D&D General Nay-Theists Vs. Flat-Earth Atheists in D&D Worlds

[Ruin Explorer]

It seems like Nay-Theists would be pretty common in D&D settings, especially those where there are relatively few Divine spellcasters, and where those spellcasters don't focus on helping people, and particularly where they are in conflict with other faiths a lot.

Indeed, in the Forgotten Realms the gods run what is effectively a protection racket because of this, whereby if you're a Nay-Theist, your soul is shoved into a torture-wall for the rest of eternity, whereas no matter how vile you were, if you just actually worship a god or two, you pass on. This seems to basically be a crude fix to the "these gods all totally suck" issue the FR would otherwise suffer from.

Whereas in a setting where you had a lot of Divine casters, who were handing out healing and cures and stuff to people pretty much constantly, well, those faiths would become immensely popular, and Nay-Theists would be rare.

Flat-Earth Atheists seem like they'd be pretty common in any setting where the gods don't manifest and can't be reached by planar travelers (like Eberron), because there's ALWAYS an alternative explanation, magic-wise.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

The gods exist, but they are not divine. They are just powerful extraplanar beings. They are not worthy of worship, nor do they have as much power that clerics assign them. They are operating a confidence trick. The source of a cleric's power is actually internal.

Or, even if the gods genuinely grant power to clerics, that doesn't prove anything about the nature of the gods other than that they have powerful magic.

 

[Oofta]

I played a wizard who didn't believe in the gods. He posited that the gods were the creation of people, that every prayer was in effect a tiny spell. Get enough people praying, worshipping, following certain rituals and all that power of belief has to go somewhere. The spells clerics cast all came from a buildup of powers from prayers. Instead of relying on other people for spells, he decided to manipulate magic himself.

The gods were artificially created beings that reflected what people wanted to see in their gods. They were "real" only in the sense that all that magic had coalesced into entities that mimicked life. It explained why there could be "forgotten" gods and why gods generally wanted ever more worshippers. Gods were no more living creatures than a clay golem.

 

[Voadam]

A "flat earth atheist" can also say yes, there are "deities" who are powerful divine magical beings who grant power. They are conceptually similar to powerful arcane entities who grant powers to warlocks, or to genies who grant wishes, or to archmage mortals with the wish spell. A bunch of these "deities" are mortals who have tapped sources of divine magic to be more powerful, like more powerful clerics and druids and paladins. Other "deities" are naturally supernatural powerful beings like genies.

 

[dave2008]

In a world where clerics exist, atheism can't really exist.

Cleric: My deity gives me power.
Atheist: There is no such thing as deities, your spells come from some powerful natural source.
Cleric: But if I behave in conflict with my god's wishes, they withdraw their power. A natural source wouldn't care about that.
Atheist: So, its a powerful natural source with a moral code.
Cleric: Which is pretty much the definition of a god.

Your definition of a god is simply a powerful entity that grants others magic power. That is also the definition of demonic pact. I think the atheist would have no issue viewing the cleric's "god" as such a demon instead.

 

[Umbran]

Your definition of a god is simply a powerful entity that grants others magic power. That is also the definition of demonic pact. I think the atheist would have no issue viewing the cleric's "god" as such a demon instead.

The atheist could also say that the power comes from the cleric's belief interacting with the fabric of magic. The deity has no objective existence. The cleric's loss of power when defying the deity is based in his own loss of belief, not the act of an outside agency.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I had a player run a nay-theist duergar barbarian when I ran Out of the Abyss. But like everything else with the character, it was a schtick with no real depth beyond the surface. Shame, because there could've been a lot of meat to that concept.

 

[Umbran]

So, you start getting into weird things when you realize that what people believe does not have to be aligned with reality.

Say you have a world in which gods exist. They created the world, and aspects of that world depend upon them. They derive power from worship, and give power to clerics. All fairly standard D&D stuff.

There will be folks who believe in those gods. There will be folks who believe in those gods, but user different names. There will be folks who believe in gods that are admixtures of the real gods - taking the fertility aspect of Aphrodite, the wisdom aspect of Athena, and call it Frotberga. There will be people who believe in completely false gods (but, whose needs may or may not be served by a real god anyway).

And any of these beliefs may be denied.

So, like, your culture may follow false gods, and you deny the existence of those gods, and you're sort of right, but missing the point....

And then you get into believing in a false god yourself, while denying someone else's gods, who actually totally exist....

 

[Charlaquin]

Flat-Earth Atheists seem like they'd be pretty common in any setting where the gods don't manifest and can't be reached by planar travelers (like Eberron), because there's ALWAYS an alternative explanation, magic-wise.

If there is room for reasonable doubt as to the existence of the gods, someone who doesn’t believe in them is not a flat-earth atheist by the definitions given. They’re just an atheist. You can’t have a flat-earth atheist in Eberron because nobody knows if the gods exist in Eberron, not even the angels.

 

[Charlaquin]

A "flat earth atheist" can also say yes, there are "deities" who are powerful divine magical beings who grant power. They are conceptually similar to powerful arcane entities who grant powers to warlocks, or to genies who grant wishes, or to archmage mortals with the wish spell. A bunch of these "deities" are mortals who have tapped sources of divine magic to be more powerful, like more powerful clerics and druids and paladins. Other "deities" are naturally supernatural powerful beings like genies.

That’s a nay-theist. Someone who believes the gods exist, but doubts their godhood or and/or their worthiness to be worshipped.