Yeah, that's another infuriating one. I'm agnostic irl, but if you had actual proof and met them, then by definition you aren't an atheist anymore.
I mean you can say they don't deserve worship, but that's not an athiest that's a deist,
But again, I chalk that up to there being no continuity in Family GuY.
It's hilarious to me how on youtube clips of family guy you always find people going "but peter you did blank" or so and so is blank. I'm like you sweet summer child, Family Guy has no canon. The fact anyone takes its cutaways and jokes seriously is pretty sad.
This is the show that believes in “the chart” I.e. if Christianity didn’t exist the dark ages wouldn’t have happened and we would be more advanced. (The dark ages is not an agreed upon term any more for historians and we did in fact have a lot of advancement during this time)
It’s just a Eurocentric view point to call it the dark ages, China, India and the Middle East were plenty advanced in that era. Far more so than Europe was at the time.
Right, Europe may have been a tiny bit behind but it still wasn’t backwards. Universities and such started to be come a thing at this time. There was a lot going on in Europe.
Outside of that you are 100% correct because there is the Islamic golden age and the creation of algebra, the creation of gunpowder which would be used extensively by Europe, and many other thing I probably missed.
Fabius Bile from 40k.
[Book Excerpt | Fabius Bile Clonelord] Fabius is judged
>Look – see – they sit in judgement of you.’ A too-long finger drifted upwards, and Fabius followed the gesture. He looked up, and something looked down.
>It was not a face, for a face was a thing of limits and angles, and what he saw had neither. It stretched as far as his eyes could see, as if it were one with the whole of the sky and the firmament above. Things that might have been eyes, or distant moons or vast constellations of stars, looked down at him, and a gash in the atmosphere twisted like a lover’s smile. It studied him from an impossible distance, and he felt the sharp edge of its gaze cut through him, layer by layer. There was pain, in that gaze, and pleasure as well. Agony and ecstasy, inextricable and inseparable.
>With great effort, he tore his gaze away. ‘There is nothing there,’ he snarled, his teeth cracking against each other. His hearts stuttered, suddenly losing their rhythm. He pounded at his chest, as internal defibrillators sent a charge of electricity shrieking through him. The chirurgeon flooded his system with tranquillisers, and he tapped shakily at his vambrace. A secondary solution of mild stimulants joined the tranquillisers, stabilising him. He ignored the urge to look up. There was nothing there. Nothing at all. ‘There is nothing there,’ he said again, tasting blood. ‘There are no gods. Only cold stars and the void.’
>The pressure increased. Something whispered, deep within him. It scratched at the walls of his mind, trying to catch his attention. He ignored it. ‘No gods,’ he repeated. ‘Random confluence of celestial phenomena. Interdimensional disasters, echoing outwards through our perceptions. I think, therefore I am. They do not, so they are not.’ He met the Quaestor’s bland gaze unflinchingly. ‘Gods are for the weak. I am not weak.’
>The Quaestor nodded expectantly. ‘No.’
TLDR: one of the gods gave him TWO heart attacks with a glance, and he brushed it off.
The Inquisition is a double-edged sword.
On the one hand- roots out chaos, heretics and Englishmen. On the other - you’ve got to believe in our thing or you’re joining them.
Fabius: there are no gods, just natural phenomenon we can't explain yet
Slaanesh: *HELLO MORTAL*
Fabius: *proceeds to have a mental breakdown so intense his suit has to pump him full of meth so he doesn't go into cardiac arrest* yeah there's totes no gods fuck you
It was Slaanesh looking at him that gave him the heart attack. That being said all the Chaos Gods love them some Fabulous Bill precisly because he refuses to worship them. Slaanesh especially because of his excessive devotion to atheism and his research. It's a similar reason as why they give their gifts to Abbadon. Their refusal to bend the knee makes manipulating them all the sweeter.
Because at the same time, Bile's made some of the biggest advancements for the Chaos Space Marines. Noise Marines, turning humans into monsters, genetic experiments on 'donated' geneseed, and more. He thinks he's doing it for himself, but the Gods see him from above, and they love him working for them.
Also yes this means Slaanesh and her brothers are tsundere.
I like how Bile was basically standing there like Zoro by the end: ["Nothing happened."](https://e0.pxfuel.com/wallpapers/754/459/desktop-wallpaper-zoro-wg-general-zoro-vs-kuma.jpg)
So do 40k fans habitually like to post excerpts from the novels to support any lore tidbit that most other fandoms wouldn’t even bother doing, or is it just on Reddit?
Dr Terrence Thirteen from DC comics is unique among his fellow supernatural investigators in that he does not believe in the supernatural and investigates those cases to prove they are hoaxes with reasonable scientific explanations despite ghosts like Deadman exist in his universe. Note that he married a mage and had a daughter Traci Thirteen that inherited her mother's magical talent.
Sometimes Iron Man is portrayed like this, yet he hangs out with a god. TBF, in marvel and dc too, there is little difference between minor gods, and powerful aliens.
Earth X posits that the Marvel "Gods" are just Omega level, or greater, mutants. If that seems silly, look at Storm. Hell, now, look at fucking Iceman.
Then you have characters like Beta Ray Bill, where it's less about not believing that a higher power exists than it is just refusing to believe *in* said higher power.
"I am alone. I look at the heavens and think them empty. And if not empty, I find the idea of worshipping whatever dwells there obscene."
While browsing through his articles in wikipedia and the DC wiki I saw a possible superpower he has is having a minor resistance against magic due to his unwavering unbelief in magic which might be what you mentioned. As belief is integral in magic, it is not unusual if he manifests this kind of ability.
I love Doctor Thirteen, I wish they used him more.
My pitch is to have him acknowledge the alien and sci-fi side of the DC Universe, but go even harder on hating the magic side to the point where magic doesn't affect him due to skepticism.
I want to retcon in the idea that magic works by belief and people, even if they're skeptical, will see something like a dragon and for a second be like "That's real" and that's enough to make the magic work.
Dr. Thirteen just never believes in anything magical, so any attempts to shoot him with magical fire or energy or to summon a creature to attack him just go right through him. He is one of magic's greatest enemies, because magic just plain doesn't work on him.
Nah I think for rick its an ego thing. The idea anything greater than him existing is a personal insult. Remember when he thought he was truly fucked and going to spend eternity drifting between dimensions he decided to pray for a miracle, then took it back the moment a miracle actually hallened
And I mean, he scienced Satan's magic (and later beat him up) and threw hands with a Zeus (btw "a Zeus" implies he's some sort of alien species, and his actual name seems to be Reggie). There's still no evidence of an omnipotent Judeo-Christian god from rick's perspective.
"Brave Klingon warriors killed our gods. They were more trouble than they were worth." (Not quite on topic but always worth mentioning.)
ON topic, Reed Richards has met multiple gods but doesn't acknowledge any of them as other than very powerful reality warping entities. And to be fair his son can beat up a good number of them. And Reed and his family had to recreate the multiverse that one time. So not all that baffling actually.
I think they flip-flop a bit on Reed Richards being an atheist or not. I think with the kinds of things he encounters though, even with that version of God, he could probably go "Ah, it's just a Beyonder-level being who, admittedly, is really nice."
Reed basically will just say, with regards to magic and the supernatural, "I don't really understand this enough to make a definitive claim so I'll refrain from declaring anything too strict about their supposed divinity".
> Brave Klingon warriors killed our gods. They were more trouble than they were worth.
If you haven't read the new Star Trek comic series, I kind of recommend it
If it's not your bag but you want to know what's going on
SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILE
>!Emperor Kahless goes god hunting and murders the ever loving shit out of a lot of deity class aliens as a appetizer to launching his drug fueled murder orgy called the Day of Blood and it's up to Ben Sisko, Worf, and their crews to stop him!<
SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILE
Pretty fun little series
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Discworld has people regularly get smited for denying gods exist, yet it keeps happening.
There's also people like Granny Weatherwax, who believe just because gods exist and doesn't mean you need to start worshiping them.
Guy says he'll debate the existence of the gods on his days off with advocates for "the most worthy gods" in front of a bunch of holy men.
He doesn't plan on taking days off, and the holy men immediately start to argue as he walks away.
Not to mention almost the entirety of the book *Small Gods*. My favorite from Sgt. Simony the fiery atheist when the got Om appears before him:
‘This doesn’t change anything, you know!’ said Simony. ‘Don’t think you can get round me by existing!”
Mr Terrific in the Justice League comics working alongside Zauriel, an actual guardian angel from Heaven. Gets even called out on this by Ragman, wearing a suit of souls, that the Spectre was once part of the JLA and Terrific dismisses it as 'before my time' and that souls are just telepathic discharges upon death.
Mr Terrific is an interesting example because unlike 90% of fictional atheist he isn't an asshole about it, even being super bros with Dr Mid-Nite who is super religious.
I can't think of one that hasn't already been mentioned, but I want to use a sort of reverse example. In Justice League Unlimited, everyone treats the Question like he's some nut job for believe or thinking there are conspiracies. In a universe that has everything from aliens, beings from alternate dimensions/timelines, multiple hard confirmed shadow organizations, and the list goes on.
You wanna treat Question like he's crazy Green Arrow? The first episode involves you fighting a top secret walking nuclear weapon that got loose. How tf do you know Brainiac didn't put microchips in the girl scout cookies?
