1 The Heart is a Glare

My personal belief is that atheists should kill themselves.

Considering that I live in an atheist state and encounter them every time I go outside, I would say I'm an expert in analyzing their nature. They're the peak of immorality, and adding on their 'beliefs' - or the lack of them - I reiterate my statement: Atheists should kill themselves.

Theoretically, yes, they can be moral - but that's only a half-truth. Without a constant to preserve their morality - such as the Word of God - they will only corrupt themselves more and more with each passing generation. To give an example, slavery was completely fine and moral a hundred or so years ago - now? It's an evil of the highest order.

Ephesians, chapter 6, verses five through seven, states: 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people…' [1]

God, in His infinite kindness and wisdom, tells us that slaves should wholeheartedly serve their masters - who am I to disobey?

Atheists have no foundation for their morality; it changes with the times, becoming more and more warped, until it is eventually considered completely incompatible with the true standards of righteousness.

They are godless heathens, believing in, literally and metaphorically, nothing; they believe in both 'nothing' after death and have no beliefs.

I, for one, am a man of God.

To give an example of my faithful justice, I look down at the homeless beggar who decided to grasp at my pant leg to catch my attention, asking for some money or bread.

I did just as any proper faithful man would do: I slammed a boot into his chest and proceeded to treat him as a doormat, using him to clean the mud off my shoes.

False believers could call me 'vile' and 'sinful', but I am no sinner. Saying so is blasphemy of the highest order. How could a faithful man ever be a sinner? Saying that creates a paradox.

When a man believes in God, his soul becomes immortal. An immortal soul has no fear of Hell, no fear of nothingness after a lifetime of suffering; I will be welcomed into Heaven's gates upon death, escorted by the Angels themselves to an eternity of satisfaction and joy.

Some deluded moron could potentially view my actions as 'sinful' and 'immoral', but my mind is sharp. My thought process is cleared of any obstructions. This allows me to say, with zero hesitation and complete clarity and validity, that my actions were completely moral and virtuous.

Glancing at my surroundings after finishing up, I noticed a guy snickering to himself even while trying to keep a straight face, while everyone else treated me like I didn't exist, ignoring everything.

I can see that none are true believers; in fact, they aren't even false believers. A true believer would've joined me.

Going back to what I said about how that was what any faithful man would do, I believe that believers should commit acts that could be viewed as 'sinful' all the time. If they feel guilt, then they are not a true believer - a true believer would have faith in the Lord, have faith in their own morality, and have faith in their faith itself.

I am a man of God. A true believer. An immortal soul can't be sinful - it's impossible, because then it wouldn't be immortal.

In the Gospel of Luke, a rich man does nothing to help Lazarus, a poor homeless man always outside the man's gates, begging for anything to help him survive. The rich man goes to Hell when he dies, but Lazarus goes to Heaven. The rich man begs for mercy from Abraham, but Abraham refuses, just as the rich man did to Lazarus.

An uneducated philistine could say this story proves me to be wicked and deplorable, saying that I am corrupting the words of the Holy Scripture, but then they would be wrong, not me. Anyone who says that hasn't studied the Bible enough. That, or they're just stupid.

Firstly, Lazarus wasn't faithful; even if he did believe in God, he probably didn't do anything beyond believing, too focused on his greed and all that. Secondly, I'm not rich. I'd starve if I spared any food or money. I live in the Soviet Union; maybe some tubby American could afford to donate to charity, but nobody in this godforsaken patch of ice can.

That parable's moral was that the godless wealthy should repent and prostrate to God and that those who have more than they need should give to those who don't; there was nothing about a poor man helping another poor man.

Sure, I may be more well-off than him, but that's only because I'm not homeless. Before the guy was violated by communist policies, he was probably just as - if not more - wealthy than me.

Third, I am chosen by God, granted my own special power. I don't know what 'it' actually does, but ever since I was ten years old, I awakened 'it'. All 'it' does is give me some fancy white gloves, but I'm sure there's more to the ability than summoning some high society clothing.

To be honest, I don't use the ability at all. That's for two reasons: one, I don't actually know how; two, the amount of KBG informants in Moscow is ridiculous. Those fuckers snitch on anything they think the KGB would be interested in, and someone who looks like he's dabbling in witchcraft or something would definitely qualify.

