Chapter 118
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Note: This version of Hercules is from the Kevin Sorbo show, Kirk is obviously from "Star Trek."
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Since the worlds broke down Hercules had met a number of other versions of himself, other versions of his gods. Now, a man named James Tiberius Kirk was curious about these gods, thus these two were having a conversation.
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Kirk: These gods, did they look human, or more like hulking monsters?
Hercules: They generally looked human, but sometimes they liked to put on a show. Ares in particular, he sometimes wanted to look like a big monster to entice and recruit certain warlords.
Kirk: Ares was your god of war right?
Hercules: Yeah, unfortunately he was also my half-brother.
Kirk: Interesting family. In my travels I encountered a number of beings with godlike powers. One of whom even claimed to be Apollo. As far as we could tell, he and the others went down to Earth, claimed to be gods, and enjoyed humans worshipping them. But Apollo realized his time was past, and so, as far as we could tell, he ended his own life. He claimed his brothers and sisters had all done the same before. Later, we encountered this being, one of pure energy, who tried to feed on our mutual hatred of the klingons, wanted us to kill each other. I've always wondered if that being was what remained of Ares.
Hercules: That sounds like Ares, he always enjoyed causing wars, seing people kill each other for no reason. But we humans killed each other even without his influence.
Kirk: I know what you mean. Even after I convinced the klingon captain to renounce this, version of Ares, he said "Go away, we need no help from you to hate humans." Some of the other "gods" we encountered, were more benevolent. One such being literally kept us and the Klingon Empire from going to war. Myself and klingon governor actually argued in favor of our right to go to war, not my finest moment.
Hercules: I've been accused of hypocrisy myself. I tried to prevent Ares' wars. One time, a war he suppossedly had nothing to do with, and I still tried to stop it. Ares called me a hypocrite, said that I thought I was the only one who could decide when humans went to war. I've met some benevolent dieties, but I also saw people commit terrible acts in the name of these gods. Even after the gods outgrew human sacrifice, people still clung to it. I'm curious, did you even encounter worlds that had no belief in God?
Kirk: Plenty of times, at least no religious beliefs we could see. Some were benevolent, others not.
Hercules: Since I've come here, I've heard of a philosophy, marxist communism. They promoted state athiesm, even persecuted religious believers. They were as bad as those who killed people for not believing in their paticular gods. I wonder, when this is all over, if we're fortunate enough to defeat Evil and rebuild society, whether it would be to society's benefit to have a theological basis.
Kirk: I don't know, I guess we'll have to figure out that part as we go.