Is Revering Of Dead Celebrities a Form of Ancestor Worship?

[NitzWalsh]

OJ was a great football player but he turned out to be a murderer.
MJ was an amazing pop star but he turned out to be a child molester.
So many great rock stars died from their drug addictions.

Hey now Zatoichi. OJ and MJ were never found guilty.

[Zatoichi]

OJ was a great football player but he turned out to be a murderer.
MJ was an amazing pop star but he turned out to be a child molester.
So many great rock stars died from their drug addictions.

Hey now Zatoichi. OJ and MJ were never found guilty.

Point taken but what is the actual likelihood they we're innocent?

OJ was found guilty in the civil case and as we know he never kept his promise to not rest until he found the "real killer," unless, of course, he had inside info he would find him at the golf course.  :P

And MJ simply paid all the victims to keep their mouths shut. You don't give millions of dollars to people if you're innocent so I might be making an assumption but it's a pretty safe one IMO.

I could probably have come up with many, many better examples but I'm sure you get the idea.

[NitzWalsh]

OJ was a great football player but he turned out to be a murderer.
MJ was an amazing pop star but he turned out to be a child molester.
So many great rock stars died from their drug addictions.

Hey now Zatoichi. OJ and MJ were never found guilty.

Point taken but what is the actual likelihood they we're innocent?

OJ was found guilty in the civil case and as we know he never kept his promise to not rest until he found the "real killer," unless, of course, he had inside info he would find him at the golf course.  :P

And MJ simply paid all the victims to keep their mouths shut. You don't give millions of dollars to people if you're innocent so I might be making an assumption but it's a pretty safe one IMO.

I could probably have come up with many, many better examples but I'm sure you get the idea.

Oh, I totally agree.

[the_antithesis]

Think about it. Before technology gave us the ability to capture on film and video the lives and doings of famous people, we handed down the wisdom of ancients in writing. Prior to the printing press, we handed down the wisdom of ancestors in written scrolls. Before that, in legends, lore and eddas. My wife watches the 10,000 Pyramid reruns with Dick Clark, who is now dead. We all have watched Casablanca and other old movies, seen Judy Garland retrospectives and so on.

I once stated the opinion to a friend that being a Bond Girl in a movie amounted to immortality, because Bond movie marathons come on about twice a year. Ursula Andress in her prime will always be there, renewed forever and lusted after across time by generations.

In a manner of speaking, is this not similar to the reverence paid to ancestors by tribes who disinter their dead ancestors and then reinter them, to appease their spirits. We are not appeasing spirits now, but paying homage in a like manner to icons of a bygone day. Is this somehow endemic to our nature? Curious, would like your thoughts.

Why do you ask? What has Lindsay Lohan done now?

[Aupmanyav]

Ancestor worship in China is kind of misunderstood in the west. It mostly a matter of respect, and remembrance, and mostly symbolic.

So are the annual hindu 'shr?ddhas' (derived from 'shraddh?', reverence). But hindus believe the ancestors (Pitris - both male and female ancestors) can bless them and that helps.

[leo]

I miss Christopher Hitchens .

[Youssuf Ramadan]

Sometimes I wonder whether celebrity, alive or dead, is a form of religion. There are a hell of a lot of people who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time reading up on their favourite celebrities, copying their clothes, speech, mannerisms, and passing off the celebrity's opinions as their own.  Weird....