Faith and religion

Faith and religion
Various world religions are referenced frequently in Heroes.

Many characters believe that there is a god from which they get their powers. There are also several references to religion and the faith that individuals have.

Episodic Recurrences

Genesis

• Mohinder speaks of God creating man in his own image, joking that God's image is that of a cockroach. He postulates that man might be worthy of God's image if he evolves.
• The number of the apartment occupied by Mohinder Suresh, and earlier, by his father Chandra Suresh, is 613. In traditional Judaism, 613 is the number of commandments ("mitzvot") that are incumbent upon Jewish people to perform, and in some circles, mystical qualities are ascribed to the number itself.
• "Genesis" is the first of the Law, the 5 books of Moses.

Don't Look Back

• Mohinder mentions God intervening in our lives and keeping us safe.
• An article in the Odessa Register refers to a "Good Samaritan's" deeds during a train wreck.

One Giant Leap

• Mohinder and Eden discover a hidden room in Sylar's apartment with the phrase "forgive me Father for I have sinned" as well as several crosses and religious symbols written numerous times on the wall.

Seven Minutes to Midnight

• Mohinder mentions that the Earth is large enough to fool you into thinking that you can hide from God.
• During the scene in which Chandra Suresh's ashes are scattered in the water, all participants including Mohinder are wearing a type of Vaishnava Tilak which would indicate affiliation with the Sri Sampradaya.
• Mr. Bennet tells Isaac that not every bag and tag case goes smoothly and that there was such a case. A women left behind a baby girl who had no one to take care of her. At that time, him and his wife had difficulty conceiving a child and he says that it was like God reaching down and giving them a miracle.

Six Months Ago

• After quoting the Biblical book Ecclesiastes, Mohinder wonders if there is any sign of big events -- he asks if it's "a whisper in God's ear".

Godsend

• Ando translates part of the Symbol to mean "Godsend", and calls Hiro's power a godsend. Hiro thinks the sword is a "sacred object".
• When Claire says she doesn't consider her power a gift, the Haitian says that powers are God-given and should be respected.
• In jail, Niki prays to God for help. Jessica takes over and says, "Who needs God when you've got me?".

Run!

• Sylar (posing as Zane Taylor) tells Mohinder that he had an epiphany that made him feel at one with nature and God.

Unexpected

• Peter, feeling Isaac betrayed people like him by working for the Company, references the New Testament. He asks Isaac, "[What did] they give you[,] money? Drugs? What's a Judas get these days?"

Company Man

• After realizing her daughter has a unique power, Sandra thanks God and tells Claire that she prayed so hard and her prayers were answered. Sandra tells Claire that she always thought Claire was a miracle; when someone rises from the dead, it's a miracle. Claire doesn't believe she's a miracle--she's not sure if her abilities are God-created or if they come from somewhere else. When Ted agrees that God didn't make them this way, Sandra insists that God makes us all the way we are.
• Later, when Claire expresses anger at her father, Sandra expresses her faith in her husband. She tells Claire, "God gave you a second chance. Please give your father one."
• Mr. Bennet tells Matt that Ted wants revenge the biblical way.

Parasite

• Sylar tells Mohinder to give him "salvation" by giving him the list.

.07%

• Sylar telekinetically pins Isaac to the floor of his apartment, stabbing paintbrushes through his wrists and ankles in a fashion reminiscent of Christ's crucifixion. Like Christ, Isaac knows he is going die and accepts his death, knowing that this is his fate and his part in "all of this."

Five Years Gone

• As Sylar (disguised as Nathan) walks up to Peter, he says that their confrontation -- being brother versus brother -- is almost biblical.

The Hard Part

• Virginia Gray thanks the Lord that he brought her son home safely. She also wears a cross and has several statues of Mary on her shelves.
• Virginia Gray disappointedly condemns her son by telling him that he is damned.

Landslide

• Nathan says in his speech that his father always said that we should use what God gave us to help people and to make a real difference.

How to Stop an Exploding Man

• Angela tells Charles that he is in her prayers.

Four Months Later...

• Maya wears a cross necklace.
• An old villager asks Hiro if there is no God to protect them from Whitebeard.

Lizards

• The Haitian and Mohinder discuss at length whether or not God would allow the Shanti virus to exist.
• Hiro tells Yaeko that his father once told him that deer are the messengers of God.
• A curandera tells Maya that what she carries inside her is black, enough to kill the devil, and that Maya is cursed.

