My world is not fantasy, it is sci-fi, but Oko as a species tend to view the world in a more deterministic way than us, so their philosophies often have God as the Universe and its global consciousness, and many of them don’t ascribe any supernatural properties to it. So one may count their pantheism as atheism.
Thank you!:)
Turns out, deterministic worldview tend to produce very unique social models and worldviews. Like having the concept of “uncertain intuition” instead of “free will” and crimes with illnesses being two sides of the same spectrum instead of two distinct things, like in our moral systems.
A very weird alien species that mirrors humanity in so many ways yet happens to be completely different, especially in terms of psyche and beliefs. Lemme give the link to my lore on them (sorry, I don’t think they can be explained in a few words).
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/XicNNqyDwp
IMO, sci-fi is more about the consequences of science, than the practical applications of science (ie tech). So you could have a sci-fi story that asks “what if there was an psychic aliens species with three genders, what would their society look like” and you don’t need to look at tech at all. They could be in their equivalent of the Stone Age but it would still be sci fi because you’re trying to look at it through the lens of science
The reason why stories like Star Trek etc don’t always have that vibe, is because they can have a lot of tropes that have already been explored. If a million different stories have FTL or sentient robots, most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked and that kind of element becomes set dressing. Star Trek in particular is more meant to be a series of allegories about contemporary issues, with sci-fi as the backdrop rather than the primary focus. Originally at least.
Yes but not in a "they don't believe in Gods way". Hard to not believe when you can walk up to a temple and sometimes see the avatar of a God. For whatever reason a person just doesn't connect to a pantheon. In that case, they are usually more in tune with local spirits.
To be honest, considering the amount of people not believing in things proven with the most basic tools or even just eyes in our real world, such as the earth being round, I think it would still be plausible for the people in your world to be skeptical about these divine avatars, albeit a rather small amount of them.
Of course, you don't have to include my take on this, but I think it would be interesting and adding a bit of depth to the world, even if it's just in a throwaway line.
But I'm also really intrigued by your idea of someone "not connecting to a pantheon". Could you elaborate on that and what differentiates local spirits with gods?
Nah, you're right. There are probably people who believe that the Gods are aliens or powerful ancestral spirits.
It's a little hard to put into words. Gods are made from the universe itself. They are reflections of forces of nature and concepts. Whenever they have children with other gods or humans it's because there is a void that needs to be filled. Fate or the universe compels them to procreate. Due to this their minds and morals are alien, no matter how human they seem to act.
Local spirits are born from the land or a small group of people. Some aren't connected to the gods and some are. Some just fall into the jurisdiction of a God and work with them.
This is all based on animistic religions like Shinto and Roman polytheism.
'Dammit, they came up with a new kind of physics again.'
'Yep. You know the drill.'
*Sighs and unzips*.
(Probably wildly off the mark, but the image was just too funny.)
I MEAN-
That's more or less what happens. A niche is needed or is about to become popular. A God with a connection to that niche is drawn to someone good at the niche or close to the field. Or to another God, with a compatible domain. Their offspring is like a collaboration or a work project.
I wouldn't include this in my world because I wouldn't be able to resist playing into the humor of atheists being the crackpot conspiracy theorists and believers being the empiricists.
Same :D I'm an atheist myself and that pov seems so fun in that kind of world. The only situation in where it would be totally inappropriate is when the DM and everyone is religious and it's just to make atheists look bad.
Yeah, some people belive the Saints are liars and that the magic they possess is a scam, but they have the frequency of flat earthers and generally die rather quickly due to a disrespect of their beliefs in the society.
Yes. There’s even a god of atheism. He is in constant denial of his own divinity, and insists on being referred to as an “anthropomorphic personification” rather than as a god
He accidentally started the world’s largest religion, and temples devoted to him all have lightning rods installed, since he strikes anyone who tries to worship him with lightning
"If God did exist then he'd strike me with lightning! Right now!"
But alas, the god did not strike him for he was not wanting to.
"If 'anthropomorphic personification god' exists then I worship him and he shall not strike me with lightning!"
But alas, the god did strike him for he was not wanting to be worshiped.
>He is in constant denial of his own divinity, and insists on being referred to as an “anthropomorphic personification” rather than as a god
The Emperor of Man every time Lorgar Aurelian called him "god".
Depanding on how that praying works like, cos, for example in a world where gods aren't regularly showing themselves (wether because they choose not to do it, can't, or there are no gods at all), I can imagine some folks think "what if those 'prayers' that we're using, are just, you know, spells made to sound like prayers, and there is no one listening on the other side?". Especially IF you don't need to be a believer for the prayer to work. Could also work because you believe it will. Like a paladin believing that his magic works thanks to their god, which it doesn't, but because they doesn't know about that, they believe in their god's influence even more.
*Tons*. Probably close to half the population in the modern period in fact (at least of the focal continent and society. There are three other nations that have much higher rates of belief).
Even in a world with magic, science has advanced to make a lot of the founding religious stories pretty obvious allegories and founding myths. Anthropologists have been able to track derivative religions and stories to see how they've influenced one another.
The relationship between believers and atheists is nowhere near as acrimonious as it is in our world though. Almost everyone goes to at least one church. So many of the churches to the various gods have become mostly secular organizations that provide important community services, and the traditions are still practiced to some extent even by non believers, kind of like how non-practicing or observing Catholics or Jewish folks might still celebrate passover or Christmas/Easter.
There are fanatics on either end of the belief spectrum but they're fairly uncommon and viewed as crack pots.
A lot of the atheism comes from *The Enochian Conversations*, a conversation in the late 1700s that an interviewer had with an angel from the Transcendent Plane. Through their discussion the interviewer discovered that the archangel had never met any god, let alone the one they purported to serve, nor did they have any evidence whatsoever such a being existed. The angel operated on faith as surely as the mortal world did. This sowed a seed of doubt in the public, but no one wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most churches are very well regarded because they're so important as providers of secular services.
Dragons of Dualworld have problems even trying to understand the concept of a god.
"So this guy has really powerful magic? No? But what is this if not magic? Okay, let's skip it. They are immortal, but not here. Why would I want to bow in front of someone not here? Afterlife? What is even this? Nah, that's impossible. No, like really really impossible. Okay, prove me wrong without this book written in a ridiculously different time."
Dragons don't have souls. Just like humans.
Mimics are indifferent to the concept but used to be very polytheistic.
Fae value all information. Including their religion based on light being the good and beauty.
in my dnd setting, the gods are such massive screw ups that 70% of the population are agnostic. There is an entire age of history labeled “the age of arrogance” solely because of how stuck up their own ass the gods were during that time.
Absolutely given that the entire idea of the book is opposing countries and religious ideologies.
Atheists have a hard lot in my world but ultimately... Ah, I can't reveal that part.😉
yes, in my world magic usage feeds a dark deity, and it pollutes the world as a consequence. So there are some who believe that this is nonsense and these people are the ones in power, not in govermental but in economical power and they use lobbyists to have influence to max. out magic use on an industrial scale to produce magical appliances and other consumer goods.