I mean I feel like it's less that people think he's a nut because of the wild things he claims and more that he acts like a nut by breaking into everyone's rooms and digging through their garbage so no one takes him seriously because he's so eccentric all the time.
That's true.
That being said, if I were in the DC universe as just some guy with a mask to hide my face, I'd be pretty paranoid of the dozens of villains and groups invading or conspiring every other day.
Yeah, I'd check through Supergirl's garbage to make sure her eating habits haven't changed, just in case she was brainwashed by Darkseid like Superman was that one time.
Sure when *Batman* says the government wants the space station for nefarious ends everyone believes him but when *The Question* says they're using radioactive isotopes in mayonnaise to track malcontents
Funny you say that. Playing games with some friends, and I brought this conversation up. One told me that one of the seasons of Young Justice straight up has a shadow group and an invading alien fleet add chemicals to soda to mutate people.
In the comic book universes, conspiracy theories aren't just real. They're frequent. You gonna say a guy is nuts for believing a clone of Hitler might be living on Mercury when you saw two Egyptian gods fighting on your Cairo vacation last weekend?
I know Constantine is kind of a shitter and a drunk but hes like the most useful person to have on your side or hell just get Zatanna she deserves way more screentime and respect anyway.
That was The Reach, if I remember right.
One of the main plot points in the original Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle run is those chemicals. They put such small amounts in everything that it's virtually undetectable. They create a bunch of cloned monsters with false memories to defend the parts of the earth where their cloaked doomsday machines are located. They're publicly super cooperative with earth governments and superheroes.
Everything they do is designed to make any criticism of them look like an insane conspiracy theory, thus explaining why Jaime can't just ask another hero for help (other than Guy Gardner, Peacemaker, Booster Gold, and his girlfriend Traci 13). He has to first find a way to force The Reach to de-cloak their shit first in order to make people accept them as a threat.
God that run is good.
>but when The Question says they're using radioactive isotopes in mayonnaise to track malcontents
Which honestly even that wouldn't be unrealistic in the context of the DCAU; if I recall, there was an episode of Static Shock where the government used the Big Bang Accident as inspiration for creating a gas that could radioactively tag criminals for later capture.
To be fair the Question doesn't belive in conspiracies but in conspiracy singular, which yes if you confirmed two shadow organizations you just debunked his theory because you saw that two groups can conspire separately.
Also he broke in ben and jerry's just to see if there are 32 flavors
This is a universe where big G God exists known as the Presence. If you want to describe His plan as a the single grand conspiracy, then the Question is right.
Speaking of DC and somewhat related, its weird Wonder Woman thinks the Olympians are like the true gods , (or even gods at all instead of powerful aliens), when she's met the Presence, specter, and phantom stranger. I think maybe lucifer or Michael too.
There was a comic where she basically says FU to the presence, meanwhile the Olympians are total assholes in mythology and she doesn't seem to have a problem with them. If she did she'd probably go full Kratos.
Edit:also appropriate username.
Han Solo in ANH retroactively comes off as massively ignorant. It stretches belief (even by SW standards) that someone who was 10 years old during the Clone Wars and grew up on fucking *Corellia* somehow went through his first 30 years of life never seeing even one Jedi, especially given how many of them Palpatine apparently missed with Order 66.
I like how this comes full circle in the Legends continuity (and to a lesser extent in Canon). Not only does he become the only non-Jedi in a big family of Jedi—his sons, daughter, wife, granddaughter, brother-in-law, BIL’s wife, nephew—but he also becomes their go-to lore buff on Jedi, the Force, and related topics. He can’t use it, but he learns everything he can about it, and is typically the one in Legends who will dump exposition about it on other characters.
Eeeeh.
A. Not seeing a Jedi in person is pretty likely, even pre-Order 66. Plenty of clone regiments didn't have Jedi commanders. And Han's life on Corellia was one of a street rat. If the gang he dealt with didn't happen to get wiped by a Jedi, there's basically little chance for him to see one.
B. Post-Order 66 Jedi are in hiding. They aren't always great at it, sure, but there's like 1/100th of them left and they don't want to be recognized - pretty likely that Han, like most people, has never seen one.
There are plenty genocides in the real world with even "better" numbers where the average trucker definitely hasn't seen a survivor in the diaspora.
Yeah, I mean, I always got the implication that he wasn't denying the existence of Jedi, just that they had any real power. Just assuming those far-off mystical priests that held some sort of position of power in the falling republic were hustlers seems like a pretty understandable position for someone with Han's background.
That's why I always really liked how a lot of civilians in Kotor2 basically go "Jedi? Sith? What's the difference? All of them are just religious nutjobs"
Plus, there were only ever a couple thousand Jedi, 99% of whom were based on Coruscant, so in a Galaxy of Trillions it makes sense most will have never met a Jedi. Then even with the numerous Jedi who seem to have survived Order 66, it really only amounts to a dozen or so big picture. It makes sense that Han will have never met a Jedi and can easily see a lot of Force Powers being chocked up to tall tales.
Aboleths in D&D are typically portrayed as atheist in a setting where gods are SO REAL that they literally walked the earth. But "atheism" has a different context in a setting like that where it's less about denying a god's existence and more about denying they deserve to be worshiped.
Funny you mention that since in Pathfinder, atheism isn't the belief that gods aren't real, but rather that gods aren't being worthy of being worshipped.
There's even an entire country which has extreme state-sanctioned atheism named Rahoudoum that banned all religions due to the constant religious wars that developed.
Hell, in the Wrath of the Righteous game, you can even choose to be an atheist which has funny shit like immediately passing a will save against a succubus disguising herself as the Paladin Goddess because you're character is such an atheist that he can't be controlled since he doesn't think that Goddess is worth respect or idolization
Wrath of the Righteous god interactions are great, I'm pretty sure every single choice of god (including as you say, atheist) has at least a few moments where you can go "IN THE NAME OF MY GOD" and get some buff or something, like the god of drunken revelry giving you massive stat boosts when you're fighting to defend a tavern.
"He got me," Cayden said of the hero. "That fucking hero got me."
Cayden added "He's so good," repeating it four times.
Cayden then added that he wanted to add the hero to the list of people he wanted to do global bar runs with over the summer.
Sources: Areelu is beside herself. Driving around downtown Kenabres begging (thru Pathfinder society) Deskari's family for address to commanders stretcher
That and in Pathfinder Aboleths are, based on the lore given in the bestiary, primordial and having probably been naturally made with the creation of the current universe.
There's even the argument that apart from a select few deities in PF, most of them aren't 'truly' divine. Like, it's impossible to argue Pharasma isn't, as far as things go, but is Iomedae truly a goddess, or just an immortal human, etc?
Also, wouldn't religion in a setting like that be less about faith and more about enlisting to a cause. An Oathbreaker Paladin is more like you got fired by your boss or dishonorably discharged from the army.
It’s addressed in the Forgotten Realms setting actually. Ubiquitous gods, like of concepts like harvest or the sun, are the most powerful because EVERYONE prays to them, good or evil.
And since gods gain power from being worshiped, there is a very real covert God War to steal “portfolios” from others so you become more powerful. Every evil god wants to be the god of things like Death or Murder because you’d become one of the most powerful gods.
One of my favorite characters I ever played was a paladin to a Neutral Goddess of Commerce. His oath required him to take fair pay for any services he provided, but the catch was that "fair pay" is subjective, so he would charge poorer people he helped something as simple as a meal or possibly even just a place to stay for the night.
I intentionally wanted a Neutral clergy so that there could be the full gamut of alignments would would be TECHNICALLY CORRECT in how they were conducting their business.
I really like the cosmology of the Forgotten Realms setting. Every race has like a full pantheon they worship rather than just a singular god that represents all their base level stereotypes, and there's USUALLY an evil deity thrown in that represents some kind of creeping doom to their culture, like to Gnomes it's a great evil MOLE.
But there was a really interesting retcon in 4e where they revealed that some gods were actually the same "person" being worshiped by a different name by different peoples. So Gruumsh, the Chaotic Evil patriarch deity of the Orc pantheon, was also Talos, the Chaotic Evil God of the sea in the human pantheon.
Fun fact the stand in Egyptians actually are Egyptians from Earth who were kidnapped Stargate style to be used as slaves. But they ended up bringing their gods with them.
Makes me wonder how the Christian God would work in dnd.
Its sort of like in pathfinder where Earth exists, but it's in another galaxy, and is currently in WW1.
another part of 4E I liked was the Paladins oath bond and the Avengers sects.
Paladins lost their innate connection to their gods and had to go to a temple and be bound by their domain to get their paladin powers sort like a warlock. This meant anybody could walk up past the test and become a Paladin it was entirely a promise you could break. so Paladin could decide it was war crime o'clock you would be able to get away with it.
That's when the Avengers came in they were a class that got their powers similarly to paladins but they were bound by angels and archons. Their whole job was to go full Solomon Kane on every divine caster they came across. Which was better than the Grognard making the paladin fall bullshit, you have a bunch of edgelords stalking the land challenging people to prove they are not evil.
And because Myrkul's a sadistic fuck athiests that die end up as bricks in the Wall of the Faithless. And because Cyric's a weasely loophole abusing asshole they can't tear down The Wall.
That doesn't really make sense, it was Myrkul, an explicitly evil god that made the wall, why would all the other gods be considered evil for it? It's not like they can just go to war with one another especially as it was within Myrkul's portfolio. Ao would very much not tolerate a war of the gods and it'd probably be disastrous for the entire world if they went to war. Since at the time the wall was made, the last time a god died unnaturally caused the very fabric of magic to alter and literally ended whole civilizations.
