On The Death Of Gods

Nick Ford
 You mean: Gods die?
Sure. Any entity that has a beginning, must have an
ending. Immortality is relative.

Case study: the “Lord God” of the Bible.

(so as not to upset too many folks here, to start

with…)
 Ah, but which one?
Yes, there are several in the Bible:

– The demiurge, the cosmic Creator

– The Elohim (a plurality)
– The god of Abraham (and Jacob, and Moses, etc)
– The “Father” of Jesus

Our case study is Number Three… and Four…

 To begin at the beginning… Genesis 18:1-16
Abraham sees his god as one of three men, he invites them for
lunch, ‘God’ flirts with Abraham’s wife Sarah, and the next year
she gives birth to a son, Isaac (Genesis 21:1-8)
When we next see Abraham’s ‘Lord’, he orders his
servant Abraham to sacrifice ‘his’ son Isaac to him
(Genesis 22:1-14), but then changes his mind.

(This explains why the Jews, as “the children of the Most

High” (Psalms 82:6, John 10:34), reckon their qualifying
status among humans as matrilineal, because their
common father wasn’t human).
Now fast forward 720 years from c. 2,100 BCE,
to around 1,380 BCE…
On the run from Egypt for murder, Moses meets the
Lord God in southern Trans-Jordan (Exodus 3) , but
he refuses to show Moses his face, hiding instead
behind a column of fire or a pillar of smoke. He tells
Moses: “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall
no man see me, and live.” (Exodus 33:20)
When Moses goes up Mount Sinai to talk to the
Lord, he can be heard, but remains hidden. He is
either a different god claiming to be the same God
Abraham knew – or in his old age, he’s becoming
more shy and remote, for some reason.
 Exodus 28:6-29
Later, God gives Moses instructions for the making of the High
Priests’s Hoshen, and the mysterious instruments, the Urim and
Thummim.

1) iPad 2) Hoshen

The Hoshen is a jewelled breastplate engraved with the 12 tribal

names, and the Urim and Thummim, mean
‘The Cursed Ones’ and ‘The Innocent Ones’, respectively…

… a Holy Ouija Board of Judgement?

Another 200 years later, to 1,100 BCE…
(1 Samuel 2:27, 3:10-15) God
is now communicating only to
clairaudients and prophets.
He visits young 12-year-old
Samuel in the sanctuary of
Shiloh, but can only be heard,
not seen.
“And the word of the LORD
was precious in those days;
there was no open vision.”
(1 Samuel 3:1)
Thereafter, the Lord God is only perceived in dreams or
visions:
“And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet
among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him
in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.”
(Numbers, 12:6)

And it gets harder and harder. By the 7th or 6th C BCE:

“Then the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies
in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded
them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a
false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the
deceit of their heart.” (Jeremiah 14:14)
So: what do you make of a god who…
• Eats, drinks and has sex with a human in 2,100
BCE
• Won’t show his face in 1,380 BCE (maybe he no
longer has one)
• Who by 1,100 BCE is invisible, and needs a ouija
board or a clairvoyant to get through to people?
• Regards the descendants of his human offspring
Isaac, as family, and is evidently increasingly
frustrated at their behaviour and his inability to
interact?
 WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Personally, I’d reincarnate into the family as one of
my own descendants. Remember these statements
by Jesus:

“I, and the Father, are one.”(John 10:30)

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man

cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known
me, ye should have known my Father also: and
from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.”
(John 14:6-7)
 But that’s just Christianity… isn’t it?
To a point. But there is plenty of other evidence of
gods getting old, dying, or being killed. In the Norse
Prose Edda, Iðunn has access to the fruit of the Tree
Of Life, strangely reminiscent of the one in the
Garden of Eden:

“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become

as one of us, to know good and evil: lest he put
forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and
eat, and live for ever: the Lord God banished him.”
(Genesis 3:22-3)
EVE IDUNN
 “Forever” is a long time…
Strong's Number: 5769
Original Word ‫עֹולָ ם‬
Transliterated Word `owlam
Spelling o-lawm’
Parts of Speech Noun Masculine
Definition
long duration, antiquity, futurity, for ever, ever, everlasting, evermore,
perpetual, old, ancient, world
ancient time, long time (of past)
(of future)
for ever, always
continuous existence, perpetual
everlasting, indefinite or unending future, eternity
But without this fruit of the Tree of Life, the
gods (the Norse Aesir) begin to grow old, and
weaken.

The Graeco-Roman Olympian gods have

Ambrosia (ἀμβροσία) which is semantically
linked to the Sanskrit अमृत (amrta), also a food
indefinitely prolonging life.

It’s described as a cure-all, and even a sniff of it

renews courage and hope in the heroes of Greek
myth.
And in Hindu mythology:
“We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have
attained the light, the Gods discovered” (Rig-Veda 8.48.3)

This is also the Haoma of Zoroastrian myth.

And in Sumerian mythology, some dairy product prepared

by Ninhursag has the same properties (as the milk of Hathor
in ancient Egypt), while Adamu, a mortal son of the god Ea,
is offered the Food of Life.

The Babylonian hero Gilgamesh also sets out on a quest for

the “Food of Life” and the “Water of Life”, with which the
gods have made the once-human Utanapishtim immortal.
Clearly, gods can be killed – even if they eat their apple a day.
Osiris, Attis, Baldur, Dumuzid, the Tuatha De Danaan, are all
examples… the Olympians, who killed the Titans, also have a
go at each other in Homer’s Iliad (a bit pointless, since
although they can be hurt, and bleed, they all have
independent access to Ambrosia). And at Ragnarøkkr, the
Aesir will kill and be killed.

Yes, OK, these are all myths. But in the myths, the gods were
physically interactive among us for a time, but they aren’t any
longer.

My point is, they must either have gone home, and/or have
died and reincarnated, or are still dead and anxiously hanging
around our sacrificial barbecues with the ancestors, to taste
the spiritual essence of the food that sustains us physically.
So…

… is there any real difference between a

believer who communicates a strong
impression of interactive contact with a god,
and a spiritualist medium?

Is that what we’re actually doing?

 ANY QUESTIONS?

OR ANSWERS?

- if you think of one later, you can

always email me at
marcodubnos@gmail.com
THANK YOU FOR NOT STONING ME
FOR BLASPHEMY