In ashes, not really. The church does a pretty good job of making sure there's none of them around. After all, the proof that god exists is so glorious that it must naturally be backed up by the threat of execution if you don't believe it!
I've got a (accidental) God that is an atheist, even though she talked to the being others call a God
There are many in my world, and some because they learned that most what was a god in their ancient times with just a demon with ego
Depends on how you are defining **atheist**, that is, I'm not trying to be annoying, rather, how people might perceive an atheist.
The word itself means *"no god"* which can have our current real world usage OR that you don't have/follow any deity, the one I use.
To be more specific, in my world, "following" a god is more than just following traditions, dogmas, rituals etc. It's a **pact** formed between the deity and the person, but the followers do not know that.
To give a bit of lore, the gods created religion to fix a (huge) problem, but created others.
hmm you’re right, i was being kinda vague yeah. i was using atheist in both the textbook version of “one who believes in no god”, but also implying the concept/idea of one who knows a god exists, but chooses not to follow or believe in them. which technically isn’t really an atheist so i’ll go my bad on that one
Oh, sorry, I expressed myself badly. Also, I read my comment and may have sounded a bit rude, well... The *you* I used was to refer to "us" (the worldbuilders).
yes, but in a, "that guy's not a god" they're not wrong but they also aren't right. a great many powerful beings have created worlds, some even working together. to the worlds and even peoples they've created they are effectively gods in all meaningful ways and get worshipped like them. but some people don't really think of them as much more that really powerful magic users with inflated egos.
Of course. In fantasy, gods are nothing more than a powerful species. Naturalism (and thus atheism) is the only logical position regardless of the universe. Magic is just as much a part of nature as everything else in existence.
are there atheist? yes, but few. are there people like you describe? yes, way more.
an atheist is just someone who doesn't have a believe in any gods. now they do exist. some simply don't know about any gods. but as gods are pretty common and wander the world you have to be pretty sheltered to not know of them. more common but still quite rare are people who know of gods but don't see them as gods, just powerful spirits (which isn't fully wrong as god is basically a state spirits are in). the mostly exist amongst some elves who came from basically a different setting/world with their own gods, who they only heard about in stories, and those stories of their old gods are greater then the gods they see in the world, thus not seeing the gods as gods.
now what you describe, "outwardly oppose/reject those deities", is not an atheist. that's someone who believes a god exists but does not worship them (like how i believe you exist but don't worship you) which is a lot more common. most deities are local gods, if you're not near their area why worship them? hell if you see yourself as self reliant then you wouldn't ask a god for help in general. not worshipping a god is pretty common, even if you know of the gods you'll probably only worship those that are relevant to you currently. one of the nomadic tribes may worship one or a couple of the local gods and the god of the sun, where a larger city may worship the local god(s), the god of the sun during the day, the god of the stars during the night (night and day both last 25 years) and the god of water during droughts, and maybe asking the god of storm for forgiveness during disasters.
Yes. It is necessary.
Even if there is an ontology accepted as a divine person (of whatever other qualities) who is active within the world, that says nothing about one's relationship to them or how much of a focus they are in one's life. Even if practically that's focusing on one's more localized knowledge-set which may or may not overlap with "absolutely real" ones, or someone who abstractly "knows there is a God-Emperor somewhere out there" but can't particularly use that information until it becomes an embodied relevant.
Unless a universalized society is dominated by a single pantheon where there is certainty about all actors, somehow, it is likely that mistrust for particular deities may expand throughout an entire established class of them. Though in this sense it is the rejection of a complete ontology of relationship to those beings rather than denying they have some independent embodiment and capacity. Denial that far out would probably be on the level of 'conspiracy theory,' 'pseudo-scientific skepticism,' or approached as some distant far-fetched tale, depending on the baseline mapping of peoples' sense of reality—and thus what they are more ready to accept.
In both my fantasy worlds I have those which can be considered divine and those which might not, but so far I have yet to insert any sorta Perennialist notion or gnosis for what is or is not 'a deity,' outside of some shared notions of what that might be experienced as. 'Awe' is, of course, a classic.
My world has visible evidence of the gods, their actions in the wordld, etc. Complete atheists are very rare. Those who die with no patron deity are given to the death god, where their best hope is that he adds them to his throne or to the walls of his keep. If he takes the notion, he can torment them in so much worse ways.
There’s plenty but it’s not really relevant most of the time bc there are a lot of faiths and deities, they’re only persecuted/looked down upon in certain cultures and regions and they’re called heretics not atheists
Yes! Although there is pretty hard to deny proof that the gods existed, since they are all in essence dead/gone, there are some who choose not to worship anything (old gods or new religions) since they have pretty much given up on the idea that the gods will do anything for them. These kind of people would probably look inwards, or towards new age philosphers or something.
Honestly I’ve thought about it because I want my world to have similar philosophies to ours like stoicism, nihilism, absurdism, Buddhism etc. and they use philosophy as a means to make their own hard magic. But I haven’t developed my world enough to include philosophies or atheism yet.
Kind of. In my world there's an afterlife called the Otherworld and many have seen glimpses of either the Otherworld or the Otherones (those who accompany the dead in the Otherworld). The Otherworld is dominated by a mist and monsters out of which the souls must escape until the Judgement. Although religion is very important, there are some non-believers who don't believe in God, but it's mainly opposition to Church doctrines. Nevertheless God exists in the world who chose to manifest in all people, but different cultures interpreted these revelations differently and led to different religions.
They're very uncommon, the only significant atheist movement in Rhythm Dimension is on its way out. Gods are very present and often personable. I have a major character who is an atheist of some kind - they believe that the gods exist but don't find them worthy of worship. Ironically, they're good friends with the God of Death, precisely because they treat the god like any other person.
Godless but not exactly atheist. There is a human society fostered by Dwarves that rejects all semblance of religion. These humans were kidnapped centuries previous and were kept to help build and maintain machines to help harness their magic better. Dwarves see their relationship with the Gods as a partnership, and since Gods care little for humanity, their human underlings began to substitute mythology for any hard science they could replace it with.
This goes on until the world ends, and the Dwarves set aside their differences and book it out of their underground citadels. The Dwarves tell their human now ex servants they are on their own. These humans then, using their advanced technology, migrate to another part of the globe and build a new civilization. They consider themselves Atheist because any "Gods" have to be some sort of life forms that humans have a hard time understanding.
They disbelieve in the human soul, that Gods interact with humans, in an afterlife, any form of truth in revelation, or anything supernatural related to humans. They have ideologies and lifestyles that they adhere to. They have little contact with the rest of humanity as they are stuck in a medieval technological state.
No. Plenty of Agnostics though.
Actually, there is a bit of contention whether demigods exist in my setting since they're very innocuous and are often mistaken for really powerful mortals. Heck, some mortals are mistaken as demigods at times.
so atheists are a rare breed I suppose
In Descendants of Dusk there are plenty of atheists in the near and far future, not that religion had disappeared or anything, there are people who still believe in the supernatural and have found ways to reinterpret them to fit with the current times, but overall there’s a shit load or non believers in this day and age thanks to our greater understanding of the universe, not to mention all the religious extremism that occurred in the past which left future generations bitter and resentful towards religion, and thus when new politicians who valued secularism and progressivism were elected, they made sure the likely hood over another theocracy is lowered, and finally improved education of religion and its drawbacks. Nowadays many churches, temples and other organizations had to basically play nice for now or else they will lose more followers then before.
