The irrational malice, caprice and “good will” of gods is the expression of their will to power. Even their apathy, cowardice, indifference, vanity, and insecurity manifest from their will to power, and even this pathetic thing is more than the will to power of man.
Killing god was a mistake, we only needed to put him in a cage and poke him with sharp sticks. Torture refines power’s expansion whereas death is arbitrary, and only the collapse of power.
I believe there are ancient souls which are like lords, but allot of them are “castrated”, so to speak, in that they have somehow lost their will or capacity to make a difference in the planes we are familiar with. They are the gods of the pantheon.
I don’t get what you’re getting at MM. I’ll just give my thoughts on the handful of points you’ve made.
You’re saying then that the will to power is an even greater force than the gods.
What do you mean? Are you saying that the will to power as it manifests in the most pathetic attempts at power by the gods (i.e. in their apathy, cowardice, etc.) is greater than the will to power as it manifests in man even in his best and most praise worthy attempts at power?
What are you saying here? Are you saying that subduing and containing an enemy, rather than killing him, is a way of practicing your power over him (because it poses more of a challenge)? If so, I’ll note that killing an enemy certainly does demonstrate the power of your will over his (assuming he doesn’t want to die) although simply imprisoning him might demonstrate a greater degree of power. But even there, I’m not so sure this is always true. How much power does it require to lock a cage and stow away the key (and then piss off to do something wasteful like watch TV)?
Whose power? The one’s you took? Well, sure, but are you comparing this to the control over one’s power by another? I don’t know if this makes sense. If you’ve taken control over another’s power, I don’t think you can call it “power” anymore (for that term more or less implies that he could escape or evade your imprisonment over him). To suggest he still has some measure of power can only mean that in his imprisonment, you allow him some leeway (like whether to sit or stand in his cage), and that means you aren’t exercising your power over him within that narrow margin.
…just prayed to the wrong “God”.
Pascal’s Wager wasn’t entirely fictional.
Would you really expect to pray to one god and gain favor from the other?
Could there be a god out there that rewards us for praying to another god? For being an atheist? Where do we place our bets?
Anti-theism, then?
The practice of keeping God alive by being against Him, and ridiculing Him and His followers, as opposed to atheists who are literally without God and gods, who have abandoned the question completely and live without even consideration of theism. Atheism kills God and gods.
But as far as new gods go, I think it’s fascinating to evaluate the world as it is - whether you agree or disagree with how it should be. What are the most common and universal values out there? In no particular order I would hazard the following as the strongest candidates from my own experience:
Discipline and obedience to long/hard work, consumerism, independence and individualism with its negative freedom plus respect/tolerance in general, excepting freedom from force and harm, fraud and theft, paedophilia, rape and murder.
I am talking about universal values here, shared by liberals, conservatives and all sorts alike. A sound basis for “building a new God” considering what God is supposed to be, nay? gods would be a different question - but I won’t say I wish to exclude such a question from being answered.
In contrast with the 7 deadly sins and the 10 commandments, coveting and envy are ok, pride, lust, gluttony, greed, and even benign avarice too. Sloth is out of the question. Adultery is fine, no days are sacred except Christmas a New Years Day, swearing is fine, graven images and atheism too. But who would choose to be an atheist with such a new and appropriated God, right?! 
Obviously many people here…
So we are going to play god, to god? At what point does this thing you’re calling god begin to lack any of the characteristics that are generally considered necessary to “god” ?
Doesn’t the idea that god can be killed or tortured effectively mean that there never was a god in the first place, only the imagination and the persistent fantasy of one?
The jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is only god’s son. He is the second highest being in the universe, which willingly was born as a man.
For most christians, death of God isn’t a problem.
That’s probably because Jesus was considered one manifestation of God, who is never thought to have died in total.
Yeah, some “sacrifice”, eh? Jesus “dies” and goes to hell, and then gets a respawn after 3 days?!
But if a human dies and goes to hell it’s forever. Yeah. Because that makes sense.
Now, if Jesus were STILL being tortured in hell for our sins I might have a bit of respect for the guy. At least then we would know he really means it.
I’ve always had serious trouble with this idea. Crucifixion is no doubt a horrible way to die. But what was it, a day? A day of whipping and other torture then the cross. Compared to people tortured and raped for years, who get to see their spouses or children raped and killed as part of the torture, Jesus is not one of the big sufferers in history. Right now there are a rather large number of people suffering more than Jesus did. And they likely have a little bit more doubt about the existence of God or their place in things, at least, than Jesus did.
Wait, did Jesus go to hell? Is that even possible since being with God is essentially Heaven by many interpretations, and since Jesus is God. This is just what I hear - I’ve only been to church on about 5 occassions and I’ve never had time I felt like devoting to a read of the Bible. The problem for me is beyond making sense. I’m not psychologically built to worship a single father-like deity, nor can I make myself pretend to.
Why don’t you just torture yourself?
I do.
See, I don’t know about the whole torture thing. I think torture just leads to the feeling of helplessness and eventually learned helplessness. The value in struggle, failure, pain, that is all apparent. But I don’t see what subjection to torture could promote in the subject.
Some notable cynics engaged in what could probably be considered self torture. The goal was to temper their bodies and minds - to become stronger in a sense.
not sure. I’m not Christian, but from what I understand, Jesus is the physical incarnation of God bound to time and space. As such, he is a subject in the universe. He can thereby endure all manner of torture and go to all manner of different worlds, including Hell. God the father, meanwhile, remains outside time and space in a kind of static state.