XXXI - The Death of the Gods

´Can you imagine the world of times past, when the Gods yet lived amongst men? In that time, almost gone from our memories, myths and legends and gods and demigods were part of our world, their actions having impact in the lives of mortal men. Those gods of old murdered men and raped women, moved by their desires, entwined with our own. Can you fathom such a world, filled with mysticism and the fantastic, a world populated by unicorns, minotaurs, trolls, vampires, angels, demons and many other fantastical creatures? Yore such was the world of men, mixed, almost indistinguishable from the world of the Gods. That was before we had computers, and cars, and airplanes, and the internet, etc, etc, etc.’   

          Romeu, the evening’s designated driver, had meanwhile temperance and traded his beer for a Coca-Cola, which he now drank as he listened to Leonardo’s words, which he attributed to the effect of alcohol more than anything else. David and Alex, unbound by similar restrictions, showed no such restraint, and had stick to beer and shots of vodka, which had now clearly taken its toll. They listened to the occasional shouts of drunken people, scattered across the narrow, dark streets, muffled by the music oozing from the several bars that crammed the Bairro.

          They had decided to set camp in front one of those little bars, in front of which a few tall tables had been placed, and where they had rested their drinks. There were no chairs outside, like it was customary in the Bairro Alto, where most people just stand on the street drinking, socializing and listening to the music coming from inside the tiny bars, usually too small to accommodate more than a handful of people.

          ‘Tell me Leonardo, that world you speak of, do you think that it has actually existed in real life? Even in this tiny country of ours, located at the end of the world?’

          ‘There’s not a doubt on my mind dear Alex, that the gods once walked and ruled this world of ours, and that their influence reached all the corners of the world.’

          ‘Tell us then what happened to those mighty gods, for they’re no longer amongst us. How is it possible that they disappeared without a trace, if they were indeed real once?’ asked David, taking a gulp from his cup, in mocking tone.

          ‘Without a trace? You’re wrong my friend, I assure you. They might be gone from our world, maybe forever, but their shadows still glide above us. Even here, in this place that was once thought to be the end of the world by the great men of ancient times.’

          ‘Shadows? I see no dangling above me!’ joked David.

          ‘The shadows, friend, are all around us. You can grasp their reflections in our history books and while listening to the tales that we inherited from our ancestors. They even give shape to the language we speak. They are the superstitions of our elders, absurd beliefs, forged throughout the centuries, bathed in innocent blood spilled in the name of the divine. 

          And even now, in the XXI century, the superstitions of the pass are still indented in the minds and souls of the new millennium. Even the young generations, of which we are part, who grew up amid technological miracle, enlightened by the revealing light of science, even in our ranks there are many who remain slaves, bind by the shackles of superstition and religion.

          More than a century guy, that great prophet of modernity, the crazy genius, the philosopher Nietzche, announced the Death of God. And yet, more than a century later here we stand, so many of us still unaware of that cataclysmic event. Even though we can see the traces left by the gods, they remain but traces. Modernity has revealed itself as the true and ultimate Ragnarok, the death of the gods, and the beginning of our era. The future of man is a future without the gods.

´Leonardo, I might not be very religious, but even I think that you’re probably going too far by saying something like that. Don´t you think?’ asked Romeu, who came from a traditional Portuguese family, with strong ties to the Catholic Church. To him, the notion that God was dead, or even the concept that god could be killed by mortal men sounded outrageous, almost as much as it would sound blasphemous to your regular elderly resident of Alfama who attends the mass every Sunday at the local church.’

          ‘Am I?’ Leonardo asked rhetorically. ‘Alex, do you believe in God?’ he then asked, obtaining a quick negative answer. He then asked David the same question, prompting him to nod his head in negation. He then looked to Romeu and said, ‘See Romeu, I don’t think I’m mistaken at all’.

          ‘That doesn’t prove anything! Just because they don’t believe in Him, that doesn’t mean that He doesn’t exist!’

          ‘You see, I think you’re wrong about that, since God cannot exist outside of the mind of Man.’

          ‘But GOD CREATED MAN!’

          ‘Well, it just so happens that I think that the truth is the exact opposite of what you just said. Not only Man created God, it also killed Him.’

          ‘Leonardo I know that you are drunk but really… what an absurd notion. How the hell can men kill gods?’

          ‘Well, I tell you, and you David, and you Alex, that men killed indeed their gods. Without pity, or mercy, we are responsible for their deaths! We killed not only one, or two or three gods, but a legion of gods and goddesses, spread across the corridors of time. It is no overstatement to claim that the history of mankind is tainted by rivers of divine blood.

          Not only have we killed the gods, they have spent almost millennia slaying each other, producing a succession of ragnaroks, apocalypses and divine coups. Chronos swallowed his newborn sons, only later to be defeated by Zeus and have his throne stolen and be imprisoned for all eternity. The Norse exterminated each other on the field of battle. The Romans, in consort with the Jews flogged  and crucified Jesus Christ, the son of the Christian God, the same god who brought the end of the ancient divinities of Rome and Greece. Centuries before that, the Roman gods had been responsible for slaying and extinguishing the gods of the Celts, the Egyptians and many other peoples. Finally, let us not forget how the Christian God, thirsty for blood, consumed the gods of the Aztecs, and the Incas and the Mayans, as they guided Hispanic swords and bullets into the throats and hearts of the savages that had once worshiped the Old American Gods.

          Oh, the Christian God, what a powerful divinity, indeed the most powerful of them all; the Divine Apex Predator, the God of Gods, the Creator and the Destroyer, Merciful and Merciless at the same time. And yet even He has collapsed under the weight of Logic, and Reason and Science and Time. For when men stop believing in their gods, they cannot survive. The modern era is no time for gods. It is the home of atheists like me, like David, like Alex. You are worshiping a dead God Romeu, but not even your feeble prays are enough to resuscitate him. He is gone. This is our era. This is the era of men. We, sons of modernity, stand orphans in this world, condemned to wander the world in our blind quest for new meaning in a meaningless universe. Let us pray together then, friend, the Death of our Gods.’