Thought Experiment: A Cleric dedicated to Atheism


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Okay, so sketching close to Chris's warning, but I do have to ask because *terminology* is relevant here, and I am honestly seeking clarification, not trying to argue a point. I think I may be using a term differently...

In what way is "I do not believe there is at least one deity" not equivalent to "I believe there is not at least one deity"? Are you using belief as a claim of certainty? In that case, many religious people would technically be atheists. But if belief means to simply think there is a greater probability of something being true rather than not, then the two above are equivalent.


Derek Vande Brake wrote:

Okay, so sketching close to Chris's warning, but I do have to ask because *terminology* is relevant here, and I am honestly seeking clarification, not trying to argue a point. I think I may be using a term differently...

In what way is "I do not believe there is at least one deity" not equivalent to "I believe there is not at least one deity"? Are you using belief as a claim of certainty? In that case, many religious people would technically be atheists. But if belief means to simply think there is a greater probability of something being true rather than not, then the two above are equivalent.

It's a matter of something not being equal and opposite to its apparent inverse.

Like...

Okay.

Someone says something that sounds sketchy.

You might say "I don't believe you."

That is not the same as saying "I believe you are lying."

The first is a statement of disbelief, unqualified, with no attempt at naming an alternative.

The second is a statement that you don't believe them AND ALSO you believe they have fabricated the tale.

See how the two are different?

"I don't believe" and "I believe <Contrary>" are not the same thing.


Rynjin wrote:
Derek Vande Brake wrote:

Okay, so sketching close to Chris's warning, but I do have to ask because *terminology* is relevant here, and I am honestly seeking clarification, not trying to argue a point. I think I may be using a term differently...

In what way is "I do not believe there is at least one deity" not equivalent to "I believe there is not at least one deity"? Are you using belief as a claim of certainty? In that case, many religious people would technically be atheists. But if belief means to simply think there is a greater probability of something being true rather than not, then the two above are equivalent.

It's a matter of something not being equal and opposite to its apparent inverse.

Like...

Okay.

Someone says something that sounds sketchy.

You might say "I don't believe you."

That is not the same as saying "I believe you are lying."

The first is a statement of disbelief, unqualified, with no attempt at naming an alternative.

The second is a statement that you don't believe them AND ALSO you believe they have fabricated the tale.

See how the two are different?

"I don't believe" and "I believe <Contrary>" are not the same thing.

Is that the same relationship, though? I agree those two are not equivalent - you could believe they are crazy, or simply mistaken. However, isn't "I don't believe you" equivalent to "I believe you are incorrect"?

For example, if my friend says there is a purple unicorn in his kitchen, "I do not believe there is a purple unicorn in your kitchen," is not equivalent to, "You are lying about there being a purple unicorn in your kitchen." But the latter is also not equivalent to, "I believe there is no purple unicorn in your kitchen," which I see as equivalent to, "I do not believe there is a purple unicorn in your kitchen."


Derek Vande Brake wrote:
In what way is "I do not believe there is at least one deity" not equivalent to "I believe there is not at least one deity"?

Simple.

The first ("I do not believe there is at least one deity") is not affirming anything, it's simply refusing to accept one (of many) possibilities. The second ("I believe there is not at least one deity") is affirming a position that one possibility is likely to be true.

For example:

You and I are standing on the roof of a house. The ground is 10' below us. You say "I am going to jump. I believe I will break my leg".

Now, I can agree "I also believe you will break your leg".
Or I can disagree, rejecting what you said but not affirming anything "I do not believe you will break your leg".
Or I can disagree AND affirm a different possibility "I believe you will NOT break your leg".

Note that all three examples are talking about what I believe. I make no claim to KNOW what will happen and I'm definitely not speaking in absolutes. Merely what I believe is most likely to be true, or (in that middle case) what I simply do not believe while not expressing what might be true.


DM_Blake wrote:
Derek Vande Brake wrote:
In what way is "I do not believe there is at least one deity" not equivalent to "I believe there is not at least one deity"?

Simple.

The first ("I do not believe there is at least one deity") is not affirming anything, it's simply refusing to accept one (of many) possibilities. The second ("I believe there is not at least one deity") is affirming a position that one possibility is likely to be true.

For example:

You and I are standing on the roof of a house. The ground is 10' below us. You say "I am going to jump. I believe I will break my leg".

