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Kaelaroth
2008-02-25, 12:29 PM
In Dungeons and Dragons, is it possible to be an atheist? As divine magic is from one, or more deities, is it possible to deny that that is proof, and live a life godless? What's more, if you were atheist, where would you go in the after-life? And has anyone ever played an atheist in D&D?

Eksar Lindisfar
2008-02-25, 12:32 PM
Regarding the divine powers, I've read somewhere that clerics can dedicate their lifes to ideals and philosophies and they still recieve power to cast divine magic, probably in the core manuals

Matthew
2008-02-25, 12:35 PM
This seems to come up every few months here and it always runs into danger because defining our terms may lead to contravening the rules about discussing real life religion (or lack thereof).

Simple answer: It is possible be an atheist in D&D in the sense of 'there is/are no God(s)', but any such character is self evidently and demonstrably wrong (given that deities actually exist in a given D&D setting, I am assuming Greyhawk, as it is the default).

However, it is possible to deny that the beings that claim to be deities are in fact 'deities' and not just powerful beings. That, however, requires a nuanced definition of 'deity', but it is a point of view/philosophy that one of the factions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faction_(Planescape)) in Planescape subscribes to. (Athar)

Morty
2008-02-25, 12:36 PM
Depends on the setting, really. If you're an atheist in Forgotten Realms, for example, you're royally screwed after death, but in other settings it might look different. It might be possible to acknowledge the existence of dieties, but refuse to worship them.

ladditude
2008-02-25, 12:42 PM
My DM once mentioned a class called the Nihilist which "disbelieves in things so hard the cease to exist to him."

As in, he can sit there and not be touched by an Ancient Gold Dragon while his party fights them since he disbelieves it. I have no idea where it is, or how well it works, but it seems pretty cool and kinda fits that whole concept.

Name_Here
2008-02-25, 12:44 PM
Why is there so much fasination with the idea of Atheism in the D+D universe? I mean is the question really so interesting that we need a thread about it every 2 months? Not aiming this at you OP but to the board cause the threads die away pretty quickly.

As for your question about divine spellcasters proving that there are gods all the person needs to do is look around him. We have people who can cast spells because they read squiggly lines in a book, We have people who can cast spells because magic just naturally flows through their viens, and people who can cast spells because of their closeness to nature. Obviously the cleric is one of those who learned how to channel his powers in a slightly different way by using his holy symbol as a focus and his belief in his god as a channelling force. Doesn't mean that there is a god just that there are many ways to channel arcane powers.

As for where they go I think they would go to whatever after life their Alignment dictated. There's no mention that only the followers of the gods get into whatever mix of hevean and hell they get depending on what alignment they are.

wolfishc
2008-02-25, 12:46 PM
Sure, it's possible. If someone just thought that the "gods" were nothing but amped up versions of all the ghosts or elementals that they fight on a semi-regular basis, they could probably decide that none of them are actually worthy of worship.

Jayabalard
2008-02-25, 12:51 PM
certainly. Lots of different flavors. For one:

Maybe divine magic isn't actually any different than arcane magic... clerics are just deluded into believing that it's from a god.

ColdBrew
2008-02-25, 12:54 PM
Also, if you can manage to avoid the cliches, your character will never likely meet a god. Just people who believe in one so hard they call down pillars of fire in its name.

TempusCCK
2008-02-25, 12:55 PM
Atheism is D&D, is, if nothing else, a simple desire to worship no particular power. You cannot in good conscious think that "there's no such things as god" when Miracles and curing happens on a regular basis. Some higher order of power is running that deal, even if it is merely a collection of all the good wills in the world? That's still in a sense a higher order of power, or a God. You can merely choose to or choose not to "worship" this higher power, but there is no denying the fact that a higher, sentient (Miracle!) power exists in D&D.

So quit your complaining that people are dedicating themselves to a false non-existant power you mooks! This is a fantasy realm where Gods regularly intervene in the days to day lives of silly adventurers like you, ya' dang jerks.

The Extinguisher
2008-02-25, 12:57 PM
I played an atheist who denied that the gods were gods because the existed.

Then he kind of got indentured by St. Cuthburt. And now he's a paladin, of the same god.
All while mantaining that he's not really a god.

valadil
2008-02-25, 01:06 PM
I've played both a non-worshiper and someone else who worshiped every god in his own alignment, but no atheists. I have however seen an atheist cleric who believed in the ideal that divine magic doesn't actually come from any gods but from the manipulation of humours at the sub particle level. Outside of game he acknowledged that a god had tricked his character into this belief which is what actually fueled the divine magic. It was entertaining to watch.

FatherMalkav
2008-02-25, 01:07 PM
Honestly, it matters greatly on your game word in my opinion. I once played a character, while not atheist, had grown up in an isolated tribe of mountain elves. He was a barbarian that believed in ancestor worship, but it was in the sense of pure belief, of divine magic kind of belief. The spirits were there because he knew they were, and when anything good/bad happened to him or his party he would attest they were responsible. It was my first campaign ad it drove my DM (a hardcore 2.0 gamer) up the wall.

Serenity
2008-02-25, 01:12 PM
Depends on the setting.

In Forgotten Realms, it's hard to be an atheist in the classic sense of not believing that gods exist, since effectively omnipotent being can and do interfere with the world on a fairly regular basis. However, the argument could certainly be made that the so-called gods are nothing more than extraordinarily powerful beings, or that their fallible, human-like nature means they don't deserve worship. If evil psychotics like Cyric are possible, what in divinity is inherently worthy of respect?

In Eberron, on the other hand, it's an open question whether the Gods exist, and clerics derive their spellcasting as much from belief as anything (or if the Gods are indeed the real deal, than when a cleric 'falls' another deity takes him up). Thus in such a setting, being an atheist in the classic sense is only a little more difficult than in the real world.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-25, 01:14 PM
I cannot speak to Eberron, being only passingly familiar with it. I can expound on the other settings though.

Forgotten Realms: While it is *technically* possible, it is highly absurd since, well, Mystra and or Bane and or any of the 5000 other FR deities is likely having a kegger in the house next door. :smallbiggrin: It also means getting spackled into the wall of the False.

Greyhawk; generic D&D: More possible than FR, since the deities are less likely to show up at the drop of a hat, if at all. The PHB specifically says that you just be clerica generica, simply picking two domains.

Dark Sun: I am unsure of how much the setting has changed since it's original release in 2e. I think most people would be considered atheists, of course given that there are actually no deities, that is a simple matter.

Spelljammer: Problematic depending on your original setting. It is all too likely in your travels to meet things and see things that would make it untenable to be an atheist.

hewhosaysfish
2008-02-25, 01:35 PM
It also means getting spackled into the wall of the False.

That's often bugged me: have none of the Good gods ever stopped and said "Hey, er, Kelemvor... Do you not think that's a bit harsh?"
By what justification is building a wall out off people's souls appropriate for a non-Evil character?

PS And it's the Faithless that get put in the Wall. I can't remember what happens to the False.

DeathQuaker
2008-02-25, 01:35 PM
In Dungeons and Dragons, is it possible to be an atheist? As divine magic is from one, or more deities, is it possible to deny that that is proof, and live a life godless? What's more, if you were atheist, where would you go in the after-life? And has anyone ever played an atheist in D&D?

You might do a "Search" for older threads that discuss this in depth.

As others point out, it's largely dependent on the campaign setting you're working with.

