All About The Premise

Here's a tiny post by Lalaith concerning a video game and Dracula (who always makes a proper villain).

There are some things I'm going to lay out that are quite simple truths to help form the premise - because a premise is vitally important. One, you can't steal something that belongs to you. You can take it; you can obtain it illegally (someone stole it from you and you're taking it back without the support of the legal system); but technically, you can't steal it. It's yours.

Two, if there is no deity, there is nothing that can steal your soul. You can be tricked, deceived, or black-mailed into giving it - but nothing can take it from you without your consent. Not even the Devil can steal your soul.

Three, anything that I make out of my property automatically belongs to me. The offspring of any animals that I own belong to me. Anything that comes from what I own at my hand belongs to me. No one else has any claim.

It's probably pretty easy to see where I'm going with this. The authors of the other blog believe in a creative deity; therefore, he/she/it, by virtue of having formed all things, owns all things - including their souls. If they believe that it gave up that right and gave them their souls to keep, then there is nothing else that can steal those souls away. Basically, no matter how you look at that quote, it just doesn't work logically. If it had used the word "deceive" or "beguile" or something, okay. But steal? No. That's mythology.

I think I've dealt with the slave part pretty recently; I get the feeling it will come up again before too long.