Thor Reinterpreted

[fifthfiend]

This thread's still pretty civil by our standards

Arguably this just shows that we have the standards of total *******s.

 

[BrianWilly]

Hnnm, I'm really only going to address one thing.

If there were no Creator who set the rules for right and wrong, then what else would make one thing right and another thing wrong?

We would. What else? Are humans so insignificant as to have no say in that, to be incapable of deciding for ourselves how to behave without someone telling us? Like I said right below the passage you quoted, humanity has never required a Creator figure to figure out right and wrong. Thousands upon hundreds of thousands have lived and still live moral lives without allegiance to any specific Creator. And reliance on a God -- or gods -- to determine right from wrong is no guarantee at all of a truly morality by anyone's standards. Or are you going to tell me that more people haven't been killed in the name of God than for anything else in the entirety of human history?

I myself have never subscribed to the notion that morality is actually this big complicated mystery or hidden truth that theologists and philosophers must waste hours haranguing and semanticizing over. True morality has and always will be simple, unchanged throughout the ages of the world: hurting people is bad. Helping people is good. Fellowship is good. Divisiveness is bad. Compassion is good. Hatred is bad. We all know this, as human beings. But we as human beings also complicate the matter through sheer human nature. Human inventions -- even the most seemingly harmless ones -- like culture and nations and, yes, religions and, yes, even a lot of laws merely confuse the issue and obfuscate formerly clear-cut tenets of being. I find the whole perspective of "What one person thinks is right may not be right from another person's perspective" a patently unsatisfying and halfassed philosophy, if not a full-out excuse to justify what one knows is immoral. Just because two people have two different definitions of morality doesn't mean that both or neither are correct, all it means is that it's a bit more complicated to figure out which one is.

But I digress. What we truly know as morality doesn't change. No one, not even the Creator of the Universe, could say "hurting others is good" and have it be true. That's not morality, that's an edict. That's not right versus wrong, that's a Public Announcement System.

 

[highguard]

But I digress. What we truly know as morality doesn't change. No one, not even the Creator of the Universe, could say "hurting others is good" and have it be true. That's not morality, that's an edict. That's not right versus wrong, that's a Public Announcement System.

Youth....... I too was once young

Brian, the morality of humanity has changed and changes all the time. It is the reason there is now an ongoing fight to legalize and accept and embrace gay marriage. It is the reason Slavery was once a legal commercial trade. It is the reason abortion was once illegal, but not anymore in the good old US of A. It is the reason premarital sex, once frowned upon is now glorified in movies, literature and comic books.

It is the reason you and I once cloaked in the veil of innocence now may be hardened to the worst of spectacles on TV and in the news media. It is the reason why all of us deep down as Merevingi said in the matrix about our base nature..... if we knew the truth.......

"is totally out of control".

If not for the rule of law, or the opinion of the majority we might well sleep with our best friends wife and worse.

Our generation and the ones before us have changed and are continuing to change.

The reality is that what is morally right has always been determined legally by the majority. And over time the majority opinion has been trending away from what was previously thought by older generations, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.

One thing we do know is that the concepts over what we have been arguing about, what is right and wrong has not changed. It is the same old story, is obeying parents a good thing, is murder justifiable, is war ok, is homosexuality immoral, is it wrong to enslave another human being, etc etc etc.

That is the most significant point of all, that for some reason the tenets/laws/ideas over which the world is in an uproar have remained the same, throughout human existence.

And so perhaps the question that begs to be answered is how can that be?

We did not always exist and we have not always believed what we now believe, but the things we argue over seem to be unchanging.

We once thought the universe was always here (Carl Sagan's steady state Theory) now we know from Hoyle that the universe had a beginning, but you know what....... the truth was always there concerning the universe regardless of what we believed, right or wrong. We just discovered the truth over time.

So it seems that they are concepts of right and wrong that are unchanging, cause we are dealing with the same things, it is like the question of God, we argue about whether he exists or not, but our arguments have no impact on reality, this is not JMS Thor. This is reality and reality does not depend on our perceptions (.....well beyond what we see that is, ...lol the physicists out there know what what I am laughing about).

