Dungeons & Discourse: Atheism (and related)

[LurkAway]

Which would mean, in such a setting, that faith isn't enough. What you worship also has to be a "true" god. Rather than coming from your faith, divine magic comes from the god as a reward for your faith.

Perhaps a "true" god is one that sits on an Astral fountainhead of the divine spell delivery system. They don't create the flow of divine power per se, but they can bestow it amongst those who are worthy.

In Eberron, the aloof, distant gods may be less micromanaging and direct the flow of divine power to anyone who has been put on "the list", regardless of their worthiness (ie., alignment).

There might be no other differentation between a true god and a false god other than whether that god has the position of steward/administrator in the divine spell delivery system. (This position may be well-earned or not).

Theoretically, worshippers of a demon upstart like Orcus might think they are receiving a divine boon from Orcus, but in fact, there is a true evil god who is secretly directly some divine power to the cultists for some nefarious purposes.

This is just an idea. This actually sounds more like an atheist/secular rationalized take on divine power, rather than a sacred dogma.

Which begs the question: what do gods get from faith?

A cynical view: The god retains self-confidence in his place in the universe; an unworshipped or unfeared god is forgotten and fades into oblivion.

A cynical conspiracy-style view: the gods get a piece of your soul every time you cast a divine spell.

An optimistic view: Faith in your god genuinely makes the world a better place, although "better" means different things for different gods; Faith in a war god reinforces a world of glorious warfare.

 

[Mercurius]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I basically agree with Dire Bare on the first page: the gods are more powerful (or evolved) beings.

This is one of the reasons why I think 4E should have a fourth "Immortal" tier (levels 31-40), although with a distinct jump required at 31st level, perhaps some kind of immortality quest.

Actually, our own mythologies aren't that different. The gods act like "uber-people" - archetypes (and sometimes caricatures) of human beings. Some fringe theorists have posited that the gods are actually the remnants of some previous civilization (Atlantis et al) or even visitors from another world. Lots of RPG material to work with there (maybe their world was dying or they fled some war and came to the campaign world).

In the first part of the Rig Veda, the oldest text in Hindu literature, there is the following stanzas:

[FONT=&quot]But, after all, who knows, and who can say
whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?

Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows or maybe even he does not know.[/FONT]

Obviously there is a differentiation between "the gods" and this over-deity, but this clearly supports the view that "the gods"--being "later than creation" aren't really gods in the sense of being omnipotent or omniscient, but are simply more powerful, older beings.

In some sense the elves of Middle-Earth, in particular the Eldar (and especially the Vanyar and Noldor) were gods, or at least god-like.

I like the idea of atheism in an RPG setting being due to the fact that the gods aren't gods; they're members of a highly advanced race. Now when it came to a creator being, an atheist that was fully honest with him or herself would have to admit that they were really agnostic - that they simply did not know whether such a being existed (or they could be a panentheist and say that "god" is just a name for the universe). But I think atheism with regards to the gods is a very viable position.