Against My Religion/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character uses the "against my religion" excuse to get out of doing something he doesn't like.
 * Straight: Alice, who hates gym class, claims that gym class is against her religion.
 * Exaggerated:
 * Alice claims that every thing imaginable she doesn't like doing is against her religion.
 * Alice claims that gym class is against her religions.
 * Justified: Alice actually does belong to a religion, even if it's a religion that exists only in-universe, that prohibits gym class.
 * Inverted: Alice, who loves eating candy, claims that eating candy in class -- which is against school rules -- is required by her religion.
 * Subverted: After Alice claims that gym class is against her religion, the gym teacher challenges that claim.
 * Double Subverted: Until Alice warns the gym teacher that she can have him charged for religious persecution, in which he then drops it.
 * Parodied:
 * Mr. Killmaster claims that respecting other people's religions is against his religion.
 * "According to school policy, no more than two required classes may be against your religion."
 * Deconstructed: Alice continues to claim things against her religion, until her church actually finds out how she's disrespecting her religion. She is kicked out of the church and humiliated in front of the entire town.
 * Reconstructed:
 * Alice claims to practice a religion that is obscure in the region where the show takes place.
 * Alice successfully founds the religion she was claiming to have. It becomes nationally recognized and is used by kids everywhere to get out of gym.
 * Zig Zagged: Alice will claim that she cannot do certain things, due to them being against her religion. It turns out that some of them, but not others, actually are against her religion. Then it later turns out there are other things her religion forbids -- but she does them, anyway. In fact, there is even this one thing that her religion actually requires -- that she claimed it forbade.
 * Averted: Alice, even though she doesn't like gym class, makes no claims of it being against her religion.
 * Enforced: "A doctor's note won't keep letting Alice out of class to save the world. Hmmm...but if her religion was against it, then they'd have to honor it!"
 * Lampshaded:
 * Alice's friend says, "You know, Alice, I really don't like gym! Say, what religion do you belong to? Perhaps, I can also sign up and join."
 * "Does your religion forbid being a pain in the ass?" "No, sir, that's a sacred obligation to all true believers."
 * Invoked: Alice decides to start a "religion" with her group of friends, in which they all list things that they don't like -- and then Alice rules that those things are forbidden by that religion.
 * Defied: The school principal makes it known, from the very beginning, that he reserves the right to challenge any claims of something being against the religion of any member of the student body or school faculty -- and insists that requiring proof is not covered under the "religious persecution" charge.
 * Discussed: "Damn, I hate gym class!" "Well, you could just claim that it's against your religion. It can't hurt to try, anyway."
 * Conversed: "How come nobody thinks to ask Alice about her religion? I know that our school would never allow that excuse to just slide like that."
 * Played For Drama: Alice isn't lying. Her religion actually does expressly forbid gym class, because athletics -- like most things made available to men -- are considered an impure activity for women.
 * Played For Laughs:
 * Alice actually does belong to a religion that considers highly dubious excuses to be a holy sacrament.
 * Alternatively: Alice's "religion" is clearly made up on the spot, and it gets more bizarre, surreal, and internally inconsistent the more details she's asked to provide. Which doesn't stop her from accumulating a truckload of converts, all looking to her for guidance.

Return to the main page of Against My Religion -- unless, of course, that's against your religion.