Kindred

• After discovering his ability, Takezo Kensei exclaims "Lazarus risen!" and claims Hiro is a devil who cursed him. Later, Kensei asks how he and Hiro can have abilities, and Hiro explains that some believe their abilities are gifts from God.

The Kindness of Strangers

• Maya, Alejandro, and Derek find a half dead Sylar lying in the middle of a road. Sylar claims that he had been robbed, and the trio show compassion towards him. This parallels to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which tells the story of a Jewish man who had been attacked and robbed, left to die on the road. A Samaritan comes across the beaten man, and shows compassion towards him, tending to his needs.
• When Maya meets Sylar, he introduces himself as Gabriel Gray, and she replies, "Like the angel?" Also, she tells Alejandro that them meeting Sylar is a sign from God that they are on the right path.
• Monica expresses guilt at praying for an escape from Katrina-ravaged New Orleans while everyone else was praying for the recovery of their community.

Fight or Flight

• After finding out about Monica's ability, Micah compares her to a 9th Wonders! superhero named St. Joan.
• Monica and Micah discuss why God might have given them powers.

The Line

• Maya tells Alejandro that God sent Sylar to help them.
• Ivan says that if Noah shoots him, he condemns himself to hell.

Out of Time

• Bob says that Adam Monroe thought himself to be a god, and that Linderman was one of his disciples.

Four Months Ago...

• Maya is a nun at a Venezuelan convent, which contains a crucifix of Jesus.

Cautionary Tales

• Kaito tells Hiro that they have the power of gods, but should not play God.
• In Hiro's eulogy, he says his father taught him to understand that certain things are in God's hands, but for everything else, God has given us the gift of choice.

Truth & Consequences

• While preparing to break into a house and retrieve Micah's comics and D.L.'s medal of valor, Monica dons a hooded sweatshirt as a disguise. Micah claims that she is St. Joan.

Powerless

• Adam tells Hiro that God didn't like what became of the Earth, so he wiped out the inhabitants with a global flood that lasted 40 days and 40 nights. Hiro argues to Adam that he isn't God.
• Angela says on the phone that a Pandora's box has opened.

The Second Coming

• Nathan believes that God brought him back to life after being shot. Afterwards he goes to a church, prays, and says what he thinks is God's message.
• Linderman speaks of "God's plan."
• Arguing with Peter why he had to shoot his brother, Angela asks him whom he is to play God?
• In a voice-over, Mohinder reads from "The Second Coming", a poem by William Butler Yeats that contains numerous religious references.
• Sylar believes that if humans used their brains to their full potential, they could learn the answers to questions such as "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"

The Butterfly Effect

• When Tracy Strauss says that Nathan's talking about God's help could win him right wing votes, Robert Malden objects that politics and God are risky bedfellows.
• Linderman tries to get Nathan to accept Governor Malden's offer to become a Senator, claiming that it is "God's plan." Nathan retorts that Linderman knows nothing of God's plan.
• Claire wonders if you still have a soul when you cannot feel anything.

One of Us, One of Them

• In the Outro saying "...we look for answers everywhere. In nature, in God...", we see Nathan reading the Genesis-chapter of the bible.

I Am Become Death

• The title is originally a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita, a sacred Hindu text, which was quoted by John Robert Oppenheimer after witnessing the success of the world's first nuclear bomb test.
• The title of Heroes Unmasked following this episode is "Playing God".

Angels and Monsters

• The title references angels, which are messengers of God. Nathan wonders if he is one of these beings.

Dying of the Light

• Nathan tells Mohinder that he once thought his ability was a gift from God. Now he realizes that his ability was synthetic.
• Eric Doyle says that, "with God as [his] witness," he will make Meredith love him.

Eris Quod Sum

• Arthur asks Sylar if Angela has "forgiven his sins."

Villains

• Elle tells Gabriel that his noose breaking during his suicide must have been a sign, even though it was she who broke it.
• Gabriel says that Elle is like an angel when she prevents his suicide.
• Elle says that Gabriel had a soul that could have been saved and that they should not have provoked his hunger. Noah tells her that they are not missionaries.
• Angela warns Peter and Nathan not to idolize their father, saying that he was a man rather than a god.
• A Catholic cardinal is present at Arthur's funeral.