Now, I can agree "I also believe you will break your leg".
Or I can disagree, rejecting what you said but not affirming anything "I do not believe you will break your leg".
Or I can disagree AND affirm a different possibility "I believe you will NOT break your leg".

Note that all three examples are talking about what I believe. I make no claim to KNOW what will happen and I'm definitely not speaking in absolutes. Merely what I believe is most likely to be true, or (in that middle case) what I simply do not believe while not expressing what might be true.

Okay. I legitimately do not see a difference between the second and third, but I will drop the subject so as not to derail the thread any more.

Grand Lodge

Arachnofiend wrote:
there are plenty of atheists out there who are devout enough to turn Atheism into an ideology unto itself. You can usually identify them because they can recite the definition of a bunch of different fallacies but use them anyways without realizing it.

Yep, I know the type.

Arachnofiend wrote:
A Cleric who believes so strongly in the falsehood of the gods that he becomes evidence of it (due to having divine spellcasting without any connection to a god) sounds like a viable character concept to me.

wait... this isn't snarky sarcasm?

Grand Lodge

ONE QUESTION) is faith all one needs to perform clerical casting, or is a Deity required?

A. If a deity has to dole out daily spells and such - then a deity is the sole factor.

B. If faith is all you need, then any sufficiently strong faith is the sole factor.

Option A, means that Atheism will not benefit you in any shape or form.
Option B, means that you still have to have sufficiently strong enough faith.

Option c, If a deity has to gather faith from masses of devout followers - then a Lone person who just has an opinion won't have the juice to cast even a single orison.


On Golarion it's option A. The Golarion setting doesn't allow for clerics of ideals, though Pathfinder rule set does allow this. However, Pathfinder rules attempt to be setting agnostic, and thus have rules for clerics of ideals.

And, the power of deities on Golarion is not dependent on worshipers as far as we are aware, though in some 3.5 settings they were. On Golarion deities are independently powerful.

Grand Lodge

Claxon wrote:
in Golarion its option A

So then...

this topic is moot, if your in Golarion.
Yet, Totally doable if you homebrew.


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Back to the OP again, just one more thought:

If "atheism" is an ideology, then "off" is a TV channel. A cleric dedicated to "atheism" is about as plausible as a TV-addicted couch potato dedicated to having his TV on channel "off".

Fred: Hey, Bob, whatchya watching?
Bob: Nothing. The TV is off.
Fred: Why have you been staring at your TV for so long when it's off?
Bob: Because I'm dedicated to channel "off".
Fred: Uh, Bob, you do know that "off" is not actually a TV channel, right?
Bob: Yeah, sure, but I'm still dedicated to the "off" channel. Now hush, I'm watching this...

But as I mentioned in my earlier post, there are "ideas" the non-traditional cleric can revere and espouse that don't include worship of or theistic belief in any specific deities. That's still not atheism, but it's about as close as a Golarion cleric is likely to get without throwing all sense of plausibility right out the window.

Side note: R.I.P. Hitch! I know you are.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Rynjin wrote:

A Cleric of Atheism doesn't make any sense. Atheism isn't a belief or an ideal. Atheism is literally defined by what you are NOT, rather than what you are.

It's like saying "I'm a Cleric devoted to the ideal of not being a dog. I believe very strongly that I'm not a dog.".

But you're not a dog. Are there pamphlets and literature I could read? Your religion looks legit.

Liberty's Edge

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In the OP's contexte, Atheism is "the idea that there are no such things as gods (just very powerful celestials/fiends)".

At first, I thought that this is NOT an ideal. Which led me to consider what would be an ideal worthy of worship (ie, that Clerics could choose to follow and that would grant them divine powers).

I came to the answer that such an ideal has to be something you are willing to die for.

So, the question becomes : is Atheism as defined above something that matters enough for someone to be willing to fight and die for it ?

If so, then IMO it becomes a valid ideal, suitable for dedication by Clerics. The domains espoused by the Clerics should then reflect the fundamental reasons why they are willing to die for this ideal.

Dark Archive

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IMO, a cleric of 'the divinity of man' or something, that as gods are in some way supported by mortal devotion, the *source* of divine power in fact comes from mortals, not the gods, and that the true agents of creating mortal nations, mortal laws, mortal successes, mortal developments in the arts and sciences (and magic) are in fact mortals themselves, and not some meddling immortal outsiders from other dimensions who feed off of mortal faith, would be a neat notion for an 'atheist' cleric.

