Fantasy Morality

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Dakêsîntrah

Who, or what, was this Supreme Being? In what sense was He-She the Creator of the Universe and mankind?

Put out of your mind all those images of God as an Old Man with a beard. That’s just absurd. Consider instead the evidence from the world’s oldest civilisations – Egypt and Mesopotamia. Here, in the creation myths, the Great God, or Goddess, personifies the formative cosmos. He, or she, is identified with the death of the old cosmos; with the fall of the sky and the seeding of the earth; with the chaos of the primeval earth and waters; with the separation of the heavens from the earth; and with the new-born Sun, Moon, and stars. In short, the God and Goddess personify the entire myth of creation and the entire created Universe.

I would disagree.

It is thought, and I don't have my source (H. G. Wells?) that God is simply the tribe's Alpha Male and Alpha Female glorified. If we are walking back gods into prehistory, we may see that each small tribe of humans has a leader, selected for strength etc, who keeps the tribe surviving (poor leaders' tribes are eaten, and so do not live on to write history). As our hominids become more sentient, they began to remember, and tell stories of leaders deeds, both past and present. These stories of course are stretched, and over time (who even has a calendar?) become the basis of god's doings.

Clever leaders perpetuate mysticism, as it makes holding power much easier. And when one tribe meets another, this god belief can give an advantage to one tribe over the other. And so on.

In contrast, in Tolkien's world characters can look back as things were actually better in the past. Their ancestors were stronger, smarter, better. Cults could appear to worship these ancestors. A character that stays around too long, like Sauron who should have exited the stage in the Second Age, are thought to be gods by the Third Age inhabitants.

So I don't think that creation plays much of a part, except as one more thing to add to 'our' leader's resume.