The Eclipse, Part 1

• While in Haiti, Nathan and Peter come across a number of "voodoo dolls" mounted on stakes. Peter explains that they are made to ask for salvation.
• The Haitian tells Nathan and Peter that his brother, Samedi is thought of as a god by his men because he is practically invulnerable.
• "Baron Samedi" is the name of an important Loa in Voodoo religion.

Our Father

• The title of the episode comes from a Christian prayer of the same name.
• Tracy refers to the creation of powered super-soldiers as "intelligent design."

A Clear and Present Danger

• A reporter questions Nathan about his highly publicized religious experience. Nathan claims that he is a "God fearing" man and claims that it motivates him to do what he does.

Trust and Blood

• The fugitives gather in front of the "Unity Light Baptist Church" of Pastor Loulan Bartlett.

Into Asylum

• The motel's name is "Puerta al Cielo Motel" meaning "Heaven's door".
• The shape shifter's favored disco is called "Garden of Eden".
• Angela calls Peter her "guardian angel" and dreams about a female angel.
• Angela and Peter hide out in a Catholic church where the end of a mass can be seen. Angela doubts if God himself has forgiveness in him and Peter questions Jesus's benevolence in light of all that he has gone through. When Danko's men search the church, Angela and Peter hide in a confessional (Peter taking the place of the priest), where Angela tells her son what she had hoped to do with her life and how her ability showed her an "apocalypse" and she learned to lie and manipulate people to avoid that future. Peter says to Jesus they had a deal and asks him to "show up".

Turn and Face the Strange

• Mohinder closes the episode with an epilogue and speaks of Icarus, the boy who did not listen to his father's warning, and flew to close to the sun.

Graphic Novel Recurrences

• In his childhood, Mohinder's grandmother tells Mohinder stories about Kali that inspire him to avenge his father's murder. (Monsters)
• Sheila explains to her mother that an angel wrapped her in his coat and flew her to safety. (Trial By Fire)
• Hana is inspired by her progenitors' faith and their adherence to Judaism and its principles. (Wireless, Parts 1, 3, and 4)
• Hana wirelessly admonishes child pornography subscribers to "log off, kneel down and pray." (The Path of the Righteous)
• In an apartment fire, Noah sees Claire, and thinks of her as a little angel in hell. (Hell's Angel)
• Hana does not believe religion is a good topic for a first date. (War Buddies, Part 1)
• Austin's family has religious paraphernalia in their house and when Austin heals his mother, Austin's father says God answered their prayers. (War Buddies, Part 3)
• Baby Nathan is seen playing with an angel action figure. (War Buddies, Part 5)
• Hana says that when she was a girl, she imagined heaven filled with clouds and angels with beautiful feathered wings. She continues and says that the heavens are filled with angels -- satellites. Thousands and thousands of satellites that, like angels, watch over us. They see everything we do, every call we make, every e-mail we write, they know how we live, and they know how we die. (The Death of Hana Gitelman, Part 1)
• Hana has a flashback of when she tried to fly like an angel with her umbrella. Later, Hana is in space and looks down at the Earth, commenting that that was how the angels saw it, observing, watching everything. (The Death of Hana Gitelman, Part 2)
• Guillame is the Houngan in a religiously Vodou village in Haiti. It is believed he was chosed by the Loa, and that he "walk[s] with Legba and Ogun", and "lay[s] with Samara and Delun." The Haitian says that neither god nor man could have loved his father more than he did. (It Takes a Village, Part 1)
• The Haitian narrates that Guillame's hanging was a punishment for "betraying the Loa". After Guillame is freed, he says that he must show that the Loa is still on his back; he plans on making a sacrifice to Ogun and Loa to restore his power. Later, the villagers exclaim that Guillame has lost favor with the Loa. When the Haitian recalls his father punching him, he narrates that it was then that he learned that the old gods, it they even existed, were not listening. (It Takes a Village, Part 2)
• The Haitian visits the crossroads to receive redemption from the gods before traveling to America. (The Crossroads)
• Adam again exclaims "Lazarus risen!" when he kills Evan for an apparent second time. After killing many Evans over the course of seasons, Adam proclaims to Evan and his clones that only gods live as long as he does. He also narrates that he was alone, while gods should have disciples. (Revolutionary War, Part 2)
• In Ancient Egypt, Khufu kept his and his kin's ability in hiding so as not to anger the gods. (History of a Secret)
• Howard Grigsby believes that his ability is a gift from God. He also quotes Jesus Christ, calling himself 'the light of the world.' (Blindsided)
• Ida May Walker tells her dominoes partner she can see "angels". Later, Linda Tavara tells Ida May she is an angel. (Moonlight Serenade)
• Donna Dunlap is nailed to a board through the feet, creating wounds that resemble those of Jesus Christ. (Into the Wild, Part 3)
• When Daphne's mother dies, two women at her funeral tell Daphne that her mother is "with God" and "running beside the angels." (The Caged Bird, Part 1)

