Most interesting gods

[Borachio]

I was joking. Though in fact I did read it in French. It wasn't any sexier than in English. But that might just be me.

 

[Kyriakos]

I was joking. Though in fact I did read it in French. It wasn't any sexier than in English. But that might just be me.

You are too modest, Borachio, i never knew you spoke French Only hint would have been the quotes from the Little Prince, but it was way too subtle.

 

[Borachio]

I went through a stage of reading most things in French.

I had just become so bored with reading stuff, but still felt I should be reading something, that I thought that my learning to read French (my accent is absolutely appalling and makes French people laugh) would have at least some benefit. If that makes any sense. It probably doesn't.

I even read Harry Potter and Le Hobbit in French. They weren't any better for being in French, though.

I picked on French because it's the nearest foreign (excluding the foreign-ness of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Essex) place to England.

 

[Kyriakos]

^So how would you translate 'Le Horla' by De Maupassant, to English?

I read that it likely is a pun on 'being there', or 'being other than here' etc.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Horla

 

[Borachio]

Apparently it's a portmanteau of hors and là. So, the outsider, or something?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Horla

I didn't know this. Actually, Maupassant was one of the very first French writers I read in French. And I don't think I bothered to translate the title of the work for myself at the time. I just accepted that that was what the story was called.


Titles of things are often a bit difficult. For example Du côté de chez Swann is often translated as Swann's Way, but, I mean, wtf?

And it works the other way. Gone with the wind is translated as Autant en emporte le vent. It's really not obvious to me why.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Thank you for the info

Either the Fleetmind or Planet. Or even the Universal AC.

As for real deities, I'll have to go with Amaterasu. Female chief deities are interesting, and she's definitely interesting enough to have a video game based on her.

The Universal AC (from that story by Asimov) is not a god, though. It seems to be something expanding in the end in a non-material/defined space, termed 'hyperspace' (iirc). And while it brings about a new era (not meaning to spoiler so won't type more), it still seems to be itself just another paragon in a vastly larger existence than it occupies or has knowledge of, likely due to having a limit to other stuff

 

[Steph]

The French translation of the Hobbit is poorly done, including some serious mistake.
"Eventually" does NOT translate to "Eventuellement".

I like Norse mythology.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I can't resist asking for a distinction between a fictional and non-fictional god. Can someone please give me one example of each

Do immortals count (like Achilles)? Superheroes (like Thor)?

 

[Kyriakos]

^Achilles was not 'immortal' though, cause he was still mortal in his heel In the Odyssey he is there in the Underworld, like all other dead people.

Some heroes were near-godlike, and likely the greatest there was the (born a demi-god) Herakles, who then became an official god by burning his own self in a pyre and rising to the Olympian order, etc.

Some monsters too are immortal. Eg only the one of the three Gorgones, the Medusa, was mortal (killed by Perseas). Her sisters are immortal and even try to hunt down the gods who helped Perseas.
The central head of the Lernaea Hydra also is immortal (Herakles just burried it under a massive boulder). Likewise for Ladon, the dragon in the Hesperides' garden. He was not killed, just reduced to a perpetual state of near-death.

 

[Steph]

And Thor is not a superhero (only in Marvel), he is a god in Norse Mythology.
Although he can be killed. Actually, all the Gods are killed during Ragnarok.

 

[Sommerswerd]

^Achilles was not 'immortal' though, cause he was still mortal in his heel In the Odyssey he is there in the Underworld, like all other dead people.

Some heroes were near-godlike, and likely the greatest there was the (born a demi-god) Herakles, who then became an official god by burning his own self in a pyre and rising to the Olympian order, etc.

Some monsters too are immortal. Eg only the one of the three Gorgones, the Medusa, was mortal (killed by Perseas). Her sisters are immortal and even try to hunt down the gods who helped Perseas.
The central head of the Lernaea Hydra also is immortal (Herakles just burried it under a massive boulder). Likewise for Ladon, the dragon in the Hesperides' garden. He was not killed, just reduced to a perpetual state of near-death.