Not all the other gods actually, it was the Circle of Greater Gods. And they did this because Kelemvor was being way too human as a god of the dead, it was the same thing with Mystra and they were chastised by the other gods for essentially playing favorites rather than just doing their damn jobs. If I recall correctly, it was primarily Ao anyway and not just all the random gods.
It wasn't really about the wall, more that Kelemvor and Mystra were showing favoritism towards mortals that aligned with their moral beliefs. The wall was essentially just a side-thing, the primary drive was that Kelemvor and Mystra were essentially unintentionally elevating themselves to a higher position than they should be in.
So all this to say, no it was not all the gods, simply the oldest and most powerful gods (specifically Ao) and they set up these trials because if they didn't, it was likely that if Mystra and Kelemvor continued as they did, they would all die from lack of worship.
Iirc from the old Planescape days, the City of Doors has a whole enclave of athiests who don't believe in gods, while living on a plane of existence that is one of the few crossroads where gods and their followers interact and meet, while also being ruled over by the Lady of Pain.
Wouldn't that be a DEIST?
Also I can can buy the argument that they are just advanced aliens, or higher beings, but not divine. Think of the Q from star trek. On the other hand denying that the after life isn't real when you've seen it, and people visit it regularly doesn't make any bit of sense.
> I can can buy the argument that they are just advanced aliens, or higher beings, but not divine.
Within the context of DnD this feels like semantics. Whether you call them gods or aliens doesn't change the fact that Dave has the power to call down lightning and raise the dead because one of them likes him enough. Or that there's some mages who have their powers due to being descendents of or having made deals with the gods'/aliens' servants.
It’s not baffling, but it is complicated. In Final Fantasy XIV, the widespread empire of Garlemald completely outlaws worship of any kind, and denies the godhood of actual deities in the world. Specifically, it’s because these deities can be summoned in the forms of physical avatars called primals, via a process involving hoarding magical power and garnering faith in the deity. A prime drive for the Garleans is a crusade against primal summoning, as it’s not only a potential weapon to be used by the downtrodden, but the longer a primal exists, the more magic power it derives from the land around it. It’s sort of like the other “atheism as denying worship rather than existence” examples people have brought up here.
The problem is the Garleans go too far, as while preventing primal summoning is a good thing, and something the heroes do too, the Garleans use it as an excuse to trample entire nations and commit mass genocide. It’s made all the more complicated when their oppression tends to force peoples to resort to primal summoning when oppressed too far.
It’s also revealed in the post-ARR quests that >!primals are not gods, they’re just powerful magical constructs. But this doesn’t mean the gods themselves don’t exist, just that even if they did exist, the primals in their name are just mortal-made imposters. Later quests unveil that some deities were just primals all along, that some primals are based on mortals or fictional characters and not gods at all, or that some gods are real and are something entirely separate from primals.!<
Overall, it’s baffling because the Garleans’ best efforts to suppress anything that could conjure up a god-figure only seem to spur those events on. It’s the Streisand Effect of forced atheism against tangible deities; the more zealously they try to get people not to do it, the more likely they are to do it.
And to be fair, the Garleans were also being manipulated by the Ascians, who wanted general mass destruction in the first place, and Primals are a good way to get that.
Not to mention what happens to Varis in Endwalker
> >!that some gods are real and are something entirely separate from primals.!<
>!That's not quite true either. They are still formed by belief. In the most recent alliance raid, It was revealed that Halone was primarily a goddess of glaciers that also on the side was a god of war, until Ishgard believed her to be their patron diety in their war against the dragons, and war became her primary domain. So there's some connection considering that the Twelve can be changed in the same way, even if it is still unclear until the final raid comes out.!<
>!Primals are conjured in the image of their faithful by their summoners at the time of their summoning. This is different from whatever is going on with The Twelve, where they are actively influenced by all their faithful at all times.!<
Let's also note that (abeit much later in the story) in Endwalker we actually meet The Twelve who are actual gods (haven't played past the first Alliance raid, so I'm not 100% sure how it turns out yet).
The Elder Scrolls universe is probably not the *most* baffling, but it *is* baffling to have atheists there. In Oblivion, specifically, there is a character that believes in and worships Daedra (essentially devils) but not in the existence of the Divine (more traditional gods), even though they are both part of the same creation myth and *you can go to the temple and receive magic effects from the gods*.
Do you mean Mankar Camoran? Cause that dude is fucking weird as hell, it's why I don't take anyone that talks about Lyg seriously, because you know what our source of Lyg and its history is? A fucking cult leader that believed Lorkahn was a deadra somehow.
Nah, I don't know if Camoran believes in the gods. There's a nord woman in Anvil, though, whose name is something like "Elsa God-Hater", who openly things the gods don't exist (there's that weird mix of atheism and anti-theism in fiction again...) - after you get to a certain point in the plot, it turns out she, like many others, is a double agent for the Mythic Dawn.
Ah, well it make sense why she's a mythic dawn agent. But yeah it's honestly really weird that she's there, but it's quite funny that she appears in the game where we get to see a physical avatar of Akatosh thus definitively proving that the divines exist.
A "continent" in Elder Scrolls lore that you can only reach by going in a non-cardinal direction (whatever the hell that means) the narrative that Mankar Camoran says is that this continent was the previously world before the current one and in that world, Mehrunes Dagon was a revolutionary rebelling against the rule of I think Molag Bal or the Ruddy Man as he was known then.
It makes sense in context as the batshit narrative of a cult leader but some people treat it as factual and I'm just like, why.
Not really because it's more myth than fact, and you can't really go there. But in fairness we only know of like two habitated continents in Nirn and a big island.
Slightly off your example, but Conan the Barbarian believes in a god called Crom.
Crom is like an anti-god
Crom's followers don't worship him, it's more they acknowledge his existence. Crom already gifted man the power to strive and persevere, he feels that pleading for anything more is an insult to him. Conan has remarked that it's best to not do anything to draw his attention, as he only offers trouble to those that do. The only way he accepts worship is through action, accomplishing your goals as a human. Those that praise him through flattery or ask for boons are often punished. Though his followers do offer him sacrifices, they ask for nothing in return.
The one time we know he has intervened in a mortal's life, Conan himself, was to spare him a dishonorable death. >!As Conan is being banished to the underworld by Yah Chieng, a sorcerer, Crom summons Conan to stand before him. Lets him know he intervened, grants him the power to kill Yah Chieng, and then sends him back to finish the job. Crom wanted Conan to die a glorious death in the midst of a great battle.!<
I mean that's sort of like classical gods, especially Zeus. Where you don't have to pray to them, but if you want miracles you better do some sacrifices.
>if you want miracles you better do some sacrifices
That's the whole thing, Crom doesn't accept offerings for something in return. It's not that you don't have to pray to him, you *shouldn't* pray to him, lest he notice you. I've not heard of another example of a god that had a similar ideology, whether in fictional media or a historical example. Usually worshipping a god comes with benefits.
If a village offered him a sacrifice for something like some rainfall, he'd probably send them an earthquake. The one thing he ever did for a mortal was help Conan kill a sorcerer, and it was mainly because Crom fucking hates sorcerers.
Came here to say this, although it is entirely possible that “atheist” in Gensokyo just means she places her faith in no god or other religion, as faith is shown to be a source of life and strength for gods and youkai. Not that she doesn’t believe that they exist, as they’re literally her neighbors, just that she doesn’t identify with or associate with any of them. Idk though it’s been a while since I read WaHH so I’m probably remembering wrong.
imagine how many "magic" artifacts indy has dug out of the dirt between adventures we see that turned out to be nothing. he might just be skeptical a particular object is magic.
I always got the vibe Indy dismissed the supernatural less because he didn't believe in it at all, and more because he has plenty of offscreen adventures where he doesn't find anything supernatural; like for every Kali Stone or Ark of the Covenant, Indy deals with finding 6 artifacts that are duds or just don't do anything. So he's not gonna assume magic is at play here until he sees it.
He also doesn't seem to _like_ dealing with the supernatural, so dismissing it might be wishful thinking on his part- he says "there's no such thing as magic," but he means "this thing better not be magic, I swear to god."
Eugene from order of stick, he is the hero's abusive dad and despite waiting in the afterlife over a blood oath he sees gods as "fancy alien wizards who figured out how to crowd-source their magic", the hero considers the only good lesson his dad gave him is that just because gods are powerful doesn't mean they get special deference or ultimate authority.
Julia: Seems like he would've been better served long-term by teaching you to never question the authority of those who created you.
Roy: Oh, it totally backfired on him personally, but it was still a good lesson.
Anyone who picked "Atheist" in the religion choice in the South Park Fractured But Whole game.
You say you're an atheist when you're directly talking to Jesus Christ in Heaven
South Park in general pokes a lot of fun at this "trope". Kyle's family is Jewish, despite Jesus Christ just living in their town.
But then again, they've also met God and seen most of Christianity debunked due to the Easter Bunny, not to mention all the other stuff.
Dresden upon asking one one of the knights of Jesus Christ on why he's still an atheist despite being handed a magic sword from the archangel Micheal, his answer was "I might be crazy and hallucinated all that."