In a D&D game where Deities actually do show up in physical form from time to time (or even quite often, as in the Forgotten Realms), an atheist would actually be denying the obvious proof in front of him.

In such worlds, I think having an atheist--as in, truly, someone who does not believe gods exist--would be unusual. HOWEVER, it's certainly possible to have someone acknowledge the existence the gods but not worship them. Perhaps they were in need and the gods did not answer their prayers, even though they've seen godly works elsewhere, and felt they were forsaken, so they forsake the gods. Perhaps they feel the gods manipulate mortals and want nothing to do with them. That would actually be a far more plausible and interesting character scenario for your typical D&D world where you have Avatars of gods walking around.

Someone else pointed out the athar from Planescape, who essentially acknolwedge the existence of the Powers, but think of them as really powerful mortals, not as "gods" worthy of worship.

As for the afterlife, I think in a standard world using the Wheel cosmology, if you worship no god, your soul simply travels to the plane with which your soul is most aligned; i.e., Chaotic Evil people would become Petitioners in the Abyss, Lawful Good people would petition on Celestia, etc.

Again, this is setting dependent. In the Forgotten Realms, those who refuse to worship the gods are actively punished in the afterlife--their souls get absorbed into a wall around the city of the god of the dead.

FoE
2008-02-25, 01:39 PM
In Eberron, on the other hand, it's an open question whether the Gods exist, and clerics derive their spellcasting as much from belief as anything (or if the Gods are indeed the real deal, than when a cleric 'falls' another deity takes him up). Thus in such a setting, being an atheist in the classic sense is only a little more difficult than in the real world.

Serenity is on the money. In fact, the goblinoids of Eberron are largely atheist, and two of the major religions — the Blood of Vol and the Church of the Silver Flame — don't worship a deity so much as they worship a principle, ie. immortality in the case of the Blood of Vol, and the destruction of evil in the case of the Silver Flame.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-25, 01:54 PM
That's often bugged me: have none of the Good gods ever stopped and said "Hey, er, Kelemvor... Do you not think that's a bit harsh?"
By what justification is building a wall out off people's souls appropriate for a non-Evil character?

PS And it's the Faithless that get put in the Wall. I can't remember what happens to the False.

You're right; the False are tortured for all eternity. The Faithless get spackled.

I would say though with an atheist cleric, it would be at Kelemvor's whim as to whether you were False or Faithless. My personal inclination would be False though.

Roderick_BR
2008-02-25, 02:05 PM
Short answer: You can not believe in deities with all those outsiders (demons, devils, angels, demigods, avatars) and clerics/paladins/druids, as much as you can not believe in magic with all these clerics, wizards, and magical beasts and mythologic monsters around.

At worst, a character can think that all magic is cast the same way, and that the gods doesn't grant powers (either because they don't exist, or don't want). But in most settings it is a laaaaarge stretch.

kamikasei
2008-02-25, 02:13 PM
To the OP: yeah, there are a bunch of ways to be an atheist in D&D. You could, if you haven't much knowledge of / contact with the planes or more dramatic elements of religion generally, actually reject the existence of the beings churches claim to worship, as delusions or illusions or whatever (without the benefit of an outside view designating this or that piece of magic as "divine", I suspect the average inhabitant of a D&D world would have very little reason to say "well, he has to get his spellcasting from somewhere! - Unlike the wizard, or beguiler, or bard, or for that matter druid...").

You could say that the beings exist, but aren't gods, just powerful outsiders. Given how many powerful outsiders indeed aren't gods, and given that some of those have cults and may even grant spells, this is not a hard case to make.

You could be indifferent to the question of whether there are or are not "gods" in the world but have no inclination to worship them. This isn't quite atheism but is actually present in the books - various classes and/or races are described as having little religious inclination.

There are probably a few other ways to deviate from the "the gods are gods, and I should worship at least one of them" standard.

An atheist's afterlife, as Death Quaker and others have said, would presumably just consist of petitionerhood on the plane that matches their alignment. I wonder what that would be like? I mean, would you have a series of really awkward conversations with the local celestials? Or would you just kind of chill out and if some three-hundred-foot-tall dude in radiant armour attended by a flock of solars wanders past, roll your eyes and comment on the airs some people put on?


That's often bugged me: have none of the Good gods ever stopped and said "Hey, er, Kelemvor... Do you not think that's a bit harsh?"
By what justification is building a wall out off people's souls appropriate for a non-Evil character?

This is something I strongly dislike about FR, actually. It makes it hard to take gods of either a) good or b) justice very seriously.


I would say though with an atheist cleric, it would be at Kelemvor's whim as to whether you were False or Faithless. My personal inclination would be False though.

Whyso? (Note: not actually certain who "the False" are.)

Runa
2008-02-25, 02:17 PM
Why is there so much fasination with the idea of Atheism in the D+D universe? I mean is the question really so interesting that we need a thread about it every 2 months? Not aiming this at you OP but to the board cause the threads die away pretty quickly.

You know, this website is popular enough that I believe it gets "newbies" all the time. I've been here several months actually, checking with sporadic frequency every week or two perhaps... and this is the first time I've caught a thread about "atheism in D&D". :smallwink: Perhaps that will provide some perspective on why it shows up so "often"? It probably just seems more often because you've seen it before.

Additionally, I can answer your question of "why the fascination with atheism in D&D?", I think:

Because we live in a world where atheism (as well as it's third cousin twice removed, agnosticism) is fairly common, yet where godly intervention, if it exists, is consistently indirect, subtle, etc. - the supernatural is so iffy a concept in our world, that it's not so weird that there are people that discount it entirely, even though such beliefs are far from universal.

D&D however, portrays worlds where the supernatural IS the natural, and more to the point, is common, ubiquitous, and very, very obvious. In other words, in order to study and understand the world around you, you need to study the very real supernatural, including creatures, spells, etc... and the so-called "deities". Just as people questioned the literal nature of "dragons" of the past legends, so too could people conceivably question the "divine" nature of what D&D calls deities... which are powerful beings, yes, but ones typically listed with actual limits. Can a being that is powerful but not all-powerful really be a "god"? Depends on your definition of the word. And if your definition says "no", then you're probably agnostic at best in that world, because theism of any type requires actual religious faith. If you don't treat divine magic or creatures as aspects of a religion, in terms of faith, but rather as subjects of scientific inquiry, then they aren't religious but simply mysterious, something to be explored and analyzed and nothing more.

But, there is always that pesky problem of the fact that the books always call them "deities". :smallwink:



As for your question about divine spellcasters proving that there are gods all the person needs to do is look around him. We have people who can cast spells because they read squiggly lines in a book, We have people who can cast spells because magic just naturally flows through their viens, and people who can cast spells because of their closeness to nature. Obviously the cleric is one of those who learned how to channel his powers in a slightly different way by using his holy symbol as a focus and his belief in his god as a channelling force. Doesn't mean that there is a god just that there are many ways to channel arcane powers.

True, true.



As for where they go I think they would go to whatever after life their Alignment dictated. There's no mention that only the followers of the gods get into whatever mix of hevean and hell they get depending on what alignment they are.

That might depend on how you run your game, though. :smallwink:

Wasn't there a somewhat atheistic cult in the Eberron setting, though? They believed the only divine was inside one's self. Sort of like a variation of some branches of modern-day, say, LeVeyan Satanism, if I'm not mistaken - a very independence-minded, somewhat subversive belief system with no actual central deity as a focus of worship. Which reminds me, I ought to remember to pick up that Faiths of Eberron book while I can still get it cheap. :smallbiggrin: It had some fun stuff I wanted to make use of for a campaign...

