there does seem to be a bit of a tangent doesn’t there? 
tough as all hell… but not a god. Why? cause a god wouldn’t need a yellow sun to give him powers… nor would he care about killing folks if he was a god.
see here’s the thing that took me a while to see, superman has god like powers but he isn’t a god; he’s a guy, a really good noble guy, but still just a guy. with the weight of the world. his story is akin to the story of Atlas.
DISCLAIMER: This post is about superman as a character and gods as characters. My personal beliefs in the existence or absence of a monotheistic god are irrelevant here 
In my opinion, he’s not a conventional god for a number of reasons:
[ol]
[li]Superman exists in the mortal plane, whereas gods occupy some astral plane, although they manifest themselves from time to time.
[/li][li]gods tend to rely on belief to exist (“without faith, I am nothing”), but Superman exists anyway.
[/li][li]I think it’s also the difference between ‘magic’ and science, really. Superman’s powers are explained by his dense structure and his alien origins, whereas gods either already have their powers, or acquire them through mystical means.
[/li][/ol]
Key here is not whether superman is god or like god in monotheistic point of view. Just because one does not satisfy omnipotent, omniscience and omnipresence requirements, doesn’t mean he can’t be god-like from other angles.
Superman’s powers at least gives him god-like abilities. In a Greek polytheism point of view, Superman definitely is god like, since Greek gods have weaknesses, can be killed and so on.
For the purpose of fantasy sci-fi, it’d too hard to put the “no yellow sun and lot of kryptonite” condition in every scenario. If you do have Superman, it’s likely for most scenarios Superman can solve it alone. That wouldn’t be a lot of fun.
Remember Arthur C. Clarke’s third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
True, although my point is that the stories containing gods don’t explain the source of their powers. In some circumstances I’d consider gods to be advanced aliens anyway.
Actually, that’s more like the Greek heroes you’re thinking of (such as Heracles or Achilles), who were only demi-gods. Norse gods could die, but the Greek gods were immortal.
I just found this thread, but I voted not god. I know I’ve previously argued that Sam Carter and Hulk are gods, but that’s only under the constraints set by the Fantasy league. But, I understand the arguments the crew made.
Anyway, Superman can age, requires a yellow sun for his abilities, and can die. For these reasons among others I won’t go into, not god.
For now, I leave you with this exchange.
Daniel: False god.
Teal’c: Dead false god.
P.S. What’s the difference between gods and demi-gods? I know I can wikipedia the answer, but…
P.S.S. Kinda funny you guys mentioned the Star Trek V god because I made him a member of Team Useless without ever seeing this thread.
I’ve always thot of a demi-god as a hybrid. When a god and human procreate, they are a person of two worlds (natural and super-natural). Hercules is a demi-god because his mommy got freaky with Zeus. Superman is a demi-god actually because of the reasons you gave. The source of his power is our yellow sun, literally blessed by the sun god.
[Christian harumph] I totally see where you’re coming from with the violence of the Old Testament. I’ve been reading through some OT books with some friends of mine for an art project we’re working on, and there’s a lot of scenes that are hard to take. A blog called “Dwindling In Unbelief” even lists God’s kills. I’m a believer myself, but sometimes, the best analogy I have for describing these books is that they sound like death metal songs.
That’s a pretty good delineation. Superman is god-like in the demi-god way like Hercules. He’s for all intents and purposes invincible. But if you think about it, his powers are mostly about destruction, not creation. Time-warping from the C.R. movies notwithstanding, he doesn’t have the ability to create life or manipulate matter and nature in the way God or Zeus or whoever does. He just busts things up real good, and no one can stop him, at least not without a kryptonite bullet.
FTW.