# Logic of being atheist in a default D&D campaign.



## Mason4444 (Nov 25, 2014)

Hello Everyone,     I'm a looooong tine lurker, always reading but finally decided to register so I can ask some questions and be social and stuff. How do you logically justify being atheist in a default D&D campaign(not-Planescape either)? Just some straight up plain vanilla Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms where everyone *knows* that there are gods that grant their clerics spells and favor to their followers? What about Krynn? Especially on Krynn, where if everyone knows that if you deny or defy the Gods they can leave or just literally throw a mountain down on your head.       The reason I'm asking is because I'm thinking about starting up a new campaign but the PC's all seem to be a little morally bankrupt and none too religious and one outright atheist. But how does that really *work* in the D&D game? I mean, Clerics being given granted powers from their deity make sense in a way and solves some logic holes. Definitely explains why people choose to serve Good or Evil. But to me, it seems to create another problem -- that it would seem everyone would be choosing to follow a god and be very religious. Of course, then alignments would seem even more restrictive . I kind of liked how Lankhmar touched upon some of this. I know it's just a fantasy game and I'm probably over thinking all this, but I would be curious to hear others thoughts on this matter. I'm sure this has come up before and has probably already been answered.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 25, 2014)

Well, there are a few lines one could take.  They largely boil down to not questioning that power exists, but questioning where it comes from, or questioning the nature of the entities that provide power.

If the gods don't physically manifest, and people don't come back from the dead with clear and consistent memory of the afterlife, then an atheist could suppose that power comes from within the cleric, from focused faith, not from gods.  This is supported in some editions by it being entirely legal for a cleric or other divine spellcaster to *not* follow a god.  If someone can be a cleric, and do all things a cleric does, *without* a god, maybe the gods are all just stories.

Another form of atheism is to recognize that there are powerful entities that provide power for your devotion, but they aren't "gods".  Just as there are peasants and commoners, and there are archmages, there are these other entities up the scale of power - but those entities didn't *make* the universe, or create living beings or the like, and have no more connection to morality and behavior than we give them.  We wanted to believe in something, they saw that, and stepped in.  

For the Forgotten Realms, for example, this second form is not far off the mark - there are gods, but there is Ao over the gods, and Ao has another master over him.  And many of the races of Aber-Toril come from other worlds and planes, and were not created by any native gods.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 25, 2014)

Yeah, I guess the logic has to be that you don't believe them to be gods, but merely powerful beings. That's the only thing that makes sense to me in a fantasy world like the FR.


----------



## Janx (Nov 25, 2014)

could have sworn I'd seen a thread on this in the last year or so.

Bear in mind, as this topic touches Religion, it's risky for crossing the no-religion/politics rule.  So best be mindful to stick to just "in-game" examples.

I think the simplest method of dealing with an Atheist in a world of obvious gods is to treat him like a heretic or village idiot.

It's one thing to refuse to worship Odin, the big guy with one eye who stopped by the village last week to fend off a frost giant attack.

It's another to deny Odin exists and that there was no big guy with one eye in the village last week despite the fact that everybody saw him.

Also consider, is the PC openly ridiculing the gods, trying to convert people to atheism?  Or simply choosing not to express any in-game religious preference?

Outside of the game, consider what your players are looking for/expecting from their RPG.  They may not care for religious considerations in their game.

Culturally, it may be a taboo subject.  Us Minnesotans don't talk about our religion.  When I got to Texas, I was surprised when strangers would ask me what church I went to while waiting in line at a restaurant.  Right friendly conversation to them, deeply personal and political to a northerner in a southern state.


----------



## Janx (Nov 25, 2014)

Morrus said:


> Yeah, I guess the logic has to be that you don't believe them to be gods, but merely powerful beings. That's the only thing that makes sense to me in a fantasy world like the FR.




this chain of logic always felt like arguing semantics over the meaning of the word "god"

I should think that for the sake of playing in a game of "Let's Pretend Odin and Thor are Real" that we could just take it at that and play are darned characters who know Odin and Thor are real.


----------



## Aegir (Nov 25, 2014)

The Netheril period of Forgotten Realms can, in some ways, be called atheist. Most archmages believed Gods were just the next level of power from archmage, so while they saw them as powerful, they didnt believe them to be anything more than exceptionally powerful. 

In Ptolus, the followers of Lothian believe that all _other_ gods are demons: not lacking in power, but mostly out to harvest your soul.

That would seem to be the obvious difference: in the real world, atheists simply believe that God _doesnt _exist. In a fantasy setting, they simply dont believe they're _Gods_.


----------



## Mason4444 (Nov 25, 2014)

I certainly don't want this topic to degenerate into any kind of real world religious/political discussion or anything. I'm just trying to to make sense out of a game about magic and dragons! 

Thanks for everyone who has given their thoughts on the matter. What still doesn't make any sense to me, would be the the 'casual believer' or the ones who only pay lip service to the gods. Say have a large village or town where most people worship Pelor and the Clerics help see to everyone's needs. I mean, wouldn't everyone eventually genuinely worship or be a cleric of Pelor until the goverrnment would basically be a Theocracy? Why aren't all governments Theocracies? I guess I'm looking for in game reasons. How would a couple of happy go lucky rogues justify raiding the temple of Paladine so they might have a night out on the town with their spoils (assuming they don't have kind religious thinking behind it whatsoever)?