-Runa

Person_Man
2008-02-25, 02:18 PM
Atheist: "There are no gods!"

Cleric: "Really? Then I guess you don't need Torm's protection and healing. Good luck making it out of the dungeon alive."

And so forth.

An atheist in a world where gods literally grant special powers to there followers is literally delusional. (Though I suppose you could make the same argument about devout people in a world without empirical divine intervention - though let's avoid that so that the thread doesn't get locked down).

While its certainly possible for a DM to constuct a fantasy world without gods (objectivism), or a world where gods made everything and then walked away (deism), or even a world where there are no gods but mortals can rise to such power that they seem god like (Amber, Star Gate SG-1), that's simply not the case for most D&D settings.

FoE
2008-02-25, 02:26 PM
Wasn't there a somewhat atheistic cult in the Eberron setting, though? They believed the only divine was inside one's self. Sort of like a variation of some branches of modern-day, say, LaVeyan Satanism, if I'm not mistaken - a very independence-minded, somewhat subversive belief system with no actual central deity as a focus of worship. Which reminds me, I ought to remember to pick up that Faiths of Eberron book while I can still get it cheap. :smallbiggrin: It had some fun stuff I wanted to make use of for a campaign...

The Blood of Vol. The main goal of the cult is to transcend death. That's why undead are revered, because they have achieved a form of immortality. The religion is secretly directed by a lich queen.

Wardog
2008-02-25, 02:34 PM
Atheist: "There are no gods!"

Cleric: "Really? Then I guess you don't need Torm's protection and healing. Good luck making it out of the dungeon alive."



Atheist: "Torm's protection? Don't you mean your protection? After all, while different, is doesn't seem fundamentally any powerfuller than that granted by our party's wizard - who, incidentally, I have seen blasting our enemies with fire and lightning far more often than any so-called god has."

Morty
2008-02-25, 02:37 PM
That's often bugged me: have none of the Good gods ever stopped and said "Hey, er, Kelemvor... Do you not think that's a bit harsh?"
By what justification is building a wall out off people's souls appropriate for a non-Evil character?

PS And it's the Faithless that get put in the Wall. I can't remember what happens to the False.

Why should they? If faithless and false in faith suffer a horrible fate after death, it encourages mortals to serve gods faithfully.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-25, 02:45 PM
Whyso? (Note: not actually certain who "the False" are.)

The Faithless, those who denied faith or paid lip service to their god, all receive the same punishement: They form a living wall around the City of Judgement, tormented forever or at least until stolen by the tanar'ri; a fate many consider to be even worse.

The False, who betrayed a faith they believed in, remain in the City proper, there to be punished in accordance with their crime. It is whispered that mutilation, dismemberment and madness are but the sweetest tortures inflicted by Kelemvor's minions upon the False . . .

http://www.nj-pbem.com/data/Gods/Gods.htm

The reason I say he could be judged false is that the moment he goes before Kelemvor, he is facing a deity, he could in that moment essentially "betray" his beliefs.

More likely though, he just gets spackled for being faithless.

Xuincherguixe
2008-02-25, 02:48 PM
How Shadowrun handles this issue, is that it's not entirely clear what things are. That Viking you just called from the halls of Valhalla might have been a brave warrior killed in battle 500 years ago, but it might just be something created out of the guys own mind.

Maybe Cthulhu speaks to you in your dreams, and as you grow more power you become more insane. Or maybe you're just going insane and "Cthulhu" is something your subconscious just made up.

And then you might bump into another person who also "hears the call" but what he "hears" is completely different. His Cthulhu might be a wise cracking ex cop with a chip on his shoulder.


So basically what I'm saying, you may well see something that looks like Zeus standing in front of you. It has tremendous power, and it fits everything people say about Zeus. But is it really Zeus, or the idea of Zeus? Maybe what you're experiencing is just a hallucination. Maybe Hallucinations can have power too.

Talanic
2008-02-25, 02:56 PM
The spackling was Cyric, and probably Myrkul before him. Kelemvor discontinued that practice. For a while he tried to segment his realm, making a heaven for people he judged as good and a hell for those whom he judged as evil, but it started to tip the balance of the cosmos and he was forced to stop.

Apparently, now, he just lumps souls together with others of the same alignment.

DeathQuaker
2008-02-25, 02:57 PM
Atheist: "Torm's protection? Don't you mean your protection? After all, while different, is doesn't seem fundamentally any powerfuller than that granted by our party's wizard - who, incidentally, I have seen blasting our enemies with fire and lightning far more often than any so-called god has."

*Torm appears, snaps his fingers, and atheist crumbles into ash. His soul becomes, as Mr. Friendly puts it, "spackle," and all essence of the atheist slowly and painfully ceases to exist entirely, forever.*

Sucks to live in a fantasy world, sometimes.

Scintillatus
2008-02-25, 03:01 PM
The spackling was Cyric, and probably Myrkul before him. Kelemvor discontinued that practice. For a while he tried to segment his realm, making a heaven for people he judged as good and a hell for those whom he judged as evil, but it started to tip the balance of the cosmos and he was forced to stop.

Apparently, now, he just lumps souls together with others of the same alignment.

Hey, neat. Where's the details for this? I didn't know the Wall was torn down.

Person_Man
2008-02-25, 03:05 PM
Atheist: "Torm's protection? Don't you mean your protection? After all, while different, is doesn't seem fundamentally any powerfuller than that granted by our party's wizard - who, incidentally, I have seen blasting our enemies with fire and lightning far more often than any so-called god has."

That's quite a logical and intelligent argument. But I'm guessing that a character who makes the argument would be insufferably annoying and/or heretical to a character who believes that he channels the divine power of Torm. So the Cleric of Torm might still deny the atheist any help, because the atheist is insulting everything the Cleric holds dear.

Most people aren't empiricists. They make decisions based on tradition, norms, and emotion. Even if the the atheist PC is utterly reasonable, they may have a difficult time co-existing in a party with a Cleric. And even if the player who plays the Cleric is reasonable, he may feel that his character would never suffer through adventuring with an atheist. Though admittedly, its really not that much more of a problem then mixed alignment parties, or parties that include undead, kobolds, or some other pariah race. With mature players, and I'm sure you could pull off any ideology/religion/lack of religion.

kamikasei
2008-02-25, 03:07 PM
Why should they? If faithless and false in faith suffer a horrible fate after death, it encourages mortals to serve gods faithfully.

Oh, it makes perfect sense. But it's not good.


The Faithless, those who denied faith or paid lip service to their god, all receive the same punishement: They form a living wall around the City of Judgement, tormented forever or at least until stolen by the tanar'ri; a fate many consider to be even worse.

Yeah, OK. Well, obviously no not OK, but I was aware of this part.


The False, who betrayed a faith they believed in, remain in the City proper, there to be punished in accordance with their crime. It is whispered that mutilation, dismemberment and madness are but the sweetest tortures inflicted by Kelemvor's minions upon the False . . .

http://www.nj-pbem.com/data/Gods/Gods.htm

The reason I say he could be judged false is that the moment he goes before Kelemvor, he is facing a deity, he could in that moment essentially "betray" his beliefs.

I suspect I am missing something. What is the belief that he's betraying? Is he a cleric of some god who is actually an atheist, and the betrayal is in not worshiping the god whose power he wielded? Is he an atheist "cleric of a cause" who is somehow betraying his cause by acknowledging Kelemvor as a deity? Is atheism the cause of which he is a cleric?

