I have this mental fanfiction that every god has a way to be killed, and when you kill them you can get things from them.

For instance, the one that I refer to the most often is Ben Franklin using a kite and a key to slay Zeus and to steal electricity from him.

And then of course there’s Prometheus who intentionally and willfully laid down his own life so that humanity could have fire.

But there are more gods than there are words to describe them.

What other gods have we claimed existed, that we humans have likely slain, and what do you think we got from them?

  • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    27 days ago

    I’m entertained by the idea of a divine plane working on Mega Man rules, where after you kill a boss you get its weapon for yourself.

  • Geodad@lemmy.world
    14·
    28 days ago

    They were killed by logic and reason. We figured out the real reason behind lightning, servere storms, drought, diseases, etc.

    • bizarroland@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      31·
      28 days ago

      I think you misunderstood the point of the question, lol.

      It’s fanfiction.

      It’s like saying that the reason why we have not solved fusion is because we have not killed Apollo because he’s safe in the sun, and the only way to solve fusion would be to send a probe to the sun with a live chicken and some peach preserves as part of the method to kill Apollo to steal the power of fusion from his corpse.

  • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@lemmy.worldEnglish
    231·
    28 days ago

    Here’s one for ya: Hermes killed Thoth and got the knowledge of alchemy from him, resulting in the syncretic creation of Hermes Trismegistus and the hermetic tradition. Then later we killed Hermes and got the scientific method.

  • Cosmoooooooo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34·
    28 days ago

    All religion is fan-fiction. The only problem is that once you make it, followers take it far too seriously and start killing and hurting innocent people over it.

    Fictional gods don’t die. Nobody reads their book anymore. Same as any other fictional character. They’re just replaced by something new, that is just a remake of something old.

    • bizarroland@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      27 days ago

      I mean, I’m glad that there are pockets in the world where people feel confident in saying that nobody studies religion anymore because representation is important, but saying “nobody reads their book anymore” casually overlooks like six plus billion people who do actually participate in a religion of some type.

      Like, I get what you’re saying, but more people are religious to some degree than are not.

      By a huge margin.

      I checked the World Population Review website for the least religious countries, and it seems like there’s approximately 1.2 to 1.4 billion officially non-religious people in the world as of 2020, And three-quarters of a billion of them are in China.

      So if we were all placed onto a massive chessboard and forced to battle it out life or death style, the atheists are gonna be out numbered approximately 6 to 1.

      I said all of that not to disparage your atheism, but rather to say that it’s okay to have mental exercises in fiction about religion and religious adjacent topics like this, if for no other reason than to enjoy our imagination and to have conversations with each other.

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.world
    8·
    27 days ago

    Oublievish, god of the forgotten

    We cast him into darkness so deep that the light could not reach him, and he ceased to be. From him, we stole the ability to forget. And then we used that ability to erase our memory of our crime. Now, no one knows he even existed.

  • CatDogL0ver@lemmy.world
    41·
    27 days ago

    Then you will like American Gods (the novel or TV shows).

    Gods can be killed once their worshippers abandon them. Without anyone to worship them, they will be weakened to the point of non-existent.

  • toiletobserver@lemmy.world
    51·
    28 days ago

    Artemis: Goddess of the hunt, wilderness, wild animals, the Moon, and archery. We got the ability to hunt and have had massive extinctions ever since.

  • BlackLaZoR@fedia.io
    41·
    28 days ago

    I have this mental fanfiction that every god has a way to be killed, and when you kill them you can get things from them

    Sounds like Black Myth Wukong

  • invertedspear@lemmy.zipEnglish
    19·
    28 days ago

    Terry Pratchet wrote in Good Omens that the apocalypse horsemen Pestilence was slain by the advent of penicillin.

    From my own head:

    Mercury was killed to bring about the Internet.

    Athena was not killed, but severely weakened to domesticate the herd animals.

    We sacrificed Fenris for lap dogs.

    I love this thread and will be working some of this into my next RPG storyline.

  • Maiq@lemy.lol
    61·
    28 days ago

    God is dead. Of his pity for man hath god died. So be thee warned against pity. From where thence there yet cometh unto men a heavy cloud. Verily i understand the weather signs.

    But attend also to this word. All great love is above all its pity. For it seeketh to create what is loved.

    Myself do I offer unto my love and my neighbor as myself. Such is the language of all creators.

    All creators however are hard. Thus spoke Zarathustra.

  • Komodo Rodeo@lemmy.world
    7·
    28 days ago

    I have this mental fanfiction that every god has a way to be killed, and when you kill them you can get things from them.

    I’ll encourage you to investigate the AD&D-D&D 5th Ed. material concerning the Forgotten Realm setting’s Gods, all the way up to Ao. Murdering them imbues their killer with their ‘portfolio’, specific deity controlled influence over Harvest, War, Music, Healing, etc. See also, the entire plot concerning ‘The Time of Troubles’ most notably seen in Baldur’s Gate (1998).