----------



## amerigoV (Nov 25, 2014)

Ancient Alien Astronaut Theorists suggest...it's Aliens!


----------



## Celebrim (Nov 25, 2014)

1) The 'gods' are nothing of the sort.  They are just more potent beings, but no more worthy of worship than a mortal.  
2) The 'gods' are actually manifestations of collective human belief.  They didn't make mortals; mortals made them.  Collective disbelief would cause them to cease to exist.  
3) The gods are just powerful monsters, and monsters are for killing.  
4) Even if the gods do exist, so what?  I don't serve a mortal king in this life, and I don't plan to serve an immortal one in the next.

Note that some of these things might actually believed by functional theists, as in, "Maybe the gods aren't worthy of worship and service, but I'd be willing to enter into a contractual relationship...", or, "It doesn't really matter that the gods are manifestations of collective belief, they are still worthy of worship."


----------



## Celebrim (Nov 25, 2014)

Mason4444 said:


> Say have a large village or town where most people worship Pelor and the Clerics help see to everyone's needs. I mean, wouldn't everyone eventually genuinely worship or be a cleric of Pelor until the goverrnment would basically be a Theocracy? Why aren't all governments Theocracies? I guess I'm looking for in game reasons. How would a couple of happy go lucky rogues justify raiding the temple of Paladine so they might have a night out on the town with their spoils (assuming they don't have kind religious thinking behind it whatsoever)?




I always tell my players that a visitor from my world to Medieval Europe would be shocked at how little power was held by the Catholic Church.


----------



## Janx (Nov 25, 2014)

Mason4444 said:


> I certainly don't want this topic to degenerate into any kind of real world religious/political discussion or anything. I'm just trying to to make sense out of a game about magic and dragons!
> 
> Thanks for everyone who has given their thoughts on the matter. What still doesn't make any sense to me, would be the the 'casual believer' or the ones who only pay lip service to the gods. Say have a large village or town where most people worship Pelor and the Clerics help see to everyone's needs. I mean, wouldn't everyone eventually genuinely worship or be a cleric of Pelor until the goverrnment would basically be a Theocracy? Why aren't all governments Theocracies? I guess I'm looking for in game reasons. How would a couple of happy go lucky rogues justify raiding the temple of Paladine so they might have a night out on the town with their spoils (assuming they don't have kind religious thinking behind it whatsoever)?




If you watch The Tudors, I'm not so sure the government wasn't a Theocracy, from a certain standpoint.  religion and government were entwined, and if nothing else, religious faults were used for political leverage.

As for your rogues, I'd assume they are people who haven't thought deeply on religion and their actions.  Much like kids who just do things impulsively, without thinking through the consequences.  As such, they go to church every churchday, and don't think of themselves as Asmodius's servants, but they don't think of their actions in relation to the harm they are causing.


----------



## S_Dalsgaard (Nov 25, 2014)

This reminds me of the missionary in the movie Erik the Viking. Because he didn't believe in the Norse gods (and therefore magic), every time something magical happened, he simply couldn't see it or found some mundane explanation for it


----------



## Vigilance (Nov 25, 2014)

I've had magic-users who rolled their eyes at clerics anytime they mentioned their god and said "it's just magic, I can use magic too".


----------



## Umbran (Nov 25, 2014)

Janx said:


> this chain of logic always felt like arguing semantics over the meaning of the word "god"




In matters of faith, isn't the meaning of the word "god" pretty much all-important?



> I should think that for the sake of playing in a game of "Let's Pretend Odin and Thor are Real" that we could just take it at that and play are darned characters who know Odin and Thor are real.




But the game isn't "let's pretend Odin and Thor are real".  The game is D&D.  Whether Odin and Thor are real is rather up in the air, depending on the GM.  

And it isn't like players wanting to play against type are rare.  What, is it too hard for a GM to figure out how non-believers fit into a world?


----------



## Umbran (Nov 25, 2014)

Mason4444 said:


> Say have a large village or town where most people worship Pelor and the Clerics help see to everyone's needs.




Well, this depends upon the demographics of the world, and the rule set.  Maybe there are enough clerics to really take care of everyone, and maybe there aren't.

Take 5e.  Strictly speaking, everyone regains all hit points over a long rest.  Why do I need a cleric for day-to-day stuff?  If I can survive trauma long enough to get a long rest, then the cleric is mostly superfluous.  And it isn't like clerics are the only ones who can cure things...



> I mean, wouldn't everyone eventually genuinely worship or be a cleric of Pelor until the goverrnment would basically be a Theocracy?




Well, in that world, are the clerics of Pelor the *only* people who can heal?  If not, then the people have choices, and it isn't a done-deal for Pelor.  Do the people actually need the clerics all that frequently - do mundane skills handle most of their needs?


----------



## neonagash (Nov 25, 2014)

I can see 2 takes on it. 