So as to a question like is there a Creator, whom some say none have ever seen, well as they say in the Xfiles, The Truth is out there........

or perhaps He was here, in the flesh, once upon a time.

 

[BrianWilly]

You've focused on one aspect of my opinion while disregarding what I've supplemented it with. Namely,

"we as human beings also complicate the matter through sheer human nature. Human inventions -- even the most seemingly harmless ones -- like culture and nations and, yes, religions and, yes, even a lot of laws merely confuse the issue and obfuscate formerly clear-cut tenets of being."

Everything you've mentioned, things like abortion and slavery, are the exact sorts of human complications that make morality hard to see. The question should not be "is abortion moral?", the question should be "Does abortion hurt anyone? Help anyone? Is it compassionate?" and same with slavery. Those questions are what truly constitute morality, not "This is wrong because some law said so, or it's right because someone told me that it is."

And I personally don't always have the answers to those questions; if I did, then I would be God, or Buddha. And I'm merely another part of the problem that is the human experience. All I'm saying is that there is an answer.

The notion that human morals are always changing from one era to another depending on whoever is in charge is one opinion, yes. Another opinion is that morals are always evolving. Evolving, growing, and progressing -- just as we humans have evolved and progressed -- from what was once an immature and undeveloped understanding of morality into a more and more advanced and cultivated state. We know things today that we didn't always. We understand parts of ourselves differently than we used to. Like you said, slavery used to be bad, racism used to be good, but no longer...what you neglected to mention was that this is not a bad thing! So who's to say that we as a collective culture are not slowly but inevitably getting closer to the ultimate morality, the irrevocable Truth of good and evil that we've always known but have forgotted and confused? There has always been problems and there will always be problems, but I don't believe for a second that we as humans are merely different from what we were a century ago or even half a century ago; I believe that we are better. Moral relativists say "Hey, look at how different we are today from a thousand years ago!" as a way of showing that there is no real true ultimate morality. I say "Yeah, no **** Sherlock we today are different from how we were a thousand years ago," as a way of showing that there is.

 

[fifthfiend]

Brian, the morality of humanity has changed and changes all the time. It is the reason there is now an ongoing fight to legalize and accept and embrace gay marriage. It is the reason Slavery was once a legal commercial trade. It is the reason abortion was once illegal, but not anymore in the good old US of A. It is the reason premarital sex, once frowned upon is now glorified in movies, literature and comic books.

It is the reason you and I once cloaked in the veil of innocence now may be hardened to the worst of spectacles on TV and in the news media. It is the reason why all of us deep down as Merevingi said in the matrix about our base nature..... if we knew the truth.......

"is totally out of control".

If not for the rule of law, or the opinion of the majority we might well sleep with our best friends wife and worse.

Our generation and the ones before us have changed and are continuing to change.

The reality is that what is morally right has always been determined legally by the majority. And over time the majority opinion has been trending away from what was previously thought by older generations, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.

One thing we do know is that the concepts over what we have been arguing about, what is right and wrong has not changed. It is the same old story, is obeying parents a good thing, is murder justifiable, is war ok, is homosexuality immoral, is it wrong to enslave another human being, etc etc etc.

That is the most significant point of all, that for some reason the tenets/laws/ideas over which the world is in an uproar have remained the same, throughout human existence.

And so perhaps the question that begs to be answered is how can that be?

We did not always exist and we have not always believed what we now believe, but the things we argue over seem to be unchanging.

You're making the large assumtion that morality is at a 1:1 ratio with legality.

You're also assuming that knowing what is moral is the same thing as doing what is moral.

I don't know that I generally disagree with what you're saying but I thought those particular points needed clarification. Lots of laws get made into law without having anything to do with the 'morality of the majority' and everything to do with there being people with the power to force laws upon others making laws to their own benefit and to further perpetuate their power over others with no regard at all for morality or religion (except to the extent that they take the time to come up with whichever elaborately self-serving excuse for why they have a moral right to use and mistreat other people, but taking a square and calling it a circle doesn't make it stop having four sides).

 

[highguard]

And I'm merely another part of the problem that is the human experience. All I'm saying is that there is an answer.

Brian I am hoping that the answer is a good one. I have great fear if it is not so.