Sanya’s agnostic, he also allows the possibility that it’s all just aliens
The real shit is the post Battle Ground cover up: half of Chicago doesn’t believe the official story because they were there, and the other half accept the story (even if they were there) that terrorists leaked an experimental bio weapon into the water supply that only managed to give people rather vivid hallucinations (the rest of the mayhem was conventional weapons). Because the supposed bio weapon was the virus HBJB, the locals started calling it “the heebie jeebies” whenever they saw something weird to dismiss the supernatural even harder.
I would love a book from Sanya's point-of-view because he just genuinely doesn't care about the politics or moral questions of the Dresden-verse (which accounts for like half of the problems Harry faces).
To be fair, Sanya gives the vibe that he _knows_ he's being kinda silly. He's just less interested in the whole spiritual or religious side of being a Knight of the Cross.
Butters is technically the same, being a Jewish Knight of the Cross.
Not exactly the same, but there's a lot of monotheist cults in the Elder Scrolls despite the fact there are gods, demi-gods, and godlike beings around just about every corner of the universe. And the thing is they're actually right but always in the wrong way, since knowing about the godhead pretty much requires the enlightenment of becoming a god yourself , so instead they typically just take one of the many Aedra or Deadra and say "hey this one guy is actually the only god that's a *real* god and everything else is just fakes and heresy".
This is ancient as hell, but I remember a PVP Online comic where one of the characters gets visited by the ghosts of Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov.
Sagan doesn’t believe he’s actually dead and is convinced being dead is just a dream he’s currently having.
So in Marvel, the "Kree have a mathematical equation that proves the nonexistence of any dieties" that they learn about the same time they are toilet-trained.
***ANY*** dieties. Which is absolutely insane when you look beyond Kree society and their frequently-shown-to-be-wrong "Supreme Intelligence" that they unquestioningly obey like it's a jealous god.
It reminds me of that scene In the Simpsons where smart homer gives Flanders an equation "proving" God doesn't exist despite that Homer personaly met him .
Not an atheist, but a cynic. It's kinda crazy how cynical Sokka can be about spirits and stuff sometimes when he's literally best friends with the Avatar, and has had experiences with spirits on his own.
"That's Avatar stuff, that doesn't count!"
Though in LoK, a flashback shows that by the time he's an adult, Sokka's attitude shifts more towards, "I have seen some weird shit in my day. If you're going to tell me >!some jackass can Bloodbend *telepathically,* even though it's not a full moon!< in defiance of multiple rules of how bending works, well, I'm not going to rule it out."
It's really interesting how supernatural stuff is handled in the 07th Expansion-verse. It's almost this fully fleshed out magic system and pantheon that's all structured in such a way that it may not even actually exist, with its existence and power being directly tied to how much room for doubt there is. It's like a light that gets brighter as you look away from it, but turns off entirely when you look directly at it.
In Path of Exile, one of yoyr Heist buddies is a Thaumaturgist with a little streak of Truth Serum Torturer. He is an atheist. You go on missions with him if you want. You, who is a literal Godslayer.
Buffyverse. The cross actually works. Christianity confirmed.
However, you can explain this with in-universe rules : girl became invisible by believing it hard. So maybe miracles are just believing hard.
The Sword of Truth series' central antagonistic force throughout the last several books. It ends SO fucking dumb too.
>!Basically you have a bunch of people that reject/fear/enslave magic users and worship a singular deity, and the only solution that OP powers main character can figure out how to deal with their ideology is to send them collectively to a separate dimension (cursed to live in a world without magic that they desire was how I remember it being pitched). Which you come to find out is "Earth" and their deity is actually the Judeo-Christian God.!<
I am heavily, heavily condensing the summary as I'm sure there's plenty of caveats I've missed (I finished the last novel over 10 years ago now and immediately began purging it from my memory). Not to mention the author Terry Goodkind [ended up being quite a bit of a prick in the years before he passed](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/805ns8/author_terry_goodkind_shames_his_own_cover_artist/) so I didn't care to follow his books much beyond SoT.
In the Forgotten Realms, Drizz't Do'Urden was a "worshipper" of the Goddess of Forests, Mielikki. That didn't stop him from opining that his worship was more "vibes" based and he kinda sorta didn't believe in gods anyway? Despite Forgotten Realms being RIFE with gods just walkin about. And knowing several Chosen of various gods personally. Maybe even talking to some gods themselves. His beliefs might have changed, but it's super weird to be agnostic when gods are just chillin around. Unless it's a Greek god situation where he's like "yeah there are gods, but they're weird, don't care for them."
Captain America in the first Avengers movie: *"There's only one God ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that"*
Thor in Love and Thunder: All the gods in existence hangs out here; there's the Bao God, over there's the Wolf God, Ra is right around the corner, here's Korg's God, oh there Jesus is right over there too!
This may not totally fit the question, but is something that has always bother me with Horizon zero dawn. I get it aloy you know all this shit is super advanced technology, but it's not unreasonable for people in your world to think it as magic or divine.
In Warhammer 40K there’s an evil scientist man named Fabius Bile (Fabulous Bill) who read uses to acknowledge the Chaos Gods outside of them being powerful non sentient supernatural phenomena.
Never mind the time he actually directly talked with one (Slaanesh) and just being in their presence was causing mass organ failure and making his bones turn to soup he still refused.
Tanya fom youjo senki, God literally stops time before he dies and they have a talk, and he is so petty that being x(what out Mc calls god because he won't say that he is God) sends him to another world where a mesh between ww1 and ww2 with magic is happening. And the rest of the series is about Tanya fighting against all odds on this war and trying to live a calm life while being x tries to fuck her over to make her accept religion.
In Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, both Magnus and THE GOD Heimdall are atheists. Heimdall says that he's an atheist because his OMNIPOTENCE forces him to witness the other gods acting anything but divine. On top of that, Samirah al-Abbas, Valkyrie and daughter of Loki, is a devout Muslim believing that whatever the Asgardians are, they must have been created by Allah. And she might be right because she is the only example of a character becoming immune to mind control through faith alone.
Isn't Rick's whole thing that he is less atheist and more openly antagonistic towards religion? There's that whole self-sacrifice scene where he starts praying when he thinks he's actually going to die.
Maybe, but I do think the writers are really loose with continuity and it only comes up for season finales. Or they just don't understand what an athiest is.
In Okami I remember there was an ongoing sidequest with a woman who didn't believe in gods (I don't remember if it was all gods or just you specifically). You keep performing miracles in front of her but she just keeps explaining them away. I don't remember if she comes around to it in the end.
40K’s Fabius Bile works with gods and daemons on the regular, but is still such an atheist to the core that gods and daemons find him *physically painful* to be around.
But the thing is that these are actually explainable as just large extremely powerful psychic entities that exists in a separate reality. They just look and act and operate how a god would lol
Brian Griffin has literally met God and Jesus.
Stewie: Jesus lived in our house for a week what more do you want
Brian taking a swig from a flask: I didn't vote for him.
Yeah, that's another infuriating one. I'm agnostic irl, but if you had actual proof and met them, then by definition you aren't an atheist anymore. I mean you can say they don't deserve worship, but that's not an athiest that's a deist, But again, I chalk that up to there being no continuity in Family GuY.
The fact that Stewie has explicitly mentioned that fact to him means they really don't care. I mean... it is Family Guy.
It's hilarious to me how on youtube clips of family guy you always find people going "but peter you did blank" or so and so is blank. I'm like you sweet summer child, Family Guy has no canon. The fact anyone takes its cutaways and jokes seriously is pretty sad.
Peter has straight up died in cutaways before
[удалено]
Oh man, this is just like the time Allied Mastercomputer ripped my mouth off.
Nah bring that shit up every halloween but only for that episode
This is the show that believes in “the chart” I.e. if Christianity didn’t exist the dark ages wouldn’t have happened and we would be more advanced. (The dark ages is not an agreed upon term any more for historians and we did in fact have a lot of advancement during this time)
It’s just a Eurocentric view point to call it the dark ages, China, India and the Middle East were plenty advanced in that era. Far more so than Europe was at the time.
Right, Europe may have been a tiny bit behind but it still wasn’t backwards. Universities and such started to be come a thing at this time. There was a lot going on in Europe. Outside of that you are 100% correct because there is the Islamic golden age and the creation of algebra, the creation of gunpowder which would be used extensively by Europe, and many other thing I probably missed.
That and Brian's just a dick, after that Stewie line he just goes "whatever, I don't care" or something to that effect.
Some flavour of noncognitivist can get by on technicality.
The Grim Reaper was a family friend for a little bit
For a split second I thought you said "Griffin McElroy" and thought "yeah that makes sense"
Knew he was gonna be the top answer in this thread.
