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<blockquote data-quote="skinnydwarf" data-source="post: 6455806" data-attributes="member: 7024">I don't know why there cannot be an atheist character if your campaign has gods.&nbsp; The character would simply be wrong about the gods not existing.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.&nbsp; In terms of this discussion, when I say &quot;the gods&quot; I mean those defined as gods in the default D&amp;D setting.&nbsp; And when I say &quot;atheist&quot; I mean a character who does not believe those beings exist.You could have a character who believes that the beings called &quot;gods&quot; exist but doesn't think that they are gods.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; It's not the usual disagreement about divine existence (eg, do gods exist or not).&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="skinnydwarf, post: 6455806, member: 7024"] 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. 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). [/QUOTE]

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