ALT.SF4M

  If Superman died, would he become a god?

   • j********o@***.com
     22/05/1998 00:00:000 UTC

     I've been perplexed about a point of Norse mythology for many years:
     I've

     heard it said that, in pre-Christian myth, Ragnarok happened in the
     past, not

     the future. This is problematic because almost all the Norse gods die in
     it,

     so why worship them? This led me to the amusing thought, which is
     consistent

     with concepts of ancestor worship, as among the Norsemen.

     In an ancestor-worshipping belief, the dead survive as ghostly spirits -

     haunting ghosts are merely a aberrant subgroup. Ghosts lose almost all
     of

     their temporal power, can only occasionally act physically, through
     great

     exertion and under narrow circumstances, yet gain corresponding
     supernatural

     qualities such as non-locality, insubstantiality, telekinesis, etc..
     These are

     the essential supernatural qualities of gods - so the Norse gods which
     were

     worshipped could be the ghosts of the living gods of the myths. All
     ghosts are

     (nominally) but shadows of their living selves, but this superhuman race
     left

     mighty shadows, the supernatural remnant being proportional to the

     preternatural original. (It may be foolish to taunt the god Odin, but
     it's a

     lot safer than to have teased the Asgardean warrior Odin! On the other
     hand,

     ghosts are unseen, unkillable, and intrinsically terrifying.)

     To carry the thought further, just as a sailor might haunt the bay where
     he

     drowned, a god might haunt the whole ocean! Ghosts are often thought of
     as

     lamenting their limited domain and powers and thus driven to haunting -
     ghostly

     gods could have such greater domains as to be less frustrated at their

     confinement. Gods crave attention just as ghosts do: it allows each a
     brief

     semblance of and participation in life. Etc, etc..

     Gorno