Wondy 33

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Four pages from today's Wondy.

So, the sea monsters from the preview attack the island. The amazons fight back. Ares shows up.



WHUT. She won't kill Genocide, but she will kill Ares? She can kill Ares? Since when? He's the god of war. The whole point of him is that he outclasses her as much as Clark outclasses Jim Gordon.

They're on Thalarion at this point, and Zeus shows up and is all "be a wife and mother, and oh I killed Kane."





When WML does a better Polly than Gail, something is badly wrong with the universe.



... yeah.

On the plus side, I've had to cut back on luxuries recently and I've been waffling over what titles to cut, and this makes that decision easier at least..

Comments

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Somehow, I knew that Diana becoming (effectivly) an Atheist (well, Agnostic to be more specific since she just told the gods she won't worship them) would be met harshly.

But I think it's fucking awesome.

No one will notice it, but she has basically become the most high profile Atheistic Superhero in all of comics.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

But I think it's fucking awesome.

Yep!

Next, we'll give Batman a serum that makes him more powerful than Clark.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

1) It's not like she's been on a dietic level before.
2) I'm more reffering to the fact that she is atheistic/agnostic now than the fact that she took out a god.
3) "Dietiy" are rarely as powerful as westerners think they are, this is doubly so in Fantasy Kitchen Sinks like the DCU. I like to phrase it as, "What level of Gurren Laggann is needed to kill it" and go from there.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Ghetto edit:

#1 should be "It's not like she hasn't been on a dietic level before."

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

2) I'm more reffering to the fact that she is atheistic/agnostic now than the fact that she took out a god.

Who cares that she took out a god? She did that in her first arc. What does that have to do with anything?

A Diana who doesn't worship her gods is as completely off-theme as a Batman who is not self-made peak-human, but instead a powered hero. It has nothing to do with the power levels of the god. It has nothing to do with how she interacts with other gods. It has everything to do with the fact that she's a divine avatar, and that is as key to her makeup and mythology as Dick being raised by Bruce, or Clark being a farmboy, or the X-men being discriminated against.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

If she is, that's pretty stupid of her. Isn't an atheist someone who denies the existence of higher beings?

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Depends on the philosophy they subscribe to. To Atheist in general, Gods are to life as Zero is to numbers. Not all Atheists engage in active disbelief.

[gargoylekitty.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's no way in hell she could ever even be consisdered an Atheist simply because she knows they exist. Though I have wondered how the way the gods exist in the DCU would effect such things.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

That's mostly because Atheists who do not engage in active disbelief usually either fall into the Agnostic category or do not even give them the time of day.

To repeat an analogy, Atheism is to Religion as Baldness is to Hair.

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

Sorry, but I have to nit-pick something in your language here.

The definition of an atheist is not someone who "denies" the existence of God/gods, because that implies that those "higher beings" do exist, and that the atheist just looks the other way or something.

To someone who believes in God, it's not belief, it can be a fact, it's what they know to be true and what makes sense to them. It's the same with atheists, except the belief is that there is no Higher Power. It would also be problematic to say that "those who believe in God deny His nonexistence." There's an insinuation in there as to what's "right," or what's really true and false.

So an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in the existence of God/gods, and as such, WW can't be an atheist.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

... your icon is awe-inspiring.

[khamelea.insanejournal.com]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/misotheism

Might be a tad more appropriate.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Since it's not universal, I'd settle for Agnosticism (which can be considered a subset of Atheism or vice versa depending on the angle taken) more than Misotheism.

[khamelea.insanejournal.com]

Agnosticism, as relating to gods, still has to do with the existence of gods rather than to one's attitude toward gods. It's the view that knowledge about the truth value of gods is unknown. As I understand it.

[darkknightjrk.insanejournal.com]

I'm not sure if athiest/agnostic either--maybe the Greco/Roman equivilant of a Lapsed Catholic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapsed_catholic)?

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Hmmm...Perhaps...but it still needs a name (and, given that it's the mass media and involving a living pantheon within that universe) it's about as close to Atheistic as it can get. The rejection fo the family strikes that chord dramatically, IMO.

But I have a personal bias, so that may just be me.

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

I think the term you're looking for is Apostate

[gailsimone.insanejournal.com]

Bless ya. :). Very interesting point!

I am an atheist, myself, but I think the question you raise
is fascinating in light of the fact that Diana knows for a fact that
her gods exist. We touch on this a little with black canary, I promise!

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

The word is Apostate

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

You know, when I first read this, my immediate thought was "I know gods Don't Work That Way in this fictional universe, but Atheist Wonder Woman FTW!"

Because I would love, love, love for there to be a high-profile atheist superhero out there. But in the DCU there are gods. I mean, one could argue that Zeus and Ares and Athena are all just special metahumans or aliens like Superman, but an atheist in this universe is always going to look like they are "denying" something that's plainly true.

It's very frustrating that the DCU is set up in such a way that any atheist can automatically be dismissed as stupid or ignorant. I would love to see a happy, well-adjusted atheist who isn't just bitter or had something happen that made them "lose their faith" or whatever.

WW can't be an atheist, because regardless whether or not she actively worships the Greek gods, in her world she knows them to exist.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Which is why I put the qualifier "effectively" on the Atheist monkier.

Apostate is a bit more appropriate term. Even if she knows them to be real, she does not feel they deserve worship, which can be taken as a rather Atheistic stance.

Finding a definer for WW's moral phylosophy post dieties is a more interesting prospect. She certainly won't be a Secular Humanist (who denies the existence of magic and dieties) because...well, she just killed one god and punched another.

I could definitely see her being a humanist, though. What other philosophies she adopts (Absurdism, Existentialism, etc) are a bit beyond me.

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

Even if she knows them to be real, she does not feel they deserve worship, which can be taken as a rather Atheistic stance.

That's not an atheistic stance, though. Atheism is an absence of a belief in God/gods. While there certainly are atheists who believe that gods don't deserve worship, believing they are worthy or worship or not has nothing to do with atheism. Maybe it's "atheist-ish," in that it may be associated with atheism, but it's not an atheistic stance.

Apostate is a bit better, but it still doesn't work, because she's not renouncing her religious beliefs, she's ceasing her religious practises out of (political?) necessity. As such, I don't see the possibility of her changing her moral philosophy at all likely.

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

This article (http://girl-wonder.org/webzine/article.php?id=9) discusses that problem a bit more, actually.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

The article takes Secular Humanism as the only form of Atheism and does not consider how the Scientific Method, skepticism and observational skills can be applied to such beings and materials.

Ergo, I'm going to ignore it, and possibly mock it at a later date.

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

Uh, to quote the article: Atheism - the belief that all things have a scientific explanation; Real-world atheism is, at its core, the belief that the world is more or less the way it seems to be - that, for instance, if no evidence can be found for the existence of God it is because God does not in fact exist.

The author's definition of atheism is one that takes the scientific method and observation as intrinsic to its meaning, and actually makes no mention of Secular Humanism whatsoever.

Either way, the point of the article is that presenting atheism in the DCU pretty much sets up atheists to look foolish by default, and not so much about defining what atheism is or isn't.