What makes a god different to a hero? (I’m speaking of the type of person you would refer to as “one of my heroes” rather than the sort that you find myths about.) Both of them are unreal things, things that only exist inside our heads. If you ever get to meet your heroes, you discover that they’re normal, flawed people, who certainly can’t live up to the pedestal that one naturally places heroes on. For example: Bill Hicks is one of my heroes. But while I can look to him as someone who spoke the truth as he saw it, and did not compromise, as a genius who was only coming into his own when he died, and as a comedy god, I can do this because I was never confronted with the reality of him during his time as a alcoholic or drug abuser. The man who inspired the myth of Bill Hicks isn’t my hero – rather, it’s the myth figure. (Hicks is on my mind at the moment because I have just finished American Scream)

And it sets me to wondering – is this a better way to treat gods? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if, instead of gods who recieve worship, we all instead had heroes? Something to live up to, rather than obey or give obeisance to?

Or am I simply falling into the terribly easy trap of believing that the world would be a better place if everyone was like me?