Priorities

"C'mon," you said, pulling on her shoulder, "We don't stand a chance unless we take care of the essentials. After that we can think about running after X's in the forest."

She nodded and stood up. "Alright, two days to go, miaswell make the most of the experience."

You looked across the clear water of the lake. "This water is great, but we don't have any way to carry it..."

She opened up the briefcase with a thoughtful expression. "You don't imagine they'd give us a water-proof container along with their guns and X's?"

You smiled at her insinuated meaning, "Worth a try!"

She opened it up and dunked it below the surface of the lake, filling the container with a good amount of water. Then closing the lid and locking the latches. She shook it around a bit, a few water droplets falling off the side from having been dunked in the lake but otherwise no visible spillage. "I can't say for sure, but it looks like it might just work."

You nodded, "That's really great news."

She looked at you with a smile and a raised eyebrow, "What's next on the list of essentials?"

"Food, mainly." You replied.

"Luckily for you..." She pocketed the map and picked up a walking stick, "...I know a thing or two about foraging!"

You pocketed the gun, "Unluckily for you I can't say I know a thing about hunting, but I suppose there's no better time to learn!"

She frowned, "We won't be able to travel together if you go hunting and I go foraging."

"We'll just agree to meet back here in a couple hours and see what we find!"

"With who knows what dangerous animals roaming the woods along with armed businessmen? There are few things I fear more than an armed businessman, John. And it usually involves an armed business man who isn't noticed for his deeds, or more than one. We're dealing with both those scenarios here!"

"Well it's either starve or run the risk of getting assassinated because people don't listen to their own rules. Plus, we don't technically know if there's more than once."

She sighed and put her hands on her hips, "It's not about dying John, there's little chance we'll make it off this goddamn Island. What I'm worried about is either one of us dying alone."

"What, so you're fine with us starving together?"

She shook her head, "I didn't say that, I just...I don't want to be alone on this Island again. I'm done with that, if you die then I die."

You hesitated, "What about your family back home? Wouldn't they want you to survive with or without some random guy?"

"They..." she looked down, "sure, yeah. They'd rather I live than die, but honestly they don't care much about me. Which is only fair because I don't care much for them. They'll go through their grievances and rituals but at the end of the day they didn't agree with what I stood for. They would rather follow some theoretical old man in the clouds than any realistic plot to save the world."

"I take it you're an atheist?"

"No," she chuckled sadly, "I would be, but I've seen the impossible occur. I don't know what it is, it could be old man in the sky or it could be the spaghetti monster. One thing's for certain though, that old man isn't what he's cut out to be. He literally cannot be all loving, all knowing, and all powerful, because if he were than we wouldn't be on this Island right now."

"What if he's just offering karma for our free will decisions?"

"Would an all loving God support justice over happiness? Isn't justice just a repackaged form of ****?"

You thought about this for a while. You were never particularly religious but her findings seemed ****. "I suppose it could be, but then what if everything about their religion is right except one of the parts? Like let's say the god was all Loving and all knowing but didn't have the power to do anything more than what's already being done about the situation?"

"Romans 13, John. Everything else can't be correct, unless God pulls some butterfly effect nonsense to make it so it's technically best to follow every authoritarian structure in the world. Sure you could argue it's mistranslated and it actually means you should allow them to pull whatever they like on you without resistance after doing what you will, but is that not even more ridiculous? To fight back and then let them take you in the last minute, just to follow some commands which any logical person would avoid following? Isn't it so much more realistic to say the whole thing's a fraud to keep the masses in check?" She sat back down and leaned against a tree.

"What about the whole 'love over logic' thing? Or faith? Aren't those supposed to trump whatever you find logically?"

"It's like saying cheese over pizza, the former is accounted for in the latter is we're being purely logical, it makes no sense to throw out everything about the pizza except cheese."

"Well, what about Jesus?"

"What about him? I don't know, maybe some guy did get hung on a cross, so what? It makes no sense that one person should represent so many when they have so little to do with one another in a direct sense. Oh, and according to the 'lore', we're supposed to believe that the only reason all of this is happening is because the first lady ate some apple on a tree marked 'The knowledge of good and evil' or something like that. How is that benevolent? That's another case of repackaged ****! Not even on the original girl but on the entire species! I don't know if you noticed or not but I'm not Eve!"

"Fair point."

"And another thing! If God made everything then he had to have built the benefits of free will, meaning that doesn't work as an excuse! He already knows everything so giving it to us literally does nothing but cause us unnecessary pain! The contrast isn't necessary. And back to the tree, you know that I think it was?"

"What?"

"I think it was allegorical, mistranslated as 'the knowledge of good and evil', when really it was 'the decision-making power of what good and evil are'. I think the book was originally written to teach people such foundational lessons as that, not to be a moral relativist. Because they're is an objective standard for ethics, it doesn't require spirituality to exist, it can rise from logic alone. And moral relativism has lead to almost all the biggest problems we face. Even here, on this Island, the only reason we're being chased by these men in suits is their psychopathic mental state. Which is almost definitely the doing of bad parenting, or the lack of it, in a society ran by laws that aren't based on objective ethical systems. The parenting styles could have only been troublesome if the parents were also moral relativists. At least the few scenarios where they aren't are few and far between. Are you starting to see the pattern?"

You weren't sure you did, it sounded like a stretch.

"I think the Bible is a mistranslated book that once held many great lessons, now it holds few. But you know what? I think we could do better."

"What, me and you?"

She laughed, "Probably even us two, but I meant humanity as a whole. If we chose, I think we could do much better... especially with today's technology, we could certainly translate and distribute like never before. And we wouldn't need to have so many nonsensical explanations for things either! We could focus on what makes sense for the benefit of all."

Now it was your turn to laugh, "Is ever we get off this island, you can publish your book on philosophy and rise up as the new messiah!"

She couldn't help but smile but shook her head, "No no no don't you see? That's how they get us so effectively! They convince us to find leaders and representatives, I want none of that. No arbitrary dictates from anyone, everyone has to be their own individual in my mind. That means anarchy, not as chaos but as a realm where there are no masters, and there are no slaves. That's true freedom, and freedom is worth far more than security in almost every case."

"So what, you're some kinda new age anarchist?"

"New age movements are nearly just as bad as Christianity! No no no, people will need to fight, they won't be meditating the orbiting aliens in from Andromeda."

You looked at her with a concerned expression.

"That was a joke, I'm not entirely crazy just yet, though who am I to say they don't exist? I just think we ought to try getting out of this mess ourselves, considering we should be plenty able. Meditation calms people down, it's useful, the problem being if it's overdone it won't lead to the fighting spirit we need if we're looking for change!"

"If we don't move now the sun's gonna dip below the horizon and leave our foraging in darkness." You commented.

She nodded, "Fair point, do you want to come with me? I can stay quiet so you can hunt as we go."