Whyt is Thor not a god?

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seekquaze

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#1  Edited By seekquaze

The question is often asked: "Why is Thor a god?" But I ask the opposite question: "Why is Thor not a god?" And this is the polytheistic definition of god I am talking about.

He meets all of the basic requirements of being a god: Virtually Immortal, control over nature, weird, magical origin, part of a group of beings that control an afterlife and have been worshipped. And he can hear prayers. The last bit is treated as different than telepathy and is one thing that separates him from other characters like Eternals or mutants like Storm. Several stories have explored the theme of how mortal worship can sustain a god or at least bring them back if they succumb to physical death. He is also connected to every storm on Earth which takes care of the symbolism aspect.. You then have cosmic entities ranging from Galatcus to Eternity who refer to him as a god and not as some snot-nosed pretender.

So what, if anything, prevents him from being a god?

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antithetical

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Thor is a god, just as he was in the ancient Norse mythology. I think the reason why certain people say he isn't stems from their own personal religious beliefs and whatever problems they have reconciling one and the other.

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kgb725

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He is

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kidchipotle

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Who says Thor isn't a God? He's the Asgardian God of Thunder

IT'S IN THE NAME.

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Darling_Luna

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Cause Steve said so

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HaveAtThee

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Thor is a god. In the comic books at least.

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GLEmerald924

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He's not a god because he didn't drink a V8

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deactivated-64b01667a4f83

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@antithetical said:

Thor is a god, just as he was in the ancient Norse mythology. I think the reason why certain people say he isn't stems from their own personal religious beliefs and whatever problems they have reconciling one and the other.

No offense, but would people stop with this nonsense? Christians don't give a crap about using fictional or pagan deities for entertainment. That's what they were always used for.

The Heimskringla and Prose Eddas, for example, was written down by Snorri Sturlison, who was a Christian.

Most of what you know about Norse mythology is thanks to Christian mythographers and scholars. We wrote it down.

Calling them 'gods' is just like calling them 'champions' or 'lords' or 'rulers'. Angels have been called gods. Satan is called a god. And the Greek/Roman gods are exactly what they're called. The only reason we don't call angels gods, for instance is because they're subject to the only one that matters, so "Messenger of God' is much more appropriate. Calling them gods is inappropriate, at worst; but this doesn't apply to Norse myths.

(This post is going to be a little bit lengthy, because I keep seeing this sentiment pop up, and I'd like to squash it, because it bugs the hell out of me that people can get things so backwards:)

It's dudes like Joss Whedon, who are being obnoxious and buzz-killing with their atheist wank, and one of the milling crowds that insult Christians with the notion that there's some kind of equivalence between Norse and Christian religions because they're both in the same generic category 'religion' (like Spartans and the U.S could both be called 'nations'), and go to the ends of the earth to take all the fun out of what should be balls-deep awesome larger-than-life mythological entertainment because of their ditzy ideology.

'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D' and 'Avengers' irritated me so much, because Whedon and those influenced him, wouldn't stop the human wanking for 5 seconds.

- Oh, they're Norse gods? Wrong! They're not gods, they're just extra-dimensional immortal aliens with god-like powers, because that's totally different!

- Magic? Oh, we totally understand all that stuff, because science is awesome, and humans are all leet with science, so we know everything! Dark energy! (Which is totally not magic.)

The Aesir/Vanir totally suck whenever they pass into the creative sphere of Whedon and Whedonesques. I saw a 'Agents of Shield' episode where their uber-weapon was some kind of crack-stick; and then of course, the humans sent it to human-science-place, because god-technology is slightly interesting but not at all difficult for human scientists. So say good-bye to any intellectual curiosity because god-technology sucks. In the movie, Thor threw god-lightning at Iron Man, but what - he catches it? The cartoons are even worse. I don't even know why Thor hangs around in EMH, he's obviously redundant when science gods rule the earth.

Whedon+ goes out of his way to make them suck as much as possible because his athiest wankery is getting in the way. We can't have gods being cool, or better than humans, or actually existing! That's theistic!