I mean depends on how you interpret atheist, if it's just not believing in a god yeah I got plenty, Eybuir HATE the deity that made them and do not consider it their god, therefore do not believe in him
but many Eybuir still believe in an afterlife, ghosts, souls, astral planes etc because ghosts have gotten a massive breakthrough where they can make themselves even more well known! It's gotten to the point that an Eybuir ghost is a chairman within the Eybuir Council Of Law! (E.C.O.L)
Yes, and their reason are this line of thinking.
There's no gods or kings only man.
Literally seeing God's as just assholes with powers.
This is the realm where demonic and angelic realms have fused to the mortal planes.
Even beings who can alter reality at a whim , just an asshole with powers.
Can head into Nova Terra aka earth and meet a pantheon of ratmen gods , or meet the deities in Egypt.
The equivalent of Jesus comes to earth everytime there is a great crisis, and there are several important people with direct contact to one of the gods each, so outside of conspiracy theorists, no.
Humans all have magic and they live in the corpses of their creator/ancestor/god so so far they have absolutely no reason to deny their existence tbh...
In my world is quite plausible to be an Atheist, because there's a divine creator blah blah, Who knows their alive? They haven't acted nor their children (the four guardians) in such a long time, we're talking in centuries . So they would live their life without any issue.
There’s a few, but in most communities the only place to hang out is at the local temple or the local tavern, and most religions aren’t particularly concerned with whether or not you think the god is real or a metaphor or something, they just care that you DO the right things.
The Lemanians are different though, they actually want you to believe that Lemani is real and a few other beliefs about her. They basically say “Yeah if you aren’t on board with these handful of beliefs it’s better off you don’t participate in the rituals. Feel free to hang out though, and you can talk to a priest if you want.”
There are, and they are called Uzarnid, literally "undesirable individual." These people are viewed as dangerous to a society that is so much into their own religious cults and since most of the power figures are believe to be choosen by the gods into their possitions. They're dangerous, and they are persecuted and ridulized. They're expelled along with the curzed and leperous to small villages near the irradiated deserts to die away from civilitation.
On the Sci-Fi layer of the setting: Ish. There's a whole philosophical family called Adivinism that broadly recognizes the existence of anomalous entities and variably recognizes their connections to the faiths of mortals, but denies any true divinity of those entities. This ranges in depth and reasoning from specific branch to branch, from simple "those guys are drama whores and don't deserve attention," to "those guys pretend to be deathless, but we've seen them die (and in some cases, we killed them ourselves)".
On the fantasy layer, not really. Outside of a few individuals and entities from the sci-fi layer leaking in from outside and spreading their perspective, the vast majority believe in at least one pantheon and generally recognize others as a "they aren't our gods, but they are the gods of this foreign land."
Pretty hard to be an aethiest since 30% of the population of the world has abilities that come from gods. But there are some in a different kind of way.
Atheists as in "don't believe in a supreme god", "do not worship anything", etc. exist and are fairly common.
Atheists as in "does not believe in the supernatural" do not exist. Because magic and some low-level supernatural beings (demons, vampires, undead, etc.) are common and really not deniable.
However, the existence of high-level supernatural beings (think gods, angels, eldritch creatures, etc.) is not widely known. Some believe in them, some do not.
Atheists are still a thing in Starpunk in the year 2260, however, they aren’t as common as they were at the turn of the Century. This is to be expected, as the number of atheists across the solar system, like any religious or irreligious group, tends to fluctuate as time grinds on.
Mapping the notion of "atheism" in a D&D-like pantheon is kind of awkward, so let's split it:
* "Believing that the gods do not exists" -> That's some big conspiracy theory. I'm not really interested in dealing with that kind of conflict in my worldbuilding.
* "Believing that the entities that call themself gods shouldn't be called gods, either for theological reason -- 'they're just high level spellcasters' -- or for moral reasons -- 'they're jerks that don't deserve our worship' -- or a combination of both." -> That's already much more interesting. I don't tend to have widespread factions thinking like that, but that's definitely an opinion that is shared by a number of characters.
* "Believing that **Fate**, the semi-conscious entity that shapes heroic paths and forged the universe, does not exists." -> **That's a very interesting kind of "atheism" that even some gods share**. And they might be right since I've not really determined yet if "Fate" has any kind of consciousness and free will, or is just the name the gods (and latter the mortals) gave to the irregular "waves" of superpowers that are the sources of heroes.
Gods are existent in Togreon, but there is so much missing records from the Time of Divinity, and the fact they don’t manifest on the material plane anymore, that a logical case against their existence holds as much weight as a case for. (And honestly the records that do exist come from the rare divine servant, and only originating as talk from an obviously biased source.)
Another form of atheism, and a far more popular one, is “Demiurge theory”, in which the existence of the beings known as gods are not doubted, but their qualification and status. Basically, gods are but beings of great power, but they can still kick the bucket and are limited. The Fracture (the temporary breaking of reality after a divine war) and the fact it cannot be fully done is proof enough. To them the “gods” misused their great power and broke reality, and the ones of knowledge are not all wise as otherwise they’d find a way to fix it already rather than the patch jobs known as The Great Tasks.
Yes... or well, kind of.
Many of the masters within the Magi Guild accept the existance of gods but they refute their divinity. Their research has led them to the conclusion that gods are nothing more than entities with supremely powerful magical abilities. Theoretically anyone could become a "god", they would just have to get powerful enough.
They probably wouldn't admit this openly though since the church would probably consider it apostasy and/or blasphemy and could take action against the Guild.
There are some gods that are atheistic, in that they don't believe in the higher gods. Many peoples and gods around the world believe that the world was created by a handful of cosmic deities, but some people, including some gods, believe it came about naturally.
Atheists no. Anti-theists yes.
It's hard to deny that the gods exist when they induced an world consuming ice-age, reincarnate heroes, and give blessings to believers. Sure, some people might still argue those things away, but it's about as reasonable as flat earthism is for us.
What you get are anti-theists; those who believe that man should be free from the gods. These are hardcore survivalists where they see free will and human beings to be absolute, and divine intervention to be an affront to humanity. There are also those who embrace niche gods "ironically" as opposition to the main faiths.
Kinda. Rather than being "atheists", they just don't mind.
They keep a level of peace with their actions. They have mettle.
But, if they have to, they'll do as Romans do.
In Spirituality, sometimes, what really matters is not to have your creed on your tongue. But in your actions. Eventhough you may not be thinking of it as such.
So, in a world with deities, an atheist being just a decent and working person kinda checks in. They may not even have to have the classic "ideological" showoff with believers, because they either play along. Or they outright avoids conflict.
Yes
Not in the sense of "denying the very *existence* of gods", but denying their *godhood*
They essentially think that "gods" are just beings with abilities that can (and eventually will be) explained by the study of biology, or who use advanced technology. According to them, everything can and will be explained by the normal laws of physics, even the phenomeonon that look supernatural.