1. You believe the gods either dont exist or arent gods as has been mentioned. 

2. You do believe the gods are real but in a pantheistic society the character simply hasnt found the one patron god that really speaks to them yet. So even though he knows the gods are real the character doesnt worship any of them and could thus be considered an Athiest.


----------



## Janx (Nov 25, 2014)

Umbran said:


> In matters of faith, isn't the meaning of the word "god" pretty much all-important?




only to people who like arguing semantics.

Make a list of the traits that describe Loki, Odin and Thor.

Show that list to an average NPC and they'll say "that sounds like a god to me"

Because it's only the philosophical muckety mucks who give this whole thing more thought about who is or isn't a god.

King Bob is king because every body says so and nobody successfully deposes him, and even then, he WAS the King.  Odin is a god for the same reason.

Even if a PC gets powerful and kills Odin, that doesn't disprove Odin wasn't a God all those centuries.  It simply means the PC has gained the same power as a god (and may even become considered a god).

Even today, we don't go around correcting people that "Odin wasn't a god" even if we say he wasn't real.  That's part of the power/respect/awe a god has by nature of being a god.



Umbran said:


> But the game isn't "let's pretend Odin and Thor are real".  The game is D&D.  Whether Odin and Thor are real is rather up in the air, depending on the GM.
> 
> And it isn't like players wanting to play against type are rare.  What, is it too hard for a GM to figure out how non-believers fit into a world?




For a generic D&D game as the OP said, it isn't up in the air, it is quite defined.  Odin is a god and he is real in this campaign.

it is the player who is refusing to engage with that state of affairs.  He is not "playing against type" he is "refusing to play" and most likely bringing his real world religion in (or lack thereof) in lieu of portraying a character who actually lives there.

It's also possible the player just doesn't care about religion stuff in general, but those types are likely to not engage with religion at all in a game.  For those type of players, this whole thread is "meh" and the OP should figure out if he's fretting over players who just don't care for the subject.


----------



## steeldragons (Nov 25, 2014)

Well, this depends on the game world. In the ones with Odin actually walking around, there's not a lot you can do to justify atheism other than the aforementioned "they exist but aren't gods" attitude.

In other more...subtle [?] worlds where the gods exist, their clerics receive magic from them, etc etc...but the gods, themselves, are not physically manifesting in all their godly glory in front of mortals, atheism is/would be a matter of faith -or lack thereof.

To the atheist, the clerics and those faithful to the gods are deluded, if not demented. They have magic. Sure. So does his pal the mage..and [in 5e] the bard, the paladin, the ranger, the warlock, practically every friggin body on the planet can "do magic!" Big whoop. That doesn't "prove" anything about the so-called "gods' existence."

To the clerics, the atheist is [well, literally] apostate and to be viewed with anything from pitiable to heretical to, well, a madman or moron in the face of what the faithful consider "overwhelming evidence" of their magical power.  

So, in those worlds, being an atheist is really not difficult at all. Deity visit you in a dream? You ate some bad cheese. Think you see an angel when you are getting healed -by the charitable good-natured cleric in the group- from a serious wound? Just as convincing as a dream. Or, sure angels are real! They're just some extradimensional creature, same as any other. Nothing "divine"/metaphysical/religious about them. Temples and religions abound throughout the world, everywhere you go? So what, the druids aren't worshipping gods and they have magical powers. The mages. Even the lowly goblinoids and base savages have shamans and witchdoctors casting magic they claim comes from some dark spirits or demons. Size of a temple doesn't matter. A temple's just a building. A religion is a social construct. There is nothing you have experienced that has given you the faith that the gods exist. You want to be an atheist in a "normal D&D world", be an atheist...and the faithful of the world will treat you accordingly.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 25, 2014)

Janx said:


> only to people who like arguing semantics.




Or arguing faith - which, honestly, is a lot of folks.  People fight wars over this stuff, you know.  



> Make a list of the traits that describe Loki, Odin and Thor.
> 
> Show that list to an average NPC and they'll say "that sounds like a god to me"




It will *also* sound like the archmage and her buddies from her adventuring days over in the capitol city. 

Do you worship that archmage?  Even though she does as much ore more visible work for the nation than Odin seems to?

When you get mortals wielding epic power, that does bring up the question - why am I worshiping this "god" again?  I mean, he isn't really all that much better than the people I can actually go visit in person, if I am lucky...

That's a thing we have to hash out here - actual *faith*.  Not just, "I go through the motions," but real, nigh unshiftable belief in the spiritual relevance of an entity.  In a world where many such entities are competing for human attention, questions are bound to come up.


----------



## was (Nov 26, 2014)

Various campaign settings have put forth archetypes of characters who believe that gods exist but reject them and their influences as self-centered/harmful to the best interest of humanity.  It would not be hard to imagine a character who has suffered a personal tragedy of some sort rejecting the gods.


----------



## Emirikol (Nov 26, 2014)

An atheist, especially in a fantasy world, would claim that deities are nothing more than powerful bully aliens playing master of puppets while dangling the string "if you try really, really hard you can be like me! [not..but it's funny watching you try and die as nothing more than my 'pawn' in a larger game! bu ha ha ha ha!]".  

