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Post by Bansheefan57 on Apr 10, 2009 21:10:27 GMT -5
You know what stargazer...that's not a bad take on it.
...nice name BTW.
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Post by Jor-L5150 on Apr 11, 2009 9:52:00 GMT -5
IMO, Superman is a god who thinks he is human. Lex Luthor is a human who thinks he is a god.  interesting. in a sense of classical myths , you are spot-on. superman has an " otherworldly " origin and has the powers of a god, but is benign. luthor is sort of a caricature of an objectivist / humanist. i think there was one or two stroylines that actually moved away from the caricature and identified with luthor : - if you strip away " mad scientist " and " obsessed with revenge " and other supervillain cliche's luthor's motivation is self-reliance , and a resentment for people waiting around to be saved. most of the time , luthor is portrayed as categorically evil , and thats his role in the myth. but in reality , luthor has a point . myths are beautiful , and they can be inspiring- IF they motivate US to do something , but if we areitting around waiting on a hero or rescuer then we are sheep. sense the superman/superhero myths are archetypes of classical myths the premise of the supernatural is inherited , and so the point is to " believe in " things like " magic " or " aliens " etc. and in that case objectivism is villified and made out to be evil. its cute. |
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Post by stargazer01 on Apr 12, 2009 19:34:06 GMT -5
^I heard somewhere that the Superman character is based on the story of 'the Sun God'. Never read or heard about it before. Have you?  You know what stargazer...that's not a bad take on it. ...nice name BTW. Thanks! |
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Post by Jor-L5150 on Apr 14, 2009 13:18:01 GMT -5
^I heard somewhere that the Superman character is based on the story of 'the Sun God'. Never read or heard about it before. Have you? ]. well, the most obivious archetypes for superman are moses, samson and jesus ( with jor- el being yahweh and noah ) but if you are reffering to the egyptian sun god , i dont know for sure , but Osiris ( also from egyptian cosmology ) is echoed in superman and batman. long story short , osiris had to do with a bening diety , his son being his successor, a dying god resurrected to be the judge of mankind , and evil diety named Set . since this resembles what would eventually emerge in tammuz, zoroaster, dionysius and christianity i geuss i can see the lineage. ( the batman origin screams osiris, and it was the subtext/basis for the disney film " lion King " ) |
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Post by Jor-L5150 on Apr 17, 2009 13:53:03 GMT -5
this is ...somewhat off-topic but i think it has some overlap and i dont know where else to bring it , on another thread this was said : Funny you should mention him, he was in San Jose recently, appearing for free at a local church for an interview of his work on "Passion of the Christ"- apparently his work on the movie converted his life for real & he gave up a lot of opportunities and became a man of faith, who will only do certain roles, now. Seemed like a very authentic guy. Would have been interesting to have seen his reaction if he was offered the script to "Superman Returns", with all its Christian metaphors.... Eh, I never understood the hype for Caviezel as Supes. He doesn't say Superman to me at all. And I don't find him attractive enough for the character..... heck, I think he is kinda ugly actually. His nose is weird looking. I think I like Jor-L's choice better.  He was very vocal about playing Supes after the Christ movie was released. It was around the same time McG was attached to the project. ok , i am consistantly on record as a non-believer , so as a skeptic i disagree with the premise of religion and the supernatural , but i do my utmost to be respectful. and as an objectivist my views are often very similar to conservatives in many issues. now having said that , i would be the first to say that mel gibson is a little nutty - with his conspiracy theories about jews and inveting his own brand of quasi-catholicism however i think gibson got a bad rap and didnt deserve the sheckacing he got for suddenly being vocal about his faith and wanting to do a film about jesus . first of all, it wasnt like he didnt make a bajillion dollars for hollywood over his career, and LOTS of directors do " eccentric " pet progects all the time. secondly , its not like he is the only hollywood NUTbar out there. half of them are mentally deficient , many of them worhip collectivist/communist thugs , they all take themselves too seriously and there is plenty of crazy to go around. i would happily go to gibsons church before i'd go to a scientology church. its not like tom cruise doesnt use his career to promote his religion . lastly , and more importantly , i appreciate gibsons candor. he believe what he believe and he depicted it. no suger-coating or disney-fying. a bone to pick with the apologists is the tendacy to gloss over parts of the bible that refelct poorly on the " good guys ". there are plenty of stories where bad deads get punished, and there are stories where reprehnsible things are depicted as " good in the eyes of the lord " . so when hollywood would occaisionally do bible epics they would often be ...well.... corny and biblically inaccurate . the other night i watched some of TEN COMMANDMENTS and it actually looked a bit silly, with a big gentile in a fake beard playing moses ...he looked like a will ferrel sketch and the angel of death is slinking around whacking the egyptian babies ( off-camera of course ) while moses says " relax...lets have a picnic " ...  so gibson takes the gospel account , filtered through catholic tradition and says : " this is what i believe , this is what i think happened , this is HOW i think it happened and thats how i am going to shoot it. " . i respect that. ( i would point out that the use of latin reflects catholic tradition over historical accuracy - the jews of 1st century palestine would have spoke aramaic and greek dialects ) I don't think they used much Latin if at all in The Passion.... the used Aramaic mostly. yes, the jews were speaking aramaic , thats correct , but the romans i think were latin if i recall. ARCHEOLOGY magazine did a whole review of it. |
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Post by adam15 on Apr 17, 2009 14:52:45 GMT -5
I don't think they used much Latin if at all in The Passion.... the used Aramaic mostly.