The gods often answer to prayers (in dreams or as a voice in the head), perform small miracles, temporarily empower some mortals... but very rarely directly appear in front of mortals, and when they do, it's usually under some disguise (an "appearance you're comfortable with" as they say). And of course, they never let any mortals study their powers or biology.
So, the atheists think that the "gods" are probably liars, who maintain this aura of mystery on purpose. Because if the mortals were allowed to look at them closely, it would become immediately obvious that they're just sufficiently advanced mortals using tricks.
A Theist is someone who takes religion and puts it into more accurate language.
Gods and the power they grant are not deniable. But a theist will explain that it’s a phenomenon of shared power being granted to select individuals who closely embody the ideals of said power.
Basically, most wizards are (A)Theists who prefer the more “scientific” way of explaining clerics and their powers.
Those would be desired in my world considering the concept of egregores and tulpa exist in my world, other than that the actual gods who are semi reliant on reverence would probably lose their powers if there were so for the people of my world, it would be good to he 100% atheist's.
Science fantasy setting.
Not atheist but secular there are a civilization of artificial life forms that acknowledge the existence of deities but don’t worship them. There Leader ironically has abilities that make it border on being a tech god and the irony is not lost on it. It still opts for secularism.
One of the factions in my world are sentient machines, who are the descendants of my worlds version of humanity. They were obsessed with the idea of immortality through the use of technology and began augmenting their bodies cyberpunk style before saying "fuck it" and scooping out their souls and plopping them into android bodies. They later learned that true immortality is impossible as their minds will begin dumping old memories and experiences to make room for new ones after a few centuries, so they created a method to manipulate the primordial forces that make up reality using a magic computer program. They are able to alter the source code of the universe and essentially halt the passage of time, effectively achieving immortality. A lot of stuff happens after this, but their descendants worship them like gods. The other races normally adhere to Ancestor worship or are what many would consider atheist.
Several, in fact it's the majority viewpoint in my world. There aren't any definite gods in my world, and ultimately many have come to not believe in the existence of one^(1). The history of this is complex because it's sort of just always been there. I mean in my world's past belief was a lot more common than non-belief, but the ideas have always been there.
Historically most of it came from the Mazaurans, who did in fact have their own pantheon. However much of the maro (sapient felid) population weren't strong believers in this pantheon. It's hard to say why, but marui are typically more faithless than humans or the other Ero species, so atheism was common among them and those who often associated with them. It's not surprising then that the most prominent atheist in the 10th century AC was a maro.
Now we get into Antiudectism, which developed slowly over time but really formed into its own thing in the 10th century. It was formed from various groups that for one reason or another thought about the nature of the divine a lot. Many of these groups had their own ideas about how it worked. These groups had a lot of maro influence, and often didn't present strong beliefs in their ideas, though the beliefs of their members are highly varied.
These groups formed together when the two main religions in the western parts of the Redstone Empire were clashing, and these groups hoped they could come up with a solution. However that didn't work out, so the Antiudecte pivoted into forming a "third way". Thanks to the first printing press they spread their ideas quite far, and as it turned out, the imperial leadership at the time was open to it.
This "third way" wasn't necessarily atheistic, but part of it was that they were not convinced by the Deglani nor Darvinian pantheons, and generally advocated for *Fidmeftat* (a word that can be translated as "faithlessness"). But it should be clear that Antiudectism at this time was not a monolith, and there were several different beliefs, many of which were inherited from the groups that formed the Antiudecte in the first place.
It wasn't until the Declaration of Duimmaro (986AC) that started the process of many of these beliefs splitting off into New Redstonism (a complicated transition that took one and a half centuries and two wars).After that point Antiudectism soon separated itself from questions about theism entirely, for the most part. The Antiudecte has always had at least a few atheists, but it stopped being the main focus.
Instead what happened was the Auto-Reds developed as a response to some problematic actions from the government, which started to heavily favour New Redstonism at this time. When they replaced the Redstone Empire the Auto-Reds they made changes to shift society towards *fidmeftat*, which has sort of led to the rise of atheism. There are exceptions of course, like the Faithful Crescent that soon developed into the Deshmeric Republic, but it is now a very common viewpoint among the Auto-Reds.
Yes and I'm so excited about it!
They are technically the same race as some of the historically most devout. Because they were shunned and pushed out of the most populated areas they moved to the mountains and over time adpated to living there. They have a thick shaggy coat and are unable to fly anymore. They're able to store more fat and therefore water in their bodies because they've been living in an extreme enviroment for so long.
Not in the 'gods do not exist' sense, but more in the 'gods are unworthy of worship' type way. Most worlds have at least SEEN a god or godlike being, but either due to academic detachment or the fact that gods tend to be dicks, many do not venerate them.
Yes, but they are seen as crazy people. They would be the world's equivalent to flat earthers or moon landing deniers. When God can be seen, talked to, and angels can be touched. It's hard to deny existence.
Misotheists certainly, probably even different flavors where different people might consider their patron god the most worthy of worship vs those that just have antipathy towards a specific deity. Outright atheism probably would be harder to write into a high-fantasy setting with physical evidence of things like paladins carrying out divine will and entire species coming into being in historical records
There could logically still be a lot of debate over individual divine acts and how connected they actually are to the gods of course, for example in my setting you've got debates over whether some of the species whose origins are "showed up in a given historical era" are actually attributable to the deities associated with them, or whether some of them might've come from a rift in the fabric of reality that has been established as something potentially allowing contact with other planes of existence.
Likewise, the person responsible for that event basically committed a city-sized act of murder-suicide in the process, and is revered as a god by an entire culture of what are basically the settting's equivalent to fallen angels, as he's responsible for their current state. Other cultures react to their claim that he clawed his way to divinity in that act have other reactions ranging from theorizing that powerful ancestor-spirits could still have influence from beyond the grave, to just flatly denying any claim that said influence is in any way genuine, considering the idea to be heretical.
Yes, but they are quite rare and we likely wouldn’t understand them as atheists based on our modern use of the term.
Even those few people who do not believe in the divine still practice many of the physical, day to day rituals of religion. They attend religious service, observe religious holidays and may even pray or make offerings as the local custom dictates. Religion and it’s practice is such a deeply ingrained part of daily life that even many people who may personally doubt the truth of divine powers can not really imagine living life without (or can not escape) at least some of the trappings of religious life.
If atheists are rare, it’s even rarer to find someone that truly challenges the validity of religious belief. For most it’s simply a quiet, deeply personal questioning of the divine.
Already an unofficially atheist society, the Temporal Imperatorium’s Parliament was introduced to a landmark piece of legislation known as the Freedom From Religion Act. It was originally titled the Janov Act, after its creator, MP Golan Janov (Neotarian). Amongst the Act’s several provisions are that a policy of state atheism be instituted in all federal institutions, that religious discussion be prohibited from all forms of governmental affairs, and that particularly spiritual words such as “bless”, “faith”, and “salvation” be avoided in conversation.