I"m currently dealing with this in a Pathfinder game in Osirion (Egypt), where it is almost comedically true.  As D&D has long-since defined deities as such, it's not a stretch I think for a player or GM to use that as inspiration.











jh


----------



## Andor (Nov 26, 2014)

There is one more possibility thats has been hinted at but not called out. In a lot, indeed most, polytheistic creation myths the gods are formed from the blood (at best) of some former entity or creation and humans then arise from left overs, or the spilled blood of the gods, etc.

So by implication humanity is formed out of the same stuff as the gods, merely lesser in stature and power and the difference is one of degree, not kind.

An atheist in such a system may be one who refuses to bow to his betters from pride or ambition. Probably he seeks to become a "deity" himself.

Indeed the simplest in world justification for the level system is that each level is a step on the road to apotheosis.


----------



## Dioltach (Nov 26, 2014)

There's an atheist in Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. He even keeps up his atheism in the face of the god's appearance.



> (Simony) looked up at the god.
> "Will you help?"
> V. You Don't Even Believe In Me!
> "Yes, but I'm a practical man."
> ...


----------



## Jhaelen (Nov 26, 2014)

Mason4444 said:


> I certainly don't want this topic to degenerate into any kind of real world religious/political discussion or anything. I'm just trying to to make sense out of a game about magic and dragons!



Just turn the question around: Why would anyone in a (naturally completely hypothetical...) world devoid of dragons and magic choose to ignore scientific evidence to invent supernatural explanations? It's basically the same answer: (willful) ignorance knows no bounds.



Mason4444 said:


> What still doesn't make any sense to me, would be the the 'casual believer' or the ones who only pay lip service to the gods. Say have a large village or town where most people worship Pelor and the Clerics help see to everyone's needs. I mean, wouldn't everyone eventually genuinely worship or be a cleric of Pelor until the goverrnment would basically be a Theocracy? Why aren't all governments Theocracies? I guess I'm looking for in game reasons. How would a couple of happy go lucky rogues justify raiding the temple of Paladine so they might have a night out on the town with their spoils (assuming they don't have kind religious thinking behind it whatsoever)?



Why should they? Try replacing 'gods' with any kind of mundane, powerful individuals. Why would anyone break a king's laws?
Because they think they can get away with it! There isn't really much of a difference between raiding a temple and raiding the king's treasury: In both cases you're likely to attract the attention of someone much more powerful than you. It may be risky, but it's a risk some will be willing to take. Just because a god or one of its servants (supernatural or otherwise) might intervene doesn't mean they actually will.


----------



## Zadmar (Nov 26, 2014)

Mason4444 said:


> How do you logically justify being atheist in a default D&D campaign(not-Planescape either)? Just some straight up plain vanilla Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms where everyone *knows* that there are gods that grant their clerics spells and favor to their followers? What about Krynn? Especially on Krynn, where if everyone knows that if you deny or defy the Gods they can leave or just literally throw a mountain down on your head.



In the Dragonlance setting, Raistlin proved that Belzor was a false god, and when Caramon and Tasslehoff traveled to the future, they discovered that Raistlin had also destroyed Takhisis and all of the other "true" gods.  Then there are the barbarian tribes that worship dragons, the Cult of the Worm that worshipped a huge worm, the Temple of the Forerunners who follow their ancestoral spirits, and so on.

I doubt many people would lack belief (a la atheism) in the existence of dragons, ghosts, huge worms, etc.  But believing they exist is not the same as believing they are gods.  They're more like personality cults, in the same way that certain pharaohs, prophets, kings, queens, heroes and emperors were/are considered deities.  Is Takhisis a god?  Some would say so, but then many said the same thing about Belzor until Raistlin proved otherwise.  And the only reason Takhisis is still alive is that Raistlin chose to spare her life...

Of course it also comes down to definitions.  If you use the Oxford Dictionary definition of a god as "a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes" then that would cover all sorts of undead and magical beings.  In that case atheism wouldn't make sense - just as the concept of faith ("strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof") would become redundant - when the proof is all around you.

In the Forgotten Realms setting there was a Time of Troubles where the gods were stripped of their power, and many of them were killed, only to be replaced by former mortals.  Once again it's going to be pretty difficult to lack belief in the gods, but I envision it as being more like the Marvel universe; if some guy who used to hang around your local pub suddenly developed superpowers, would you consider him a god and start worshipping him?

I think the Eberron setting is also worth a mention, as it has a rather interesting stance on religion.  The Sovereign Host have no interaction with the material plane, and there's no direct evidence of their existence, nor is there an afterlife for the faithful.  There are also clerics who worship distinctly non-divine entities (such as a warforged terrorist leader, and a half-dragon lich) and apparently wield magical power as a result, strongly implying that their power comes from within.  While there are certainly plenty of magical beings in Eberron, including some (such as powerful dragons, and outsiders such as Radiant Idols) who desire worship, there is nothing that couldn't be defeated by a band of heroic adventurers.  I don't imagine many people would worship a creature that is demonstrably weaker than _they_ are.

