that is implied there, that I don't see brought up often, not within the online spaces where theist topics are usually discussed and especially not within the context of kids' TV animation. So I'm going to try and extrapolate the implied meaning here while adding some of my own thoughts in a way that would hopefully be comprehensible but I can't necessarily guarantee that :)

Okay, so you guys know how often discussion of religion is exclusively framed around the question of Theism vs. Atheism? It always seems to boil down to the question of god's existence, he either is or he isn't. Every participant in a discussion is supposed to place themselves in one of the two camps and go die on the religion hill in the name of either god or science. This is, to my knowledge, the most common way people conceptualize all of religious discourse for themselves: there's the main question of god vs. no god and then many auxiliary questions that are less important and largely stem from your personal position on the main one.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be like this. You personally, don't have to reject and abandon your religious beliefs in order to be critical of religious institutions and recognize the historical and ongoing harm said institutions have done to society.

Bringing this back to Steve's words, his question is not necessarily about whether the titan exists, he's literally standing on its corpse, in his case it would be silly to question that. But what is not silly to question how Belos, the titan's prophet, is even able to be certain about the titan's will, if the titan himself actually has a definable will and if it's even worth following it. Because ultimately, these things are unknowable and if anyone is to claim to know them, the burden of proof is on them, especially when they stand to personally benefit from everyone taking them at their word. Belos has just as much actual proof for his bullshit about the titan as Steve does for the titan being 'a normal guy' so why does Belos get be emperor?

It's not as if Steve here independently came to some ultimate truth that is unambiguously more true than what he was told by the system he was indoctrinated into. Instead, he has just accepted and embraced that some things in life are just unknowable.

This is, of course, easier said than done because we, as people, are known to be terrified of uncertainty. In fact, many theorize that all religious/supernatural belief is a consequence of people trying to fill in holes in their understanding of the world. Why does it rain sometimes? Gods pissing from the sky. Where did we come from? God created you. Why do our loved ones have to die? It's God's will. Why the world is so cruel? God is testing you. What happens when I die? God decides your faith for the rest of eternity. And so on and so forth.

Religion is a natural consequence of human curiosity, our brains are inclined to get anxious over existential questions and religion provides simple and comforting answers to them. There's nothing wrong with that in on itself, everyone likes to feel comforted but, of course, as we al know from the real world, providing comfort is not the only thing religious institutions are capable of. In fact, they are responsible for all kinds of war, genocide, minority group persecution and other kinds of oppression. Religious leaders are known to often push their personal beliefs through the authority or their institution, justifying all kinds of horrors with the notion of 'god's will', which is not to be questioned.

But like maybe you should question it. After all, the titan didn't personally tell you his will, you only ever heard about it second hand from that Belos guy and he certainly doesn't have your best interests in mind, just look at the inhumane conditions you and your fellow scouts have to work under!

Anyway, so the point here is that it's absolutely necessary to question the authority of religious institutions, regardless of if you are religious not. Faith is an important part of many people's understanding of the world, but this shouldn't, however, be a justification for supporting harmful things practiced by religious institutions. You have the moral right to disagree with things done in the name of your faith.

For a lot of people, my younger self included, it can be quite difficult to decouple the concept of religious belief from the the religious institutions that are supposed to embody them. But separating them is actually quite important because belief is a personal matter, while social institutions are a public one. In other words, each individual is free to determine their own beliefs for themselves but the questions that have to do with determining what kinds of institutions serve society best have to be decided upon collectively. Thus, critiques that focus specifically on religious belief remain in the realm of philosophy, a field that is notorious for never having certain provable answers to any of the questions it seeks to answer, all is shrouded in uncertainty and frustrating to engage with for laymen. On the other hand, critiques of religious institutions rely primarily on historical and material analysis, they are way more grounded in reality, accessible and understandable to an average person and don't have as much ambiguity as philosophy does. It is way more productive to criticize the bad things done in the name of faith than the faith itself.

Basically, I think that this is what the creators of The Owl House are trying to get at with Steve's story and with the broader point it's building towards in general: the show is not against faith, instead it's against authoritarianism justified by faith.