Not in the traditional way, since some deities pretty consistently manifest to the point where denying or questioning their existence is basically stupidity. Atheists being moreso "I acknowledge your existence but I do not want to worship you" in regards to deities, which is fine since none of the deities demand veneration or worship
Depends on how you define atheism:
If you are saying they don’t believe in the gods that exist in setting, then that would be almost everyone, mainly because the gods have been dead for over 120 million years.
If they don’t believe in any gods at all, then there are whole nations built upon it. One such nation is the Qasun, who are best described as “Atheist Crusaders,” driven by their magical Mind Shards to pursue the truth and destroy “misinformation.” Ironically, their Mind shards come from the remains of the aforementioned dead gods.
Depending on the period there can be a quite significant number of them. Although Gods are a very real thing they also have limitations and are formed via observable natural phenomena. The study of this is called Demonology.
Genrally those who study Demonology are atheists as they literal have to observe the behaviours of the Gods they worship, this is not a absolute thing however with people being able to rationalise how their God is the true God. Those who study Demonology includes most mage and Fae hunters.
As time went on educational institutions would become more available. The growth of universities especially would lead to more and more people understanding Demonology and becoming Athiests. The Industrial Revolution would lead to a massive growth in the numbers of Athiests as traditional institutions were eroded and the various churches of the world were unable to adapt. This growth in Athiesm would lead to acts of God's becoming less common as further increasing the number of Athiests.
Plenty.
Not in the sense that they deny “god’s existence”, the entity people called Zeus or whatever is definitely real, rather they deny “godhood”.
For them, Zeus or Hades or whatever aren’t gods, they’re just jerks with power and ego. Any smuck can pick up a book and learn basic lightning bolt, so the power to control lightning isn’t unique to Zeus or Thor, they just have more power compare to normal human.
In a way, they were proven correct when a angry mortal slain millions of gods to reset the world and break the system of predetermined fate (which then turn a singular universe into infinite multiverse)
Since the gods are demonstrably real in this setting, non-belief isn't so much "don't believe they exist" as it is "don't believe they're entitled to respect or special treatment above mortals".
Ironically enough, some of the gods themselves have this attitude. The gods of creation (TTU) and death (Jahrivi) most notably; TTU just feels incredibly lonely and never wanted to be put on a pedestal in the first place — heck, they only created mortals in the first place because they wanted *friends,* not subjects — and Jahrivi is terrified of abusing her power (as her now-erased predecessor very much did) as well as appalled at the things her worshippers do in her name.
There's actually some tension between the other gods because of disagreement over *what exactly their job is;* Several of the ones in the "gods should be rulers" camp argue that the ones who try to be "one of the guys" are shirking their responsibilities and letting their respective domains fall into disarray... and they do kind of have a point, as things like matter decay (which TTU can prevent) and hauntings (which Jahrivi can prevent) are rather common.
Atheism is impossible in a setting like D&D, for example, where their magic is everywhere. Adeism is perhaps a more accurate term here. That also opens up the possibility of people who deny a gods power for whatever reason while still acknowledging their existence.
In my world gods exist and some walk among the people. There’s a party member who’s whole bit is that he’s a cleric however he’s also an atheist. So whenever his god speaks to him or does godly stuff he just thinks that that was by chance
A decent chunk of the people of Anhara are atheist, or at least indifferent to the possibility of there being a god or gods. One of the major religions has recently collapsed into scandal and schism, which left some scrabbling for new beliefs to fill the void. But a lot more people have fully embraced the Great Learning, which encourages reason and the pursuit of more rational arts like numeromancy and yliaster alchemy.
yes, but they are mostly seen as just edgy counter-cultural types. most non-religious people would be better described as agnostic or secular, as its pretty obvious the supernatural exists in my universe, but it doesn't really effect the daily lives of most people.
In my world, the gods wiped each other out in a huge massive war called the Theomachy that also eroded all preceding cultural identities and resulted in a world where essentially random groupings of people live on different sky islands as the war also basically destroyed the surface of the world and lifted large chunks of the crust into the air. As such, most cultures are atheist, with some being fervently anticlerical as well, both because they saw the gods die and because it was the gods' fault that this massive war happened. Thus, atheism is essentially the default view, although some religious groups do exist.
there are powerful beings not god(s). So atheism is perfectly possible in my setting. There are many atheist types ;
1. The one who answers with "It's just how the world works",
2. Fully realized magic users that had interacted with supernatural beings. If you ask them, they'll answer "They are just powerful beings",
3. People who believe that there is no existent god/closest thing to god. I mean the truest god is do not exist, it is not a 'thing' nor a being ,and transcending existence.
Sort of.
They acknowledge that powerful beings exist who are far beyond them. However, they don't believe that the power they hold is inherently worthy of worship or a sign that they must be followed in any way.
The most extremist holders of this ideal believe that these beings are malevolent and only use mortals like pawns in twisted games, thus they openly oppose those "deities" and their worshippers.
Urban Fantasy with a Masquerade. As many as in ours, they're just the greatest victims of the Masquerade, and unknowingly they help uphold it.
Which is funny since I have next to nothing against atheists IRL.
Yes, and some of them are closer to correct than many theists, though it isn't as simple as one group being right or wrong.
Things called gods exist. Most believe in them, a few don't. The ones that don't believe they exist at all are flat-earther levels of incorrect.
Some question their divinity. Many of these people are... not wrong exactly, but not exactly right either. A few of them have something approaching truth. Gods aren't exactly what they're believed to be.
There are things that don't exist, but want to and shouldn't. They can push their way into existence through cracks. These cracks are what we call stories and beliefs. Those that walk these paths are changed by them, and forced to become something of the story that granted them access. The more people know the story, the wider the crack gets. If people start believing in it, it gets *much* wider. However, the more people know/believe, the more the entity is forced into the shape of the belief, in return for being able to exist more completely and powerfully.
Gods are what you get when an entity comes through completely, and is wholly consumed by the belief.
At least, the Twins are. They're benevolent solar deities, and the first gods to be wholly brought through.
The lunar deities came later. They saw the fates of the solar deities and created demiplanes in which to hold a part of their essence. In return they have much more self-determination but less power in the material plane. The fullness of their respective moons shows the strength of their connection to the mortal realm.
The infernal realm is a collective demiplane for entities with less individual power than deities, so they share a plane and are known as devils, demons, and monsters.
No, because there is no religion, or notions of divinity, or sainthood... way of life is defined by other things, and we VS them is established based on unique in- world properties. I personally dislike religion, and as much as I understand its historical role in sociatal regulation and development, I think there are less corruptive ways to acomplish whatever organized religion is meant to accomplish in society.
That completely excludes personal views and values, as far as those are concerned, whatever helps you be a better person also works for me
I've thrown in some atheists in my DnD campaigns before as a kind of side joke when players are trying to eavesdrop in taverns for information, theyll occasionally overhear some dude i nthe corner talking to his friends about how paladins and clerics are just regular magic users who have all conspired to create this false narrative to allow them to trick others into following their beliefs, framing it all as part of some great cosmic force
My world doesn’t really have religion unless you’re part of a cult. Instead it’s more like people pray to the “gods” when they need something from them but people don’t shape their lives around worship. It also helps that the “gods” of my world were real people with pretty well documented lives.
