Current mood:

disappointed

Dear Everyone In The USA (and probably other countries with Christian symbols and references everywhere):

It's all right if you haven't read the bible. (I haven't, either, except in bits and pieces for lulz.)

Not having read it, however, does not excuse you from having nary the most ghostly clue as to its contents.

SERIOUSLY. If, say, Char. A says to Char. B "You're the son who murdered Abel, and was thrown out by Eve", you should probably be able to assume that Char. B is either literally or being compared to Cain. If C snaps "What, are you going to part the seas to allow us passage?", it's Moses on his mind. And if they start going on about wedding parties where the water is turned to wine-- you're either reading Bible!Fic or The Brothers Karamazov.

It's not like you're expected to know every story-- I've talked to plenty Christians who had no freaking clue who Job is (which sucks when you're trying to argue that God was a jerk in the Old Testament)-- or quote every scripture from memory, but this is the bread and butter of literary reference. It might be different if you didn't get a reference to Loki in the form of a snake dripping poison into a man's face, but American culture is saturated in Christianity.

Not knowing who Cain and Abel were when you're 15+ years old? Just makes you look kinda dumb. This is probably going to be more important in a book you read twenty years from now than who's going to be on next week's American Idol.

~ Alana

PS: I apply this to atheists, of course. I kinda have to. Seeing how I'm atheistic, and expect myself to know who Cain and Abel were... But I find it more disturbing when Christians (of whatever faction or subgroup) don't know their own mythology. Dear FSM, what the hell? D: