Evidence

I came across the picture above in a social media post that (sadly) degenerated pretty much immediately into sniping between camps. I can understand why some of the faithful were aggrieved at the comparison, but I found it ironic that they felt the need to comment on the post and tell people: "If you don't believe in the Bible, then don't read/talk about it."

But Spider-Man isn't really all that much different than a classical Hero, like Heracles (Hercules) who has also been appropriated for modern comic books (despite the medium's general aversion to religion). One wonders, if there were a great catastrophe today, 1,000 years from now, would people think that some segment of the population regarded Spider-Man as a demigod? Or even a full-on deity? Would they be able to differentiate the stories that we tell to entertain ourselves or to make particular points from the stories that we understood to be true? Would there be arguments about whether these stories were meant to be history or allegory?

Back in the days when the scriptures of most modern religions were written, diaries weren't a big thing. The authors didn't include footnotes to tell us what they were thinking or attempting to get across to a reader. And so we argue about their intent, and their understanding of the world, and a lot of that argument is shaped by our modern opinions of what people were like back then. (And, it occurs to me, our opinions of ourselves as compared to them.) If you're convinced that ancient peoples were ignorant dirt farmers who needed to impose a cosmic order on a world they didn't have the knowledge to understand, that casts their belief systems in a much different light than an understanding that they were devout folk who were much more open to the divine.

And so I find myself wondering what people are going to think of us, when they look back after the centuries, especially if something happens to disrupt the transfer of knowledge into the future. Are we going to be seen as simple-minded ignoramuses, inventing stories of colorful strongmen to re-assure ourselves in an uncertain world? Morally insecure sophisticates, seeking to banish moral ambiguity? Overwhelmed and fantasizing about being powerful and animalistic?

I suspect that however the future looks back on us, we'd find it simplistic and, in being so, inaccurate. But I suspect that it will also be contentious. And I wonder what we'd make of that.