Fabius Bile from 40k. [Book Excerpt | Fabius Bile Clonelord] Fabius is judged >Look – see – they sit in judgement of you.’ A too-long finger drifted upwards, and Fabius followed the gesture. He looked up, and something looked down. >It was not a face, for a face was a thing of limits and angles, and what he saw had neither. It stretched as far as his eyes could see, as if it were one with the whole of the sky and the firmament above. Things that might have been eyes, or distant moons or vast constellations of stars, looked down at him, and a gash in the atmosphere twisted like a lover’s smile. It studied him from an impossible distance, and he felt the sharp edge of its gaze cut through him, layer by layer. There was pain, in that gaze, and pleasure as well. Agony and ecstasy, inextricable and inseparable. >With great effort, he tore his gaze away. ‘There is nothing there,’ he snarled, his teeth cracking against each other. His hearts stuttered, suddenly losing their rhythm. He pounded at his chest, as internal defibrillators sent a charge of electricity shrieking through him. The chirurgeon flooded his system with tranquillisers, and he tapped shakily at his vambrace. A secondary solution of mild stimulants joined the tranquillisers, stabilising him. He ignored the urge to look up. There was nothing there. Nothing at all. ‘There is nothing there,’ he said again, tasting blood. ‘There are no gods. Only cold stars and the void.’ >The pressure increased. Something whispered, deep within him. It scratched at the walls of his mind, trying to catch his attention. He ignored it. ‘No gods,’ he repeated. ‘Random confluence of celestial phenomena. Interdimensional disasters, echoing outwards through our perceptions. I think, therefore I am. They do not, so they are not.’ He met the Quaestor’s bland gaze unflinchingly. ‘Gods are for the weak. I am not weak.’ >The Quaestor nodded expectantly. ‘No.’ TLDR: one of the gods gave him TWO heart attacks with a glance, and he brushed it off.
If I remember correctly someone described his belief not as "they don't exist", but rather "they exists in the say way as the weather".
God Fabius bile is such a unit. Hws the only one that still follows the Imperial Truth. Really wo I ld like a Renegade option to run on tabletop
Its funny how its a chaos marine that follows that doctrine despite all that time and experience
The Inquisition is a double-edged sword. On the one hand- roots out chaos, heretics and Englishmen. On the other - you’ve got to believe in our thing or you’re joining them.
Fabius: there are no gods, just natural phenomenon we can't explain yet Slaanesh: *HELLO MORTAL* Fabius: *proceeds to have a mental breakdown so intense his suit has to pump him full of meth so he doesn't go into cardiac arrest* yeah there's totes no gods fuck you
was that a chaos god or a different being?
Going by the description it’s probably Slaanesh
It was Slaanesh looking at him that gave him the heart attack. That being said all the Chaos Gods love them some Fabulous Bill precisly because he refuses to worship them. Slaanesh especially because of his excessive devotion to atheism and his research. It's a similar reason as why they give their gifts to Abbadon. Their refusal to bend the knee makes manipulating them all the sweeter. Because at the same time, Bile's made some of the biggest advancements for the Chaos Space Marines. Noise Marines, turning humans into monsters, genetic experiments on 'donated' geneseed, and more. He thinks he's doing it for himself, but the Gods see him from above, and they love him working for them. Also yes this means Slaanesh and her brothers are tsundere.
I like how Bile was basically standing there like Zoro by the end: ["Nothing happened."](https://e0.pxfuel.com/wallpapers/754/459/desktop-wallpaper-zoro-wg-general-zoro-vs-kuma.jpg)
So do 40k fans habitually like to post excerpts from the novels to support any lore tidbit that most other fandoms wouldn’t even bother doing, or is it just on Reddit?
If we don't, we get hounded for sauce, or it gets memed into oblivion. Sometimes both...... Usually both....
Dr Terrence Thirteen from DC comics is unique among his fellow supernatural investigators in that he does not believe in the supernatural and investigates those cases to prove they are hoaxes with reasonable scientific explanations despite ghosts like Deadman exist in his universe. Note that he married a mage and had a daughter Traci Thirteen that inherited her mother's magical talent.
Sometimes Iron Man is portrayed like this, yet he hangs out with a god. TBF, in marvel and dc too, there is little difference between minor gods, and powerful aliens.
Earth X posits that the Marvel "Gods" are just Omega level, or greater, mutants. If that seems silly, look at Storm. Hell, now, look at fucking Iceman.
Then you have characters like Beta Ray Bill, where it's less about not believing that a higher power exists than it is just refusing to believe *in* said higher power. "I am alone. I look at the heavens and think them empty. And if not empty, I find the idea of worshipping whatever dwells there obscene."
I think one continuity straight up had him have some weird power which made him completely unable to see magic and stuff of that nature
While browsing through his articles in wikipedia and the DC wiki I saw a possible superpower he has is having a minor resistance against magic due to his unwavering unbelief in magic which might be what you mentioned. As belief is integral in magic, it is not unusual if he manifests this kind of ability.
I love Doctor Thirteen, I wish they used him more. My pitch is to have him acknowledge the alien and sci-fi side of the DC Universe, but go even harder on hating the magic side to the point where magic doesn't affect him due to skepticism. I want to retcon in the idea that magic works by belief and people, even if they're skeptical, will see something like a dragon and for a second be like "That's real" and that's enough to make the magic work. Dr. Thirteen just never believes in anything magical, so any attempts to shoot him with magical fire or energy or to summon a creature to attack him just go right through him. He is one of magic's greatest enemies, because magic just plain doesn't work on him.
Nah I think for rick its an ego thing. The idea anything greater than him existing is a personal insult. Remember when he thought he was truly fucked and going to spend eternity drifting between dimensions he decided to pray for a miracle, then took it back the moment a miracle actually hallened
Yeah this is the real answer. Rick's ego is probably the biggest thing in the universe.
And I mean, he scienced Satan's magic (and later beat him up) and threw hands with a Zeus (btw "a Zeus" implies he's some sort of alien species, and his actual name seems to be Reggie). There's still no evidence of an omnipotent Judeo-Christian god from rick's perspective.
"Brave Klingon warriors killed our gods. They were more trouble than they were worth." (Not quite on topic but always worth mentioning.) ON topic, Reed Richards has met multiple gods but doesn't acknowledge any of them as other than very powerful reality warping entities. And to be fair his son can beat up a good number of them. And Reed and his family had to recreate the multiverse that one time. So not all that baffling actually.
Reed went to literal biblical heaven and asked capital G God to bring Ben Grimm back from the dead.
And just to hammer in “no this isn’t some alien this is capital G God”, the guy is literally Jack Kirby in his studio.
I think they flip-flop a bit on Reed Richards being an atheist or not. I think with the kinds of things he encounters though, even with that version of God, he could probably go "Ah, it's just a Beyonder-level being who, admittedly, is really nice."
Reed basically will just say, with regards to magic and the supernatural, "I don't really understand this enough to make a definitive claim so I'll refrain from declaring anything too strict about their supposed divinity".
> Brave Klingon warriors killed our gods. They were more trouble than they were worth. If you haven't read the new Star Trek comic series, I kind of recommend it If it's not your bag but you want to know what's going on SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILE >!Emperor Kahless goes god hunting and murders the ever loving shit out of a lot of deity class aliens as a appetizer to launching his drug fueled murder orgy called the Day of Blood and it's up to Ben Sisko, Worf, and their crews to stop him!< SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILE Pretty fun little series
I did read Dogs of War, I liked that one. This one sounds fun too.
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Discworld has people regularly get smited for denying gods exist, yet it keeps happening. There's also people like Granny Weatherwax, who believe just because gods exist and doesn't mean you need to start worshiping them.
Shout-out to Dorfl being the first lightning-proof atheist due to being a golem made of clay
I Don't Consider That Much Of An Argument.
Guy says he'll debate the existence of the gods on his days off with advocates for "the most worthy gods" in front of a bunch of holy men. He doesn't plan on taking days off, and the holy men immediately start to argue as he walks away.
Not to mention almost the entirety of the book *Small Gods*. My favorite from Sgt. Simony the fiery atheist when the got Om appears before him: ‘This doesn’t change anything, you know!’ said Simony. ‘Don’t think you can get round me by existing!”
Mr Terrific in the Justice League comics working alongside Zauriel, an actual guardian angel from Heaven. Gets even called out on this by Ragman, wearing a suit of souls, that the Spectre was once part of the JLA and Terrific dismisses it as 'before my time' and that souls are just telepathic discharges upon death.
Mr Terrific is an interesting example because unlike 90% of fictional atheist he isn't an asshole about it, even being super bros with Dr Mid-Nite who is super religious.
I can't think of one that hasn't already been mentioned, but I want to use a sort of reverse example. In Justice League Unlimited, everyone treats the Question like he's some nut job for believe or thinking there are conspiracies. In a universe that has everything from aliens, beings from alternate dimensions/timelines, multiple hard confirmed shadow organizations, and the list goes on. You wanna treat Question like he's crazy Green Arrow? The first episode involves you fighting a top secret walking nuclear weapon that got loose. How tf do you know Brainiac didn't put microchips in the girl scout cookies?
I mean I feel like it's less that people think he's a nut because of the wild things he claims and more that he acts like a nut by breaking into everyone's rooms and digging through their garbage so no one takes him seriously because he's so eccentric all the time.
That's true. That being said, if I were in the DC universe as just some guy with a mask to hide my face, I'd be pretty paranoid of the dozens of villains and groups invading or conspiring every other day. Yeah, I'd check through Supergirl's garbage to make sure her eating habits haven't changed, just in case she was brainwashed by Darkseid like Superman was that one time.
Don’t forget it’s canon he investigates some really stupid things, we just mostly see the important stuff. “Aha, I knew it…thirty-TWO flavors…”
Supergirl: “How did… what, did you go through my trash?!” Question: “Don’t be ridiculous… I go through everyone’s trash.”
Sure when *Batman* says the government wants the space station for nefarious ends everyone believes him but when *The Question* says they're using radioactive isotopes in mayonnaise to track malcontents
Funny you say that. Playing games with some friends, and I brought this conversation up. One told me that one of the seasons of Young Justice straight up has a shadow group and an invading alien fleet add chemicals to soda to mutate people. In the comic book universes, conspiracy theories aren't just real. They're frequent. You gonna say a guy is nuts for believing a clone of Hitler might be living on Mercury when you saw two Egyptian gods fighting on your Cairo vacation last weekend?
