Here Lies God R.I.P.

[Cinjin]

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?

[Captain Scarlet]

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?

Isn't this the central plank of xtianity. God (in the form of Jesus) did indeed die, and came back to bother folks 3 days later. Jews have been murdered in the 20th century by xtians, over the idea that they committed deicide.

[Cinjin]

Isn't this the central plank of xtianity. God (in the form of Jesus) did indeed die, and came back to bother folks 3 days later. Jews have been murdered in the 20th century by xtians, over the idea that they committed deicide.

As far as I'm aware - my brother is making no mention of Jesus Christ - he's referring to "God" as the creator alone, not an earth-bound deity per-say. Sorry if there's confusion since I haven't actually posted his postulate yet.

[paintpooper]

If they can die they wouldn't be a god.

[DeistPaladin]

If they can die they wouldn't be a god.

Not necessarily. The only qualifications for "God" that I can see are (1) conscious (2) powerful enough to get the ball rolling and (3) did so. The idea that God has since expired like all things in the universe has occurred to me. If this is the case, we need to honor Its legacy by building on the foundation we inherited.

[Cinjin]

If they can die they wouldn't be a god.

Thats your perception of god - and you may be right ... but I have never been told by anyone that a god of any kind did not have the ability to die. Even the creator of all things.

At any rate ... my brother’s postulate is as follows:

Not only has God died – but he chose to die.
Imagine that you have infinite power and you decided to create an entire universe. And somewhere during that act, you created earth and put life into motion. Six billion years later you find out that life has flourished on one of your little planets and beings are actually worshipping you through various religions of their own making. This pleases you until you realize that they’re killing each other in your name. So you leave and decide to check in on them every few thousand years in the hopes that you didn’t create an entire race of idiots. Unfortunately, every time you stop in to see the humans, they are even worse off than they were before and you grow ever saddened by your own creation. This leads you to become a depressed God and you wander around your universe with little to do. You realize that your infinite power still cannot save your living creations from destroying themselves and you become so distraught that you simply allow yourself to die. And thus, we have no proof of God anymore, and it’s been so long since he was last on this planet that no physical evidence can be found that he was ever around.

Basically, my brother postulates that the human race, in a way, killed off God.
Keep in mind that this is NOT his devout religious conviction … just his own ruminations.

“Secularization, science, urbanization — all have made it comparatively easy for the modern man to ask where God is and hard for the man of faith to give a convincing answer, even to himself…” ~ John T. Elson

[Anomalocaris]

1. I don't think god should rest in peace. he created hell, he should roast in it after he dies.

2. There are examples of gods dying in religions far better endowed with spare gods than xtianity. Monotheist with their pinched reliance on one shabby god can't very well admit their god can or will die, if they did, they've be atheists.

[Cinjin]

1. I don't think god should rest in peace. he created hell, he should roast in it.

I suppose the christian god did create hell, but in that context, it's doubtful that he would send himself to it should he die.

2. There are examples of gods dying in religions far better endowed with spare gods than xtianity. Monotheist with their pinched reliance on just one god can't very well admit their god can or will die, if they did, they've be atheists.

my only nitpick of this is the semantics: if they admitted that their god did actually die than they would be forced in their concession to become atheists. Obviously, highly unlikely.

[Cinjin]

If they can die they wouldn't be a god.

Not necessarily. The only qualifications for "God" that I can see are (1) conscious (2) powerful enough to get the ball rolling and (3) did so. The idea that God has since expired like all things in the universe has occurred to me. If this is the case, we need to honor Its legacy by building on the foundation we inherited.

If god did die because he was trillions of years old and just didn't want to deal with it anymore. Would that not imply that there is no afterlife? Unless, "dying" for God just means that he never again leaves Heaven or some other place that is located in an alternate dimension.

[Watson]

If they can die they wouldn't be a god.

Thats your perception of god - and you may be right ... but I have never been told by anyone that a god of any kind did not have the ability to die. Even the creator of all things.

At any rate ... my brother’s postulate is as follows:

Not only has God died – but he chose to die.
Imagine that you have infinite power and you decided to create an entire universe. And somewhere during that act, you created earth and put life into motion. Six billion years later you find out that life has flourished on one of your little planets and beings are actually worshipping you through various religions of their own making. This pleases you until you realize that they’re killing each other in your name. So you leave and decide to check in on them every few thousand years in the hopes that you didn’t create an entire race of idiots. Unfortunately, every time you stop in to see the humans, they are even worse off than they were before and you grow ever saddened by your own creation. This leads you to become a depressed God and you wander around your universe with little to do. You realize that your infinite power still cannot save your living creations from destroying themselves and you become so distraught that you simply allow yourself to die. And thus, we have no proof of God anymore, and it’s been so long since he was last on this planet that no physical evidence can be found that he was ever around.

I would say this is a vast overestimation of humanities importance and blows our impact on the universe way out of proportion. We're just not that special. There is no way God would kill himself over something so...trivial. There's no way God would kill himself period and I also think that to project even the possibility of a God being capable of death is to put a human face on something decidedly above human. Death, as far as the human race knows, is a human (and animal, of course) concern. One cannot be so quick to pass the judgement that death is possible in all living things throughout the universe. Least of all a deity.