(I think the guy's a good film-maker, and I love Firefly, but this is one of two particular weaknesses of his.)

Re-make of 'Clash of the Titans' irritated me for the same reason, because not only was it a sucky movie with terrible myth-making, but they had to make it all about this pedantic retard who wanted to do things 'as a man' because he's a stupid stand-in for atheism.

Or like when they adapted the Iliad, an epic mythological poems that involved gods in every second verse, and made the bold decision to have absolutely nothing that made the poem interesting, because they were too much of a kill-joy to have gods running around; and it would have ruined that whole 'bird-signs' and 'Apollo didn't strike the man down' angle they liked.

And apparently the Dwayne Johnson 'Hercules' suffered from the same crap. They wanted to push some stupid ambiguity of his demi-godness, 'maybe he's just a really strong man' and 'the myths were just out-of-control reputation', like that's even remotely interesting.

The only thing we would have a problem with is if they turned Jesus into a superhero, or use Thor to impugn Christianity with, or as a substitute-Jesus, and that kind of thing.

The writers responsible for things like 'Asgardians as aliens' are all deliberately de-mystifying the inherently mystical, and thus, completely ruining the point of them. If you want immortal aliens, just make a species up, like a space-horse or something. Why bring Thor into it? The only reason to do that is to 'de-deify' them, to make the message of ignorant humans mistaking the natural for supernatural. Stop it. It's stupid and boring, and any Christians that even see the connection you're trying to make, aren't going to take you seriously anyway.

We don't run Hollywood and the heavily liberal spheres of entertainment like comics. It's everyone else that keeps ruining movies and stories trying to deliberately confuse it all together, and making stupid bloody "interpretations" like "Noah" etc, to try and twist/insult Christianity, or make their own commentary on it.

Right? So can we stop all this crap about Christians being the one to ruin myth entertainment? We have no problems distinguishing our religion from entertaining mythological stories. Christians just accept it as entertainment, because we want to see a dude with smash the World Serpent in the face with a giant hammer because we're not the one's with the weird ideological insecurity that can't handle fictional gods. We stomped out that religion centuries ago and converted all its followers, we're not worried about hurting their freaking feelings.

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SodamYat

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lordraiden

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He's a god, and his Daddy's the god of gods

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Outside_85

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#13  Edited By Outside_85

The question is often asked: "Why is Thor a god?"

I assume that this is asked mostly by people who thinks its amazing that other people worship(ed) him.

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deactivated-5edd330f57b65

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@supermudz: that's partly why I'm happy whedon isn't directing avengers anymore

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He is -.-

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HaveAtThee

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#17  Edited By HaveAtThee

@supermudz:

As an atheist, I approve of this message. I doubt that they were "afraid" of calling Thor or Asgardians gods, they just wanted to tap into certain demographics with the Thor mythos, hence why The Dark World was a combination of Twilight and Star Trek. Marvel really screwed up Thor badly in their films. They could've really showcased a magical/mythological take on the characters and distinguish them as deities as opposed to just aliens with cool looking science. Trying to humanize mythological gods to make them "relatable" is about as childish as it gets. It's why I hated that Jane Foster was adapted into the films as an astrophysicist as opposed to a nurse or a doctor. "Look how brilliant she is for proving her theory that powerful aliens exist in another dimension, zomg!" Dumb.

Besides, I don't think anyone walking out of a Thor movie is going to think that Marvel is insinuating that the Norse Gods do exist.

Actually, I really think the whole "magic in Marvel is just advanced science" mantra is pure nonsense. THE WHOLE POINT OF FICTIONAL ADVENTURE is to explore fantastical elements that are unbelievable in the real world. As an atheist, I don't believe that there's a living being with the powers of Thor existing (weather manipulation, dimension/realm traveling, etc., godlike strength and durability, virtually immortal), but that's why I used to read his books, because if there is what would be be like? At this point, even looking at the Age of Ultron trailers, Thor barely looks more powerful or interesting than Captain America.