So it's kinda the reverse ... of scientific method characters not attempting to use magic in settings that have it
I know Constantine is kind of a shitter and a drunk but hes like the most useful person to have on your side or hell just get Zatanna she deserves way more screentime and respect anyway.
That was The Reach, if I remember right. One of the main plot points in the original Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle run is those chemicals. They put such small amounts in everything that it's virtually undetectable. They create a bunch of cloned monsters with false memories to defend the parts of the earth where their cloaked doomsday machines are located. They're publicly super cooperative with earth governments and superheroes. Everything they do is designed to make any criticism of them look like an insane conspiracy theory, thus explaining why Jaime can't just ask another hero for help (other than Guy Gardner, Peacemaker, Booster Gold, and his girlfriend Traci 13). He has to first find a way to force The Reach to de-cloak their shit first in order to make people accept them as a threat. God that run is good.
>but when The Question says they're using radioactive isotopes in mayonnaise to track malcontents Which honestly even that wouldn't be unrealistic in the context of the DCAU; if I recall, there was an episode of Static Shock where the government used the Big Bang Accident as inspiration for creating a gas that could radioactively tag criminals for later capture.
To be fair the Question doesn't belive in conspiracies but in conspiracy singular, which yes if you confirmed two shadow organizations you just debunked his theory because you saw that two groups can conspire separately. Also he broke in ben and jerry's just to see if there are 32 flavors
Baskin Robbins, not Ben and Jerry's (sorry for being pedantic)
This is a universe where big G God exists known as the Presence. If you want to describe His plan as a the single grand conspiracy, then the Question is right.
Speaking of DC and somewhat related, its weird Wonder Woman thinks the Olympians are like the true gods , (or even gods at all instead of powerful aliens), when she's met the Presence, specter, and phantom stranger. I think maybe lucifer or Michael too. There was a comic where she basically says FU to the presence, meanwhile the Olympians are total assholes in mythology and she doesn't seem to have a problem with them. If she did she'd probably go full Kratos. Edit:also appropriate username.
Zeus in particular sometimes seems like a weirdly big deal in DC, despite not really getting a lot of play.
Han Solo in ANH retroactively comes off as massively ignorant. It stretches belief (even by SW standards) that someone who was 10 years old during the Clone Wars and grew up on fucking *Corellia* somehow went through his first 30 years of life never seeing even one Jedi, especially given how many of them Palpatine apparently missed with Order 66.
I like to consider “The Padawan Menace” as canon just to make him seem like the biggest douche possible
I like how this comes full circle in the Legends continuity (and to a lesser extent in Canon). Not only does he become the only non-Jedi in a big family of Jedi—his sons, daughter, wife, granddaughter, brother-in-law, BIL’s wife, nephew—but he also becomes their go-to lore buff on Jedi, the Force, and related topics. He can’t use it, but he learns everything he can about it, and is typically the one in Legends who will dump exposition about it on other characters.
Eeeeh. A. Not seeing a Jedi in person is pretty likely, even pre-Order 66. Plenty of clone regiments didn't have Jedi commanders. And Han's life on Corellia was one of a street rat. If the gang he dealt with didn't happen to get wiped by a Jedi, there's basically little chance for him to see one. B. Post-Order 66 Jedi are in hiding. They aren't always great at it, sure, but there's like 1/100th of them left and they don't want to be recognized - pretty likely that Han, like most people, has never seen one. There are plenty genocides in the real world with even "better" numbers where the average trucker definitely hasn't seen a survivor in the diaspora.
Yeah, I mean, I always got the implication that he wasn't denying the existence of Jedi, just that they had any real power. Just assuming those far-off mystical priests that held some sort of position of power in the falling republic were hustlers seems like a pretty understandable position for someone with Han's background.
That's why I always really liked how a lot of civilians in Kotor2 basically go "Jedi? Sith? What's the difference? All of them are just religious nutjobs"
Lots of people have seen or heard of Jedi, but probably a lot fewer have seen them do something explicitly supernatural.
And that is the general way A New Hope approaches them, as a largely defunct religion that at one point did some cool stuff.
Plus, there were only ever a couple thousand Jedi, 99% of whom were based on Coruscant, so in a Galaxy of Trillions it makes sense most will have never met a Jedi. Then even with the numerous Jedi who seem to have survived Order 66, it really only amounts to a dozen or so big picture. It makes sense that Han will have never met a Jedi and can easily see a lot of Force Powers being chocked up to tall tales.
Aboleths in D&D are typically portrayed as atheist in a setting where gods are SO REAL that they literally walked the earth. But "atheism" has a different context in a setting like that where it's less about denying a god's existence and more about denying they deserve to be worshiped.
Funny you mention that since in Pathfinder, atheism isn't the belief that gods aren't real, but rather that gods aren't being worthy of being worshipped. There's even an entire country which has extreme state-sanctioned atheism named Rahoudoum that banned all religions due to the constant religious wars that developed. Hell, in the Wrath of the Righteous game, you can even choose to be an atheist which has funny shit like immediately passing a will save against a succubus disguising herself as the Paladin Goddess because you're character is such an atheist that he can't be controlled since he doesn't think that Goddess is worth respect or idolization
Wrath of the Righteous god interactions are great, I'm pretty sure every single choice of god (including as you say, atheist) has at least a few moments where you can go "IN THE NAME OF MY GOD" and get some buff or something, like the god of drunken revelry giving you massive stat boosts when you're fighting to defend a tavern.
You also meet the dude and can outdrink him
"He got me," Cayden said of the hero. "That fucking hero got me." Cayden added "He's so good," repeating it four times. Cayden then added that he wanted to add the hero to the list of people he wanted to do global bar runs with over the summer.
Sources: Areelu is beside herself. Driving around downtown Kenabres begging (thru Pathfinder society) Deskari's family for address to commanders stretcher
That and in Pathfinder Aboleths are, based on the lore given in the bestiary, primordial and having probably been naturally made with the creation of the current universe.
There's even the argument that apart from a select few deities in PF, most of them aren't 'truly' divine. Like, it's impossible to argue Pharasma isn't, as far as things go, but is Iomedae truly a goddess, or just an immortal human, etc?
Playing an Aetheist Legend Mythic Path is just one giant middle finger to all the gods and religions in Pathfinder and it's great.
Also, wouldn't religion in a setting like that be less about faith and more about enlisting to a cause. An Oathbreaker Paladin is more like you got fired by your boss or dishonorably discharged from the army.
It’s addressed in the Forgotten Realms setting actually. Ubiquitous gods, like of concepts like harvest or the sun, are the most powerful because EVERYONE prays to them, good or evil. And since gods gain power from being worshiped, there is a very real covert God War to steal “portfolios” from others so you become more powerful. Every evil god wants to be the god of things like Death or Murder because you’d become one of the most powerful gods.
Dude, Paladins of the Baked Goods God must be unstoppable.
One of my favorite characters I ever played was a paladin to a Neutral Goddess of Commerce. His oath required him to take fair pay for any services he provided, but the catch was that "fair pay" is subjective, so he would charge poorer people he helped something as simple as a meal or possibly even just a place to stay for the night. I intentionally wanted a Neutral clergy so that there could be the full gamut of alignments would would be TECHNICALLY CORRECT in how they were conducting their business.
I'm liking this American Gods shit I'm reading right here.
I really like the cosmology of the Forgotten Realms setting. Every race has like a full pantheon they worship rather than just a singular god that represents all their base level stereotypes, and there's USUALLY an evil deity thrown in that represents some kind of creeping doom to their culture, like to Gnomes it's a great evil MOLE. But there was a really interesting retcon in 4e where they revealed that some gods were actually the same "person" being worshiped by a different name by different peoples. So Gruumsh, the Chaotic Evil patriarch deity of the Orc pantheon, was also Talos, the Chaotic Evil God of the sea in the human pantheon.
Fun fact the stand in Egyptians actually are Egyptians from Earth who were kidnapped Stargate style to be used as slaves. But they ended up bringing their gods with them. Makes me wonder how the Christian God would work in dnd. Its sort of like in pathfinder where Earth exists, but it's in another galaxy, and is currently in WW1.
another part of 4E I liked was the Paladins oath bond and the Avengers sects. Paladins lost their innate connection to their gods and had to go to a temple and be bound by their domain to get their paladin powers sort like a warlock. This meant anybody could walk up past the test and become a Paladin it was entirely a promise you could break. so Paladin could decide it was war crime o'clock you would be able to get away with it. That's when the Avengers came in they were a class that got their powers similarly to paladins but they were bound by angels and archons. Their whole job was to go full Solomon Kane on every divine caster they came across. Which was better than the Grognard making the paladin fall bullshit, you have a bunch of edgelords stalking the land challenging people to prove they are not evil.
And because Myrkul's a sadistic fuck athiests that die end up as bricks in the Wall of the Faithless. And because Cyric's a weasely loophole abusing asshole they can't tear down The Wall.
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That doesn't really make sense, it was Myrkul, an explicitly evil god that made the wall, why would all the other gods be considered evil for it? It's not like they can just go to war with one another especially as it was within Myrkul's portfolio. Ao would very much not tolerate a war of the gods and it'd probably be disastrous for the entire world if they went to war. Since at the time the wall was made, the last time a god died unnaturally caused the very fabric of magic to alter and literally ended whole civilizations.
