If a god/deity can die or be killed, what makes them worthy of being called a god in the first place?

I've never heard anyone say
>O God, thou art so undying!
>May Hera, in all her immortalityness, bless me.
>I offer this sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl, He-Who-Is-Good-At-Continuing-To-Be-Alive
The inmortality of gods has never been the reason why they are worshipped, which I would argue is the main facet of being dubbed a deity. Even if it isn't, and even if immortality is determined to be a prerequisite to godhood, they would be called something else and treated exactly the same.

the term "god" is a vague catch-all for beings that fill a similar role in many different mythologies, but the nature and power of a "god" can be very different. like how european dragons and chinese dragons are not really the same kind of creature, even though we call them both dragons.

there is no being "worthy" of being called a god, it just depends on how your culture defines it. except, the more obvious and objectively real the gods are, the less people are likely to differ about the definitition of a god based on culture, in the same way there isn't much cross-cultural disagreement on what constitutes a "tree" or a "rock". it would just be an objective thing and people would have an objective word to refer to it by.

Being a god/deity implies a supernatural or otherworldly element.

> If a King/Emperoer can die or be killed, what makes them worthy of being called a King in the first place?

there's a lot more to it than that, natch

ANYONE WHO CAN SURVIVE EVEN ONE SECOND VERSUS ME IN COMBAT TRULY DESERVES THE TITLE OF "GOD"

Being worshipped.

>The ability to turn into a swan and rape people.

Zeus approves this message.
Leda does too.

The basic test for being called a god is simple.

Claim it, and have people believe you. If they laugh, ignore or you, you're not a god.
Yes, that does mean an advanced person could claim to be a god among savages. But to them, he IS a god.

>If a dragon has only two legs and two wings, what makes them worthy of being called a dragon in the first place?

Gods can be anything from distant beings beyond human comprehension to weird sand snake men that has a harem of warrior women, although I think the best use of god or gods is to make their existence debatable, much like real life
Mainly because I'm lazy and having everything in my setting be a fact and 100% right is too much work

>If OP is a faggot, what makes them worthy of posting in the first place?

A god is responsible for phenomena relating to his or her domain. What sets them apart from extradimensional superpowered beings is that they cause the nature of the world.

A nature god makes lightning crash, puts gemstones in the ground, brings bountiful harvests. Kill the nature god, these things stop happening.

A god of war makes heroes out of boys, emperors out of kings, and victors out of underdogs. Kill the god of war, and war is just a horrible meatgrinder unlikely to change anything for long.

A god of the sea brings fish to fisherman, explorers to new lands, and navies to port. Kill the god of the sea, and the ocean is less a world unto itself and more a obstacle, devoid of value and better off avoided.

This is why gods that are killed tend to be quickly replaced; because the world becomes a very different place without them. A fantasy setting becomes very unfantastic without the deities breathing adventure into it.

yeah but what about all the gods that are nothing like that like huang di or a ghost

What makes a true hero?

Definitely not the stuff from Bronze and Iron Age myths.

Look at Perseus. His biggest achievement? Killing Medusa. Why?
To make a fucking name from himself.
By killing a chick that was punished for being fucking raped and hide on remote island to not hurt anyone.
Greeks had really fucking strange set of morality, even for their age.

>Huangdi's cult was particularly prominent in the late Warring States and early Han period, when he was portrayed as the originator of the centralized state, a cosmic ruler, and a patron of esoteric arts.

>In traditional Chinese accounts, the Yellow Emperor is credited with improving the livelihood of the nomadic hunters of his tribe. He teaches them how to build shelters, tame wild animals, and grow the five Chinese cereals. He invents carts, boats, and clothing.

>Other inventions credited to the emperor include the Chinese diadem, throne rooms, the bow sling, early Chinese astronomy, the Chinese calendar, math calculations, code of sound laws, and cuju, an early Chinese version of football. He is also sometimes said to have been partially responsible for the invention of the guqin zither.

Easy, Huang Di is a god of civilization. Remove him from the heavens, and China crumbles. Subjects disobey their lords, bureaucracies grind to a halt, and people must abandon their homes and resort to hunter-gatherership to survive.

>or a ghost
what

>implying that isn't a true hero
I don't think hero hs to necessarily be morally upstanding. More like a guy who does great deeds that are mostly positive from the perspective of the culture or other group he represents.