The heathens viewing God-given gifts as something as vile as witchcraft may be disgusting, but it's unimportant.

Probably twenty percent of the informants do it to get on the good side of the government and federal agents, and the rest do it because they were threatened - usually of being shipped off to Siberia to be a coal miner or something.

See how immoral atheists are?

It may seem like I have a bias against atheists, but I don't; I personally believe it's better to be atheist than to be from some other religion. Curry-munchers put those weird dots on their foreheads because they think they have a 'third eye' or something, plus it's apparently a 'beauty' mark. They also worship farm animals and bathe in cow excrement.

Better to be godless than have a 'god' who has you drink cow urine and eat literal dung.

Some of those religions are so blatantly false that anyone with a brain can see that it's an elaborate fiction. [2]

If I find out that the Greek gods are real and aren't just the products of a story taken too far - and this also applies to Norse gods, Asian religions, and the rest of those pagan religions - I make my promise, here and now: I will shoot myself in the head.

Well, that promise ultimately doesn't mean much, as something like that is impossible. The only true god is God. In Ancient Greece, the Oracle of Delphi, who 'spoke for the gods', was conveniently placed in a cave full of volcanic gas, fumes that make you hallucinate, so it's safe to say that those beliefs aren't built on a particularly strong foundation.

Anyway, time to get out of here. The guy crumpled into a little ball and the crowd has made a little pathway around us, so it won't be too long until an officer notices something. Even though they commit horrible sins every day, the government dislikes it when someone is 'unharmonious', so I need to make sure they don't catch me.

Granted, they don't really care about what happens to a homeless man, so they won't put much effort into finding out who did what as long as they get away. If I'm found lingering at the crime scene, it is literally my fault that I got caught.

Trying to prevent my boots from sinking into the mud - and on that note, wearing them was a smart decision, considering that the mud here in the spring is deep enough to be used to drown a man, and I know this because I saw a Chekist [3] do it one time - I walked back to my church, inherited from my father.

Of course, I'm not a real priest. Becoming a priest would require actual education in such matters - getting education for all that requires an institution to actually teach those things, which does not exist in Russia - plus, a singular authority to declare people priests - in other words, the church - also does not exist in Russia.

Just because my small, pathetic place was spared by Lenin doesn't mean the actual church was. Just because they stopped persecuting doesn't mean it's encouraged and allowed.

I may have more knowledge of Christianity than most priests, but I'm only one in my own mind.

But, arriving at my church, it seems that the Lord has seen fit to bless me with the presence of two real priests.

Because there are two men I've never seen before, dressed in a mix of priest robes and medieval armor, waiting outside my door.

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[1] The quote from Ephesians is taken out of context; the actual moral is that slaves shouldn't revert to violence and all that and should instead serve to do as many good deeds and have as much kindness for others as possible. It's not actually encouraging slavery; verses eight and nine say that the Lord will reward everyone for all good that they do, whether slave or free, and that the masters should 'treat their slaves in the same way'. "Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."

[2] "Some of those religions are so blatantly false that anyone with a brain can see that it's an elaborate fiction" - I obviously know that the same can be said for Christianity. Statements like these will be fairly common throughout the story - in case you haven't realized, MC is a hypocrite.

[3] A Chekist is basically the Bolshevik version of a KGB agent; for anyone who doesn't know Russian history all that well, CHEKA was the original KGB, the one for the Bolsheviks (what the Soviets called themselves before rebranding to Soviet), and just like how the Bolsheviks switched their name to Soviet after Lenin's death, CHEKA rebranded to the KGB. Both of these names were changed because of how brutal they were when these names were in use, brutal to the point of needing to change their names to signify a 'new era' of Russian communists.

If there's confusion on other things mentioned in the chapter, comment and let me know.

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I'll clear up a few things:

This fanfiction does not reflect my real life views; I'm not really religious.

If the MC offends you, such as when he insulted basically all Asian religions, called Indians/Hindus curry-munchers and disrespected their religious practices, or when he encouraged slavery, then just stop reading. The first chapter is kind of tame compared to the later chapters, so I wouldn't recommend sticking around for the rest.

I'll probably have included my 'letter' before this chapter actually started, and the synopsis probably states it, but I'll reiterate: no harem, no romance, no smut-related R-18. Lust is a sin. Also, if you couldn't tell by reading the chapter, evil MC, a religious hypocrite one.