Their 'divine' spellcasting comes from the same source that powers some gods themselves (at least in some d20 worlds, if not necessarily Golarion), mortal belief.

They don't necessarily disbelieve that the 'gods' exist, only that they are just uppity extradimensional entities, a step above demon lords, no more worthy of worship than an epic rakshasa maharaja or mythic dragon or balor lord with levels in badass.

Their tenets would preach that for a mortal to truly behave in a moral or ethical manner, they would have to choose moral and ethical behavior without the stick of damnation or the carrot of salvation (which makes it a purely mercenary calculation, to behave morally to avoid falling into lakes of hellfire or ascending to a pretty garden with 72 virgins). Instead of 'being good' for the benefits (or out of fear of the dire punishments), they would be good because they feel it is morally right, sans any sort of bribery-based system of morality through self-interest. They might even argue that the current system, which encourages people to 'be good' by offering them candy to climb into the van, or threatens them to avoid evil by warning of how much it's going to suck when they die and go to the torture-pits that wait them, are in fact diminishing humanity, by teaching the lesson that mankind is inherently selfish and could never be trusted to choose good (or eschew evil) without some sort of Pavlovian conditioning involving doggy treats for rolling over on command and electrical shocks for peeing on the carpet.

Existing in a pre-existing d20 setting (such as Greyhawk, the Realms or Golarion) where intent is utterly irrelevant to one's alignment, and one can go to the heaven-analogues despite having only chosen to 'be good' out of pure selfishness for the free bennies and avoiding a life of evil out of fear of the eternal punishment, and one can 'be evil' just because one used [evil] subtype spells to save puppies from a burning orphanage, these clerics of the 'divinity of man' would, of course, be no more right or wrong than clerics of apocalyptic human or life-hating forces like Nerull, Tharizdun, Rovagug or the Great Old Ones (who are, in some cases, actually described as being uncaring of, or even *unaware of* their mortal worshippers, despite somehow granting them clerical powers!), but that has less to do with the concept being absurd and counter-intuitive than the concept of alignment being absurd and counter-intuitive.


Another way to view a D&D/Pathfinder "athiest" is to take the planescape view, which is vaguely similar to a variety of gnostics in ancient times.

There are gods: they simply aren't worthy of worship. All gods, whether "benevolent" or "malevolent" are simply higher order beings, not much different than powerful men who have tapped into a divine source. In fact, a once mortal being can ascend to this plane of existence. An "athiest" cleric might feel that it is his duty to liberate sentient beings from the tyranny of these beings, and allow sentient beings to rule themselves without the guidance of the gods. (That's how I do it in my games...) HOW they do this you can determine for your game.

(Are they overt? Covert? Engage in sabotage against temples? Teachers and scholars? What are the tenants of their philosophy? Etc.)


DM_Blake wrote:

Back to the OP again, just one more thought:

If "atheism" is an ideology, then "off" is a TV channel.

Ehh. First off, I think the comparison is faulty in real life, because we don't see huge gatherings of people who's only similar stance is that they have their TV set to the channel "off". I've used similar metaphors before ("like calling baldness a hairstyle"), but have realized they're pretty useless. What is considered and not considered an ideology is largely related to whether or not you have actual political organizing around those claims, and there's certainly an ideology which basically comes down to "everyone should be atheist".

Like, yes, in the loosest sense of the word it's certainly not an ideology, and I'm not ideologically atheist, but there certainly are people who make an ideology out of it; see the New Atheism movement.

But, more importantly, the game worlds are not the same as the real world. In the game worlds, belief in deities is not only the standard, but taken as an obvious "this is how it is" by everyone, reinforced by the fact that the entities they revere have real, tangible power and in some cases have walked the earth. There is (largely) irrefutable evidence that the entities exist.

So making a positively atheistic claim in such a world is a MUCH BIGGER DEAL. It's akin to people who in real life would not believe our bodies existed, and that is definately a claim that one could build an ideology around.


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Gaberlunzie wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:

Back to the OP again, just one more thought:

If "atheism" is an ideology, then "off" is a TV channel.

