blog 22

Background:In episode seven of he series Firefly the crew travels to Canton to complete a job. Jayne, a mercenary who is part of the crew, seems apprehensive about traveling to Canton and reveals that several years ago he robbed the magistrate of the town. Four years prior, Jayne and an accomplice robbed the magistrate; while they were attempting to escape their aircraft was attacked and Jayne was forced to dump the stolen money, along with several other things including his accomplice, in order to make the aircraft lighter. When the crew arrives in Canton they find a statue of Jayne and later overhear people singing a song about him. After much discussion it is discovered that the money that Jayne dumped landed in the middle of Canton and the impoverished population, mostly made up of indentured slaves owned by the magistrate, grew to view Jayne as a Robin Hood like hero whom they now worship. After the magistrate realizes that Jayne is back in town he summons Stitch, Jayne’s former partner whom Jayne left for dead. The magistrate arms Stitch with a shotgun and sends him to kill Jayne who is nearby at a ceremony thrown by the community in his honor. Stitch arrives at the ceremony and after discharging his weapon into the air in order to silence the crowd and gain their attention he informs everyone that Jayne is no hero. Stitch explains that Jayne never intended to give the money to the people, he only dumped the money in order to get away and he didn’t dump the money until after he had dumped everything else from the ship, including other cargo, chairs, and Stitch himself.
My thesis is that people practice religion not because it makes sense but because it gives them hope.