The notion that human morals are always changing from one era to another depending on whoever is in charge is one opinion, yes. Another opinion is that morals are always evolving.

Evolution/Change it is the same dog, to the unborn child, it is a bad dog, to the person of color it is a good dog. Someone with power determines which dog gets the bone in this world. America for the most part does whatever it pleases, who can say to us stop if we don't want to.

The Indians lost their home and land cause they had bows and arrows. The Europeans had guns. There were more Indians at the start in the new world but they had no power.

In films they were characterized as savages, we talk about how they scalped people, and even worse they wanted to keep their land. They resisted and killed many Europeans, so we killed almost all of them, women children and men and herded who was left onto the worst land we could find, where we did not have to look at them. Any who disagreed we killed. We had to kill so many because they were savages.

Talk to them about evolution of morality and they might have a different opinion, I hear that some are still bitter today over the "benevolence" we showed them. Some to this day think they were wronged.

Perhaps we should pray for them.

You're making the large assumption that morality is at a 1:1 ratio with legality.

You're also assuming that knowing what is moral is the same thing as doing what is moral.

I don't know that I generally disagree with what you're saying but I thought those particular points needed clarification.

Thanks for the clarification, you did my job for me. The truth is that I feel that morality is really not a thing that is relative, but I think that humans are in a classroom and we are indeed learning what is truly good from what is truly evil. Knowledge is increasing in the area of what is good and what is evil, but you are right, the knowledge of what is good and evil does not move a person one way or the other. It appears that something else makes us choose one over the other.

If there were no consequences to doing evil, would we over time all "evolve" into evil beings. I say that the answer to that question is yes. I sense within myself that if there were no laws, no societal pressures and ultimately no being who is intrinsically good, I would ultimately become evil.

I know this to be true of myself.

Society's norms are not enough to keep me in check, heck I break my own rules sometimes and I respect myself, I do really.

The truth I think is that if there is no God none of us are going to make it. That is what I believe.

Take away God and i would do stuff, take away the law and I would do more stuff, with societal pressure the only bulwark left I would do even more and more bad stuff, unless of course I am intrinsically a being that would choose good over evil.

I think human history and observation says we are not such a being and we never will be, I think.

There are enough bombs to kill every man, woman and child on the earth.

Why, it is madness and yet we all know that someday, the unthinkable will happen, World War 111.

Someone is going to do something crazy and someone else will do something crazier.

We saw millions die in WW2 and yet we know deep down in our hearts that all the heartache, tears and lost lives of brave Americans, and the British and the French and the Australians and the people from the Caribbean and the whole world will not be enough to make us wise enough to have enough love for one another to halt the march to madness.

There are terrorists in the world and they represent this madness and they or someone like them will make us mad and the killing will happen, it always does, we are what we are.

If there is no God I know there will be nothing to stop what is coming and all that we see will one day come to an end.

 

[highguard]

Ok, I guess we got off the beaten track, on a much more upbeat note. Thor is my favorite character because of all the heroes, he had love for mortal man. He is a god that is driven to defend the downtrodden, but if you give him trouble he will break out the hammer.

He is like a son of God without the "turn the other cheek Philosophy"

He does not beat you down with love, he uses a hammer, thank you very much.

He is closer to humanity than we are to the figure of Christ.

We fanboys understand the need to beat people over the head with a hammer.

That is why we have such strong opinions, lol and why Thor is who we all want to be.

Who would not want to be Thor, forget the reasoning and calm discussion of ideas, we will get to that later, but for us "eternal kids" Hammer Time is a good time.

 

[BrianWilly]

The Indians lost their home and land cause they had bows and arrows. The Europeans had guns. There were more Indians at the start in the new world but they had no power.

In films they were characterized as savages, we talk about how they scalped people, and even worse they wanted to keep their land. They resisted and killed many Europeans, so we killed almost all of them, women children and men and herded who was left onto the worst land we could find, where we did not have to look at them. Any who disagreed we killed. We had to kill so many because they were savages.

Talk to them about evolution of morality and they might have a different opinion, I hear that some are still bitter today over the "benevolence" we showed them. Some to this day think they were wronged.

