Death of a hero

I just finished watching the movie Beowulf, and felt compelled to write for the first time in awhile.  Normally this happens to me when I am touched by a movie, or music, and it makes me think about something bigger (Dead Prez had it right when they wrote "It's Bigger than HipHop...).  So not to give away the movie, for anyone who might read this and doesn't want me to spoil the fun, the movie is a classic tale of the rites of passage for a hero.  Without saying too much, the movie hints briefly, (but powerfully I might add) on the important conversion in the world around 400-500 a.c.e. (after the common era, for all you non-jews out there.  Basically means, after you silly people started counting the beginning of your calender from the birth of a man ;)  Anyway, during this time period Christianity was beginning to spread throughout Europe by the influence of politics.  The Kings would claim Christianity making it mandatory for everyone under their rule to begin worshipping Jesus as their lord and savior.  So you ask what does this fun fact have anything to do with a movie about monsters and completely generated from computer graphics (may I add a very sexy Angelina)?  Well, I will tell you.  At one point in the movie, Anthony Hopkins Character is asked if they should start praying to the Christian God Jesus Christ.  He replies that no, it will do no good.  Since the emergence of this Christian God, men have become wollowing martyrs, pathetic and weak.  He says that it will only take action to save them now.  Another scene in the movie shows a character holding a cross to ward off a dragon.  The result is his whole family burned alive and him on his death bed.

So you ask, who cares?  what does this mean?  Well it made me think about what a hero is and why do we always say that we can't find any real heros anymore.  Now I realize that we are supposed to say that our hero is our father, or mother, or that teacher that stood up for us when no one else would.  Or Michael Jordan, or JFK.  The problem with all of these examples is that they were human, and they had flaws.  You see, a hero has none of these, a hero slays the dragon, saves the princess.  A hero can destroy the gods.  A hero has a tint of Hubris because of his/her powers.

I labeled this blog the death of a hero, because the movie is saying that the birth of the western religions (Christianity mainly, Judaism) killed the true idea of the hero.  no longer can men become heros and rise of to be god-like figures.  No longer can they slay the dragon because the god of the western religions is omni (everything).  Man cannot defeat him as he could have defeated the greek gods and the creatures of the greek times because God does not deal with life on Earth as much as he deals with life after death.  Such a division has been drawn between this life and the afterlife making it almost impossible for a hero to rise to the levels of God like proportions.  

Without the ability to escape the flaws of man, we are left with  heros whom show the many flaws that you or I are faced with.  Thus in the 20th and 21st centuries we have been creating heros out of men and woman, only to find out that they have faults like us.  When we discover these flaws, we chastise them for it.  (look at what is happening to Bonds now.  We cheer him and make him into a hero when he hits the ball in the bay, but when we realize that he needed help to become that hero, we slaughter him.)  The movie showed the importance of keeping the hero alive at the end when the hero attempted to expose his flaws.  His comrad would not here the flaws and only repeated thathe is a true hero and his name will be spoken of for eternity.  

We as humans, with so many flaws, need heros.  We need a hero to believe in.  We need to believe that there is something bigger and something better than this.  For some, religion fills that void.  For many more, religion does not because it does not suffice the need to feel important, or the chance of one day feeling important.  The hero, who is made from the same cloth that we are, filled that need.  Modern Religion has destroyed that by creating such a divide between G-d and humans, that we can never reach to such levels.  We are supposed to be humble and bow down, but if we do so, how can we rise to godlike proportions of a Beowulf?  That level of hubris is only found in men today who fiend for money and power, not for the greater good of the world.  

So where did I go with this blog, I'm not really sure, its late.  I just wanted to write a bit about this idea that modern religion has taken the power out of the human hand to become a hero.  This has greatly hurt our society when we are in need of someone to stand up and guide us to greener pastures.