Ehh. First off, I think the comparison is faulty in real life, because we don't see huge gatherings of people who's only similar stance is that they have their TV set to the channel "off".

If there were millions of people who prefer the "off" channel. And if those people were living in communities where preferring the "off" channel meant losing their jobs, watching their children being ostracized at school, and having lawmakers create laws that only benefited those who watch other channels and in some cases even made their lives worse for preferring "off", then yeah, you would see gatherings of the "off channel" people.

But, so far, it's OK to have your TV off. It's even OK to be devoted to that preference. While, in some places, it might even get you killed to publicly express an atheist preference and in other places that can just make your life harder (and, true, in some places it doesn't matter much - but in those places, there are very few gatherings).


Derek Vande Brake wrote:

Okay, so sketching close to Chris's warning, but I do have to ask because *terminology* is relevant here, and I am honestly seeking clarification, not trying to argue a point. I think I may be using a term differently...

In what way is "I do not believe there is at least one deity" not equivalent to "I believe there is not at least one deity"? Are you using belief as a claim of certainty? In that case, many religious people would technically be atheists. But if belief means to simply think there is a greater probability of something being true rather than not, then the two above are equivalent.

In Mathematical terms:

Belief in X: positive integer
Belief in not X: negative integer
Lack of belief in X or not X: 0

It is likely that I have just been conversing with certain types of Atheists, but every time I seem to have gotten in a belief discussion with an Atheist in the past, they claim the "Lack of Belief" role in name (denying they believe in a lack of deities), but their arguments all point to a belief in a lack of deities. Now, people who claim Agnosticism, my conversations with them mostly verify that they don't believe one way or another.

Dark Archive

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KahnyaGnorc wrote:


In Mathematical terms:

Belief in X: positive integer
Belief in not X: negative integer
Lack of belief in X or not X: 0

Where the math gets fuzzy in games is that there might be powerful outsiders that call themselves gods and grant power to their followers, and various other types of power, including *divine spellcasters* (such as adepts, druids and rangers) who cast the same sorts of spells despite no interest in / belief in / connection to these 'gods.'

So someone might be 'atheist' in a d20-derived game setting by;

1) not believing the gods actually exist (since even their higher priests only know that they pray and *something* claiming to be Pelor/Cthulhu/Pharasma grants them spells, but rarely ever *know* that the being granting the spells actually exists, or is exactly truthfully like their holy books describe them, is not as ridiculous as it sounds, since divine spellcasting is available to plenty of non-god-worshipping druids and rangers, so a cleric praying to get spells proves exactly nothing).

2) believing that there are powerful outsiders, but that they aren't the creators of the universe (which most of them actually *aren't*) or omniscient or omnipotent or having any of the attributes a real world person would associate with 'god.'

3) believing in said powerful outsiders, and perhaps even that they are 'gods,' but that they don't particularly deserve to be worshipped, which, again, in some cases, like Groetus or Azathoth, said to be uninterested in, or even *unware of* their mortal worshippers, is absolutely true.

4) believing something even more radical, such as that the planes of existence (and gods thereon) are all philosophical constructs, no more real than a plane of 'ideal forms' or the 'music of the spheres' rubbing against each other. Since 99.99% of people residing on said fantasy world will never actually travel to another plane (before their death, anyway...), it's not even a ridiculous position to hold, compared to believing that the Earth is flat.


Set wrote:
KahnyaGnorc wrote:


In Mathematical terms:

Belief in X: positive integer
Belief in not X: negative integer
Lack of belief in X or not X: 0

Where the math gets fuzzy in games is that there might be powerful outsiders that call themselves gods and grant power to their followers, and various other types of power, including *divine spellcasters* (such as adepts, druids and rangers) who cast the same sorts of spells despite no interest in / belief in / connection to these 'gods.'

So someone might be 'atheist' in a d20-derived game setting by;

1) not believing the gods actually exist (since even their higher priests only know that they pray and *something* claiming to be Pelor/Cthulhu/Pharasma grants them spells, but rarely ever *know* that the being granting the spells actually exists, or is exactly truthfully like their holy books describe them, is not as ridiculous as it sounds, since divine spellcasting is available to plenty of non-god-worshipping druids and rangers, so a cleric praying to get spells proves exactly nothing).

2) believing that there are powerful outsiders, but that they aren't the creators of the universe (which most of them actually *aren't*) or omniscient or omnipotent or having any of the attributes a real world person would associate with 'god.'