But in fantasy settings where immortal gods walk among mortals, a more appropriate stance might be misotheism or maltheism.  Even in Norse mythology there were stories of mortals who turned away from the gods in disgust, preferring to trust in their own strength and virtue.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 26, 2014)

This reminds me of Victor Mordenheim in Ravenloft, who was a scientist and didn't believe in magic. In one of the novels they showed him seeing magic first hand and trying to come to terms with it as a "new science". I think this very much depends on how interactive the gods themselves are with the population. But there is also wiggle room for atheism even if they do interact because one could argue they are not gods, but just really powerful people in the setting in order to maintain an atheist worldview (maybe that god is really just a powerful wizard). Still I do think it is harder in a setting with magic and gods who have a direct hand in the world for characters to be atheists. 

Another thing to consider, if someone simply means god as a creator of the cosmos, then you might have more room to work within. This is again treating the gods as merely powerful entities who can lord that over the setting, but one could still believe, I suppose, that the universe was not created by a god.


----------



## RSKennan (Nov 26, 2014)

Atheism can also be defined as a life without god/s independent of belief in their existence. As mentioned, that can mean simply the lack of a deity that is considered worth worshipping, etc. 

My favorite take on this is the one that I use for one of the cultures in my setting: 

"If not for an accident of birth, I too would be a god." It acknowledges their existence, but as mentioned upthread, it's simply an acknowledgement of their power, not their right to it.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Nov 26, 2014)

"I have seen a 17th level wizard appear from thin air, call down fire from the sky, and literally Wish things into being.  What are Gods but particularly powerful spellcasters running a confidence trick?"


----------



## Dioltach (Nov 26, 2014)

If deities derive their power from their followers' belief, atheism could be seen as choosing not to support any god.


----------



## steenan (Nov 27, 2014)

Neonchameleon said:


> "I have seen a 17th level wizard appear from thin air, call down fire from the sky, and literally Wish things into being.  What are Gods but particularly powerful spellcasters running a confidence trick?"




What a god has that a high level spellcaster doesn't, from an in-setting point of view?

It's not anybody running a confidence trick. Spellcasters above 10th level are gods by most definitions of this word. Above that it's only a matter of relative power differences between deities.


----------



## skinnydwarf (Nov 27, 2014)

I think some of you are looking at this the wrong way. As players and DMs, we know the lore of the default D&D setting: that the gods are real, that they grant spells, that they live on the planes, that worshipers give them power, etc.

But that's the wrong perspective.  You should approach the question "how could a character be an atheist in a default D&D setting" from the perspective of the characters in the world.  *We the players* know what we know of the world because that's the assumption of the setting.  The books and the DM told us so.  The only way the characters would know these things, however, is through experience, observing things, and coming up with explanations to explain those observations.  Or, for things they have not experienced or are confused about, by learning from elders, or in school or a temple.  In other words, they learn about their world the same way we learn about ours.

Those living in the D&D world witness both the cleric and the wizard do magic, but only one of those is considered divine.  The atheist character asks, "Why should I believe that there is there a distinction between arcane magic and divine magic?"  This character does not find the so-called evidence for the existance of the gods to be convincing, because he can find other rational explanations for that evidence that does not involve the existance of divine beings.

"This guy was healed by a cleric!" Yeah, magic is a thing.
"This guy was raised from the dead!"  Yeah, the wizard can do that too, we just call those flesh golems.
"Fire rained from the sky!" Yeah, you just need a fifth level wizard for that. Or a dragon with greater invisibility.*
"The god came down and was super powerful!" Yeah, you know who else is super powerful? Dragons, the tarrasque, etc. But they aren't gods.

I think the issue is that, in a world where the supernatural and magic are relatively commonplace (but are not always divine), it is easy to rationalize any "evidence" of divinity as simply another example of the supernatural that you already understand.

The atheist character sees some divine magic, and explains it with reference to what he already knows about magic- that is a non-divine force undrstandable by mortals.  Divine magic looks just like arcane magic, so it must have the same source and follow the same rules.

Different characters have different epistemological views.  The same evidence is seen as divine intervention by the cleric and other faithful, and as yet another manifestation of magic by the atheist D&D character.

On the flip side, maybe there could be a religious character who does not believe in arcane magic- surely that is the work of the gods! It looks just like divine magic, so it must be divine! Wizard, you are merely deluding yourself by thinking you can understand and manipulate the gods' creation!

* This would give rise to (absurd to us) arguments such as: "You believe in the gods because you saw fire from the sky? Tell me, what's more likely, that there are a dozens of supremely powerful beings with nothing better to do than give mortals powers and otherwise interfere with their lives so that they are worshipped, or that there was a passing invisible dragon that breathed fire?  Believe in the gods? No thanks.  I've seen dragons and invisible creatures (I've got a ring for that), I'll believe my eyes!"


----------



## Evenglare (Nov 28, 2014)

By definition, if your campaign has gods that make themselves known overtly, you simply can't be an atheist. If you choose to think about gods not as gods but powerful beings, then they aren't gods. If you call them gods thats fine, but you are using either the atheist term or god term wrong. You need to cut one of those words from your vocabulary in regards from this situation. It's a simple binary problem, if you use one of those words you can't use the other. Now, even though you can't use the term atheist you can be an antitheist(see christopher hitchens) and simply denounce the power of the gods or go so far as to oppose them.