Was Ed Greenwood beaten up by an atheist as a kid?


The spackling was Cyric, and probably Myrkul before him. Kelemvor discontinued that practice. For a while he tried to segment his realm, making a heaven for people he judged as good and a hell for those whom he judged as evil, but it started to tip the balance of the cosmos and he was forced to stop.

Apparently, now, he just lumps souls together with others of the same alignment.

I'm glad to hear that; I like Kelemvor.


*Torm appears, snaps his fingers, and atheist crumbles into ash. His soul becomes, as Mr. Friendly puts it, "spackle," and all essence of the atheist slowly and painfully ceases to exist entirely, forever.*

*The good-aligned gods stop inviting Torm to their parties.*

Vexxation
2008-02-25, 03:07 PM
That's often bugged me: have none of the Good gods ever stopped and said "Hey, er, Kelemvor... Do you not think that's a bit harsh?"
By what justification is building a wall out off people's souls appropriate for a non-Evil character?

PS And it's the Faithless that get put in the Wall. I can't remember what happens to the False.

That's actually part of the plot of the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion, Mask of the Betrayer. You befriend a cleric who is waging a personal war against Kelemvor's city of the dead, and she intends to tear down the wall when she becomes strong enough. Granted, everyone in that campaign is Epic, so I could see her succeeding eventually.

Cainen
2008-02-25, 03:11 PM
It's actually quite plausible to play an atheist PC... if said PC only views D&D deities as uplifted mortals. And that's not exactly out of the ordinary if your character has done a lot of research, either.

Scintillatus
2008-02-25, 03:11 PM
That's actually part of the plot of the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion, Mask of the Betrayer. You befriend a cleric who is waging a personal war against Kelemvor's city of the dead, and she intends to tear down the wall when she becomes strong enough. Granted, everyone in that campaign is Epic, so I could see her succeeding eventually.

Celestial, not cleric.

And no, she doesn't. Which is a shame; after hearing about how disgusting, vile and malicious the Wall was throughout the game, I was rather dissappointed that my ludicrously overpowered Monk could not kick Kelemvor's arse.

Morty
2008-02-25, 03:13 PM
Oh, it makes perfect sense. But it's not good.

The way I see it, good dieties might object to this, but there are at least as much evil dieties as there are good ones, and neutral gods are probably fine with it as well. It might also be that no god has anything to say here, because it's been ruled in by Ao. I'm not sure.


I suspect I am missing something. What is the belief that he's betraying? Is he a cleric of some god who is actually an atheist, and the betrayal is in not worshiping the god whose power he wielded? Is he an atheist "cleric of a cause" who is somehow betraying his cause by acknowledging Kelemvor as a deity? Is atheism the cause of which he is a cleric?


I don't quite understand what you mean here. "False" is someone who betrayed his/her god's teachings and didn't turn to other one.

Zenos
2008-02-25, 03:13 PM
I now want to homebrew a very good trickster god that steals souls from the Wall of the Faithless to give them a new chance in life and unlife. Well, if I had the FR campaign setting anyways. But ah well.

Vexxation
2008-02-25, 03:14 PM
Celestial, not cleric.

Well, yeah. But she also just happened to be a cleric.

and: Yeah, that end was lame. My uber-lance Stormlord/Favored Soul/Frenzied berserker/Blackguard could have owned Kelemvor.

Severus
2008-02-25, 03:19 PM
This is a campaign specific question.

It depends entirely upon what the gods are in the world.

If they are distant and do not appear, then divine casters could just be a different form of magic. The priests say it comes from their god, but someone else could just say it's from themselves.

Then belief and unbelief could both co-exist and be reasonable.

But if your gods are like gods in lots of campaigns that show up and do stuff, then no, Atheism is stupid.

Though in the latter case, someone could say that gods are bad, and people shouldn't worship them, that they enslave mankind. That wouldn't atheism, but you could be anti-gods.

Rutee
2008-02-25, 03:25 PM
In Forgotten Realms, it's hard to be an atheist in the classic sense of not believing that gods exist, since effectively omnipotent being can and do interfere with the world on a fairly regular basis. However, the argument could certainly be made that the so-called gods are nothing more than extraordinarily powerful beings, or that their fallible, human-like nature means they don't deserve worship. If evil psychotics like Cyric are possible, what in divinity is inherently worthy of respect?

Point of order: The concept of an omnipotent god that can do literally anything (Except not, but omnipotent is a tall order anyway. Simple thought experiment: Can an omnipotent being create a boulder so heavy, they can't lift it?) is pretty much restricted to Monotheism. I don't think Monotheism is going to happen in most/all DnD settings (Though perhaps Eberron, since the existence of deities /is/ a question)

ladditude
2008-02-25, 03:25 PM
Celestial, not cleric.

And no, she doesn't. Which is a shame; after hearing about how disgusting, vile and malicious the Wall was throughout the game, I was rather dissappointed that my ludicrously overpowered Monk could not kick Kelemvor's arse.

She is both, as she is a celestial that has cleric levels.

Scintillatus
2008-02-25, 03:27 PM
Yeah, point. I forgot what I was supposed to say, which is it's interesting to find an angel telling you the gods are being jerks.

Funnily enough, I'm currently trying to settle on a character for a "perfect" runthrough of that.

Devin
2008-02-25, 03:28 PM
The words dystheism and maltheism really need to come up more in discussions like these.

Dystheism is the belief that even though a god exists, it is not wholly good, or may even be evil.

Maltheism is belief in an actively malevolent god.

Thanks to Nerull, Erythnul, and the rest, anyone who thinks this way is at least partially correct.

Storm Bringer
2008-02-25, 03:28 PM
on the ethics of The Wall: it may not be good, but then neither is Kelemvor. Besides, he's just punishing the guilty. This is forgotton relms. Atheism is a crime agianst the gods, and the gods have a say in you're afterlife.



Though in the latter case, someone could say that gods are bad, and people shouldn't worship them, that they enslave mankind. That wouldn't atheism, but you could be anti-gods.

that would be a form of Gnosticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnostic)

hawkboy772042
2008-02-25, 03:34 PM
It would be very hard to deny the existence of deities due to clerics getting divine power/spells in D&D. However, there are people that deny things despite an insurmountable amount of evidence. e.g. holocaust deniers.... (I hope Godwin's Law doesn't kill the thread)

kamikasei
2008-02-25, 03:34 PM
I don't quite understand what you mean here. "False" is someone who betrayed his/her god's teachings and didn't turn to other one.

So when Mr. Friendly says "an atheist cleric", you think he means a cleric of some god who is an atheist? That makes sense, I guess, given that it is FR and they don't really go for this whole "X of a cause" lark.


Yeah, point. I forgot what I was supposed to say, which is it's interesting to find an angel telling you the gods are being jerks.

<- points to avatar

Lord Iames Osari
2008-02-25, 03:40 PM
In Dungeons and Dragons, is it possible to be an atheist? As divine magic is from one, or more deities, is it possible to deny that that is proof, and live a life godless? What's more, if you were atheist, where would you go in the after-life? And has anyone ever played an atheist in D&D?

Is it possible to be an atheist (i.e., deny the existence of gods altogether)? No. There are too many ways to prove it, like this one:


[You can] use a 9th-level wizard to prove the existence of a god (or gods in general).