3) believing in said powerful outsiders, and perhaps even that they are 'gods,' but that they don't particularly deserve to be worshipped, which, again, in some cases, like Groetus or Azathoth, said to be uninterested in, or even *unware of* their mortal worshippers, is absolutely true.

4) believing something even more radical, such as that the planes of existence (and gods thereon) are all philosophical constructs, no more real than a plane of 'ideal forms' or the 'music of the spheres' rubbing against each other. Since 99.99% of people residing on said fantasy world will never actually travel to another plane (before their death, anyway...), it's not even a ridiculous position to hold, compared to...

Yeah, I was purposefully simplifying a rather complex situation down to a single dimension, in order to clarify the difference between not believing and believing the negative, and their relationship to believing the positive. I even contemplated simplifying it further into just 3 numbers (1, 0, -1), but decided against it.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

this topic is dumb.


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Bandw2 wrote:
this topic is dumb.

Not necessarily. Sorry we've gotten off-topic, but to get back on-topic: I think it is very much possible to make a cleric of an ideal to which atheism is of central value. I'm talking about outside of Golarion, that is, as Golarion clerics always have a deity. For ease of discussion however, let's assume a setting that is similar to golarion except that there can be clerics of ideals.

Ventnor wrote:
Hi again OP! Sorry we've ruined your thread :(

Being an atheist in such a world is different from in real life, because there is no denying that the entities regarded as deities exist. Such an atheist would not deny that Aroden and Desna exist, but deny their status as gods. This is very similar to the faction of the Athar in the Planescape setting, which believe that the so-called gods are false pretenders, mortal (as in, can be killed) beings that are just powerful enough to get people to worship them. However, the athar generally believe there is some other greater power that can't be understood by mortals ("the Great Unknown"); whether it can be considered a god or not I don't know, as I don't know if they believe the Great Unknown to be a sentient being rather than just a force.

Considering an ideal centered around atheism in such a world, my thought would be an anarchist ideal (though that may be because I come from an anarchist line of thought IRL), that posits that all powers that can't prove their own necessity are wrong and must be removed from power, and that the greatest such wrongness is that of the so-called "gods".

I imagine that such an ideal would be born in a region where religion is heavily used as a means of social control, similar to say Cheliax.

Something like this:
The so-called "Gods" are tyrants that claim ultimate authority over life and death, and not only treat other sentient beings as tools and slaves, but also asks us to praise them. They claim to know right from wrong, and their "right" is us being subjugated by their priests and kings.

Some of them claim fancy titles like "the healing light", but when we, the slaves, the serfs, the poor and others go sick to their temples, they reject us, serving the lords who get rich off our backs. The false belief that these beings are "gods" that have some kind of moral authority or inherent right to do what they do must be crushed, if we are ever to escape their tyranny.

"The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of "gods". As long as we have masters in the heavens and hells, we will be slaves on earth." - Half-orc agitator and philosopher Bak'Unin

This said, when it comes to actually playing such a character, you run into the problem that pathfinder is largely built so that player characters amass huge wealth very quickly, and if they don't spend most on adventuring equipment they'll die quite fast. If the OP can get their GM to be ok with the old 3.5 Vow of Poverty, given that cleric is already a quite powerful class they might be okay. Personally, if I ran a cleric like this, they'd be Chaotic of some flavor (probably neutral, maaaybe good if they are a bit softer about it) with the Liberation and Community domains.

There are probably other ways to make good clerics to which atheism is a central point, and I do feel a bit bad for quoting bakunin in what sounds like new atheism BS as he was very explicitly dismissive of such stuff, but whatever. It's one approach that might work, so OP I thought you might have use of this post.


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Guys, posts were deleted to stop this argument...

Just to give the OP something to work with (assuming they're even following this thread at this point), if you focus on the "Philosophy of Man" bent where you believe that these high-powered beings who claim to be gods are unnecessary and even detrimental to man's progression, some good on-flavor domains to select for your Cleric would be Community and Liberation. You could probably swing Glory as well.

Shadow Lodge

There are a few issues with this, though. The glaring one is that how is a immortal being with "divine" authority over some of the primal concepts of existence with the nearly unique ability to grant Divine Spells NOT A DEITY?