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EvilSupes
New Member
LOOK! Superman's drunk!
Posts: 3,037
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Post by EvilSupes on Apr 17, 2009 19:55:56 GMT -5
Is Superman man or god? No, he's Super-Jesus. ;D  |
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Post by adam15 on Apr 17, 2009 20:16:06 GMT -5
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Post by stargazer01 on Apr 17, 2009 20:17:24 GMT -5
Is Superman man or god? No, he's Super-Jesus. ;D He is indeed.  Our Sci Fi Jesuschrist. And I mean this in a good way. I love Jesus. "What sets Superman apart from all those who came before and after him, is that he is the personification of the most deeply rooted human belief there is: that there are gods in this world, and if we pray to them, they might help. The wonder of Superman is, that when we ask for HIS help in fighting something so big or dangerous that we poor humans can only fail, he shows up and helps. Instantly. On time. And everybody lives at the end of the story. He is god in a cape. The living answer to our prayers.
The trappings are all there: As a baby, he is sent to us by a father who lives in the sky. His spaceship/basket lands in the reeds of a Kansas cornfield, to be found by a barren woman and her husband who adopt him and create a virgin family. He learns to Americanize his birth name (Kal-El becomes Clark Kent) and "pass" for a member of the dominant culture, hiding his true identity and language. This God-as-American-immigrant spends the next few decades performing miracles, saving lives, and telling people to do good for each other. Much later, he dies saving the world from a monstrous evil named Doomsday, and a year later, is resurrected to live among us again. It's something I'm sure two Jewish kids living in Cleveland (one of them, artist Shuster, being a former Torontonian) didn't see coming when they cobbled Superman together from early science-fiction sources and Depression-era power fantasies, but they invented the American Jesus." www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/413980 It's a great article that ponders on Why Man of Steel is still super. This is just part of it. Enjoy. |
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Post by Jor-L5150 on Apr 19, 2009 16:13:01 GMT -5
i am sure the biblical subtext of superman is well ahead of what siegal/schuster intended- they DID however cite superman as a modernised samson , and that echo is very clear in superman .
the value of these stories is the inspiration to excell and be the most noble , virtuous person you can be. thats why i love mythology/comics etc.
it gets.....problematic when people lean on it too much- there is no magic formula that will work all the time, there is no superhero to rescue you if you put yourself in harms way .
plenty of people prayed for mccain/palin to win , and just a few million more prayed for obama to win... so ...is god a democrat ? if all things are god's will then god must be a democrat because he answered the prayers of democrats....
or , maybe we lean on the idea of an interventionist god too much as a society. anythime someone squeeks by a bad situation they say " thank god "... so if god is present in the rescue- is he then absent when trajedy strikes ?
if i pray and my illness goes into remission , is that god ? what about the prayers of those who dont have thier illness cured ?
how do athiests get clean and sober if rehab educates us to rely on " higher power " ..? if god has ( apparently , as percieved ) answered preyers of a mormon , a catholic , a buddhist .....then why bother with denominations ? we bother with them because we make them up and want to attribute some celestial mandate to it- thats why.
whatever higher power there may be, it is beyond our undertsanding and irreconcilable with the mutually exclusive dogma's of mankind. what matters is how it ( it = belief in higher power ) affects YOU and whether it makes you a better or worse person. historically, it has done plenty of both.
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Post by stargazer01 on Apr 19, 2009 17:41:23 GMT -5
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Post by supermanearth2 on Apr 22, 2009 1:08:46 GMT -5
I always think of him as a man, but obviously, with his powers, he's a god.
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Post by adam15 on Apr 22, 2009 11:27:09 GMT -5
I really mean it when I say Superman is just some guy... at least that's how he sees himself. To the world Superman is a god... but Supes is so unassuming.... as far as he's concerned he's just a regular guy trying to make the world better. He just happens to have super powers.
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Post by MAVERICK on Apr 22, 2009 11:41:38 GMT -5
IMO, Superman is a god who thinks he is human. Lex Luthor is a human who thinks he is a god. Gazer, you just NAILED IT |
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Our Sci Fi Jesuschrist. And I mean this in a good way. I love Jesus.
