(are we spelling his name right?) but wasn't Zoroaster the top daddy of supermanism?
Milum, I've seen his name spelled several different ways, but this is the most prevalent and widely accepted (YCLUI). I'm familiar with Zoroaster and Zoroasterism, but haven't researched it to the extent I would have liked. I tend to disagree with the superman interpretation of übermensch, though, and believe that, like may philospohical and spiritual texts, it has been widely misinterpretated over the years. Here is a passage of such a discussion I pasted over from the O'Neill thread because of its pertinence here:
From notes on Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Tad Beckman:
"Nietzsche has also framed this concept in his image of the "übermensch," or "overman." In this vision, man is a temporary creature, a "crossing over." Just as an individual must overcome himself, man himself must be overcome. The overman is not man as we know him; it is a new being, perhaps, unthinkably beyond us and living with new values in the spirit of Yes-saying to life."
(übermensch, of course, has been misinterpreted as superman rather than overman by the Nazis and others to fortify their message and for propaganda purposes).