.....

I think human history and observation says we are not such a being and we never will be, I think.

There are enough bombs to kill every man, woman and child on the earth.

Why, it is madness and yet we all know that someday, the unthinkable will happen, World War 111.

Someone is going to do something crazy and someone else will do something crazier.

We saw millions die in WW2 and yet we know deep down in our hearts that all the heartache, tears and lost lives of brave Americans, and the British and the French and the Australians and the people from the Caribbean and the whole world will not be enough to make us wise enough to have enough love for one another to halt the march to madness.

There are terrorists in the world and they represent this madness and they or someone like them will make us mad and the killing will happen, it always does, we are what we are.

highguard, what you are describing here is evil. I do not disregard evil; as I've said, humans beget evil and mistake it for good through the sheer fact of human nature and human inventions. Not only does evil exist, make no mistake about it, but it is also prolific.

But the existence of prolific, heinous evil does not absolve the acquisition of goodness in the world. There is no balancing act, no tipping of the scales one way or another that would render one or the other obsolete; just as our collective understanding of goodness has not quelled the existence of evil in humanity, neither does the proliferation of war and terror negate the value of even a small act of goodness. In the some moment that some Colonists committed genocide against the natives, others were forging democracy and reinventing freedom. In the same breath that one person preaches hatred, another would preach tolerance. The Civil Rights Movement does not just magically disappear from history because the Vietnam War also happened. We have gone through both and we learn from both.

What a simple, fantastical world it would be if only good things ever happened to people and people only ever accomplished good things, but our world is not quite so black and white. We make do with learning to understand and continuing to understand what we can through the pleasant and the not-so-pleasant, often overthinking things in the process. Yet I maintain that knowing what's good and knowing what's evil is really not so overwrought as it's made out to be. After all, you just now have perfectly described to me a series of events that are inarguably not good, probably without so much as a second thought about it. We know morality. Deep down, we all know.

If there were no consequences to doing evil, would we over time all "evolve" into evil beings. I say that the answer to that question is yes. I sense within myself that if there were no laws, no societal pressures and ultimately no being who is intrinsically good, I would ultimately become evil.

I know this to be true of myself.

Society's norms are not enough to keep me in check, heck I break my own rules sometimes and I respect myself, I do really.

The truth I think is that if there is no God none of us are going to make it. That is what I believe.

Take away God and i would do stuff, take away the law and I would do more stuff, with societal pressure the only bulwark left I would do even more and more bad stuff, unless of course I am intrinsically a being that would choose good over evil.

If there is no God I know there will be nothing to stop what is coming and all that we see will one day come to an end.

If there is no God, then humans have to responsible for themselves. What a burden that would be! If there is no God, then it becomes even more important for humans to clean up after our own mess, to be good parents to our children -- and thus create the sorts of people who would intrinsically choose goodness, even if we are not those people ourselves -- and to do what we can for each other in the little time that we have. Because if there's no one to catch us if we fall, we'd better make sure we don't fall. That's not something to be afraid of, highguard; that's a goal. That's something to live for, something that we set down for ourselves.

It's frankly a little early to be pronouncing any death sentences. I look at history and I see people understanding moral concepts today that they didn't understand yesterday. I have witnessed this progress, sudden advances in human rights and tolerance, in the incredibly short span of my own life. You have, as well. Evil remains the same old bull**** that evil always has been -- irrational wars and selfish plundering, making a mess of things with the same hubrises over and over again -- and yet each small breakthrough of goodness remains fresh and revolutionary. We are not the same today as we were ten years ago. In ten years we will not be the same as we are today. That doesn't worry me at all. That comforts me.

 

[fifthfiend]

I sense within myself that if there were no laws, no societal pressures and ultimately no being who is intrinsically good, I would ultimately become evil.

I kind of doubt that. The thing about 'evil' is it's ultimately kind of a ****ty and stupid way to live where you spend a lot of time making yourself miserable and justifying it on the grounds that you're making somebody else even more miserable. Even if you could get away with acting like an obnoxious *****e, you'd still be an obnoxious *****e, spending all your time thinking stupid *****ey thoughts and living a stupid *****ey life and never having any really actual friends, except maybe for a bunch of other stupid, obnoxious *****es and who really wants to live like that?

