Is it possible "God" is dead?

Can gods die? Can they be killed? Do they have an expiration date? Old age?

Or does one have to be immortal to be a god?

If our Universe is 12-14 billion years old - could the "god" that created it be dead by now?

Probably not, for a God to be dead it would assume being alive at least in our context (as in the laws that govern this universe on how we define living and dead.) It does not make much sense to go down that road as it assumes to many things we cannot possibly know, beyond what systems of belief already tells us about the relationship of deity (beyond our laws and comprehension) to our existence.

In a funny sort of way it is Judeo-Christian assumptions that screwed this up the most. Going so far as to talk about our existence being formed at least in his image, beyond that of more ancient polytheistic religions that also named and described multiple Gods in our context of human form, emotion, motivations, and place. Ironically, it is Islam that gives the idea of God the most latitude to mean just about anything. "No vision can grasp him, but His grasp is over all vision. He is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things." The idea of no real image of God in terms of human confines, but Judeo-Christian descriptions do. The ideas of what God looks like, that association to Jesus on earth who was born, died, came back, etc.

Either way we have no real consensus across all of the takes from religions going back through recorded history on the actual power of God (or Gods) to be "immortal" in our context of life and death even when appearing here. Therefor we should not even bother with the questions on Gods having life, or death, or even an age using our interpretations of time in this universe.

Dragonfly said:

Can gods die? Can they be killed? Do they have an expiration date? Old age?

Or does one have to be immortal to be a god?

If our Universe is 12-14 billion years old - could the "god" that created it be dead by now?

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Not if he exists as the Christian faith describes him.

Dragonfly said:

Can gods die? Can they be killed? Do they have an expiration date? Old age?

Or does one have to be immortal to be a god?

If our Universe is 12-14 billion years old - could the "god" that created it be dead by now?

Click to expand...

I suppose they could. Our "god" could be a vastly intellectually superior being running a simulation. I suppose they don't need to be immortal.

"God" could be in the rules of the universe itself, and the current thinking is that universes do indeed die, in a way at least.

But speaking of the human-described gods, I have always viewed such a god's "death" as being when they stop having any substantial following. Ancient gods now considered to be part of "mythology" rather than "religion" have "died," so to speak.

What gave them life was human belief, and when they lose it, they become nothing but static children's stories.

Gathomas88 said:

Not if he exists as the Christian faith describes him.

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Humans have been wrong about a great deal. Especially those humans that wrote the bible thousands of years ago.

Isn't it quite possible they might be wrong?

14 billion years....something with a will and a conscience can exist for over 14 billion years?

Dragonfly said:

Humans have been wrong about a great deal. Especially those humans that wrote the bible thousands of years ago.

Isn't it quite possible they might be wrong?

14 billion years....something with a will and a conscience can exist for over 14 billion years?

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Perhaps the better counter question is how do we know that time is a constant outside of this universe?

SmokeAndMirrors said:

I suppose they could. Our "god" could be a vastly intellectually superior being running a simulation. I suppose they don't need to be immortal.

"God" could be in the rules of the universe itself, and the current thinking is that universes do indeed die, in a way at least.

But speaking of the human-described gods, I have always viewed such a god's "death" as being when they stop having any substantial following. Ancient gods now considered to be part of "mythology" rather than "religion" have "died," so to speak.

What gave them life was human belief, and when they lose it, they become nothing but static children's stories.

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That's very much the way that I view the concept of "heaven". When I remember my parents, I keep them alive. At some point though, my parents will die when anyone left with a memory of them dies.

OrphanSlug said:

Perhaps the better counter question is how do we know that time is a constant outside of this universe?

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Good question.

Dragonfly said:

Can gods die? Can they be killed? Do they have an expiration date? Old age?

Or does one have to be immortal to be a god?

If our Universe is 12-14 billion years old - could the "god" that created it be dead by now?

Click to expand...

Bluntly: no. Time is a portion of our universe. Whoever created the universe would exist outside of Time. It cannot ever be an "I Was" or an "I Will Be", but only the "I Am".

cpwill said:

Bluntly: no. Time is a portion of our universe. Whoever created the universe would exist outside of Time. It cannot ever be an "I Was" or an "I Will Be", but only the "I Am".

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Time doesn't exist outside of what we call the Universe?

You know this how?

I don't know about alive or dead and how that could be possible with a god, but I do believe he must have his own drugs. How boring would it be to know everything in advance all the time? But hey, maybe light 'er up, smoke some godly herb, ambrosia herb maybe, you know after all the work was done on that 7th day, perhaps sit back and relax, just forget for awhile....ahhhh, relief.

Or maybe he is just too smart/omniscient... and simply says, NO.

It’s seems perfectly reasonable to me to conceive of a deity who did exist but doesn’t any more for some reason, be that “dying” by some definition, going elsewhere or maybe being consumed as part of the process of creating the universe in the first place. None of those ideas seem any more or less likely than the eternal interventionist god of most mainstream faiths.

The Christian and Judaic God cannot be killed, but He can be temporarily slowed down through crucifixion.
I don't know enough about Allah to judge his particular state of existence.
Buddha lives on through concept as all are Buddha and Buddha is all. Some concepts of Buddha remind me of the Force.
I've never read the Vedas to any details so I can't comment on Hinduism with any fair knowledge.
Tom Cruise cannot be killed except when he rises again as a vampire or groundhog days himself to defeat aliens. So Scientology is safe.
Rasta Tafari can be killed by an "ism" so I've heard.
The Koshinto spirits can sometimes be killed and sometimes not depending on the philosopher, practitioner, or anime writer...
Not sure if Native American deities can be killed though I've heard a rumor of a "Final Age" from a friend. But whether it is truly part of the religion or she made it up to mess with me is unclear
And so on. I could play this game all day

I know a God that died for me.