It's why I really hope they don't screw up Dr. Strange. Kevin Feige was giving an interview about how he took his "magic as science" inspiration from Neil DeGrasse-Tyson's show (forget the name). It's fantasy fiction, why not just distinguish magic from science as two separate "practices." I think it would make for a more fun dynamic.

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#18  Edited By Erediore

@supermudz: I had a quarrel with you, for the way you started your comment, but I kept reading and you dispersed my quarrels, but at the end you failed again, overall I aprove your comment and I am atheist. My opinion mirror's those of @haveatthee.

My initial quarrel was triggered by this:

No offense, but would people stop with this nonsense? Christians don't give a crap about using fictional or pagan deities for entertainment. That's what they were always used for.

Some does bro, and those who do, are the ones who speaks loud about it, they see their jimmies being attacked, so they respond back, people like you don't mind it, so you don't comment about. Don't know why you thought this was against your particular beliefs tho, 'cause it could be for anyone in any religion, but in this case you are right, writters personal bias lend them to ruin what makes Thor interesting, thus to be involved in The Avengers, it's the very reason of his existence, Stan Lee created him for that very reason "How to make someone stronger than the strongest guy (The Hulk), and the reason came to me, don't make him a man, make him a God...".

That even allow us to use the "because he is a God" argument, as Stan Lee even used it to create him, so it's a foundational argument, and can give us the basic notion that Thor should be stronger than Hulk, as he was created to be that way.

Your general arguments around the following, eased my mind, because man, I'm there with you in the same points:

- Oh, they're Norse gods? Wrong! They're not gods, they're just extra-dimensional immortal aliens with god-like powers, because that's totally different!

- Magic? Oh, we totally understand all that stuff, because science is awesome, and humans are all leet with science, so we know everything! Dark energy! (Which is totally not magic.)

This and all that followed was perfect, I think the same.

I have to remind you that I'm an atheist, tho I respect people's religions. If they don't shove their things down my throat, then I wouldn't have anything against no one. I always loved Thor from the Norse Mythos as a kid, my mother is ceramist and when I was a kid she was doing Viking Runes from a book publication on the Norse Oracle, I played with runes as a kid and read a lot of mythic stuff from this books, as they had a lot of drawings and paintings about the Gods and so, I loved all of it, my first heroes were Hercules from the Greek Mythos (graphic novels about the mythos itself) and The Phantom (from the weekly news and tv shows), alongside with He-Man and Thundercats, I liked also Batman and Superman, but Goku became a far more interesting character for me, because besides all the weird stuff he was a more relatable human being, you wanted to be friend of someone like him, tell jokes and laugh a lot, eat amazingly and take on adventures, Superman in the other hand...

So in the 90's, when Marvel was in their worst time, the only thing that made them survive, were their outstanding animated TV shows, Amazing Spiderman, Incredible Hulk, X-Men and Iron Man (this last not much but a bit too), all these shows amazed me a lot, they were Gokulike in the kind of thing that they were more real, that hook me up into Marvel's team, even when I loved Batman Forever and some DC shows, Marvel was always on top, and the Incredible Hulk show introduced me to Thor, I almost cried, it was like "daaamn, they have Thor in Marvel, DC is screwed" kind of thought xDDD

Since then, I'm a big Thor fan. I love him being a God and all, I don't mind not believing in Gods, is what makes him appealing I love mysticism, magic and all that mythic epic stuff.

We stomped out that religion centuries ago and converted all its followers, we're not worried about hurting their freaking feelings.

This is the type of commentary that was unnecessary on your part, yes you (Christianized Roman Empire, aka The Church) smacked them down, turned most of them into your religion by fear and burned down those who oppossed or keep the practice alive in private, for the crime of being Satan's worshipers and witches. Yet Neo-paganism is alive today, some of those traditions survived, people kept them safe and it was reassembled and reinterpreted to become a new religion, that pays respect to and praise these deities.