Is immortality the defining line for you in what distinguishes a god from a non-god?

And Thor is not a superhero (only in Marvel), he is a god in Norse Mythology.
Although he can be killed. Actually, all the Gods are killed during Ragnarok.

Isn't saying that someone is "only a Superhero in Marvel" like saying that someone is "only a football player in the NFL"? I mean Marvel is where the Superheros live...

And if Gods aren't immortal, then do they count as Gods? Separate question... If you can be a god without being immortal, then how do you distinguish guys like Perseus and Achilles from titans like Atlas and Prometheus or the "real" gods like Zeus?

BTW by explaining Ragnarok you just spoiled a BBC show my wife is watching on Netflix called The Almighty Johnsons ... Thanks for that, cause now I don't have to watch it to see how they died I always just assumed Ragnarok was just the Viking version of Armageddon...

 

[Steph]

Ragnarok is the Viking version of Argameddon: the end of the world where all the Gods die.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ragnarok is the Viking version of Argameddon: the end of the world where all the Gods die.

But the true god (christian etc) is not supposed to die following Armageddon. In fact only satan gets defeated, and around 200 million horsemen (going by the Apocalypse of John, anyway) riding horse-like demons, kill a vast number of humans prior to the defeat of satan.
God there cannot die. He is comfortably outside the arena, just like a version of Ares formed in Sybarite (ancient cis-Merika of the Greek world, notorious for virtually all the people there being fat ).

@Sommerswerd: i think that, yes, a god must at least be immortal. Otherwise it is closer to a hugely powerful but human/analogous lifeform. I view immortality in this setting as a chip buying you safety from any collapse in realms of the non-divine beings

Not sure though if being immortal is enough. Eg as noted many monsters and titans also are immortal.

 

[gangleri2001]

Mercury.

 

[Domen]

Svyatovit (this representation is a 9th-century sculpture made of limestone from Podolia, so called Zbruch Idol, found in 1848):

http://www.gregorkarnas.com/onephoto/2012/2012_01_19/index.htm

 

[Lohrenswald]

Ragnarok is the Viking version of Argameddon: the end of the world where all the Gods die.

If I remember correctly three gods survive, and a fourth that's already dead gets resurrected.
All the coolest gods die, though.

 

[Kyriakos]

Svyatovit (this particular representation is a 9th-century sculpture made of limestone from Podolia, so called Zbruch Idol):

That looks sort of cool. Does it have four heads/faces? A bit like Janus Bifrons, the Etruscan/Roman two-faced deity.

The hat looks stupid, though, and is very crudely carved too :\

 

[Domen]

Does it have four heads/faces?

Yes - http://epika.org/house-of-mythology/17-svetovid

Svetovid is the Slavic god of war, fertility and abundance. He is four-headed war god. Svetovid's four heads stand for the four sides of the world that this all-seeing god is looking at. His attributes are a sword, a bridle, a saddle, and a white horse. (...)

The hat looks stupid, though, and is very crudely carved too

AFAIK this sculpture was found at the bottom of a river (Zbruch River), where it perhaps spent several centuries.

Water probably destroyed it a bit. On the other hand, you shouldn't expect Michelangelo's skills from 9th century Slavs.

 

[Kyriakos]

So, are there any gods in world mythologies that are actually (fully) monsters? (and not just in the vein of Tezcatlipoca, who apparently was some space super-being that needed to feed on humans from time to time, but is not actually mainly anti-human; he just needs fuel to battle other monsters).

But was there any culture that had monstrous beings as over-gods? Not sure if the Titanic order actually had worshippers, in the sense the Olympian one had, but i am asking about something such as people worshipping Typhon, or the Lernaean Hydra, etc.

A real-life Chtulhu pantheon, so to speak

 

[Lohrenswald]

/R Atheism mode
Yahweh