In the 5th episode of Firefly, titled “Safe,” a doctor and his sister are taken captive by a very remote and impoverished community of people. It is a very desolate and barren area on this planet. The people live in houses made of a type of stick and mud. Their clothes are raggedy and every one walks around very downtrodden. Some of the citizen’s spirits seem to rise when they discover they now have a doctor. Simon, the doctor, had been looking over his mentally ill sister, River, until he and River were abducted by the people of this community. River has previously had her mind tampered with by people with intentions of turning her into a psychic/assassin, which is why she has required extensive medical attending. While being held hostage in this community, one of the citizens notices Rivers rare powers of deduction and mind-reading. This community happens to be an extremely fundamentalist society, meaning, that they follow the very, very strict guidelines of their religion, Christianity. The citizens of this town recognize River as a witch, and as the bible states: witches are meant to be terminated, usually by a burning at the cross.
In today’s society, this would be viewed as a very irrational claim for two reasons: first, witches are not really thought to exist in this world, at least in Christian views, and second, even if someone was thought to be a witch, they wouldn’t automatically be burned on the spot. Over the years Religion has morphed to keep up with this postmodern day and age. You wouldn’t see a witch burning, per say, but you do see people of followings constantly arguing over which religion is right or better. People of different faiths are constantly being hounded or attacked by others because of their beliefs; is it rational or ethical for these people to act in this way towards River because it is what they believe is right? Is it right for someone to impose their beliefs on another human being, even if they believe this act will help this person?
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