Unlimited cosmic power.

The ability to come back from death or for death to not affect them.

God is just a classification for an extremely powerful being who exists at the highest point of a religious heirarchy. Anything beyond that is just so much cotton wool.

The idea of gods as immutable omnipotent beings who cannot die or be killed is fairly modern.

Idk, look at literally any of the Norse gods. Yes, even Freyr.

Nothing. God and godlike are often mixed up in fiction. Think of the strongest character in fiction, any fiction you've experienced. He or she is nothing but a fleeting tought to something truly omnipotent, and as likely to kill it.

Why waste your time giving your valuable praise to an incredibly powerful alien whore obssesed with something really specific, like war or harvests? Most of them can even give you a comfy afterlife. Fuck that

> If a god/deity can die or be killed, what makes them worthy of being called a god in the first place?
The fact that people worship it.
Remember, if there was no god, it would be necessary to create one.
Humanity would create a god by worship, even if he had no powers or any basis to make him worthy of worship.

Think about zoroastrianism.
There's the good guy - Ahura Mazda (Ormazd), who gets the good end of the deal, and then there's a bad guy - Angra Mainyu (Ahriman).
Every year the worshippers of zoroastrianism would pick an avatar of Angra Mainyu AMONG THE WORSHIPPERS THEMSELVES and ritualistically murder him, symbolizing the death of the everpresent evil - Ahriman - that would never die forever, as it is always present in human's hearts.

Same deal here. It's not being a god that makes you worthy of worship. It is the act of worship that turns you into a god. Your actual powers and abilities have literally no connection to your status as a god.

Their almighty power beyond your wildest dreams dipshit, that's what.

If a living thing can die or be killed, then what makes them worthy of being called living?

Having slain the previous god, and usurping his title

They can have you die or be killed if you don't call them so.

>human perception
>them naming themselves gods
>them being dubbed gods by another
Dark Souls did them well I think, they were just people who happened to stumble upon great power, they aren't immortal or anything, people just call them gods, because that's how they appear

That depends on what can kill them or they can die from.

Their power.

A God is a being that is divine in nature. To be divine is to be of divinity.

What is divinity? Divinity is the mystery of the world, it's beauty and its horror. Divinity, at its core is something that is beyond us, greater and more, something too big to entirely grasp or understand.

A God, then, is any being too wondrous to be merely mortal. Something that can't be explained entirely.

That's a great quote for a paladin

>If a god/deity can die or be killed
well, since in my settings they can't, everything you say after that is irrelevant as it's an argument built on a false assumption.

In my setting, Gods are whoever the divine/celestial Bureaucracy gives the title to. It's a job position. They are voted on by committee; all the souls of people that died.

So you get a lot of really old shitty gods like God of the Cotten Gin and God of the Candle-Stick Makers running around on the mortal world causing trouble, since they have nothing else to do.

>>If a dragon has only two legs and two wings, what makes them worthy of being called a dragon in the first place?

Because they're wyverns not dragons

Worshipping dead dieties is a good time.

It's what you do when the coprse-god worshippors venerate the immortal emprah.

Well if you subscribe to the whole "Deities are created by worship/belief" thing, then it's a moot point.
A force created by the belief of several creatures can only stop existing when these people stop believing, thus 'killing' the god and him no longer being considered one.

If.

What makes them worthy of being called a god isn't whether they can die or not; What makes a god worthy of the title is whether it can be truly killed in it's spiritual form.

this is actually pretty cool

It fulfills one of the universe's cosmic roles.

Without something at the archetype-sized hole, all mortals would lack it as well.

Heroism, leadership, motherhood, death itself depends on them.

having people worshipping them.

Everyone has a different definition of what a god is, for me a god is a being that can create something that didn't exist that is not made of pre-existing components, as long as they satisfy this criteria it doesn't matter how powerful they are or what role they play in the universe.

>Greeks had really fucking strange set of morality, even for their age.

...Who are you comparing them to then?

A big part of that wasn't Perseus' fault, he just said "ask what you want and I'll get it". The king in question really wanted to fuck Perseus' mother and really hated Perseus cockblocking him, so he gave him a quest that he thought would be impossible, i.e. "go find this chick hiding on a remote island that nobody can find and kill her".

Nobody actually thought Perseus would SUCCEED.