#unless discussions of loss of faith or having faith are a squick for you

[eirenical]

I was going to try to sneak something in for Rare Pair Week before the end of the day, but that didn’t happen.  :P Instead, I spent the day thinking about something that @lizardrosen  asked me last night: about faith in the Muet-verse–who has it and who doesn’t and how does that relate to everything else. So.  Since I promised you a nice long response… enjoy?  ;D

Enjolras was raised some flavor of Christian, but his family’s faith was mostly secular in nature.  Sure, they did Christmas trees and Easter baskets and all the commercialized trimmings, but they hardly ever went to church.  As a result, Enjolras doesn’t think much of religion.  If he were to bother to think about it enough to put a label on it, he’d probably say he was agnostic.  He doesn’t spend too much time thinking about whether or not there is a higher power. He has too much else on his plate to worry about that.  His parents taught him to be kind, to be charitable, and to do whatever was in his power to help others; that’s good enough for him.

I know we’ve discussed Feuilly before, but I’ve thought about him some more since then.  He’s Jewish, because, let’s face it, my Feuilly always is, and that fits in pretty closely with where the state of his faith is at, actually.  I said once that he doesn’t believe in G-d.  That’s not really true, though.  He wants to not believe in G-d. He wishes he didn’t believe.  It would be easier if he didn’t.  If he didn’t believe, he wouldn’t have to wonder why all these awful things were happening in the world and G-d was doing nothing. He wouldn’t have to wonder why bad things happen to good people.  He wouldn’t have to wonder if G-d was even fucking paying attention.  He wouldn’t have to wonder what the whole fucking purpose of it all was.  But that wondering, that questioning, that anger… that, in itself, is a very Jewish thing.  So, though he claims he doesn’t believe, he still very much does.  And when he’s at his loneliest, at his most despairing, he clings to the traditions of his childhood—the Shabbos rituals, the recitation of the Sh’ma, the old camp songs he learned from his grandfather and grandmother—and sometimes that’s enough to get him through one more day.

And this is getting long, so Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Grantaire are going behind a cut.  ^_^

Combeferre believes in Science as though it were his religion and his G-d, all rolled up into one.  He believes in evidence; he believes in proof.  If you could show him proof of a higher power behind the design of the universe, he’d most likely accept it and adopt that belief into his world view.  If not? If it’s something he just has to take on faith?  Not so much. Science doesn’t let you down. Science is reliable.  And the few times it isn’t, it’s simply because you don’t know enough to understand why it didn’t follow the rules this time.  All it asks is that you question everything, test everything, and learn from what you observe.  That’s easier by far than questions of faith.  Combeferre has seen too much—lived through too much—to believe in a benevolent high power.  It’s easier and more comforting by far to believe in Science.

Courfeyrac… I can’t tell you much about his background without giving away major spoilers, but I can say that his mother was raised Catholic but had long since given up faith in a higher power by the time she had him, and his father was mostly like Enjolras—a secular Christian.  So, Courfeyrac grew up much like Enjolras did.  The difference?  Courfeyrac believes in G-d.  Not the fire and brimstone variety, though, the ever-loving variety.  When he was young, he used to catch episodes of Touched by an Angel on TV, and though on some level he thinks it’s childish now, he still believes in guardian angels and all the rest.  He believes that someone is looking out for humanity.  He has to. To think otherwise is just too sad for him.  When he was a child, he used to entertain a fantasy that Tess and Monica would swoop into his life and make everything better.  …these days, when he lets himself indulge in that childish fantasy, he more often hopes for Andrew.

Grantaire… Grantaire doesn’t really believe in anything.  He knows there’s a higher power of some kind; of course, there is. And said higher power mostly treats humans like playthings.  Wind them up, point them in a direction, and watch them go, right?  Forget the rest of the nonsense.  If there’s a higher power at all, they’re not in it to micromanage humanity. If they are, they’re doing a shitty job, right?  So, Grantaire figures they’re mostly in it for kicks, and well, he figures he can’t complain about that, because if HE were a supreme being, he’d be mostly in it for the kicks, too.

And… I am getting very, very sleepy.  So, I think I’ll save Prouvaire, Joly, Bossuet, Musichetta, Bahorel, Eponine, Gavroche, and Marius for another time, because some of them are going to require a bit of research.  ^_^