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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5726775" data-attributes="member: 2067">It's interesting to think about the origins of the term. Originally, you had Christians in Rome called Atheists, for instance, not because they didn't believe in a god, but because they didn't believe in the Roman gods! They were socially godless, to the Romans -- they rejected the state religion, as much as they held to their own. So Atheism can just be a "rebellious" form of god-worship: worship of a demon lord, or perhaps the pacts of a warlock! It's also something that got trotted out in the West partially as a response to many years of violent sectarian struggle between various Christian sects -- as a response to monotheism, which is pretty rare in D&D. Belief in no god is a little harder when there's hundreds to choose from, rather than just one! But perhaps there's a single unifying idea of the gods that our D&D atheists cannot get behind. Maybe in 4e, they doubt the official position that the gods saved the world from the primordials is rejected: maybe the atheists endeavor to undo the greatest persecution of "nonbelievers" in the cosmology!What if the gods had a single organized Church? What if you worshiped the entire pantheon, and there were great temples that payed homage to all the gods at once -- Pelor had his shrine in there just as the Raven Queen does, just as Kord and Lolth do. In 4e's default cosmology, this even makes a degree of sense, as the gods were once all allies. You might then have "atheists" who just reject the core pantheon -- perhaps even worship primordials? Maybe D&D style atheists are those who would take to a demon cult, or maybe every Warlock is actually a little "atheist," making pacts with unpleasant entities other than gods. I'd imagine in this setting you might have a strong Arcane vs. Divine divide, with a powerful multi-national Grand Church of the Pantheon (perhaps rife with violent sectarian conflict, and the occasional Holy Arcanist of Ioun or something) against secretive guilds of arcane magicians, lead by Warlocks, but also in academic Wizard circles, who refuse to worship at a temple which causes such violence.....Hmmm! Keep the ideas comin' folks!</blockquote>

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