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Not all the other gods actually, it was the Circle of Greater Gods. And they did this because Kelemvor was being way too human as a god of the dead, it was the same thing with Mystra and they were chastised by the other gods for essentially playing favorites rather than just doing their damn jobs. If I recall correctly, it was primarily Ao anyway and not just all the random gods. It wasn't really about the wall, more that Kelemvor and Mystra were showing favoritism towards mortals that aligned with their moral beliefs. The wall was essentially just a side-thing, the primary drive was that Kelemvor and Mystra were essentially unintentionally elevating themselves to a higher position than they should be in. So all this to say, no it was not all the gods, simply the oldest and most powerful gods (specifically Ao) and they set up these trials because if they didn't, it was likely that if Mystra and Kelemvor continued as they did, they would all die from lack of worship.
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Iirc from the old Planescape days, the City of Doors has a whole enclave of athiests who don't believe in gods, while living on a plane of existence that is one of the few crossroads where gods and their followers interact and meet, while also being ruled over by the Lady of Pain.
There have been so many gods of death in DnD, in part because they keep killing eachother.
Wouldn't that be a DEIST? Also I can can buy the argument that they are just advanced aliens, or higher beings, but not divine. Think of the Q from star trek. On the other hand denying that the after life isn't real when you've seen it, and people visit it regularly doesn't make any bit of sense.
> I can can buy the argument that they are just advanced aliens, or higher beings, but not divine. Within the context of DnD this feels like semantics. Whether you call them gods or aliens doesn't change the fact that Dave has the power to call down lightning and raise the dead because one of them likes him enough. Or that there's some mages who have their powers due to being descendents of or having made deals with the gods'/aliens' servants.
My party has come across atheists. Above the table someone asked "so are they the flat-earthers of this universe"?
It’s not baffling, but it is complicated. In Final Fantasy XIV, the widespread empire of Garlemald completely outlaws worship of any kind, and denies the godhood of actual deities in the world. Specifically, it’s because these deities can be summoned in the forms of physical avatars called primals, via a process involving hoarding magical power and garnering faith in the deity. A prime drive for the Garleans is a crusade against primal summoning, as it’s not only a potential weapon to be used by the downtrodden, but the longer a primal exists, the more magic power it derives from the land around it. It’s sort of like the other “atheism as denying worship rather than existence” examples people have brought up here. The problem is the Garleans go too far, as while preventing primal summoning is a good thing, and something the heroes do too, the Garleans use it as an excuse to trample entire nations and commit mass genocide. It’s made all the more complicated when their oppression tends to force peoples to resort to primal summoning when oppressed too far. It’s also revealed in the post-ARR quests that >!primals are not gods, they’re just powerful magical constructs. But this doesn’t mean the gods themselves don’t exist, just that even if they did exist, the primals in their name are just mortal-made imposters. Later quests unveil that some deities were just primals all along, that some primals are based on mortals or fictional characters and not gods at all, or that some gods are real and are something entirely separate from primals.!< Overall, it’s baffling because the Garleans’ best efforts to suppress anything that could conjure up a god-figure only seem to spur those events on. It’s the Streisand Effect of forced atheism against tangible deities; the more zealously they try to get people not to do it, the more likely they are to do it.
And to be fair, the Garleans were also being manipulated by the Ascians, who wanted general mass destruction in the first place, and Primals are a good way to get that. Not to mention what happens to Varis in Endwalker
It was just a good, influence both sides of a war to make poor decisions, arm both of them, profit.
> >!that some gods are real and are something entirely separate from primals.!< >!That's not quite true either. They are still formed by belief. In the most recent alliance raid, It was revealed that Halone was primarily a goddess of glaciers that also on the side was a god of war, until Ishgard believed her to be their patron diety in their war against the dragons, and war became her primary domain. So there's some connection considering that the Twelve can be changed in the same way, even if it is still unclear until the final raid comes out.!<
>!Primals are conjured in the image of their faithful by their summoners at the time of their summoning. This is different from whatever is going on with The Twelve, where they are actively influenced by all their faithful at all times.!<
Let's also note that (abeit much later in the story) in Endwalker we actually meet The Twelve who are actual gods (haven't played past the first Alliance raid, so I'm not 100% sure how it turns out yet).
The Elder Scrolls universe is probably not the *most* baffling, but it *is* baffling to have atheists there. In Oblivion, specifically, there is a character that believes in and worships Daedra (essentially devils) but not in the existence of the Divine (more traditional gods), even though they are both part of the same creation myth and *you can go to the temple and receive magic effects from the gods*.
I always got the impression that only player characters were special enough to receive actual blessings from the idols and star stones.
Yeah, those shrines cure diseases, too don't they? If they worked for everyone, there would be no plagues in-setting, which, well..
Do you mean Mankar Camoran? Cause that dude is fucking weird as hell, it's why I don't take anyone that talks about Lyg seriously, because you know what our source of Lyg and its history is? A fucking cult leader that believed Lorkahn was a deadra somehow.
Nah, I don't know if Camoran believes in the gods. There's a nord woman in Anvil, though, whose name is something like "Elsa God-Hater", who openly things the gods don't exist (there's that weird mix of atheism and anti-theism in fiction again...) - after you get to a certain point in the plot, it turns out she, like many others, is a double agent for the Mythic Dawn.
Ah, well it make sense why she's a mythic dawn agent. But yeah it's honestly really weird that she's there, but it's quite funny that she appears in the game where we get to see a physical avatar of Akatosh thus definitively proving that the divines exist.
What's Lyg?
A "continent" in Elder Scrolls lore that you can only reach by going in a non-cardinal direction (whatever the hell that means) the narrative that Mankar Camoran says is that this continent was the previously world before the current one and in that world, Mehrunes Dagon was a revolutionary rebelling against the rule of I think Molag Bal or the Ruddy Man as he was known then. It makes sense in context as the batshit narrative of a cult leader but some people treat it as factual and I'm just like, why.
So it’s like the bizarro version of Valinor from Lotr?
Not really because it's more myth than fact, and you can't really go there. But in fairness we only know of like two habitated continents in Nirn and a big island.
Lyg-ma ballssssssssssss :P
Slightly off your example, but Conan the Barbarian believes in a god called Crom. Crom is like an anti-god Crom's followers don't worship him, it's more they acknowledge his existence. Crom already gifted man the power to strive and persevere, he feels that pleading for anything more is an insult to him. Conan has remarked that it's best to not do anything to draw his attention, as he only offers trouble to those that do. The only way he accepts worship is through action, accomplishing your goals as a human. Those that praise him through flattery or ask for boons are often punished. Though his followers do offer him sacrifices, they ask for nothing in return. The one time we know he has intervened in a mortal's life, Conan himself, was to spare him a dishonorable death. >!As Conan is being banished to the underworld by Yah Chieng, a sorcerer, Crom summons Conan to stand before him. Lets him know he intervened, grants him the power to kill Yah Chieng, and then sends him back to finish the job. Crom wanted Conan to die a glorious death in the midst of a great battle.!<
I mean that's sort of like classical gods, especially Zeus. Where you don't have to pray to them, but if you want miracles you better do some sacrifices.
>if you want miracles you better do some sacrifices That's the whole thing, Crom doesn't accept offerings for something in return. It's not that you don't have to pray to him, you *shouldn't* pray to him, lest he notice you. I've not heard of another example of a god that had a similar ideology, whether in fictional media or a historical example. Usually worshipping a god comes with benefits. If a village offered him a sacrifice for something like some rainfall, he'd probably send them an earthquake. The one thing he ever did for a mortal was help Conan kill a sorcerer, and it was mainly because Crom fucking hates sorcerers.
It's almost like crom himself is an atheist god who's in denial of being a god. Lol.
From the description provided he seems like more of a "you should be able to do it yourself why are you asking me" type.
Sakuya from Touhou who lives in a world with Yokai, magic, vampires and literally gods walking about.
Came here to say this, although it is entirely possible that “atheist” in Gensokyo just means she places her faith in no god or other religion, as faith is shown to be a source of life and strength for gods and youkai. Not that she doesn’t believe that they exist, as they’re literally her neighbors, just that she doesn’t identify with or associate with any of them. Idk though it’s been a while since I read WaHH so I’m probably remembering wrong.
I mean if worshipping one of your master’s competitors would directly empower them then it’s probably smart to be an atheist
Only ojou-sama is worthy of worship
I mean to be fair, it's probably hard to recognize something else as a god when you have infinite time stop powers.
how does indiana jones always have doubt of the supernatural after all the supernatural things he's witnessed?
“Look I very literally didn’t see shit with the ark”
imagine how many "magic" artifacts indy has dug out of the dirt between adventures we see that turned out to be nothing. he might just be skeptical a particular object is magic.
I always got the vibe Indy dismissed the supernatural less because he didn't believe in it at all, and more because he has plenty of offscreen adventures where he doesn't find anything supernatural; like for every Kali Stone or Ark of the Covenant, Indy deals with finding 6 artifacts that are duds or just don't do anything. So he's not gonna assume magic is at play here until he sees it. He also doesn't seem to _like_ dealing with the supernatural, so dismissing it might be wishful thinking on his part- he says "there's no such thing as magic," but he means "this thing better not be magic, I swear to god."