----------



## skinnydwarf (Dec 1, 2014)

Evenglare said:


> By definition, if your campaign has gods that make themselves known overtly, you simply can't be an atheist.




I don't know why there cannot be an atheist character if your campaign has gods.  The character would simply be wrong about the gods not existing.



Evenglare said:


> If you choose to think about gods not as gods but powerful beings, then they aren't gods. If you call them gods thats fine, but you are using either the atheist term or god term wrong. You need to cut one of those words from your vocabulary in regards from this situation. It's a simple binary problem, if you use one of those words you can't use the other. Now, even though you can't use the term atheist you can be an antitheist(see christopher hitchens) and simply denounce the power of the gods or go so far as to oppose them.




This is an interesting debate for the characters in the world to have (what does it mean to be a god?), but I don't see how it means that a character cannot be an atheist.

I guess it comes down to the basic problem of any philosophical discussion: defining what the heck we are talking about.  In terms of this discussion, when I say "the gods" I mean those defined as gods in the default D&D setting.  And when I say "atheist" I mean a character who does not believe those beings exist.

You could have a character who believes that the beings called "gods" exist but doesn't think that they are gods.  I think that character still counts as an atheist, but it's atheist in a weird way, since he believes in the existence of what everyone else refers to as gods.  It's not the usual disagreement about divine existence (eg, do gods exist or not).  Instead of disagreeing about whether the gods exist, the cleric and the atheist character disagree about what it means to be a god.

In my head, the atheist character thinks no beings that exist meet his definition of what it means to be a god.  On the other hand, he could just disbelieve in the divinity of the beings everyone else calls gods, and just be atheist to those beings, but still believe a real god exists out there somewhere. In that case, I don't think he counts as an atheist the way the term is used in modern days; he simply disagrees about which god is the real one. (In Forgotten Realms, maybe he doesn't think most of the gods count as gods, but Ao does).


----------



## Janx (Dec 1, 2014)

In the real world, is there anybody who truly believes that the world is actually flat?  By truly believe, I mean they aren't just being obtuse for the sake of disagreeing with everybody else (aka Oppositional Defiance).

Columbus and Magellan sort of settled the matter.  Satellites and stuff ought to have sealed the deal.

Hypothetically, a guy in the real world who truly believes the world is flat (and not some primitive bloke in the jungle who's never seen a cell phone) is the real world equivalent to a D&D-land character who doesn't believe the gods exist.

I would imagine, a Flat-Earther is as confounding to any of us to understand, as a D&D-Lander who doesn't think Thor exists.  How do you even reason with somebody like that?


----------



## Umbran (Dec 1, 2014)

Janx said:


> Hypothetically, a guy in the real world who truly believes the world is flat (and not some primitive bloke in the jungle who's never seen a cell phone) is the real world equivalent to a D&D-land character who doesn't believe the gods exist.




If you are in the later-canon FR, where the gods have literally walked the land in living memory, yes.

If you are in some other world (or FR before the time of troubles), where that hasn't happened...

Exactly what evidence does the common person have that the gods really do exist? That clerics work magic is not sufficient - by core rules of several editions, clerics *without* gods can use that magic.  Bards and mages also use magic.  "I cast clerical spells" is not proof of the nature of the power behind those spells.  Gating in angels who claim to work for gods is not proof - how many entities in the world *lie* about who they work for?

The bulk of people in the fantasy world do not have access to the equivalent of NASA.gov, that has images that pretty much prove the Earth isn't flat.  I, personally, can set up the shadow-stick experiment and show the geometry that demonstrates the planet is round - and estimate its radius for you.  Is there a shadow-stick experiment for the existence of gods?  What is the evidence that is supposed to make it clear, Janx?


----------



## billd91 (Dec 1, 2014)

Janx said:


> In the real world, is there anybody who truly believes that the world is actually flat?  By truly believe, I mean they aren't just being obtuse for the sake of disagreeing with everybody else (aka Oppositional Defiance).
> 
> Columbus and Magellan sort of settled the matter.  Satellites and stuff ought to have sealed the deal.
> 
> ...




Considering there are people today who believe there is crystal clear evidence of the existence of any number of gods and their direct intervention on the globe, the logic of an atheist is exactly the same as it is in a game with in-campaign divine intervention. You don't need to bring up an analogy of a flat earther. All you have to do is realize that, from the perspective of the atheist, that crystal clear evidence is either not crystal clear or not evidence. Some other explanation is at work.


----------



## Celebrim (Dec 1, 2014)

Janx said:


> In the real world, is there anybody who truly believes that the world is actually flat?




Yes, there really are.  There aren't many of them, but they exist.

To begin with, I should say that I don't find them particularly confounding or hard to understand.  I personally believe the earth is round, but its not at all hard for me to imagine why a person would believe it is flat.   The roundness of the Earth is not something that most people must deal with on a daily basis. 



> Columbus and Magellan sort of settled the matter.  Satellites and stuff ought to have sealed the deal.




