Here Lies God R.I.P.

[Darwinian]

♫ All the world's indeed a stage, and we are merely players, performers and portrayers, each another's audience outside the gilded cage ♪

[Watson]

How can you be so sure of that? What I'm saying is that death may not be applicable to all living organisms in the universe. Our perception of what death is is vague at best in the first place. To declare that death is experienced in the same way for all things in this universe is preposterous; we haven't discovered all the things which exist andor live in the universe and we don't know how those undiscovered things experience the world and death. Death is a human term for an earthly phenomenon experienced by earthly creatures. It's a word for how we view death, not necessarily how other beings experience it.

[Darwinian]

I believe that when this universe comes to an end and entropy is total it will once again have the same properties as a singularity and after an eternity or two we'll have another big bang.

[Watson]

That would be cool with me. Do it all over again, I say!

[downbeatplumb]

♫ All the world's indeed a stage, and we are merely players, performers and portrayers, each another's audience outside the gilded cage ♪

Living in the limelight, the universal dream

Ah Rush what an awesome group.

[reverendjeremiah]

My brother amuses me with many of his perspectives on the existence we all share. He postulates that God died.
He has an interesting take on this idea which of course I will be sharing with you.

Thoughts? Ramifications? Examples of dying deities? Devil dying? Whatayagot?

I have thought of the subject myself, but the coolest ways of Gods death is presented in Dungeons and Dragons Plane Scape edition. There are SEVERAL ways of killing a god, all of them Epic level adventures.

#1 - Kill off all of its worshippers/gods fame fades away. Doing this will sap the strength of the deity and pull him out of his home plane and into an astral plane. The deity bloats to MASSIVE proportions and eventually turns to stone. Some inhabitants of the Astral plane make their cities and the backs of dead gods.

#2 - Physically murder the deity. This is usually done on the deities home plane (such as "olympus") and is VERY difficult to accomplish. If the Dungeon Master allows, you will SAP the deities god powers from them the moment you slay them.

There are so many ways..

One thing I thought up, and I am not trying to say I invented it, but that maybe a god created the universe, but it was so stressful to him that he died in the process. So therefore you have a creator of the universe, but still have a godless universe.

[Watson]

#1 - Kill off all of its worshippers/gods fame fades away. Doing this will sap the strength of the deity and pull him out of his home plane and into an astral plane. The deity bloats to MASSIVE proportions and eventually turns to stone. Some inhabitants of the Astral plane make their cities and the backs of dead gods.

This makes me think of Black and White, the old COOL AS HELL computer game I played when I was ten.

[Cinjin]

One thing I thought up, and I am not trying to say I invented it, but that maybe a god created the universe, but it was so stressful to him that he died in the process. So therefore you have a creator of the universe, but still have a godless universe.

Nice thought. Either way, then or now, the universe ends up without a god at the helm. Why couldn't a god die really? I mean, who wants to live forever? Imagine you're alive for 100 trillion years and you realize that that amount of time was like the first SECOND of eternity! Another 100 trillion years and your 2 seconds into eternity. If I was god, I would want to die ... what would be the point of living. The beauty of living, or I guess what makes life so beautiful, is knowing that it will eventually come to an end. (Anther thread perhaps.)

Watson said: How can you be so sure of that? What I'm saying is that death may not be applicable to all living organisms in the universe. Our perception of what death is is vague at best in the first place. To declare that death is experienced in the same way for all things in this universe is preposterous; we haven't discovered all the things which exist andor live in the universe and we don't know how those undiscovered things experience the world and death. Death is a human term for an earthly phenomenon experienced by earthly creatures. It's a word for how we view death, not necessarily how other beings experience it.

You may have a point for both sides here Watson. In a way I spose you're right about humans "not knowing if death is technically applicable to all things" - despite the laws of physics. However, you say that we use the term Death as a way of describing our experience - and how we view it. I think it's pretty damn reasonable to assume that death occurs all across the universe and that any lifeforms that are there to witness it are going to view it the exact same way we do. I think death is death is death. If you're not living anymore. What are you?

Still ... I like your bantor.