It's also a disprovable thing in that people do die and get returned to life, thus knowing for a fact that there is an afterlife, and one that is at least roughly in line with the different religious teachings.

There is also the fact that most of them are in fact not tyrants at all, actually giving their powers freely to be spread out to others, not hoarded.

What could work, though is to have a belief system more like Buddhism. That is, they gods exist. It is an intrinsic part of the belief system, but they are not themselves notably important to the faith and goals of the faith. That is worshiping them is generally not the important part of the teachings, ad one could even be a follower of the faith without believing in deities, kind of.

In game, the Cleric probably would not care too much about any deity except when both of their interests and understanding's align. So a neutral cleric of Fire might find a lot of use in the teachings of Sarenrae and Asmodeus, when it comes to fire, but not really a lot of other aspects.


DM Beckett wrote:
There are a few issues with this, though. The glaring one is that how is a immortal being with "divine" authority over some of the primal concepts of existence with the nearly unique ability to grant Divine Spells NOT A DEITY?

"I can get divine spells without following one of these deities, and I certainly make no claims to divinity myself; therefore there is nothing special about them other than being outsiders with an unusually high number of hit dice. You wouldn't worship a barbazu."


As for the original question...

Since clerics, druids, etc. do not have to worship gods to cast their spells, it would seem that "divine" power exists independently from the existence of divinities. You apparently just need need faith in some principle to access that primordial power. My opinion is that you would need an active principle to make this work. For me, not believing in gods wouldn't qualify any more than Rynjin's "I'm not a dog" principle would.

I would think that antitheism might be a workable principle. You could believe that the gods should be opposed, and destroyed if possible, because they corrupt the natural order when they place themselves between mortals and the universal power that is wrongly called "divine."


DM Beckett wrote:
There are a few issues with this, though. The glaring one is that how is a immortal being with "divine" authority over some of the primal concepts of existence with the nearly unique ability to grant Divine Spells NOT A DEITY?

In-world, nothing denotes their power as "divine", just like nothing in-world states that a Fighter is a Fighter or that Base Attack Bonus is a thing. Also, while Gods do not age, they are not truly immortal as they can be slain, and there are many beings that are not on record as dying of age.

When it comes to the "authority over some primal concept", that character would dispute that authority, say that it's just claimed by power rather than right, like the "authority" of a powerful sorcerer to burn down a village.

In-world, the things that can actually be known by deities is:
1. They are magically powerful (like a lot of other beings, like liches and pit fiends)
2. They do not die of age (like liches and pit fiends)
3. They live in other planes of existence and claim power over those regions (like pit fiends)
4. They are hard to kill (like liches and mythical creatures)
5. They can grant others magical power (like liches and pit fiends)

EDIT: For some reason the second part of the post didn't appear.

DM Beckett wrote:


It's also a disprovable thing in that people do die and get returned to life, thus knowing for a fact that there is an afterlife, and one that is at least roughly in line with the different religious teachings.

If Buddhism teaches water is wet, that does nothing to prove buddhism is right. A fact of life (or afterlife) matching what a religious teacher says doesn't say anything about that faith having an ultimate answer to any other question, especially not in a world where any murderhobo with a few hundred GP can planeshift around and document the afterlife.

Quote:


There is also the fact that most of them are in fact not tyrants at all, actually giving their powers freely to be spread out to others, not hoarded.

That is another thing completely, an ideological point of contention. I'm fairly certain many of the evil gods wouldn't call themselves evil either. Also, they do not give their powers freely; they require servitude in return. That is not free.

Shadow Lodge

That's true, and that's where it becomes a debate between the individual belief system rather than theism itself. The fact that further defining "god" is required for discussion between Theists doesn't say anything about atheism at all. It doesn't help or harm atheisms stance. It's changing goal posts. Nothing more.

The thing though is, (if we are assuming that there is a "god" like you said), then there really isn't any argument that they do not have authority to set morality. One can disagree with it individually, but that does not remove the higher beings actual authority, thus it's an objective rule set.

That is, you can look at the Bible, Quran, etc. . . and have an objective thing. The logic is sound. (Again, that doesn't mean you have to agree with what the various books say on any subject, that's not what is being discussed). It however, doesn't hold true if there is no "god", until we can define what is moral. Once we do that, then we can debate the validity of that morality and it's authority, which becomes very problematic as "objective".

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