So yes, you could be hurting their feelings. You can claim they are minorities, yet they exist and deserves the same respect you want people to give you, me myself are part of the main group of these religious folks in my country, I'm with them because I support them and like all they do, I always have good times with them, they are amazing people that aren't shoving things down my throat or want me to believe the stuff they do. Their religion is now kind of atheistic as buddhism, the Gods are just the forces of nature, they harness upon these energies when they do magic rituals and so, as much as one can harness from own's emotions, and the magic they practice has an interesting psicology behind.

So to respond, Thor is and should be kept as a God.

To your infromation and this isn't against you or any belief system, but most believers who says Thor isn't a God, is because he isn't omnipotent as their Yahwe, omniscient as their Jehova or omnipresent as their Alah, and as there are beings like Phoenix Force, Galactus, Eternity and TLT and these "gods" ranks below, they aren't other than extra-dimensional immortal aliens with god-like powers. I too, have huge problems with the freaking "magic in Marvel is just advanced science and Gods are just aliens" mantra. The godlike alien belongs to the other company.

Even Living Tribunal created a chamber in the Infinity Embassy called The Council of Godheads, in which Zeus can talk to Ahura Mazda, or Osiris can chat with Dagda, or Odin with Shiva, about the biggest problems in the universe, while all being the brightest sparks of TOAA himself, the freaking creator of all the Omniverse, Marvel's Yahwe/Jehova/Alah.

THOR IS A GOD. THOR IS THE GOD OF THUNDER.

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#19  Edited By antithetical

@erediore: Excellent post, and glad you brought up the fact that there are indeed religious people who could be offended by the portrayal of there being gods outside the one/s they believe in. And those who are usually happen to be the most vocal about it, though they're mostly represent the minority of their respective religions. It's great that @supermudz isn't among that group and should understand I wasn't generalizing. I actually agree with him about the whole magic is just advanced science angle Marvel has taken in presenting the Asgardian mythos, I just happen to disagree with what might have influenced their decision to do so. Anyway I happen to be an atheist as well and have no problem with the idea of gods and magic, it's mythology and fantasy and I'm capable of enjoying those stories without needing to believe any of it is real or needing to redefine what it is or give it some rational explanation. And like you I have friends who identify as pagans and they're some of my best friends and aren't bothered by me being an atheist, unlike some of my self described christian friends, but at least when conversation does happen to go in that direction everyone is usually pretty respectful.

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THORSON

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THOR is a mighty god

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THORSON

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@thorson said:

THOR is a mighty god

He has done more in a fictional sense than jesus himself.

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HaveAtThee

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Another lame excuse I keep hearing for nerfing magic/mystical/cosmic powers is that "IT MAKES _______ MORE RELATABLE!" In what possible way can someone like me relate to a millenia old Norse god who possesses powers on a planetary scale and unimaginable strength and durability (who can literally walk into the sun)? As much as you try to "dumb down" powerful characters they're still superhuman beings. And if they're part of a team featuring human beings (like the Avengers), then the street-levelers have to take a backseat when Ultron or Count Nefaria or Thanos or Gravitron come knocking at the door, because that's why you have guys like Thor and Hulk on the team.

Characters like Thor, Superman, Hulk, Hyperion, Sentry, Shazam, Wonder Woman etc. are all walking plot-devices. There is no realistic or feasible to explain them in real life. IMO, the more you try the more you trip on your own feet.

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I thought Odin himself someone from Asgard stated that they were not gods, just ancient beings from another realm that were misreceived as gods but other beings like Zeus and his family were the actual gods

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@supermudz: Wow you said it bro! I like very much Thor and I was really pissed when they used names like demigods, or aliens, or things like that. When I read in the comics something like 'I'm Thor god of thunder' I get shivers, its what I enjoy, and yes I'm a Christian, but after reading it I don't close the comic and begin wondering about my beliefs. If you are right and they are thinking about this while writing the script, than they are stupid.

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HaveAtThee

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@degraaf: Nope. That was the line from Anthony Hopkins in the movie. Marvel clearly distinguishes them as gods (same with the Olympians).