Take your wizard and have him hole up in a safe place, wearing a ring of sustenance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#sustenance). Then have him prepare and cast contact other plane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/contactOtherPlane.htm) to contact the Astral Plane.

Contact other plane is a level 5 Sor/Wiz spell which allows the caster to ask one question for every round that he concentrates on the spell, up to 1 question per 2 caster levels. That's 4 questions per casting for our 9th-level wizard, which must, as per the spell, be answered with one word. Now, ordinarily, a 9th-level wizard gets only 1 5th-level spell per day, but due to a peculiarity of the rules, he can rest for 8 hours after his first casting, then prepare and cast a second time, rest for another 8 hours, and prepare and cast a third time, bringing him up to 12 questions per day.

To establish how the spell operates, and the percentage of true answers, we'll start our wizard off with a control question: "Is water wet?"

Let's leave him be for a year, asking the powers of the Astral Plane, "Is water wet?" 12 times a day.

By the end of the year, he'll have received 4,380 replies (assuming he takes 10 on the Int checks). Of these, at least 44% will be true, 23% will be "I don't know", 21% will be false, and 12% will be random one-word answers.

Now that our wizard has established the parameters of the contact other plane spell with a control question, he can move on to the real question, again asked of the powers of the Astral Plane: "Do the gods exist?"

Leave him be for a year. Once again he'll have 4,380 replies. Once he compares the percentages to the control question, there will no longer be any doubt that the gods exist.

Is it possible to not particularly care for any of the gods and not actively worship them? Yes.

Where you would go after death depends a lot on the setting.

I have never played an atheist, although I have played characters who were not very religious.

Hal
2008-02-25, 03:43 PM
Oooh, I just read about this . . . except now I can't remember if it's the PHB or DMG. Either way, it clearly states that those who worship a god go to the plane where their god dwells when they die. Those who worship no god go to whichever plane is most in line with their alignment. Atheists have alignments, so they get to go to the afterlife either way.

Of course, I'm sure this is totally dependent on campaign setting, so your mileage may vary.

Morty
2008-02-25, 04:03 PM
So when Mr. Friendly says "an atheist cleric", you think he means a cleric of some god who is an atheist? That makes sense, I guess, given that it is FR and they don't really go for this whole "X of a cause" lark.


I don't know what Mr. Friendly means, but I belive not giving a damn about your chosed god and his/her teachings or not having a patron diety at all is as close to atheism as you can get in FR. "Atheist cleric" is even more of an oxymoron in FR than everywhere else, since you can't be cleric of a cause in FR.

Jayabalard
2008-02-25, 04:29 PM
Is it possible to be an atheist (i.e., deny the existence of gods altogether)? No. There are too many ways to prove it, like this one:People believe or disbelieve things regardless of the evidence, and the proof that you're offering isn't really proof; in the end you're just taking some random 9th level wizard's word on the subject

Doomsy
2008-02-25, 04:43 PM
Athar.

They are honestly atheists, because they don't believe in gods. They consider the gods to be shams - they're not all powerful (which is completely, utterly provable in ANY D&D world), they're just more powerful than the average person and thus, according to the Athar, the deluded worship them. Since they can die, they can wax and wane in power, they are not omnipotent, and they *require* worship, they're considered to be fakers on a massive scale by the Athar. A real deity would be beyond all of that.

In essence: Gods don't exist, they're a myth made by a bunch of high-level con-men.

This belief can be fully applied to ANY D&D world where gods are provably not omnipotent, can die, require worship, etc. This belief may not be WISE in worlds where you can call Mystra a faker and she could be drinking next to you in the bar, but they are fully possible and supportable.

Note that in worlds where gods wander around at random and are whimsically psychopathic in Grecian style, your average atheist has a lifespan that could probably be measured in days - so this wouldn't exactly be a popular movement. Just saying, it can pop up anywhere in D&D just because the reasoning is basically sound.

Aquillion
2008-02-25, 04:45 PM
As others have said: First, there is at least one D&D setting (Dark Sun) where, per raw, there are in fact no gods, and there's another, Eberron, where their existence and divinity is explicitly ambiguous.

For the others... even in the Forgotten Realms, someone could deny the divinity of so-called gods. What's the difference between a deity and a massively epic lich? The epic lich could probably beat several deities, and survive some things they couldn't. What makes a deity different from any other powerful outsider?

(In fact, the Forgotten Realms doesn't present as much of a problem for atheists as people say -- after all, sure, it has lots of gods, but it also has far more people capable of challenging the gods, to the extent that it happens on nearly a regular basis. Gods are sometimes replaced, and not too long ago their powers just 'went away' for a while, during which several died. It takes a fairly loose definition of 'divine' to extend divinity to something like that.)

For people who say that this is projecting a 'monotheistic view' -- there is precedent otherwise in our world, from non-monotheistic cultures where people used the exact same logic. Socrates, for instance, denied the existence of the Greek gods (at least, as they were commonly understood) because he argued that the things they were described as doing (lying, cheating, displaying anger and petty wrath and so on) could not possibly be divine.

A simple analogy: Was it possible to be an Atheist in ancient Rome or Egypt? After all, their leaders were officially living deities, and they're right there, so you can't deny that they exist. (And there were, in fact, atheists in ancient Rome, and people who explained away deities and myths as being hopped-up historical leaders.) If Caligula was immortal and could give people the ability to cast True Resurrection, it might be a bit harder to deny his divinity, but I think that I would probably still do it.

Fhaolan
2008-02-25, 04:57 PM
It depends on how you draw your lines and define your terms. Unfortunately.

What is a God? This is an incredibly important term to define in this conversation. What makes Torm a God? Is Torm a God because he has clerics? Is Torm a God because of specific abilities he has? Is Torm a God because he rules part of an Outer Plane? Is Torm a God just because Torm says so?

You can't fall back on 'Gods are entities with Divine Ranks', because within the framework of the D&D system that's circular. It's like saying water is wet. True, but completely unhelpful.

What is an athiest? A lot of people get very confused with this term, mixing up athiest with both agnostism and gnostism. Athiest is 'There is no God.' Agnostism is 'It is not possible to know for sure who or what is a God.' Gnostism is 'I know what a God is, and you're not it.' :smallbiggrin: [Yes, I'm being silly with those definitions. If you really want to understand the terms, go read some philosophy on the subject. There's too much to explain in this format.]

Lolzords
2008-02-25, 04:59 PM
I guess you can have a character who rejects religion, but there's pretty much proof that the gods exist in dnd.

Artanis
2008-02-25, 05:08 PM
Um...omnipotence isn't necessarily a prerequisite for divinity. Just look at the Greco-Roman gods (or Norse gods or Egyptian gods or etc. etc. etc.). They were officially deities, but could hardly be described as omnipotent.

Mewtarthio
2008-02-25, 06:14 PM
I like an argument I saw in an earlier thread on this. Basically, in most campaign settings, the gods are like kings: The average person is only affected by them indirectly, but everyone's heard of them, their agents periodically show up, and it's possible that someone really important has met them personally. If a medieval peasant claimed that the king didn't exist, he'd be viewed as crazy. If he claimed that the "king" wasn't really a king at all, but was simply a noble with a large amount of power whom the other nobles had to obey, he'd be viewed as an idiot. If he claimed that king wasn't worthy of his power, then people would listen to him.