[reverendjeremiah]

This makes me think of Black and White, the old COOL AS HELL computer game I played when I was ten.

Never played the black and white game..but the Plane Scape I am talking about is not the computer game, or a video game. Its a dice and miniatures RPG.

It is REALLY cool because the game is less about good vs. evil, or monster vs. humanoid, and more about beliefs. And not just petty beliefs such in believers of Loki fighting believers of Thor. Its about core beliefs of the universe. These people come together as "factions" and try to spread their core beliefs across the multiverse. Their core beliefs tend to have an explanation of "the powers" (the deities) and how the multiverse reacts to them. Examples:

-The "guvners" believe that the secrets of the universe is in the mechanics of it. Those who discover the laws of how to manipulate its mechanics will become like a power, or will actually BECOME a power. Even those deities who embrace chaos must still know certain basic laws of the multiverse to have reached their lofty level of powers.

- Xaositects believe the secret of the universe lay in randomness. Those who embrace chaos embrace the true power of the multiverse. The powers are all different, differeing alignment, differing dogma, etc..and only by understand WHY the differences and randomness is there can you ever become and understand the powers yourself. Those powers who embrace law still are part of the higher functions of randomness.

- Athar believe that all Powers (wether they were mortals who later became powers, or were powers from the start) are ultimately NOT true powers, and are therefore slave masters no matter how kind and benevolent their followers and dogma seems to be. Athar build their headquarters on the backs of the dead gods in the astral plane (what better place for a group of people who state that Powers are not TRUE powers but on the backs of dead "powers") or in the spire. The spire is considered by many to be the "center of the multiverse". The closer you get to the spire, the more it saps away your powers. Opposing powers sometimes come here to talk treaties on common ground. The Athar lay in wait for them to slay them when this happens.

There are some groups that frown upon the powers, considering it to be a fear of death, and that death is the only true peace in the multiverse.

- Sensates (one of my favorites) believe that the secret of the multiverse is through experience. It isnt to much about deities, or worshipping and being worshipped, but that the TRUE power is experience. The more experience you have, the more of a power you become. Therefore their faction have small crystal balls they use to record their 5 senses, and they are stored in the hall of the sensates where you can go to touch these spheres and relive the experiences of whoever recorded the sensations onto these devices as if you were that person. Some deities have been known to have left recordings of their sensations behind, and some powers masquerade as a humanoid or such so that they too could partake and add in to the "sensorium".

Very cool stuff if you ask me.

Nice thought. Either way, then or now, the universe ends up without a god at the helm. Why couldn't a god die really? I mean, who wants to live forever? Imagine you're alive for 100 trillion years and you realize that that amount of time was like the first SECOND of eternity! Another 100 trillion years and your 2 seconds into eternity. If I was god, I would want to die ... what would be the point of living. The beauty of living, or I guess what makes life so beautiful, is knowing that it will eventually come to an end. (Anther thread perhaps.)

I hear ya man. I try to think up cool things about a god, but I think most of them have already been done. For example, that post I did about a god who creates the universe but dies in the process. It doesnt even have to be a god. It could be a mortal scientist in a parallel universe who invented our Cosmos. Therefore our Cosmos was "created", but not by a god. A truely godless creation...the mortal scientist eventually dies of old age and leaves the "watch" over the experiment to his corporation, or his sons and daughters who are very technically advanced.

Of course, I dont believe a single word of what I am saying. As far as "hair standing up on the neck" factor, it does go pretty high with me. Smoke a jay and sometimes thoughts like that go randomly through my head. I dont fight them, I let them flow. To me it is inspirational and creative juices. Who knows what kind of music I will write, or maybe one day I will write a fictional story on some of the cool things I allowed to flow when I was faded. there is nothing wrong in THINKING about stuff like this, or even talking about it..but actually believing that it is MORE than fiction is not a smart move in my opinion...and I know that isnt what you were suggesting. I geared that statement to the religious folks.

[downbeatplumb]

#1 - Kill off all of its worshippers/gods fame fades away.a creator of the universe, but still have a godless universe.

This is one of he main hemes in my favourite terry pratchett book 'small gods'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Gods