This is a good example of why the average Flat Earther doesn't believe the world is round.  Because absolutely and without a doubt, these things do not settle the matter.  For one thing, to believe that they do settle the matter requires putting faith in some authority that told you there was this guy named Magellan who sailed around the Earth and that Magellan himself didn't misunderstand what he'd done.  Real flat earther's have maps of the earth that allow for its circumnavigation without contradicting the idea that the world is flat.   What that map doesn't do a good job of is actually allowing you to circumnavigate the world without incident, but since most people don't actually need to sail around the world taking measurements of it, there is no way just by looking to know whether a map is good or not.

The point is that you yourself probably have never settled for yourself whether the Earth is flat or round.   Rather, authorities that you trust and the vast majority of people believe it is round, so you do too.   

The Flat Earthers are the sort of skeptics that don't take it for granted that other people have it right or that the authorities are truthful.   Most are highly rational, intelligent and fairly well educated individuals that earnestly and sincerely believe that the world is flat, and for whom this belief causes them no daily distress or problems whatsoever.  

The way you reason with them is foremost to find a way for them to personally experience the world's roundness.  Appealing to Magellan is never going to do it.   Trying to get them to experience the world's actual roundness probably won't either, because an intelligent and creative mind can always find an alternative explanation for what they experience if they try, but it's certainly more on point that citing 'satellites', which are also outside of most person's daily experience.


----------



## Umbran (Dec 1, 2014)

Celebrim said:


> Most are highly rational, intelligent and fairly well educated individuals that earnestly and sincerely believe that the world is flat, and for whom this belief causes them no daily distress or problems whatsoever.




Except that belief in a flat Earth requires chucking Occam's Razor out the window (usually selectively - they'll hold to it for other things, but not for this).  There is a point where the string of patches and complicated explanations required to sustain the Flat Earth under even available evidence becomes something that a rational mind would avoid, or accept only at need, rather than cling to.  

Modern GPS systems, for example, are hard to explain with a flat Earth.  They are easy to explain with a round Earth.


----------



## Celebrim (Dec 1, 2014)

Umbran said:


> Except that belief in a flat Earth requires chucking Occam's Razor out the window (usually selectively - they'll hold to it for other things, but not for this).  There is a point where the string of patches and complicated explanations required to sustain the Flat Earth under even available evidence becomes something that a rational mind would avoid, or accept only at need, rather than cling to.
> 
> Modern GPS systems, for example, are hard to explain with a flat Earth.  They are easy to explain with a round Earth.




I'm surprised you didn't mention the retrograde motion of Mars.  All true, but rather beside the point.  There are plenty of real world things where the real world explanation is pretty darn counter-intuitive and frankly bizarre.   Occam's Razor requires us to chuck out simple explanations that are too simple to fit the observed facts.  The people in question believe that they have an explanation that better fits the observed facts.  If it has complexities, they are no more complex than the real geometries you'd need to explain to someone to do the stick experiment.  Probably the people in question would throw Occam's Razor back in your face, citing the complexity of your model of the world.  The available evidence isn't as readily available as all that.   You and I can both do the stick experiment, but probably we haven't, because doing it requires a couple hundred miles of driving and some precise observations.  It's work, not 'fun'.

My guess is that - even if you could convince them to go to the trouble of testing something that they 'know' to be true - a Flat Earther that did it would find, probably unconsciously, a way to get the data to fit a Flat Earth.  I've certainly seen enough graduate students cleverly fitting data to the model...

I don't have as much faith in the rational mind as you do.  I've met too many brilliant people.


----------



## Janx (Dec 1, 2014)

Umbran said:


> If you are in the later-canon FR, where the gods have literally walked the land in living memory, yes.
> 
> If you are in some other world (or FR before the time of troubles), where that hasn't happened...
> 
> ...




Beats me, but that was rather my point.

If it is possible for a real world person to not recognize the earth is round by way of all the sciency things that exist, then that is demonstration of the concept that D&D Character might also not accept that which was assumed to be inherently obvious an true (that Gods exist).

Since this position is in effect, the opposite of my previous declaration of "it's not possible for there to be an Atheist in D&D", it appears that you may have missed that from my writing.


----------



## Samloyal23 (Dec 3, 2014)

So if you acknowledge the existence of gods but simply do not care and do not put any faith in them, are you an atheist? If you say, "So, okay, that's a portal to Olympus, and I went through it and saw Zeus, but so what? What does he have to do with ME?" are you an atheist? Hmm...


----------



## Aegir (Dec 3, 2014)

Technically, the definition of atheist is that you dont believe in God, in _any_ form, so no that'd be more agnostic. Atheist would probably be the right word for someone who believed the Gods were just very powerful mortal (or formerly mortal) beings, but not true Gods.


----------



## Samloyal23 (Dec 3, 2014)

Is atheism about devotion and loyalty or factuality?  Agnosticism implies you do not know one way or another...


----------



## steenan (Dec 3, 2014)

Aegir said:


> Technically, the definition of atheist is that you dont believe in God, in _any_ form, so no that'd be more agnostic. Atheist would probably be the right word for someone who believed the Gods were just very powerful mortal (or formerly mortal) beings, but not true Gods.




Then the question is what do you mean by "true gods".

For most of our world history, "gods" meant just "powerful beings who control some aspects of reality". In D&D high level spellcasters satisfy this definition and creatures described as deities in the books do it for sure.