In short, I don't think you can be an atheist in most settings without being as delusional as a guy in modern times claiming the Earth is flat. Claiming the gods don't exist at all is sheer lunacy when people can call down thunder from the heavens or even plane shift to a divine realm and visit them in person. Claiming that there's nothing "divine" about the gods is idiotic, since "divinity" in DnD will be defined not by some nebulous traits that tweny-first-century Earthlings think a god should have but rather by definable traits that DnD gods clearly demonstrate, such as the ability to grant spells.

Now, you could be a misotheist: One who believes in gods, but does not believe they are worthy of worship.

VanBuren
2008-02-25, 07:01 PM
and: Yeah, that end was lame. My uber-lance Stormlord/Favored Soul/Frenzied berserker/Blackguard could have owned Kelemvor.

Yeah, except for those pesky divine ranks which let him kill you instantly and everything.

SurlySeraph
2008-02-25, 07:15 PM
Simple thought experiment: Can an omnipotent being create a boulder so heavy, they can't lift it?

If he has first-order omnipotence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_Paradox#Types_of_omnipotence), yes.

EvilElitest
2008-02-25, 07:16 PM
In Dungeons and Dragons, is it possible to be an atheist? As divine magic is from one, or more deities, is it possible to deny that that is proof, and live a life godless? What's more, if you were atheist, where would you go in the after-life? And has anyone ever played an atheist in D&D?

It is possible to be agonistic, but if you an atheist you freaking stupid. I'm an atheist in real life, but in D&D it seems at best you can just think that the gods are simple powerful mortals
from
EE

Kellus
2008-02-25, 07:33 PM
It is possible to be agonistic, but if you an atheist you freaking stupid. I'm an atheist in real life, but in D&D it seems at best you can just think that the gods are simple powerful mortals
from
EE

Except for the bit where they're, you know, immortal. :smallwink:

Worira
2008-02-25, 07:34 PM
While there is certainly plenty of proof in DnD that gods exist, "clerics get healing spells" really isn't. Bards can heal with magic too, and he can claim he gets the ability from the power of albinism in peacocks, but that doesn't make it true.

Vexxation
2008-02-25, 07:43 PM
Except for the bit where they're, you know, immortal. :smallwink:

And what makes them immortal? Lack of death from old age? No. Elans get it too.

Inability to die? Gods can and do die. Case in point: Myrkul. Essentially dead. Same with Cyric.

Now, I suppose Ao might be truly immortal, as is the Dragon-god who *is* time itself, but those are rare exceptions.

Kellus
2008-02-25, 07:50 PM
Well, the special ability titled 'Immortality' might be a tip-off. :smalltongue:


Immortality

All deities (even those of rank 0) are naturally immortal and cannot die from natural causes. Deities do not age, and they do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. The only way for a deity to die is through special circumstances, usually by being slain in magical or physical combat. Deities of rank 1 or higher are not subject to death from massive damage.

Vexxation
2008-02-25, 07:54 PM
Well, the special ability titled 'Immortality' might be a tip-off. :smalltongue:

Well, that's a lame description of immortality that just goes to show how little experience I have with Gods.

I mean, if being immortal makes them special, why don't more people worship Elans? (...the race. Not the bard.)

That'd be a pretty nifty god, though. Say an Elan Soulknife (just because I like Soulknives).

Xuincherguixe
2008-02-25, 08:00 PM
That, or Elan the character as a god.

Portfolio includes non sequiturs?

Vexxation
2008-02-25, 08:01 PM
That, or Elan the character as a god.

Portfolio includes non sequiturs?

And puppets.
Unless Banjo can ascend too.

EvilElitest
2008-02-25, 08:05 PM
Except for the bit where they're, you know, immortal. :smallwink:

I never said it was a smart theory
from
EE

Kellus
2008-02-25, 08:05 PM
Well, elans don't age, but they do need to sleep, breathe, and eat (or at least psionically nourish themselves). So they don't really fit the whole 'can't die from natural causes' thing. Admittedly, a case could be made for undead or constructs to be immortal, but they still don't have the whole portfolio or salient divine abilities thing going for them.

I suppose I can see your point, though. If there's a guy who can sense everything that happens to, say, shrimp anywhere at anytime, who can alter reality itself to protect all shrimp, a guy who knows when you even think about shrimp, and who can turn people that bug him into gigantic shrimp thralls, if he says he's the god of shrimp, hey, I'm not gonna argue with him. Even if he doesn't have a divine rank. Maybe he's just a really high level shrimpamancer.

Mewtarthio
2008-02-25, 08:15 PM
Simple thought experiment: Can an omnipotent being create a boulder so heavy, they can't lift it?

It depends, really. If an Omnipotent Being (let's call him "OB" to avoid religious debates) has a physical form, then yes, he can create a boulder so heavy that his physical form cannot lift it. He can then simply will his physical form to be strong enough to lift the boulder, of course, but there is a period of time in which OB cannot lift the boulder.

If, on the other hand, OB has no physical form, then the idea of him "lifting" a boulder is absurd. OB cannot create a boulder so heavy that he can't lift it, because OB doesn't move boulders around by lifting them. He simply wills them to be elsewhere.

Things brings up a more general question: Can OB create something that OB cannot alter with his omnipotent powers? The answer is no: If OB could not do a given action, then he wouldn't be omnipotent. By the same token, he cannot create a two-sided pentagon or a reptilian mammal (though he could create a creature with both reptilian and mammalian aspects, and he could rearrange all human memory so that everyone in the world believed a "pentagon" was a two-sided object).

Vexxation
2008-02-25, 08:18 PM
philosotainment stuff

And, to be further philosotain-y, could and all-powerful being annihilate himself? I've always wondered about that.

Mando Knight
2008-02-25, 08:36 PM
And, to be further philosotain-y, could and all-powerful being annihilate himself? I've always wondered about that.

He could annihilate his physical form, he could annihilate some kind of spiritual form, etc.... but the truly Omnipotent Being will be able to survive all of that. You could kill him, he just wouldn't stay dead.

Also, a perfectly perfect being would, by necessity, be a god. And, if "God" is defined as the "being of which none can be greater imagined" and if existence is a greatness greater than any other greatness individually, a God would have to exist...

Leewei
2008-02-25, 08:44 PM
An omnipotent being would be able to define any boundaries to its power it wished, and then ignore those boundaries at will. It could create a boulder so heavy it could not lift it; and paradoxically lift any boulder. Omnipotence amounts to being able to achieve anything. Petty things such as logic and contradictions would be no obstacle.

holywhippet
2008-02-25, 09:00 PM
I don't think anybody has mentioned the Dragonlance setting. For the longest time pretty much nobody believed in the gods because of a mountain of fire wiping out the main holy city. This made people think the gods had abandoned them - no clerics were able to prove them wrong because the gods had already gathered up all the true clerics beforehand (no idea what happened to them).

Later on, one of the gods, Takhisis, used a massive teleport type spell to steal away the world so that she would be the only god of the entire world. For a long while that was true as the effort nearly killed her so she couldn't do anything. All the other gods had no idea where Krynn had been taken to.

BTW, it's my understanding that the Darksun gods abandoned the world after it had been so heavily despoiled that they didn't want anything to do with it. Is there anything saying where they ended up?

Theodoxus
2008-02-25, 10:09 PM
Most of my characters are atheists... only because I'm not in real life, and I enjoy playing something I'm not.

All magic is psionic in nature in my mind. Some people (lets call them wizards) require focuses called 'spellbooks'. Others (we'll call clerics) require focuses called 'holy symbols'. Sorcerers are more closely attuned to their own power, but still have 'faith' in their powerful blood.

