Death of God

In my story, one of my characters is being driven by the desire to kill the goddess of the world, whose ability to interact with the world I have not quite finalized. Any reasons why someone would want to do that?

I think you might have gotten things the other way round.

There are people in the real world who would want to kill god.

People don't like other people who fuck with their lives.

Maybe the goddess is a total slut.

How so? I can think of several ideological reasons why he might consider that to be a good idea (the goddess is most simply described as an Eldritch Abomination, though one who will take A Form You Are Comfortable With if interacting with living creatures), but I think personal reasons are much better for this kind of goal.

edited 5th Oct '11 8:55:03 PM by tropetown

"other way around" as in "why aren't you considering their motivations first and from those extrapolating their actions".

edited 5th Oct '11 8:55:22 PM by Tzetze

Oh, I see. Well, at the moment, he's being motivated by the desire to kill the goddess, and his actions are all a direct result of that. What I'm trying to figure out is how to create the origin of that motivation in a way that would fit the character and setting. In other words, I can understand the emotional reasons behind it, and the objective reasons behind it, what I'm trying to get at is a specific personal catalyst for the desire in the first place.

edited 5th Oct '11 8:59:59 PM by tropetown

Oh, in that case, yeah, definitely a slut.

I have to agree with Tzetze, the character needs a reason why they want to kill a goddess and then you figure out how they do that.

Maybe she killed his childhood friend, but in a slutty way.

no you fool

edited 5th Oct '11 9:03:42 PM by Penguin4Senate

That's what I'm trying to do, actually; I have an idea of how he might go about doing that, but I'd rather get the motivations behind it down first, as I would consider it far more important to the character.

I think I could easily make it a vendetta against the goddess' followers that simply extends to being about the goddess herself, but the problems are that a) she has limited power to interact with people, and b) it would need to provide a logical jump from just being about the religion to being about the goddess, which would not be possible if the goddess wasn't able to communicate with the people in the story. Granted, I would be able to work with this, but I think that a personal reason relating to the goddess herself would serve the story much better.

EDIT: Actually, I could see the idea of her being a slut working. Maybe the character fell in love with an avatar of hers, who betrays him in a way that leaves him plotting her death?

edited 5th Oct '11 9:15:08 PM by tropetown

i think that trope is more about the social impact of god than him actually dying.. or at least thats what the quote the name comes from was about. i would write the dudes name but i cant be bothered to find out how to spell his damn German(?) name.

As for actually killing god, sure, lots of people want to do that. but i dont see the point if there is only ONE god. maybe reform the god, but if there are other gods then off with her head i say! mauhaha!

wait what was your question again? i never got that part

edit: oh ya. reasons for killing god. He's an ass who toys with people's lives in order to test them, and lets millions of people who never got the chance to hear of his christ to go to hell just for "his glory?" saying that they had no excuse... yet orders his followers to go out and convert even though he says people can see him in the world anyway? (i know its kind of confusing to me too but thats what i was taught) right there is a real life reason for a few.

not mine though, i dont want to kill god.

edit: that probably hit too close to reality, but your slut idea sounds good too. sorry got alot of religon on my mind the last couple of days a lot of RL stuff going on right now with religion for me

edited 5th Oct '11 10:07:23 PM by jasonwill2

Nietzsche. In that case it was less about literally killing God and more about Christian morality being gross blah blah

Rage Against the Heavens is a well-established trope, why not go with that? It doesn't even have to be something as drastic/weird as having a bad romance with the goddess. "God y u make life so unfair"

I love the rageagainsttheheavens trope

Rage Against the Heavens is what I was thinking of; what I was trying to figure out, though, is why. If you'd like, I could provide some relevant backstory, but would be incredibly lengthy, plus, I just created a lot of it; my world's been through more revisions than The Bible.

B-b-but I just said! It doesn't take much to believe any deities are in need of some ass kicking.

edited 5th Oct '11 10:53:42 PM by Merlo

I know! She killed their childhood friend through an inversion of the Man Of Steel Woman Of Kleenex thing.

Congratulations, you have now summed up every reason I don't believe in God.

Credit goes to Mark Twain.

Eternal punishment, eternal torture, is a greater atrocity than anything mere humans are capable of. No matter how wicked one is, to suffer for a literal eternity is not warranted by actions taken within a finite span of time. Even simply killing is more moral, as it is a finite act with finite consequences. It is for this reason that should the Abrahamic God exist and we should ever come in contact with them, we have a moral duty to destroy them.

There are plenty of ways you can apply morality to a godlike figure and have them come up short if you don't give them the Omniscient Morality License or simply don't believe in said license's existence.

edited 5th Oct '11 11:43:28 PM by Night

are you actually wanting to kill god? or providing an example?

i mean, you guys know im open about my religion but i have never actually thought about KILLING god. it just seems too... risky.

i mean really though about the rageagainsttheheavens, it isn't too hard. Gods do stupid things, power corrupts, ect ect are all good reasons. also if its a more classical view of a god like with the Greeks then she could of just gotten drunk and killed half the world and turned the other half into her playground and now to save the world they have to kill their goddess!

edited 6th Oct '11 4:48:03 AM by jasonwill2

Can I not do both?

The Salvation War is probably the discovery that's kept me on TV Tropes.

hey then, let me join in. you stand a better chance with others with you, and once the logos of the universe is gone maybe humanity can finally be in sync with the universe

we did fairly well with all the other gods/forces/energies/ascended spirts/whatever for quite some time =D

we will have a religous scene not unlike ancient Rome seen since 4 BC!

Well, there's always the Gnostic view, too: The absolute nullity-cum-purity of the universe was violated by the creation of matter by an inherently perverse force; hence, to rebel against that force is to come closer to the truth of (non-)being.

Well, I want to go outside the typical "God Is Evil, let's kill him/her!" idea, and the character I'm writing is much more suited to being driven by a personal goal rather than goodwill toward society (though I'm going to incorporate societal benefit as a part of his rhetoric). I think I've come up with what I'd like to do anyways, so thanks. If anyone else has any ideas, that would be great.

edited 10th Oct '11 7:34:25 PM by tropetown