American Myths???

<WARNING: This post includes some strong opinions and is likely going to offend. If you are easily offended, move along. If you are open-minded, continue!>

This post is months, nay years, in the making…

This past Sunday, at the in the social Circle before Ritual with my local group, I got the final piece I needed to actually finish this post.

So everyone knows I’m a Cap fangirl. If you don’t know that, you don’t really know me. …Ok, I’d give a lot of people the benefit of the doubt because I didn’t really start embracing my nerdy side til after Witchlette was born. I was a closeted Marvel comic nerd/Cap fangirl.

This is not me saying I’m going to drop my stance on I don’t see deities as being actual entities. This is not me saying I’m going to start worshipping Cap (although he wouldn’t be a bad one to pick up!)

It all started with this meme:

Yes, I see that “Spiderman” is spelled wrong, but the point remains valid.

And this post. It discusses the gods of America. Not Native American gods, the ones who would be indigenous to our country, but rather the ones of the majority culture. Columbia, Victoria, Liberty. Uncle Sam, George Washington.

Then, there’s Cap.

“He is one who embodies the American Dream, what it means to be noble, just, courageous, powerful, and righteous without being self-righteous.” Yupp.

I wouldn’t necessarily put him on the pedestal of god. Myth, however, is a different story.

So I started looking. In the time I’ve taken researching this post, I’ve read both sides of the argument:

• Superheroes are as close to American myths as they come because the dominant American culture is so young in comparison to Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Norse, etc. They give us narratives that are close to our daily lives with an extra element but [usually] include a moral/lesson- even if it now takes a massive amount of issues to get to it at the end of an arc. This lesson is one that we can apply to our lives. It is something that, when you take away the masks and the powers- superheroes are just people trying to get by. And they do get by. And it leaves us with hope. You can compare a superhero story to the story of a deity- Isis and the Seven Scorpions for instance: be humble and hospitable to all those you meet because you never know who may come knocking on your door. The morality from X-Men: make the right choice, not the easy choice, and things will work out for you in the end, despite what hang-ups and prejudices you face along the way.

 

• Superheroes are not and cannot be myths because the peoples of these times listed above believed their myths to be truth (think about Christians today and their myth). No one really believes Batman exists and no one worships him.

Again I say…

It’s all stories revolving around one character created by someone with different adaptations through the years.

But I digress…

I had never heard of, read, known, etc anyone who worshipped superheroes as deities. Until Sunday…

I was not at the Ritual. A lot of detail was not shared. The point of even mentioning this previous ritual was to establish for newbies how the group is run by it’s members who all have different paths and who each lead Ritual in their path. Some of the rituals are serious and some are fun. One of the fun ones was centered around superheroes and featured Superman and Wonder Woman as the God and Goddess on the alter.

How cool.

Granted, it seemed as though it was done metaphorically and perhaps a bit tongue-and-cheek. But still very cool.

My final thought on all this is to look at census data. How many people currently list their religion as “Jedi”? A lot.

Give the power of superheroes a few more years…it took a few decades for Jedi to move from a concept to a basis for a spiritual movement.

I’m coining the term Mavelist now: one whom follows the teachings of the Great Leader Stan Lee, one who finds good in bad situations and works for justice. One who knows that right always wins.

And one who already has his own catchphrase. “Excelsior!”

Gives me chills.

When this turn does come to pass, I call Cap as my patron.

Plus his emblem is a five pointed star inscribed in a circle…just saying!

 

 

A quick note on Colorado

There’s not much more to say about the Batman massacre that hasn’t already been said.

It was a horrible act of violence.

It was senseless.

It was tragic.

Is there any faith system which condones this? I’m not claiming to be an expert on Abrahamic dogma, but I understand Jews are peaceful, as are Christians. It’s also my understanding that Muslims are peaceful unless they are extremists, which is a bastardization of the true religion.

Many (certainly not all but many) Pagans follow the Rede. “And Ye Harm None, Do As Ye Will”. One of the keys to both Norse and Greek traditions are to treat Kin well and strangers with utmost hospitality, as you never know if a stranger is a god in disguise.

It is my honest opinion that the psychopath who committed this awful desiccation on his fellow man is missing more than a few screws. His own mother knew something was wrong with him. And now the media is giving him endless attention, plastering his picture on the front of New York newspapers. He’s likely attention deprived and may be having all of his subconscious needs met, sitting back in the jail cell laughing to himself.

Remember the victims, and bury (figuratively at least) the perpetrator. Don’t mention him, don’t show his picture. Ignore him. Deny him the satisfaction of being in the news. Instead, share the lives of the victims. Show their pictures and tell their stories.

And get off the knee jerk reaction of gun control. Gun laws only effect law abiding citizens. Criminals are going to break the law with their actions and are likely to do so with illegal guns. As soon as the plan was put into action, this guy stopped being a LAC, and became a criminal. This act has absolutely nothing to do with gun control.