The Death of Gods

“I hope that your Engels and your Lenins never replace the religion that I hate, or the superstitions I have battened upon. You Babakov, have more blood on your hands than I have ever drunk. In destroying the gods of light you are also destroying the Dark Ones. We shall be avenged!”

Roger Zelazny, “On the Road to Splenoba”

I found this quote recently in an old, obscure Roger Zelazny short story titled On the Road to Splenoba, in which a vampire comes into contact with a Communist official with a surprise ending. No spoilers, sorry.

Anyhow, I just thought this quote was really neat because it speaks to the way the modern world has kind of destroyed the worldview where higher powers manage everything. We can’t attribute the motions of the planets, or the weather to deities the way we used to, because we know “under the hood” how these things work. People are no longer at the mercy of diseases thanks to medical technology.¹ Of course, with the benefit of science, we also have a much better picture of the origins of the Earth, life, etc.

However, as the quote alludes to, it also feels like a bit of the magic of the world is gone too.

This reminds me of the Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?“, when the Enterprise encounters the ancient Greek deity, Apollo, on a remote planet, and ultimately kill him in order to escape his grasp.

The ending is melancholy:

KIRK: Would it have hurt us, I wonder, just to have gathered a few laurel leaves?

Star Trek, “Who Mourns for Adonais?” (s2ep2), stardate: 3468.1

The human race had outgrown Apollo, and gone on to accomplish many great things, yet it also cost something in the process. Maybe this is like growing up, trading a child’s imagination and wonderment for an adult’s self-mastery and freedom to choose one’s life…

¹ Skepticism toward medical science is a modern issue though… 🙄. I doubt few who lived in the era of measles would object to taking a vaccine, but people have the luxury of choice now, even if those choices are reckless ones.