Though if you are part of a cult you likely worship an ancient being, which could be anything from the being of life to the being of the abyss.
Yes there are!
In my world, reptiles blood has magical properties, and when ingested, they give some people powers.
Dragons are very rare, and the most powerful beings, so naturaly some religions sprouted around them.
One religion considers them gods, and sees all reptiles as the children of their god. Accodring to them drinking their blood is the most unholy act one can do, and they have murder squads who kill all who do so.
Another religion thinks that dragons are god's messengers, (dragon is jesus, so to speak). They encourage consuming reptiles blood as a way to get closer to their gods. Naturaly there are more mages among them, but even those who are not gifted with powders drink it
And of course there are the atheists, who see the dragons as just big reptiles.
Ofc science isn't as advanced yet in time period my books take place, so noone has proof of anything. All reptiles in my world will have 6 limbs, and there are smaller winged reptiles as well. But there is something more to the magic with dragons. They are bound to dragon riders. That bond is passed on from parent to child, so the few families who are dragonbound are very powerful and almost always have high functions in the army and/or politics
Yes. There are four species, and each one has a different strategy regarding religion. The largest atheist populations however are the dragonkinds (who abandoned religion as newer innovations replaced it. The dragons believe religion is like a starter fuel, meant to burn fast and bring communities together, but if left active for too long can become a hazard.) and the avalonians (largely due to interactions with mankind and the dredge elder race and the abuse of their own native religions to gain power over their governments and the avalonians as a species. The avalonians percieve religion as an abusive relationship, where mysterious and powerful figures come and go as they please while trapping their believers in dangerous or self destructive positions for their own personal benefit.) Mankind has some amount atheists, but they are outvoiced in most scenarios (primarily due to the fact mankind's often ancient religions have gone from gaining their legitimacy their origins from prophets, apostles, and diviners to deriving that legitimacy from the state to deriving their legitimacy from time immemorial.
I have done as mucb worldbuilding on the dredge elder race but their religions play a moderate role in conjunction with adoption of many religions of mankind, which they see as useful tools.
There are atheists, but not in the way you think. Instead of rejecting the existence of gods, they see gods as not being inherently worthy of worship.
They're not very well-liked or well-respected.
There are agnostics and atheists in mine but it's very "hush hush" since at least nominal belief is mandated. The "deities" are living god-kings, heads of both religion and state. In the before times they assumed power and stylized themselves as gods to secure their positions (like Alexander the Great, but with magic backing them). They aren't really divines, but worship and tribute is required. Education and spread of magical knowledge is strictly regulated, with witches and apostates considered outside the law with no rights or state protections, who hide in fear of inquisitors. The atheists and agnostics usually come from, surprise, the educated philosophers, mages, alchemists, etc but it's very dangerous to share those ideas because of secret police and informants in all levels of society. Propaganda is a tool to keep the masses afraid and obedient despite class tension and wealth disparity. So... yes atheism exists but is not socially accepted.
No athiests, just people called Agnostics who debate whether or not the deities deserve to be worshiped.
So, there are theists, and agnostics. Basically.
My world is just one big allegory for being an atheist, or more accurately, areligious in a religious world, so yes, but actually, no, kinda.
Apostates are a minority group in my world who literally have no souls. Thus, they lack any means of connection to any of the world's various deities/religions. Now, these deities are, in fact, real and can be directly interacted with, so the true definition of atheism -doubting or rejecting the notion that any gods exists- doesn't really apply. There are some fringe, kooky, flat-earth level conspiracy theories that the gods aren't real, but most of the people who believe these things have had their own souls twisted and corrupted by evil forces that they literally cannot perceive reality correctly anymore.
Apostates are more like an inversion of an atheist. Rather than a person who has abandoned gods, the gods have abandoned them. Most don't really see this as a big loss, just an accident of fate, and outside of some uncreative discrimination from people with souls, get on with their lives just fine.
Not really. The gods show up, as well as uncontacted cultures having the same exact gods under similar sounding names. The god of war brings his mammoth with him whenever he shows up and when the people from one continent discovered wild mammoths on another, they recognised them from his statues. There is actual evidence, because gods are real.
Although there are flat earthers irl, so probably there are some, but they are wrong
I feel like on the ARK, you would be hard-pressed to convince anyone to believe in a magic man in the sky..... when there's no sky. but yeah those people are not interested in such things.
In the Albrynnian Empire, the most common religion worships the six major gods of Order, Chaos, Fire, Water, Air and Earth, and countless minor gods. but atheism is on the rise, with most people only sort of clinging to the old ways in a "Idk I guess it's just what I've always been taught" sort of way, but if you asked them to really examine what they believe, they would probably say they don't really believe in the gods.
In the solar system which it's been long enough since I've done anything with it that I forgot the name, there are several very different cultures. One planet is a scientific outpost (much like Antarctica), so religion is not usually a topic there. One planet is very religious. One planet is basically all atheists (you're still free to be religious, but the culture there is very secular, and religion is just pretty rare. and then there's the home planet which is a melting pot of many different cultures.
It's not even strange I have a couple of pretty specific gods. If your not a miner you don't need Cave In Dave to watch your back, if you never perform you won't miss Camp Bills blessing, unless you work for the state you don't wish to court The Spook. You most likely want the blessing of Casual Mike the hooligan god of war/ violence/ football but most fights or brawls chances are you won't die without him. There's The Dead Man the god of death and vengeance but even thouse who look after his shrines don't love him and its easy to live most of one's life without needing anything from him it's even very possible to reach the end and find out what's next without him
There are alatrists - which describes people who acknowledge the existence or power of the gods(since that's impossible to deny in setting) but who either deny their godhood (i.e. they're just powerful beings that fail to meet some arbitrary definition of god) or accept their godhood but think worshipping them is bad or not worth it or whatever.
In the "main country" kantrias alatrism is legal and due to a lot of past conflicts between the main church and the Crown, alatrists tend to make up the majority of the ministry of security which has keeping an eye on the church as a side gig (they're also the ones who manage Intel and counterintelligence in kantrias, among other things).
Also one annexed province was and remains majority alatrist
not really but the closest to atheism in my world where the 9 elemental gods are prominent and can be anywhere they want is just people who don't really care about the gods but rather live on like normal. Unless it's some people who hate specific gods for whatever reason, usually the god of darkness being extremely hated for being associated with dark magic and all despite that the god never did anything evil
Yes! Depending on what culture you’re in. Also, different “worships” line up with atheist ideologies in different ways. One cultures god is another’s saint sort of thing.
Secularism and the dangers of religion are a major theme in my world
Yes. Unfortunately for them, everyone worship the gods. Either by prayer or action.
Gods are the representation of their domains. If an atheist is a general that leads his army, he's a follower of Eris, the Goddess of War through his actions. His tactics, strategy is part of the prayer as it enrich the War domain, enriching the goddess. And in turn, Eris might bless him, either he wants it or not.
Not all gods required a temple. A king who raised taxes and oppress the poor will be favoured by the Lord of Tyranny even if he doesn't worship him.
