Drop the Story, Kill the God
Gods die when their stories stop masquerading as history. Gods die when people stop believing in the stories that support them. People stop believing in these stories when they no longer benefit from believing in them.
When Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire (380 CE), the old Gods found themselves out of a job. While some pagans were forced to convert to Christianity, most did so as a matter of course. It simply made no sense to believe in stories and Gods who were no longer of benefit.
Reclaiming metaphor and parable as metaphor and parable is an act of holy rascality. Insisting they are facts is an act of wholly insanity.
RR
What happens to Gods when they die? Sometimes they are absorbed into another religion. Mars, for example, became Saint Martin of Mardi Gras, the Great Mars. Sometimes they return to what they originally were, the stuff of story, and the stories continue to be told, but no longer as history.
In our own time, dead Gods become psychological archetypes. Where the Goddesses and Gods once ruled over us, they now rule within us. Where once we told God’s biography, we now use the Gods to tell our autobiography.