What if there's no God you're going to go out and start raping every woman you see? Because it's really a totally awesome way to live, ****ing women who're sobbing and begging you to stop and bleeding all over the place and ****. Maybe start torturing people? Cause that's a good life, pulling out dude's fingernails until they wretch in pain.

Take away God and you know what I'd do? Try and make enough to get by and find some decent people I enjoy hanging out with and try and keep myself entertained without doing anything too stupid to **** things up for myself, same as I do now. Yeah it's nice to pretend once in a while how man if it weren't for all these rules and ****, I'd be a big bad scary man doin' whatever I like! But that's pretty much ******** at the end of the day.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

If there were no God, I'd do the same. Except I'd occasionally ram people's cars if they piss me off because, really, I'm already kind of an a**hole on the road and I've thought of doing it a hundred times. I might play chicken with some pedestrians, too. Take away their goddamn crosswalks and we'll see what kind of balls those smug motherf***ers really have.

 

[highguard]

If there were no God, I'd do the same. Except I'd occasionally ram people's cars if they piss me off because, really, I'm already kind of an a**hole on the road and I've thought of doing it a hundred times. I might play chicken with some pedestrians, too. Take away their goddamn crosswalks and we'll see what kind of balls those smug motherf***ers really have.

hahahahah, yeah I mean, I would not run out and do this stuff like tomorrow, but over time from generation to generation this is how we would be (although I sense Corp might do it tomorrow, hahahahah)

Anyway, we always assume that some of us are good and some of us are evil, but maybe it is circumstance and environment that dictates the choices we make.

Is a thief a thief cause he has no money?

I recall that in some incarnations of Thor (Ages of Thunder) that will now be presented he is like a cold blooded killer, so Odin in a cycle does the Don Blake thing to change the big guy.

When we think of Thor we think of nobility and we love the character because we can or want to identify with him. So what makes a noble person go bad.

If society changes and the law is gone, then societal norms are left, the law is for the lawless. Can we assume that some of us are intrinsically good.

That is the real question?

Is there a human being that intrinsically is good, that regardless of the changing environment you will continue to be good.

We would all like to believe that but what evidence do we have of that?

Could I be good all the time if I had no reason to be, not me.

That is why I love Thor, he is more than I am, his motives always rang true.

That is what God is, God is not just a being we have heard about. He is an idea of perfection, of truth, of Love, of patience and of Wisdom.

Some say there is no God but what God represents is what we want to become and if such a thing is possible then we would be as God.

So if as some believe we are evolving to a higher state of mind then some days God or Gods would exist. Beings who are so wise and loving and intelligent who by wisdom could create a world perhaps.

So if we think that is possible then what is so impossible about such a being existing today, already.

It is really a lot easier to think that such a being gave rise to all that we see as opposed to thinking that all that we see will give rise to such a being.

Order has never emerged from chaos by chance in my world. If I don't work I am broke. That is my observation.

 

[Bubonic]

Nice post to be sure, but your being awfully assertive with what you find to be self-evident concerning your own views on creation, creators and the like.

Many bright minds have come up with satisfying answers to the roots of personality, rationality and morals without the need of a creator.

I like how you bring out the point that the pagan gods, being part of nature, have to have their existence explained, and in turn that complicates things... As if the convoluted idea of a creator doesn't need explaining on its own regard.

Your number 1 and 2 options are narrow, and even though scientist aren't anywhere near unravelling all the mysteries of our cosmos, there are more satisfying options then that which don't dwell on creationist simplifications.

Going on about the irrationality of Thor whilst capitalizing the word creator and anything link to the all-mighty fantasy your so sure about is really quite hypocritical and laughable. You've no more reason to discredit Thor then you would of your so called creator, or magical turtles.

Anyways god talk is semi appropriate in the comics boards, he is as fictitious as Spidey and the rest of them, yet this really seems more appropriate for the community forum in one of the dozens of threads dedicated to debating such things.

And doesn't Marvel have "creator" like characters, like eternity, or that guy with the 3 faces?

Oh, and lets not change Thor, develop him, but no dire changes please.