Religious Debate in the Hyborian Age
It took me quite awhile to force convince Crystal to watch Conan The Barbarian with me. It is one of my favorite fantasy films, though, and pretty much the only movie I think Arnold does a bang up job acting in.
It may seem like nothing more than a piece of B movie schlock, but behind all the beheading and snake cults, there really is some provoking dialogue. In a pivotal character building scene, Conan and his traveling companion, Subotai, get into a religious debate:
Conan: What gods do you pray to?
Subotai: I pray to the four winds… and you?
Conan: To Crom… but I seldom pray to him, he doesn’t listen.
Subotai: What good is he then? Ah, it’s just as I’ve always said.
Conan: He is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, “What is the riddle of steel?” If I do not know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me. That’s Crom, strong on his mountain!
Subotai: Ah, my god is greater.
Conan: Crom laughs at your four winds. He laughs from his mountain.
Subotai: My god is stronger. He is the everlasting sky! Your god lives underneath him.
After that, Crystal looked at me and said, “So, things haven’t changed much, I see”.
No, indeed. They haven’t.
No slight ment to John W Loftus, but I would like to see Conan debate William Lane Craig. It would be quite a match.
Tags: Conan, John W Loftus, Religious Debate, The Hyperion Age, The Riddle of Steel, William Lane Craig
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June 27, 2009 at 1:50 PM
Conan rules. At one point I had nearly every Conan comic ever published (they got stolen), and they were full of talk like that, dissing the various gods and their priests. They make a better guide to morality than the bible, that’s for sure. Conan was a pretty straight up dude.
June 27, 2009 at 2:04 PM
Yes, at least you always knew where Conan stood on an issue. Unlike Yahweh, who’s all over the place
I really enjoyed the comics as well. I recently got the Conan Chronicles, which is Robert E Howard’s original short stories from Weird Tales magazine back in the 30’s. They’re pretty good. He’s was a much better writer than I expected.
June 28, 2009 at 7:48 PM
My god can beat up your god!