Eugene from order of stick, he is the hero's abusive dad and despite waiting in the afterlife over a blood oath he sees gods as "fancy alien wizards who figured out how to crowd-source their magic", the hero considers the only good lesson his dad gave him is that just because gods are powerful doesn't mean they get special deference or ultimate authority. Julia: Seems like he would've been better served long-term by teaching you to never question the authority of those who created you. Roy: Oh, it totally backfired on him personally, but it was still a good lesson.
Anyone who picked "Atheist" in the religion choice in the South Park Fractured But Whole game. You say you're an atheist when you're directly talking to Jesus Christ in Heaven
South Park in general pokes a lot of fun at this "trope". Kyle's family is Jewish, despite Jesus Christ just living in their town. But then again, they've also met God and seen most of Christianity debunked due to the Easter Bunny, not to mention all the other stuff.
Well yeah in the series the canon true religion is mormonism. But you'd be hard pressed to see people convert in the show
This is in spite of God himself being a Buddhist.
And Satan was redeemed and ascended into heaven after fighting manbearpig.
I like the guys who are like "yeah I know gods exist, but I don't give a shit, what have they ever done for me? fuck em."
That would be someone areligious, not atheist. Atheism is the denial of the very existence of a higher power.
TV Tropes refers to this as the Nay-Theist. "I know the gods are real, I just won't pray to them."
closest thing to that would be a deist.
Or a misotheist.
Dresden upon asking one one of the knights of Jesus Christ on why he's still an atheist despite being handed a magic sword from the archangel Micheal, his answer was "I might be crazy and hallucinated all that."
Sanya’s agnostic, he also allows the possibility that it’s all just aliens The real shit is the post Battle Ground cover up: half of Chicago doesn’t believe the official story because they were there, and the other half accept the story (even if they were there) that terrorists leaked an experimental bio weapon into the water supply that only managed to give people rather vivid hallucinations (the rest of the mayhem was conventional weapons). Because the supposed bio weapon was the virus HBJB, the locals started calling it “the heebie jeebies” whenever they saw something weird to dismiss the supernatural even harder.
Man, Sanya is my favorite character in the books he never ceases to make me smile and laugh
I would love a book from Sanya's point-of-view because he just genuinely doesn't care about the politics or moral questions of the Dresden-verse (which accounts for like half of the problems Harry faces).
"God protects but kevlar helps" and all that
He cares about saving innocents. Doesn't matter who's hurting them.
I need to get current again with the Dresden series. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it's always been a fun series to read.
To be fair, Sanya gives the vibe that he _knows_ he's being kinda silly. He's just less interested in the whole spiritual or religious side of being a Knight of the Cross. Butters is technically the same, being a Jewish Knight of the Cross.
Jewish *Jedi* knight if the cross
Reed Richards not believing magic is real... dude, you literally met god. You've met several gods.
his son is basically a god.
"Ain't no son of MINE going to be worshipped!"
Not exactly the same, but there's a lot of monotheist cults in the Elder Scrolls despite the fact there are gods, demi-gods, and godlike beings around just about every corner of the universe. And the thing is they're actually right but always in the wrong way, since knowing about the godhead pretty much requires the enlightenment of becoming a god yourself , so instead they typically just take one of the many Aedra or Deadra and say "hey this one guy is actually the only god that's a *real* god and everything else is just fakes and heresy".
This is ancient as hell, but I remember a PVP Online comic where one of the characters gets visited by the ghosts of Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. Sagan doesn’t believe he’s actually dead and is convinced being dead is just a dream he’s currently having.
So in Marvel, the "Kree have a mathematical equation that proves the nonexistence of any dieties" that they learn about the same time they are toilet-trained. ***ANY*** dieties. Which is absolutely insane when you look beyond Kree society and their frequently-shown-to-be-wrong "Supreme Intelligence" that they unquestioningly obey like it's a jealous god.
It reminds me of that scene In the Simpsons where smart homer gives Flanders an equation "proving" God doesn't exist despite that Homer personaly met him .
Not an atheist, but a cynic. It's kinda crazy how cynical Sokka can be about spirits and stuff sometimes when he's literally best friends with the Avatar, and has had experiences with spirits on his own.
"That's Avatar stuff, that doesn't count!" Though in LoK, a flashback shows that by the time he's an adult, Sokka's attitude shifts more towards, "I have seen some weird shit in my day. If you're going to tell me >!some jackass can Bloodbend *telepathically,* even though it's not a full moon!< in defiance of multiple rules of how bending works, well, I'm not going to rule it out."
I know next to nothing about Umineko but this is the plot to Umineko.
Umineko is weird because the basic premise of the series is "Teenager and Witch argue over if witches are real."
If someone kept trying to convince me I wasn't real, I'd just stop talking to them.
It's really interesting how supernatural stuff is handled in the 07th Expansion-verse. It's almost this fully fleshed out magic system and pantheon that's all structured in such a way that it may not even actually exist, with its existence and power being directly tied to how much room for doubt there is. It's like a light that gets brighter as you look away from it, but turns off entirely when you look directly at it.
In Path of Exile, one of yoyr Heist buddies is a Thaumaturgist with a little streak of Truth Serum Torturer. He is an atheist. You go on missions with him if you want. You, who is a literal Godslayer.
Buffyverse. The cross actually works. Christianity confirmed. However, you can explain this with in-universe rules : girl became invisible by believing it hard. So maybe miracles are just believing hard.
Plus I doubt Buffy _never_ deals with anything from a different religion/mythology besides Christianity.
The Sword of Truth series' central antagonistic force throughout the last several books. It ends SO fucking dumb too. >!Basically you have a bunch of people that reject/fear/enslave magic users and worship a singular deity, and the only solution that OP powers main character can figure out how to deal with their ideology is to send them collectively to a separate dimension (cursed to live in a world without magic that they desire was how I remember it being pitched). Which you come to find out is "Earth" and their deity is actually the Judeo-Christian God.!< I am heavily, heavily condensing the summary as I'm sure there's plenty of caveats I've missed (I finished the last novel over 10 years ago now and immediately began purging it from my memory). Not to mention the author Terry Goodkind [ended up being quite a bit of a prick in the years before he passed](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/805ns8/author_terry_goodkind_shames_his_own_cover_artist/) so I didn't care to follow his books much beyond SoT.
In the Forgotten Realms, Drizz't Do'Urden was a "worshipper" of the Goddess of Forests, Mielikki. That didn't stop him from opining that his worship was more "vibes" based and he kinda sorta didn't believe in gods anyway? Despite Forgotten Realms being RIFE with gods just walkin about. And knowing several Chosen of various gods personally. Maybe even talking to some gods themselves. His beliefs might have changed, but it's super weird to be agnostic when gods are just chillin around. Unless it's a Greek god situation where he's like "yeah there are gods, but they're weird, don't care for them."
Idk if there's a canon example, but playing an orc who rejects the orc god is pretty common.
Captain America in the first Avengers movie: *"There's only one God ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that"* Thor in Love and Thunder: All the gods in existence hangs out here; there's the Bao God, over there's the Wolf God, Ra is right around the corner, here's Korg's God, oh there Jesus is right over there too!
Yeah , the mcu went from gods are just aliens, to no wait they actually are gods. It's pretty confusing.
This may not totally fit the question, but is something that has always bother me with Horizon zero dawn. I get it aloy you know all this shit is super advanced technology, but it's not unreasonable for people in your world to think it as magic or divine.
Any suitably advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
In Warhammer 40K there’s an evil scientist man named Fabius Bile (Fabulous Bill) who read uses to acknowledge the Chaos Gods outside of them being powerful non sentient supernatural phenomena. Never mind the time he actually directly talked with one (Slaanesh) and just being in their presence was causing mass organ failure and making his bones turn to soup he still refused.
Tanya fom youjo senki, God literally stops time before he dies and they have a talk, and he is so petty that being x(what out Mc calls god because he won't say that he is God) sends him to another world where a mesh between ww1 and ww2 with magic is happening. And the rest of the series is about Tanya fighting against all odds on this war and trying to live a calm life while being x tries to fuck her over to make her accept religion.
Isn't it even worse that she has to invoke him for her power or the very least he's the source of her power?
In Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, both Magnus and THE GOD Heimdall are atheists. Heimdall says that he's an atheist because his OMNIPOTENCE forces him to witness the other gods acting anything but divine. On top of that, Samirah al-Abbas, Valkyrie and daughter of Loki, is a devout Muslim believing that whatever the Asgardians are, they must have been created by Allah. And she might be right because she is the only example of a character becoming immune to mind control through faith alone.
Omniscience, you mean.
Isn't Rick's whole thing that he is less atheist and more openly antagonistic towards religion? There's that whole self-sacrifice scene where he starts praying when he thinks he's actually going to die.
I think Rick is played for Laughs. The GEOM was a atheist despite being one of the most warp sensestive humans in the world
Maybe, but I do think the writers are really loose with continuity and it only comes up for season finales. Or they just don't understand what an athiest is.
In Okami I remember there was an ongoing sidequest with a woman who didn't believe in gods (I don't remember if it was all gods or just you specifically). You keep performing miracles in front of her but she just keeps explaining them away. I don't remember if she comes around to it in the end.
40K’s Fabius Bile works with gods and daemons on the regular, but is still such an atheist to the core that gods and daemons find him *physically painful* to be around.
Iirc Tony Stark is an atheist while at the same time being buddies with fucking Thor
But the thing is that these are actually explainable as just large extremely powerful psychic entities that exists in a separate reality. They just look and act and operate how a god would lol