Every miracle, random event or godly visitation can be described as simply psionic power. Perhaps the cult of evil dudes collectively, subconsiously, desire harm to the PCs and manifest a psionic entity they call 'Bane' who walks around in black armor with a big sword and kills people. The more people provide psychic power to the manifestation, the more powerful it grows. It's essentially immortal, because it's a manifestation.

Calling out to a god might make unlocking the mind powers easier, for some, but there aren't any gods - just grand delusions.

Works for me, at any rate, and it's damn near impossible (to the point where my group has given up trying) to prove otherwise.

Aquillion
2008-02-25, 10:12 PM
I like an argument I saw in an earlier thread on this. Basically, in most campaign settings, the gods are like kings: The average person is only affected by them indirectly, but everyone's heard of them, their agents periodically show up, and it's possible that someone really important has met them personally. If a medieval peasant claimed that the king didn't exist, he'd be viewed as crazy. If he claimed that the "king" wasn't really a king at all, but was simply a noble with a large amount of power whom the other nobles had to obey, he'd be viewed as an idiot. If he claimed that king wasn't worthy of his power, then people would listen to him.

In short, I don't think you can be an atheist in most settings without being as delusional as a guy in modern times claiming the Earth is flat. Claiming the gods don't exist at all is sheer lunacy when people can call down thunder from the heavens or even plane shift to a divine realm and visit them in person. Claiming that there's nothing "divine" about the gods is idiotic, since "divinity" in DnD will be defined not by some nebulous traits that tweny-first-century Earthlings think a god should have but rather by definable traits that DnD gods clearly demonstrate, such as the ability to grant spells.That isn't a convincing argument. In the real world, in fact, there were large numbers of people who claimed to be either kings or emperors in ways that were, by one person or another, rejected. Countless European monarchs claimed to be King of Jerusalem, for instance, long after any real-world control over the region had disappeared. And every succession war that ever occured included debates and wars over who was the "real" king, with numerous people remaining convinced that whoever was on the throne was "false." For a long time, countless Catholics would never accept a Protestant monarch in England, and vice-versa; they wouldn't simply say that they "lack the right to rule", they would say "he is not king".

A modern example is the Catholic Sedevacantists, who argue that there has been no pope since Vatican II (and, therefore, that the last three popes were never actually popes at all.) They don't simply argue that the current Pope does not have the "right" to be a pope or "shouldn't" be a pope; they argue that he is not Pope, and never has been.

Obviously, this is a very small minority, but you get the idea. Many people seem to think that living in a world of magic with resurrections and so forth makes it harder to be an atheist; in fact, the opposite is true. To be a theist in the real world, you merely have to accept one of the countless claims of supernatural occurences linked to a deity.

In D&D, though, it is an established fact that non-divine forces (e.g. Wish or the proper PRCs, races, and items) can cause supernatural effects, bring back the dead, predict the future, heal any wound, grant 'immortality' (to the extent that any of the deities claim immortality), and so on. These are simply not impressive claims; in the D&D world, claiming to be a deity because you can bring back the dead is like claiming to be a deity in our world because you command an army. Some people will listen, yes, but since a good psion, wizard, lich, or Elan can do any of that, it isn't as impressive as it sounds to us.

Granting spells is not impressive, because anyone can draw divine spells from ideals rather than specific deities; indeed, it is impossible to prove that a deity actually draws spells, since anyone with strong enough faith in an ideal can get spells without a so-called deity's intervention.

In essence, none of the things that people claim define dieties in the D&D universe are particularly impressive in the D&D world.

Jayngfet
2008-02-25, 10:16 PM
depends

does he believe the gods are just epic level outsiders

is he like darwin, devoutly religious until some event caused him to give up his faith

something else?

atheist is more of a generalization that anythin else, due to no written rules or guidelines.

Rutee
2008-02-25, 10:18 PM
And what makes them immortal? Lack of death from old age? No. Elans get it too.

Inability to die? Gods can and do die. Case in point: Myrkul. Essentially dead. Same with Cyric.

Now, I suppose Ao might be truly immortal, as is the Dragon-god who *is* time itself, but those are rare exceptions.

You're applying our definition of immortal. Most campaign settings probably have one that is dictated by the gods.

Jimblee
2008-02-25, 10:24 PM
Athiesm is possible anywhere, its all a matter of perspective

Athiesm is in the farmer who blames everything on magic gobbledygook

Athiesm is in the rogue who says its all to luck and skill

Athiesm is in the madman who refuses to believe in any power beyond the self



In our life, Athiesm is either a lack of knowledge, a refusal of knowledge, or a gain of knowledge, depending on who it is and how you look at it. In most DnD settings, its just a lack of knowledge or a refusal of knowledge. People who look at divine magics and say, "I don't know what that is, but I'm not falling for your tricks", or people who see churches and say, "Pah! All that fancy waste of good tax money!"

And thats not including those defense mechanisms that simply force the mind to ignore facts, or misconstrue them to the point where they defy reality

FoE
2008-02-25, 10:25 PM
Is it possible to not particularly care for any of the gods and not actively worship them? Yes.

There is, in fact, a D&D race that not only does not care for any god, but wishes to destroy them all: the Vasharans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vashar

These were actually the gods' first attempt at making humans, but they were horrified by the outcome and killed the first Vasharan. He was then resurrected by Graz'zt, and ever since then, his descendants have been obsessed with deicide.

Mewtarthio
2008-02-25, 11:15 PM
That isn't a convincing argument. In the real world, in fact, there were large numbers of people who claimed to be either kings or emperors in ways that were, by one person or another, rejected. Countless European monarchs claimed to be King of Jerusalem, for instance, long after any real-world control over the region had disappeared. And every succession war that ever occured included debates and wars over who was the "real" king, with numerous people remaining convinced that whoever was on the throne was "false." For a long time, countless Catholics would never accept a Protestant monarch in England, and vice-versa; they wouldn't simply say that they "lack the right to rule", they would say "he is not king".

Luckily, godhood is actually simpler than kingship. If you can grant spells to clerics and accept petitioners in your divine realm, you're a god. That's how "god" is defined in most DnD settings. The king example is just to show that kings and DnD gods have roughly the same amount of proof for their existence. That being said, I think most of the debates you mentioned were fueled by the definition of the word "king": A Catholic in England, for instance, might define "king" as "A man who is granted ultimate authority in England by the Pope." Godhood is much more clearly defined.

Svethnika
2008-02-26, 12:08 AM
As an atheist I certainly would find it hard to be one in the world of DnD, since there is so much damn evidence for it lying all over. It is possible though, as some have mentioned. An atheist certainly could believe in magic and magical creatures (even in real life, most people think atheism naturally includes a naturalistic world view but it does not). They simply may not believe that deities are involved. Just because he or she sees people running around claiming to have powers granted from gods doesn't mean he finds the idea of gods convincing. They may have a world view that regards magic to be some force like material. In fact, if an isolated individual has never seen a god act directly in any fashion or has never really seen any real evidence of any direct interference it isn't too unreasonable to be unconvinced deities are at real. This all depends on how you define deity though.

Doomsy
2008-02-26, 12:51 AM
It's worth noting that the Athar made their headquarters in Sigil in the ruined temple of a god that annoyed the Lady of Pain and was utterly annihilated for it. Aoskar, I believe his name was.

They also have a citadel on one of the planes built on the giant corpse of a dead god.

