[AoshiShinomori]

Too true the deathnote is not god. Lets get that out of the way. It's inanimate and can't make decisions.. too bad ;_;.

Shinigami however, are gods because they are supernatural beings. They have powers that can't be taken away like:
1. Travelling to a different dimension
2. Phasing through walls (thanx for this kanji-kun ^_^)
3. Invisibility (thanx again to Kanji-kun)
4. Flight
5. Shinigami Sight.

These are super human powers that are attributes of the shinigami beings themselves. We don't understand these powers so to us they are "godly" powers. You can't steal the shinigami sight from a death god (sure you can get the power youself, but the shinigami who gave it to you doesn't lose the sight in the act). You can't steal or take away a shinigami's flight. In fact you can't take away any of those attributes from a shinigami. The only thing that can probably be taken away is the deathnote. Admittedly humans can't take this away because we don't know of their existence, but other shinigami can. Ryuk himself stole a deathnote from the shinigami king. That being the case, shinigami are god, not because of their power to claim life (which is only imparted by the death note) but because of their power to perform all the points mentioned above.

Nobody said anything about a God being immune to death. Shinigami are, in all aspects, immortal because they can leech life out as and when they please. However, that does not circumvent the fact that they can also be felled. Shinigami can certainly be killed, but that becomes a death of a god which makes the shinigami very very different from us. They are gods who can be killed yes, but they are in no way mortal.

Kira is extrmely different from the shinigami. The single point of assymetry is that Kira cannot leech life by writing names in the deathnote. Irrespective of how many names he writes in the deathnote, his life span will remain undettered. That being the case, he cannot be excused like the shinigami can. We may write the shinigami off saying it is their mode of survival (albeit a greedy one), but Kira certainly had no need to use a deathnote. In fact the reason Kira used the deathnote was not because he needed to but because he wanted to. That makes him wholly different. He has no supernatural qualities (unless you consider his intellect although even that was matched as the story goes on). The only supernatural power that he does possess comes from a non-inherent attribute, one that can be stolen from him at any time: the deathnote. And this brings us back to the topic of "godliness". Kira has no supernatural attributes that set him apart from other mortals. Shinigami do. That is why they are gods and Kira is but a dictator playacting god.

Gods they may be but they are lazy unrequired creatures nevertheless. Just because we die none the wiser doesn't assuage the motive of our passing. If a poker loving shinigami took the life out of an upcoming aspiring individual it's a total imbalance. The individual thinks he/she had a heart attack, but in the truth of things their modicum of death does not matter. What does matter is that they died at a time that was not their natural lifespan's end. The shinigami ate up the rest of their lives. The worst part of the story was that the life they did eat was put to no use at all! What's the difference between playing poker and being dead?...NO difference at all if you don't intend to put that poker game to some use... and that's what the shinigami do.

True Ryuk was a layabout in the real world resting all the time. But he still kept a beady eye on the progress of things. He sought to understand human behaviour. Like you rightly said he wanted a change in scenery. And that's what sets him apart. The rest of the shinigami couldn't care less. They're no more useful in this existence than vestigial organs in a vegetative corpse. Among all of them, the one shinigami who truly showed any promise (however slight) was Ryuk. Was he greedy? YES he was. He was a shinigami. He had to be greedy. Okay "Greedy be pardoned" - what use did he put that greed to? Did he waste it around or did he use it towards a personal end? The very fact that he thought of something that would interest him shows motivation in living. It's that motivation which sets him apart. He not only showed motivation in meddling in human affairs, we also have an account of him having tricked the king of the shinigami and stealing a book. So Ryuk has shown sparks of intelligence over time.

All put together, Ryuk has certainly lived up to his name as a shinigami, although he still leaves a lot to be desired. Kira would have been a perfect shinigami had he but the powers of the death gods. The rest of them are dandy layabouts amounting to more than a speck of dust in their dimension.