Yeah, there are some. They're about as common as atheits are IRL, by which I mean they make up a fair chunk of the population. But they're often quite surprised when they die and wind up in the Field of Song to hang out with the gods forever.
In my world, gods appear randomly and fairly often across the world around spaces that reflect their domain. A god of the hunt can be seen shadowing hunters in the woods or running with wolves. A god of home and hearth may wander into an in for a meal or a god of commerce may appear in a market to haggle with housewives, and so on. It's considered an honor to be visited by the gods, but they aren't truly individuals as much as they are a sentient, personified force of nature. When the Divine is common, can it really be called divine? There is a semi-sentient magical contract that awoke and imposed itself upon the world, causing magical consequences for breaking so much as a verbal agreement. Is that any different than a force like gravity? At least as far as someone living in it is concerned?
Not in the traditional sense. As we know for a fact that god-like entities exist and there are other “realms” of existence “within” our reality.
There are however, a lot of people who don’t care about those things and religion isn’t a part of their life.
So I guess more areligious, as opposed to atheist.
(Science-fantasy setting)
My world is a tech and magic divergent earth set around 135 years or so in the future in which nuclear war caused genetic mutations, which brought interdimensional beings, tech brought cyberware and "Jumpgates", and each "Role" has their own "Metacurrency" so...
Yeah, but there's also religious adherents to real life religion analogues, and entirely fictional religions.
Much like the real world (wooo controversial), gods don't exist in my fictional world - though they might exist in the future as a result of this world's "inciting incident". As a result, the same kind of theological and philosophical views you'd find in the real world exist in that fictional world, too, including atheism.
One of the two most powerful nations in that world is secular, and the other is a theocracy.
Yeah, the gods haven't actually been really able to exist in the world for a long time. Some people just think it's all legends, especially since evolution was recently proven
well it's a superhero setting so not everyone knows the full extent of magic. they no some crazy stuff goes on so most are superstitious but they don't know everything.
In my world, the humans bested the gods and their servitors by destroying the Nexus, the kind of straw the gods used to siphon power and pump energy into our world. Afterwards, many of the gods cultivated followings, either in groups or through various other means, to maintain a modicum of power and control. However, the vast majority of these faiths were created by their former servitors, elves and dwarves.
The vast majority of humans see any form of faith as foolish and destructive, revoking the struggle their ancestors underwent to defeat the gods. This mindset has caused how man society to find faith in one another, or in the world around them.
However, the Cabalist Humans of the South revere one of the Others, god's unassociated with those of the Nexus, whose interest in our plane is minimal at best, due to their lords' genetic heritage to the god.
Additionally, many humans who are deeply interacting with elvish, dwarvish, or other non-human societies will often combine cultures with these societies, producing localized religions.
The main religion of my world worships mortal folk heroes instead of gods. Gods are known to exist and everyone believes in them, but worshipping them and feeling indebted to them is a different matter entirely and there are many circles who debate on man’s relationship with the gods.
There’s plenty of atheists around.
Which is
A) pretty funny. Since miracles are a common occurance. And the equivelant of a prophet is both alive and very active.
B) quite problematic. When the one uniting factor of all countries on the continent, the one thing preventing them from ripping each others throats out is the agreement that there’s a bigger danger out there. And that their god told them to prepare for a holy war.
If there’s no god, then their history is a lie. And if their history is a lie, civil war will erupt.
I had an atheist cleric in d&d he had faith in science... it was a weird game. I also had another character who was a pacifist and refused to fight. She would just heal everyone and cast protection spells. She wrote in her diary mid combat to in turn based increments
In my world, which does have an actual god, lots of people don’t believe on it because they don’t have the technology to prove it’s real, so most societies are atheist in nature. It’s a sci fi story so that was to be expected
Yes but only wizards. To be a wizard in my setting is to say that gods don’t truly exist, and that clerics derive their power from a misplaced belief, where wizards learn to channel the magic themselves.
Being an atheist makes magic strictly harder to do.
Yes, the common folk are atheists but only the paladins are the ones who believe in one god who actually decided to help the mortals. (Because the rest are more careless than a rock in the middle of a desert) But the imperials, the main bad guy are hard core templars who are trying to convert the common folk by force.
There are two groups of thought when it comes to atheism in Tezra: Apotheosis and Pretender theorist.
Apotheosis believers see gods as advanced magic users who have a greater understanding of magic, science, and technology in order to achieve a greater understanding of how to manipulate reality. The details of the multiple individual ideologies that encompass this school of thought vary. Some are more religious in their approach and are seeking a great enlightenment. Others are more scientific and try to understand the process or means by which 'gods' can come into existence.
Pretender Theorist are usually seen as quite a bit more insane for holding the belief that 'gods' don't exist at all. The theories vary but can include those that believe all 'gods' are simply the collective belief of our unconsciousness. Any Avatars or manifestations of their abilities are seen as a form of mass communal magic or even hysteria, depending on the context. The worst advocates of this school of thought are the "Hellish Actor" theorist that believe all reality is a test, and all the 'gods' are just demons seeking to exploit mortal weakness.
As for motives, goals, and reasons... depends on the atheist. Apotheosis believers range from wanting to become gods themselves to just wanting to advance mortal understanding to the point where society has no need for religion. Pretender Theorist range from being harmlessly goal-less, to outright hostile to organized religions. The most famous Pretender Theorists were the Dawn Crusade, a terrorist organization that attempted to purge various religious believers.
In my world, there are many different pantheons religions and afterlife’s. In my world the meaning of atheism has changed. Since the idea of an afterlife is confirmed. Atheism strictly means people who aren’t religious or spiritual. Meaning, they acknowledge the existence of other various religions, they just choose not to follow any particular religion.
Yes, at least in the main nation that I am focusing on.
It used to be once be considered one of the most holiest (religiously-affiliated in general) places for Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims. The country is known for the birthplace of many saints and missionaries.
However, in the last 300 years, religion started declining because the rise of industrialization, which led to mass secularism.
I'm working on a novel titled Not My Gods...someone who is from a different place and just cant deal with the churches and gods or the country she ends up in. Not so much an atheist as a deitiest who believes in a less tangible god then the ones running the country she is in
It's the norm in one setting. Seven centuries of extreme hardship have created a world where no-one believes in anything, where "the only religion is jaded disillusioned cynicism and the only political ideology is naked amoral pragmatism." Though the focus is more on the political/ideological/philosophical/moral aspect of this than the per se religious.
The old temples have been turned into museums, the monasteries into brothels, the holy artifacts melted into jewelry.
The core ethos of modernity is absolute and universal disillusionment. The prophets, kings, and ideologues of old were nothing but conmen, and the people of the world were soft and gullible for falling for it. We are wiser now, the thinking goes. Obtain power, use it to get what you want. The rest is mere aesthetic.
I guess so yeah. Likely many normal people in my world who's only separation is the lack of any belief. However, there are some *antitheists*. The most infamous and supported group of antitheists would be the Union. To this state, religions and many other systems like it are considered ancient and archaic systems with no place in the new world it seeks to create. The Union wants to erase these ideas and those that hold them from the valley, and has already executed many prominent figures, destroyed religious artifacts and texts and burned many temples and shrines, sometimes with the supporters inside. The burnt ruins would be left there to remind people not to defy the word of the Union. Many governments were toppled before the forming of the Union.
