My brother got me hooked on Game of Thrones, the television show not the books. In the latest season, this Woman in Red is a priestess for a god of light. She supports a very militant man who is campaigning for the Iron Throne, but her motivation for doing so is shrouded in mystery. Based off of her conniving actions and brutal advice, her motives must not be anything good for the whole kingdom. Ironically, the saying that she is known for is “The night is dark and full of terrors.” Evidently, so is the light. If we were to take this woman at face value, it seems like this god of light is just as terrifying as the night.
Lex Luthor, from the comic book world of Superman, has also captured my attention lately. In a conversation that he has with Death from Sandman (this was a fantastic moment for nerds everywhere), he says to her (Death is a girl) that science has shown that their can be no objective standard that people are held to. If it is true that a god created everything, atheism becomes an ethical choice, not a logical one. After all, even if a god created everything, man is able to disagree with how the god maintains his universe. An atheist, for Luthor, is a person who disagrees with what god wants for the universe; someone who does not believe in god.
For Lex Luthor, the best thing a man can do is to bring mankind even higher at the cost of anything else. This is why he hates Superman so much. Superman tries to help those who are in need, whereas Lex Luthor believes that people who are in need should learn to rise up and save themselves. Mankind is meant to rise up, but they have no incentive to rise up if Superman is always there to protect them. Why change the status quo if you have no reason to change it? And to have this protector be Superman is the biggest affront to Lex; Superman is no man, but an alien who is a god compared to men.
Lex Luthor: the man who would defy a god. The Woman in Red: a servant of a god who toys with man.
Recently, I was watching some peers of mine debate the existence of god. I was struck by the fact that everything they have said I have heard before, which went to show me that this discussion was going nowhere. Ultimately, with all of their talk about “How can there still be suffering in the world if God is all good?” and “How can there be free will if God knows what I am going to do?”, I became convinced that what they were saying was something simpler. If there is a god, he seems evil and I do not want any part of it.
I think people are convinced that god is evil; they believe in the god of the Woman in Red. So do we submit to this god simply because he is all powerful, or do we follow Luthor and embrace a mankind that is separate from the Super? But who is to say that humanity is something that should be embraced? We quickly blame god for not feeding the starving in Africa, but aren’t we the reason that they are starving? Isn’t it our own greed the one that starves our fellow man?
I work with children. You cannot tell me that, deep down, all people want is what best for themselves. Granted, maybe we are not selfish all the time. I’ve seen children be more generous than I have ever been, but take away their favorite toy and you will see a whole new side of them.
In a comic called Kingdom Come, the children of the superheroes of old are running rampant through the street. They have eliminated crime, yet they’ve grown bored and decided to fight each other. Their superhuman battles are colossal and never ending, but the regular humans are the ones who are trapped and killed as the debris falls and the shrapnel flies. Superman and other superheroes of old step out of retirement and decide to instruct their misguided children. Batman and other non-superheroes oppose what Superman is doing. Even with the old gods trying to train the new, you still end up with a humanity that is forcibly subservient to the will of the gods.
I don’t want to spoil how they get to this point, but the conclusion that is reached by the end of the book is that for humanity and super humanity to co-exist, they need to work together and not apart. Mankind needs to try and do what is best for them and not look to the gods to solve their problems, and the super humans need to let humanity make their own decisions.
The gods had condescended themselves and sat with humanity.
I do not think I would follow the god of the Woman in Red, but I do not think Lex Luthor’s view of mankind is a good one. People need teachers, not dictators or anarchy. But here is where my words fail me, because I do not know how to easily describe the teacher humanity needs.
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