Names of Biblical Reference

• Adam (Adam Soo Hoo, Adam Monroe)
• Andrew (Charlie Andrews)
• Angel (Angela Petrelli)
• Aaron (Aron Malsky)
• Benjamin (Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Washington)
• Bishop (Robert Bishop)
• Cain (Eden McCain)
• First and Second Corinthians (Corinthian Casino)
• Daniel (Daniel Buzzetti, Daniel Linderman, D.L. Hawkins)
• David (Brian Davis, Sheriff Davidson, David, David Berman)
• Eden, Garden of (Eden McCain, Garden of Eden)
• Elijah (Sarah Ellis)
• Gabriel (Gabriel Gray)
• Hannah (Hana Gitelman)
• Genesis (Genesis)
• Isaac (Isaac Mendez)
• James (James Walker, James Martin)
• Jacob (Jackie Wilcox, Santiago)
• John (Janice Parkman, Hana Gitelman, Ivan)
• Jesse = Isaiah (Jesse Murphy)
• Joseph (Joe Landers)
• Luke (Luke Campbell)
• Mary (Molly Walker, Maury Parkman)
• Matthew (Matt Parkman, Matthew)
• Micah (Micah Sanders)
• Nathan (Nathan Petrelli)
• Noah (Noah Bennet)
• Paul (Paulette Hawkins, Paula Gramble)
• Samson (Samson Gray)
• Sarah (Sarah Ellis)
• Simon Peter (Peter Petrelli, Simone Deveaux, Simon Petrelli)
• Thomas (Thompson, Eric Thompson)
• Zechariah (Zach)

Other references

• "In His Own Image" is the title of the original, unbroadcasted version of the pilot, and refers to God creating man in His own image.
• "Genesis" is the name of the first book of the Old Testament and Torah as well as the title of the first volume of Heroes and its first episode.
• Theodore comes via French from the Greek name Theodōros, composed of the elements theos (god – in Greek, θεός) + dōron (gift – in Greek, δώρον), meaning "gift of God".
• "Bennet" is a variant of Bennett, meaning "blessed."
• Virginia Gray's first name may refer to the Virgin Mary, who was visited by the angel Gabriel and received the news that she would be the earthly mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
• Chandra's name refers to the Hindu lunar deity Chandra.
• Shanti's name can refer to inner peace or the Buddhist paramita Ksanti, meaning patience, forbearance, and forgiveness.
• The graphic novels titled Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration could refer to the title "Our Lady of Blessed Sacrament", a title referring to the Virgin Mary in the Catholic faith.
• Our Father is also the name of a Christian prayer.
• When Santiago goes to church after first experiencing his ability as a miracle, Iris says that God watches over all of us, that there is a reason God saved him.
• Exodus is the name of the second book of the Jewish Torah and of the Christian Old Testament.

Notes

• yamagatofellowship.org's repository page has a picture of Thor, the Norse god of thunder and war.
• Included in Linderman's archives is a painting of Christ by Matthias Grünewald called Isenheim Altarpiece: The Resurrection.

Trivia

• In an interview with Jeph Loeb, he said that Tim Kring originally wanted Sylar to be a priest before becoming a killer.

Gallery

• 
  Maya resigns herself to a convent in Venezuela.
• 
  Hana has a book with the Star of David on its cover.
• 
  Peter had a deal with the Sacred Heart.
  (Into Asylum)
• 
  Angela dreamt of a female angel.
  (Into Asylum)

See Also

• Judaism
• Kali
• Vodou

Fan Theories

Please refer to Theory:Faith and religion for fan-created theories and other speculation.