> 
> > By the way, what does this discussion of the father
> > have to do with Kami-sama? *innocently whistles*
> 
> The opposition to the idea of Kami-sama being the Megami sisters' father 
used 
 
> to be far, far stronger in this place when I first turned up here. Then 
again 
 
> there were far more posters here full stop, which may have had something to 
> do with it. :)

Well, also, there were more interesting things to say about religion and/or
sex, than about that specific detail.

In this context, does it matter if we are talking about the number one "God" 
or one of a number of "god"s? 

If "divine nature" is at all generic, so that one can reason from it
without knowing specifics of a particular god in a pantheon, then
I'd suggest that it shouldn't matter.  

On the other hand, a lot of recent runimation about "divine nature"
has assumed monotheism and a framework of western philosophy.

Which leads back to the recent question of how representative
Belldandy is of megami in general.

(I may note that, in the movie, the reactions in heaven, after the
crisis was past, made me think of comparisions between the staff
of heaven and sterotypes of Japanese "Office Ladies".)

If Belldandy's father isn't Kamisama (and I don't think there's
compelling evidence that he is, to date), then there's the interesting
question of what happened to him and/or Belldandy's mother,
that they are absent from the story.

On the other hand, I might have said much the same thing about
Keiichi's parents or Urd's mother, until a little while ago.

We are having a practical deluge of parents, who's to say another
parent or two might not show up?

--
    Albert Lunde          Albert-Lunde@northwestern.edu (new address)
                          Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu (old address)