Most D&D deities can be killed, so they probably count as "mortal".

So your atheist actually believes in the same things as most people in the setting.


----------



## Zadmar (Dec 3, 2014)

Samloyal23 said:


> Is atheism about devotion and loyalty or factuality?



In the broadest sense, atheism is simply the absence of belief in the existence of deities, it is not a positive assertion.



Samloyal23 said:


> Agnosticism implies you do not know one way or another...



Right, it's the absence of knowledge, or the view that the truth is unknown and/or unknowable.

If you were roleplaying in a Stargate setting based on the original movie, I think all of the following beliefs would be valid character choices:

*Gnostic theist:* I believe that Ra is a god, I've seen the miracles he performs.

*Gnostic atheist:* I don't believe that Ra is a god, the evidence proves that he's just a Goa'uld.

*Agnostic theist:* I believe that Ra is a god, but I don't think there's enough evidence to prove it.

*Agnostic atheist:* I don't believe that Ra is a god, but the evidence doesn't prove he isn't one.

Of course all four viewpoints recognise that there's a guy called Ra, and I doubt anyone would dispute that he's powerful, but not everyone would consider him a god.  I think the same could apply to many fantasy settings.


----------



## Andor (Dec 3, 2014)

There is also the question of viewpoint. In the theological chinese firedrill that is the forgotten realms a devout believer in Torm, for example, might well have never heard of several dozen perfectly legitemate deities. Does that make him an atheist just because he's never heard of Blipdilopodol?


----------



## Janx (Dec 4, 2014)

steenan said:


> Then the question is what do you mean by "true gods".
> 
> For most of our world history, "gods" meant just "powerful beings who control some aspects of reality". In D&D high level spellcasters satisfy this definition and creatures described as deities in the books do it for sure.
> 
> ...




This was my earlier point.  Get a list of descriptors for Thor and friends, and a medieval NPC would say those describe a god.

I think we've all got a much more hoity toity meaning to the word "god" now that pretty much excludes everything.  Ironic, because all the old gods were traditionally flawed charaters (zeus, thor, etc).

I would differentiate a God from a spell caster. The nature of a god is that they are worshipped.  through such worship, they grant favor or protection.  A wizard generally doesn't do that (though it's not impossible for them to run a protection for worship racket).

Things get fuzzy with gods that don't have worshippers, or don't deliver services for worship rendered, but I'd say those gods are designed to be contrary to standard.


----------



## Celebrim (Dec 4, 2014)

Janx said:


> I think we've all got a much more hoity toity meaning to the word "god" now that pretty much excludes everything.  Ironic, because all the old gods were traditionally flawed charaters (zeus, thor, etc).




A Greek polytheist would have had no particular trouble identifying an individual tree or spring or even an unusual rock as a god, worthy of reverence, and likely to reward service and punish disrespect.

The word people keeping looking for here is impious.


----------



## WayneLigon (Dec 8, 2014)

Pathfinder has an 'atheist' people in Rahadoum, but rather than deny the existence of the gods, they hold that no man should be dependent or beholden to one.

How do you justify being an actual atheist in the default D&D world? I'm sure atheists could exist because any form of aberrant human thought is certainly going to find expression in the world, regardless of the truth of the matter. (As outside observers, we know the truth of the matter as regards the base default D&D world, but for those within that world it might be an open question to many. Simply seeing apparent miracles isn't enough. A well-travelled or educated person is going to know about the various things wizards and sorcerers can do as well, and might use that knowledge to question the existence of gods or make many of the conclusions already discussed.)

They simply find out they are wrong when they die, but even their shades returning to tell their friends or someone using an item to bring a atheist into the presence of an actual god possibly isn't going to convince them of the truth - the human mind is infinitely plastic when trying to rationalize things. Certainly most would be convinced by the sheer presence of an actual god, but some will not be. They'd still be wrong, though


----------



## WayneLigon (Dec 8, 2014)

steenan said:


> For most of our world history, "gods" meant just "powerful beings who control some aspects of reality". In D&D high level spellcasters satisfy this definition and creatures described as deities in the books do it for sure.




High level wizards don't control reality in any real fashion, topping out at 20th level as they do. They can't make planes, create worlds, light stars, sink nations, make races, print souls, etc, etc. They are pretty obviously limited to 'human level' magic, and never have the power to make large, permanent, global changes without the benefit of GM handwavium.


----------



## Umbran (Dec 8, 2014)

WayneLigon said:


> They can't make planes, create worlds, light stars, sink nations, make races, print souls, etc, etc.




There have been epic level magics for PCs in some editions that involve creating planes, if I recall correctly.

As for the rest - depending on the edition and rules you're talking about, D&D gods can't do those things either.


----------



## tomBitonti (Dec 8, 2014)

Maybe, you don't justify it?  The default setting (except Eberron) has deities written into the rules.  Any character who doesn't believe deities exist (without quibbling over the definition) has a gross disassociation.  That is, they are insane.  Most other characters would treat with them as we would treat someone who disbelieved a plainly visible truth.

Eberron is a special case, in that divine power exists, but deities as such do not provably exist.  You could get away with it in Midnight, too.

Thx!

TomB


----------

