Weaponizing gods and religion

[Sleds]

So... the chinese are great at it, considering their entire pantheon are filled with bloodthirsty monkey, dude with a third eye, rollabladez and rando deities that I can't name to save my life.

Oh and Pangu and his stupid universe splitting axe.

And it is also the chinese who weaponize Baby Jesus by turning him into a super move in one of those chinese (CN) xuanhuan.

The chinese are great at bombastic words.

Then comes Norse Thor, Greek Zeus and *insert random popular pantheon* .

The egyptian gods aren't really popular to get weaponized... I always see is Anubis this Jackel that. If you want a Grim Reaper Expy, the doghead is your guy.

Then there is Shiva and three headed and six arms...

Is there any other gods/ pantheons for epic god fight?

You have the pantheon of the Romans, the Amerindians, the Celtics, Mesopotamians, etc. You also have the sephirot of the cabal in Judaism (if I remember right) which are used in the manga 666 satan (underrated btw) with the cabal representing the angels and the reverse cabal representing the demons. You have the seven deadly sin who are overused but the seven virtue are not really used, you can try it.

This is the thing that makes me laugh the most when it came to pop culture.

Anubis is not frequently described as a warrior in the myth. He was more of a minister.

Thanatos the literally embodiment of peaceful death who was just a guy who guides the soul was made into grim-face reaper.

Azrael, the angel of death, who was only described as being tasked with recording the name of the born and crossing out the name of the those who died, was shown with a scythe by his side while his scroll was entirely missing.

I like thanatos story, he often depicted with black butterflies who represent him in the human world and underworld.

 

[Sk_yunjun]

There is also "Ifrit" Although it's not a god But it's considered to be the most powerful supernatural being, Which exist in the world.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

So... the chinese are great at it, considering their entire pantheon are filled with bloodthirsty monkey, dude with a third eye, rollabladez and rando deities that I can't name to save my life.

Oh and Pangu and his stupid universe splitting axe.

And it is also the chinese who weaponize Baby Jesus by turning him into a super move in one of those chinese (CN) xuanhuan.

The chinese are great at bombastic words.

Then comes Norse Thor, Greek Zeus and *insert random popular pantheon* .

The egyptian gods aren't really popular to get weaponized... I always see is Anubis this Jackel that. If you want a Grim Reaper Expy, the doghead is your guy.

Then there is Shiva and three headed and six arms...

Is there any other gods/ pantheons for epic god fight?

As a God, I am morally offended.

I am a diety's rights activist and it is things like divine blood sports that cause so many misconceptions.

We're Omniscient. We're Omnipresent. Get over it.

PS. Shiva is a pussy.

 

[Sk_yunjun]

PS. Shiva is a pussy.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Just to annoy the fanatics among us cross-kissers: God with capital G is boring. Boring! And the bible lies to its readers. They promise action, murder, war, and catastrophes in the first half, and then suddenly they bait and switch to boring teenage-level drama. "Buhuhu, I'm an immortal zombie alien but my friends betray me because I'm too good, too forgiving, and too righteous..." would sound like a badly written wish-fulfillment self-insert power fantasy if you'd read anywhere else... /disclaimer: /sarcasm/satire/don'ttakemeserious/you'lldoitanway/anydamageyoutakeisyourown/suckstobeyouifyougetpissedoffbythis
We went from "they're just like us, only bigger" to some perfect thing beyond good and evil that allows us to make all the mistakes and evils of existence and beyond because we will be forgiven for it anyway...

Deities conflicting is as old as society. The old pantheons were pretty much ancient soap operas highlighting the pillars of their respective society.

If you want lesser-known deities to weaponize, just take some local myths and legends and "elevate their status" or look up some fairytales in their original forms. The Grimm's Fairytales were really grim.

The greco-roman pantheon also has almost as many lesser and half-to-barely deities as the japanese "everything-has-a-deity-inside" pantheon, so just fire away.

 

[NotaNuffian]

I take that's the only god you know from Hinduism since shiva is usually the widely popular option for hindhu gods

There's also that elephant god. I know he is the son of the main god (?) And shiva (?)

And the rumor goes, "his pops cut his head off for reasons I forgot, mama got pissed and pops goes shieeeet and took an elephant head and stick it on"

Speaking of beheadment, I recalled a god from some religion where the goddess got her head cut off and instead of blood, snakes pop out of her neck stump.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

There's also that elephant god

GANESH. Stomper of roadblocks, breaker of firewalls, God of crossroads both physical and metaphorical. He is the ruler of the internet.

I've played poker with him. The god can bluff.

 

[Lloyd]

Ba'al was a god first, starting 3000-5000 years ago. Then when monotheism got big in that area, the "you can only have one god" religions (Judaism, later Christianity, etc) started calling Ba'al and other gods false gods. Then eventually they became known as demons. Happened to a number of deities in that area, they got "demonized." In fact, even the word "demon" used to just mean "lesser god."

(This is a significant theme in some of my series, below.)

There's also the fact that the Canaanite religion was well known for ritual human sacrifice. The Romans were so disgusted by them that they wiped Carthage off the face of the earth.

 

[KrakenRiderEmma]

But beyond monotheism, there was a very big reason why Baal and Moloch were considered false gods. These were often blood sacrifice systems, which meant a lot of abortions, wrist slitting, etc in order to ensure a good harvest. We don't do that sort of thing today.

There's also the fact that the Canaanite religion was well known for ritual human sacrifice. The Romans were so disgusted by them that they wiped Carthage off the face of the earth.

Not that I’m a big fan of Baal, he’s just another near eastern fertility / sky deity. But it’s probably worth keeping in mind that the two prominent sources for claiming that Baal, Moloch etc involved more human sacrifice than the Abrahamic deity are..
A) the Bible, which is pretty clearly trash-talking other religions as false gods and justifying eradicating them, etc
B) a burial site in Carthage with infant skeletons, which is hotly debated among archaeologists with one camp believing they’re sacrificed babies, and the other arguing that they are infants who died of more ordinary causes

Certainly could be true though! I think most historians agree there was a lot of human sacrifice back then. (See also: Binding of Isaac, a notoriously weird and successful video game about creepy monotheistic religious stuff!)

Anyway the only real point for fiction writing is that gods do propaganda war against each other as much if not more than hurling lightning bolts or whatever. Some of the original misinformation / scandal / cancel culture warfare, many thousands of years back

 

[NotaNuffian]

Well, I know this would kind of turn into a hot debate that died really fast because most people on SHF aren't stupid and I did get most of the things that I came here for.

Not much, but still has some amount.

Main takeaway is:
1. No touching on no-no religions, we all know what those are.
2. The big three and it's mighty T is almighty. Burn the heretics.
3. Pedophilia jokes never get old like some of its victims.
4. Asians get to have most of the fun in using gods in religions as toys to smash around. So many light and web novels. Even Hitler isn't spared.