[chris the cynic]

So if there are a lot of believers and they are not stopped, and it is likely to coalesce, the effect of killing Bob is not to get rid of Bob (Bob being defined as the manifestation of belief in Bob rather than a specific ethereal), but rather to rob Bob of forces experience and skills (memories too) so that one can keep on killing Bob quickly with little effort (thus keeping Bob from gaining power enough to do much) until the believers all drift away?