Dragonfly said:

Time doesn't exist outside of what we call the Universe?

You know this how?

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Time is connected to space, all that is time and space is held within the universe. That which is outside it is constricted by neither.

Dragonfly said:

Can gods die? Can they be killed? Do they have an expiration date? Old age?

Or does one have to be immortal to be a god?

If our Universe is 12-14 billion years old - could the "god" that created it be dead by now?

Click to expand...

According to the Vedas (Indian Scriptures (Hare Krishna)) one day of Lord Brahma (the creator of this universe) is six billion years. Lord Brahma lives one hundred years of these days and then dies. A great Demon Hiryanikisipu asked Lord Brahma to make him immortal but Lord Brahma said he couldn't do it because he wasn't even immortal.

that's a pretty funny concept that, strangely, didn't really occur to me. Maybe this creative force used to be all-powerful and then became weaker over time, hence we see no evidence of his existence. He's so weakened, or dead, he's not even able to give off a signal

Exquisitor said:

I know a God that died for me.

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yeah well i killed a god, so i have that beat

Exquisitor said:

According to the Vedas (Indian Scriptures (Hare Krishna)) one day of Lord Brahma (the creator of this universe) is six billion years. Lord Brahma lives one hundred years of these days and then dies. A great Demon Hiryanikisipu asked Lord Brahma to make him immortal but Lord Brahma said he couldn't do it because he wasn't even immortal.

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Furthermore the Vedas say that all the material worlds are places of misery in which occur repeated birth and death. The Vedas instruct us to want to get out of the material universe so that we can enjoy eternally with the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the Spiritual Universe.

We are in the Material Universe out of some unfortunate cause and because we wanted to enjoy separately from God. In the Material Universe one can only enjoy while someone else suffers and then it's your turn to suffer while someone else enjoys.

Lucifer, Satan, Maya thought we were all terrible sinners for wanting to enjoy separately from God like this and goes about beating us up for it.

HonestJoe said:

It’s seems perfectly reasonable to me to conceive of a deity who did exist but doesn’t any more for some reason, be that “dying” by some definition, going elsewhere or maybe being consumed as part of the process of creating the universe in the first place. None of those ideas seem any more or less likely than the eternal interventionist god of most mainstream faiths.

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yeah but it raises the problematic question of why such a being is worthy of worship if it's not even immortal

Dragonfly said:

Can gods die? Can they be killed? Do they have an expiration date? Old age?

Or does one have to be immortal to be a god?

If our Universe is 12-14 billion years old - could the "god" that created it be dead by now?

Click to expand...

Wasn't it Nietzsche that said the Old Man was dead?

Dragonfly said:

Good question.

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cpwill said:

Bluntly: no. Time is a portion of our universe. Whoever created the universe would exist outside of Time. It cannot ever be an "I Was" or an "I Will Be", but only the "I Am".

Click to expand...

Dragonfly said:

Time doesn't exist outside of what we call the Universe?

You know this how?

Click to expand...

Look at it this way. Because we have no real way to test anything related to our perceptions of this universe outside of this universe then some very fundamental questions are painfully difficult to even ask looking for some plausible answer.

By various theories of our universe, there is no known way to apply those laws (including time) to any other condition. No matter if we are talking about alternate parallel universes or some other systematic condition for alternate universes we have no way to say what is living, or is dead, or is based on time in our context outside of our context.

For all we know the estimate of 12-14 billion years from the beginning of our universe to now happened within seconds of some other timeline in some other universe, the exact opposite can also be true where our time frame is minor in comparison to some other universe condition. To really make matters worse, for all we know there is no such thing as time outside of or across some other universe. It can be at a complete standstill from our point of view, or be moving so fast as it does not exist in our context (the older Quantum Sciences theories of speeding up something so fast that it no longer is observable by us or even in a condition were we can verify its matter... and therefor does not exist.) To make matters exponentially worse, consider some of the newer Quantum Sciences models that suggest infinity. So now assume the 12-14 billion year estimate is void, and we have no beginning and no end. In that context life and death has even reduced confines since we cannot even apply it to the universe as a whole. So why should we even bother with time as a constant?

Because we perceive universe within our laws and observations, it does not make much sense to apply those confines to something that presumably is not of this universe. If God or Gods really were of this universe then the conversation changes entirely no matter if this universe had a beginning or not (or an end or not.)

The *only* way around all of this is apply a system of belief... then laws of the universe and our observations are largely irrelevant to the discussion.

Man's concept of a given god at a given time does and will change. In that regard the answer is yes, a concept of god can die and does and will.

The life force that is "God" "Allah" "Yahweh" "Universe" is pure love. There is no beginning and no end to that.

Risky Thicket said:

Man's concept of a given god at a given time does and will change. In that regard the answer is yes, a concept of god can die and does and will.

The life force that is "God" "Allah" "Yahweh" "Universe" is pure love. There is no beginning and no end to that.

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God is only alive in humans. As long as humans live, god will live.
When humans die - god dies with them.

Is that what you're saying?

Dragonfly said:

God is only alive in humans. As long as humans live, god will live.
When humans die - god dies with them.

Is that what you're saying?

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Yes, pretty much. We limit "God" to what we can conceive. "God", "Allah", "Yahweh", "Universe" are human concepts and as such are very limited. Our conception changes over time as we struggle to understand something too complex and too simple to conceive; something much greater than words can ever explain.

"God" is All. There is nothing outside of "God".. It is incorrect to say that we are a part of "God". "God" has no parts, everything is "God". Nothing dies, it simply changes form.