The pattern here seems to be that if you *can* be killed, you're not really a god. You're just a clever imitation. Immortality is one thing. Deities are about power. If you're killable, you're obviously not that powerful and really - do you deserve the title god then?

Again, this argument is highly dangerous to the arguers health in most D&D worlds. This is why the Athar liked Sigil. I'd say atheism is a highly logical response to figuring out that gods *can* die - for one thing, it proves that they are not nearly all mighty or powerful enough to warrant the title of a god. They put on a good show, but in the end - if you (and by you, I mean an epic party) can kill it, it can't really be that much of a divinity.

At which point, you're probably already being worshipped, but the Godslaying Lord of Atheists is a hell of a title, anyway.

Xuincherguixe
2008-02-26, 12:59 AM
To the boulder question. I've heard it answered that "yes he can create a boulder so big he himself cannot lift it. And then he lifts it."

Sounds like a contradiction? That's because it is.

Aquillion
2008-02-26, 01:26 AM
Luckily, godhood is actually simpler than kingship. If you can grant spells to clerics and accept petitioners in your divine realm, you're a god. That's how "god" is defined in most DnD settings. The king example is just to show that kings and DnD gods have roughly the same amount of proof for their existence. That being said, I think most of the debates you mentioned were fueled by the definition of the word "king": A Catholic in England, for instance, might define "king" as "A man who is granted ultimate authority in England by the Pope." Godhood is much more clearly defined.But, again, as I've pointed out, it isn't that simple. People can challenge the preconceived notions of what defines a deity, just like the Sedevacantists challenged the notion of what defines a Pope.

In our world, one of the greatest philosophers of all time, Socrates, challenged the preconceived notion of divinity in his day, using what was considered religious texts of the time -- stories of the greek gods, which to most people defined divinity -- to argue that those same stories could not be about deities, since (according to Socrates) a deity would not lie, cheat, steal, and so on.

Any epic arch-lich can claim a realm as his own (or even create it, if they choose), call it 'divine', and accept petitioners (note that per RAW, petitioners have to willingly travel to their deity as a show of faith -- seriously, those are the rules, so outside of specific settings you're not forced by your alignment or anything. They could travel to anyone else, if they wanted.) Anyone who worships his ideal hard enough will get spells, exactly and totally indistinguishable from the spells they would have gotten from any necromanticly-themed deity. Such an arch-lich could easily crush many more minor deities.

The Lady of Pain is more powerful than most so-called deities (perhaps all so-called deities, since none have managed to take Sigil so far.) She controls a realm more significant, central, and important than the piddling realm of most deities out there; even most of the highest among the divine ranks turn green with envy over her. She does not grant spells, true, but that is as much her choice as anything else; if people worshipped her as an ideal, they would get spells, but she chooses not to allow it. I would say that it is impossible to live in and accept Sigil, and still be a genuine theist; no matter what your definitions, to claim that Cyric is a deity and the Lady of Pain is not is to make a mockery of the very concept of deities.

Anyone of sufficient power can call back the dead, or speak with them; anyone who can occupy the right plane can accept petitioners. Anyone can get spells without a deity, and you can get spells by worshipping anyone or anything if you worship hard enough. 'Immortality' can be won, the deities have failed on power -- what is there left to define them? Specific settings are more strict, but per RAW deities have nothing special. They're just outsiders with some special abilities, and not even particularly unique special abilities.

VanBuren
2008-02-26, 02:02 AM
To the boulder question. I've heard it answered that "yes he can create a boulder so big he himself cannot lift it. And then he lifts it."

Sounds like a contradiction? That's because it is.

It's a meaningless question really. It's just like asking "can God draw a square circle?"

Fiery Diamond
2008-02-26, 02:35 AM
Thank you, VanBuren. I was waiting for someone to say that. It astonishes me that people don't realize that a logical inconsistency is not the some as a logical impossibility. And asking if an omnipotent being can create a boulder so big that he himself cannot lift it is not an impossibility (making him not omnipotent), but an inconsistency (just like a square circle), and therefore completely meaningless. If I said, "can an omnipotent being sasdflfkjanb,m?", this question has just as much validity and meaning as the first one.

Anyway, to the point of the thread -- it depends entirely on the setting. Not everyone uses the setting in the core books or any of the other premade settings. Stop ignoring this fact, people. I create my own settings. I have a setting in which there are no deities. Magic is still divided into divine and arcane - arcane casters manipulate physical energy, while divine casters manipulate spiritual energy. Pretty simple. Of course, this does mean that spells like miracle need to be either more like wish or simply asked of a powerful outsider of the same alignment as the caster.

-Fiery Diamond

Icewalker
2008-02-26, 02:46 AM
Well, in the standard setting, no, as there seems to be quite clear evidence of the gods' existence. You can not worship a god, but that isn't atheism.

There are atheists in my campaign world, as the gods interfere a good bit less in the general world.

Kami2awa
2008-02-26, 04:17 AM
Sorry to mention real world religion, but there exist real, established religions that don't have gods, just supernatural beliefs like reincarnation and often a network of angel-like beings. A cleric based on one of these religions would be, technically, an 'atheist' but very little about the class would change.

crimson77
2008-02-26, 10:35 AM
In Dungeons and Dragons, is it possible to be an atheist? As divine magic is from one, or more deities, is it possible to deny that that is proof, and live a life godless? What's more, if you were atheist, where would you go in the after-life? And has anyone ever played an atheist in D&D?

Actually TSR (company before WoTC) had an entire campaign setting without gods, Darksun. Clerical magic was handled through elements

Sir_Leorik
2008-02-26, 11:30 AM
Again, this argument is highly dangerous to the arguers health in most D&D worlds. This is why the Athar liked Sigil.

Pre-Faction War, yeah the safest place for an Athar was in Sigil. The Lady kept the Deities and their most powerful servants out, so Athar didn't have to worry about lightning bolts striking them while out shopping. Then Factol Darkwood had to go and ruin it for everyone with his attempt to usurp the Lady's place, and all the Factions were given the choice of disbanding, leaving Sigil, or being flayed. The Athar are currently stuck at the base of the Spire, hanging out with the Rilmani. The magic (inlcuding Divine power) doesn't work there, so they're safe, but many Athar were high level wizards, and not a few were Clerics of the "Greater Unknown", which some (including Factol Terrance, who was a 19th level Cleric before he disappeared in the Faction War) believed was the real source of the multiverse. Essentially an Athar now has to give up their magical powers in order to keep their beliefs, or toss those beliefs aside in order to pursue their former calling. (Or they can leave the Spire and risk the lightning bolts.)

BRC
2008-02-26, 11:33 AM
The Difference between DnD religion and Real World religion is mostly in terms of belief.

In the real world, If you believe in a god then chances are you worship that god (there are exceptions I know, but it works as a general rule of thumb)
In DnD it''s hard not to Believe in ALL the gods. However, you only Worship one. God's seem less akin to Religion in our world then to political parties. You acknowladge the existance of all others, but you only hold alligience to one or none.

nagora
2008-02-26, 11:35 AM
Well, in the standard setting, no, as there seems to be quite clear evidence of the gods' existence. You can not worship a god, but that isn't atheism.

Actually, it can be (from OED):

Atheism: Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God. Also, Disregard of duty to God, godlessness (practical atheism).

Someone who denies the Gods' right to be worshipped is an atheist and there's plenty of them in the groups I've played in (both as characters and as players).