Magic Forums

I just started thinking about Gods, specifically their "life cycle". Not in a religious sense, necessarily, but rather as a way of considering their overall existence relative to us and the Universe they said to control. This probably sounds really confusing, so I'll get down to it. Basically, I have two theories regarding the life cycle of gods:

(these assume that gods are living being that possess or gained power in some manner to be considered gods, rather than personifications or manifestations of powers/forces)

1)Enlightenment: Gods (at least in name) come into existence when someone achieves such a high level of magical power that they are able to progress to the "next stage" of enlightenment and begin influencing the world around them and prolonging their life indefinitely. They form a religion and attract worshipers, which further increases their power, until they are finally killed, at which point their power vanishes.

2)Inheritance: The actual power of a god cannot be created, destroyed, or duplicated as it is a force of the Universe. As such, if one were to "kill" a god, they would inherit the powers they held and essentially take that god's place until they are killed. Worship of them has no real effect as they maintain the same level of power at all times, religion exists solely to explain the god's reasons for acting as it does.

Which do you think is the case?