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Contrary to conventional Christian belief, the "gods" (or angels/devils if you prefer) are evolved, high-tech aliens, not supernatural beings.
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Eric:
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I see no such indicator of that. They are of a different plane, totally beyond the comprehension of the normal human mind, and I see no contradiction in the way the SOL are presented as "angels" in the conventional frame of mind as servants of the Divine, representing part of the Good-Evil struggle that like it or not *is* explicitly mentioned in WOTG. For you to say there is nothing supernatural about them is not a tenable argument IMO.
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One question: since when do supernatural beings need a big crystal spaceship to fly around in? There is nothing of a "different plane" or "beyond comprehension" about the "angels" in War of the Gods. I'd have to go dig in my copy of Bartlett's for confirmation, but I think it was Asimov who noted that, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." There is no need (IMHO, of course) to resort to the supernatural or Divine to explain them. Certainly, one
can attribute their powers to Divinity, but one can also attribute them to more natural sources -- and I tend to shave with Occam's Razor.
Me again:
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"And the path to salvation for humanity lies in evolution and technology (what's the line? "As you are, we once were; as we are, you may become."), not through faith. This is a materialist (all things are explainable without recourse to the supernatural) and humanist (humanity is in charge of its own destiny) philosophy, not a "faith-based" one. "
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Eric:
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Wrong. That's a quote from Mormon theology and it's the one aspect of blatant Mormon doctrine that holds to the idea of human beings becoming divine themselves that I do not agree with, but which I can forgive in the overall context of what else I see. What you can't call that is materialistic/humanism because that just isn't so, and that would also require you to disregard what Larson himself said about that.
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"As you are, we once were..." isn't a quote from Mormon theology, though it's close. The actual quote is, "As man now is, God once was: as God now is, man may be." It's attributed to a former LDS president, Lorenzo Snow.* You're correct in that it deals with the idea of humans becoming divine, but filtered through the SF sieve I mentioned earlier (exit "God," enter "we," meaning the aliens/angels/whatever they are), it takes on a wholly new meaning. Maybe they are representatives of God...or maybe they're an advanced group of aliens flying around in a big snowflake...saying man could become like them. Whatever Larson may have said since, the presentation in the show is completely consistent with a natural (not supernatural) explaination.
(* just a footnote: I mean neither to endorse nor disparage Mormons. I am an atheist. I have no interest in promoting or denying any religion, or even my own heathen godlessness
. When it comes to the Divine, y'all are on your own!)