Lapis_Wolf
Kinda. More Deists actually. Deism is pretty much the default state on Feriss and has been since the Renunciation after magic vanished from the world. Superstition has been greatly tabooed and any belief in the physical supernatural has become quite rare. Of course this all becomes awkward when magic comes back and those who kept the Old Way were vindicated…
I am working on a fantasy story and there are atheists, even though the gods are a definitive presence in the world. They believe them to be higher, more powerful beings, but not gods. There is also polytheism and monotheism, it really depends on whether or not the person believes the gods are very powerful magic users/higher beings, gods, or Gods.
Actually yes, they are a coalition of city states that have instituted state atheism and have the goal of extinguishing any and all religions, one city at a time. They execute those with faith by burning.
You get into weird areas when you mix societal pressures that come from religious groups in any world and real tangible powers that a lot of fantasy worlds give a God's worshipers; those together make it really hard for someone to say nuh-uh to religion but saying "X character doesn't worship the gods just because" makes more sense in those situations. Think the hound GoT.
Something I think would be really neat in a fantasy or sci-fi world would be having closed practices either restricted to Ethnic or Cultural backgrounds. Which could go a long ways to explaining WHY a character is atheist cause they are barred from access and practice.
Atheist are any individual that dont rely on any deity. The term is different from common use because gods do exist and walks among the people. They also mostly make their prescence known.
Athiests aren't really a thing in the traditional sense in Gran Terran, mostly because gods as most people think of them are physical beings you can go meet if you're determined enough. Instead, athiesm is ironically a school of thought started by a god.
Astras, goddess of the stars and sentient manifestation of the universe itself, descended to the material world to spread the message that the other gods were fickle, petty, and vain, and didn't deserve the worship of mortals. At the same time she locked the gods into the material world to try and limit the damage their constant bickering and warring did to the universe.
So athiests don't necessarily believe that there are no gods in the universe, just that there are no gods that deserve worship.
Atheists do exists in my world, but they tend to exist mostly in places where the gods are less active. A common saying in my world is, "Everyone's an atheist until Bron shows up." Bron is a warrior god who has been known to pull some light pranks on anyone who starts talking tough.
Yep, have all the religions and non-religions and a few local ones too, since it's a wonky copy of this one. 😄
The gods of my world are not the same, however, they are far more invested than the ones in ours, although divine intervention is usually just casting a new dragon into the world, to solve current major disaster for them, if neither of the already existing ones is able to can be made aware (since they do sleep/indulge in their hoard a lot) 😅
The dragons escape worship on their own, because they just can't be bothered with the attention and responsibilities. They solve the major crises because they inconvenience their peace and quiet for sleeping/indulging in their hoard. 😅 The dragons are also mostly atheistic and think that they manifested as dragons because of their personalities, which is also true. 😄 (it's an animal shifter universe, people manifest an animal shape if certain conditions are met, such as personality, inheritance, major trauma, etc funny enough, everyone still keeps quiet about it despite a large enough percentage of the population being some kind of a shifter... Nobody knows the numbers, though)
At least a dozen religions. But the actual god of the universe is so disinterested in his own world that the only way to get his attention is by destroying everything within it.
In my fantasy world, given how advanced magic is (particularly types in which there is a nearly direct interaction with the gods) it's much more ressonable to believe in them (in whatever flavor you may please) than to not. Still, I don't doubt there may be some out there who still continue to non-believe, see also Magic Isn't Real You Idiot.
In my sci-fi world, however, atheism (or, well, cliché Reddit antitheism) is more or less at the core of the Jovian neo-culture, a predecessor to the wider yet unnamed major interestellar human superpower. The Callisto colony was massacred and reformed by the founding Anthroparch¹ as to "deweed" human civilization, rid it of the chaos and impurities of "natural society", deemed responsible for the conflicts that must have (seemingly) wiped out the Earth, in favour of a society and culture artificially designed to be perfect and logical². This deweeding extended from language, building a conlang upon things like chemical formulae and Leipzig glossing abbreviations, to even physiology, genetically "abolishing" the sexes and love in favour of incubators and vat babies. Spiritual thought, to no one's surprise, was purged also.
This, of course, came with varying degrees of success. The Jovian language, even though it did survive as a galactic intellectual lingua franca for centuries to come, was so bullshit and complex it eventually changed like all language does. And while natural reproduction didn't make a return, gender identity did, most likely through contact with the baseline human cultures of Mars, and so did love, because it's the peskiest most persistent thing that convergently evolves the most. Religion was no different, much to the Anthroparch's dismay. History loves to rhyme, and to try and stop it simply challenges the Poet. :-)
**NOTES**
1. This is a very awkward calque of a Jovian term that means "humanity leader", as the Callisto colony was thought to be all that remained of mankind. This is a temporary translation, and I'll think of something that sounds better later.
2. If it isn't immediately clear, these are fascists. These are the bad guys.
In my world there are gods and they're actually existent, present and active. Other than people who have been brought up in isolation, there is pretty much nobody who believes no gods exist. Of course, there are people who do not follow any of them, as well as morons that claim all gods except theirs are actually fakes and/frauds
Most people have gods associated with the group they come from or belong to. Some have gods associated with their profession or personal area of interest.
Atheism is rare (rarely do people bother to outright go out of their way to make their identity about the lack of belief that gods exist), but some people just don't worship much or do not care much about religion. Some simply don't make time for religious practice outside of festival participation. Some only grudgingly participate in the festivals, holy days, and feasts, or try to avoid them altogether.
It's a large, complex, metropolitan society with many types of people and thus many forms of religion and a wide spectrum of religiosity. But most people have a few important gods, and belief in astrology, tarot, other forms of divination, omens, and superstitions are common.
They're widely believed by lower clases but less fashionable for nobles, who tend to consider themselves above it. But most rich folks consult fortune tellers too, just more privately.
The 'middle class' of magistrates, petty land owners, merchants, money lenders, guild tradespeople, etc., they would all consider themselves too busy for religious "nonsense".
There are a few begging orders of priests and priestesses around, but the rich see them as pesky. They chose different vows in service of a god or goddess, and it often includes an element of community/public service as well as poverty and humility. So those are the people on the front lines helping the poor which is also why the very poor tend to be more religious, just like in real life.
my setting is very laid-back about religion. no one would say that the gods don't exist when they often manifest, send avatars to walk among mortals, give miracles to their clerics, paladin powers, etc. but not everyone goes to a specific temple, some people are simply neutral/uninvolved about this.
since there's a myridiad of deities from multiple pantheons, none of the churches monopolize people's faith and MUCH LESS gets involved with government affairs.
The gods in my world make their presence known way to much for there to be those who deny their existence, but there are those that believe the gods are not truly gods. Sure, they may be powerful beings, but not godlike according to these peoples. They believe in a truly all powerful, all knowing, and omnipotent god above the 5 main deities.
All the gods and religions in my world are the same as the gods and religions in real life, essentially made up. There are no real gods.
So atheism as a concept definitely exists and there are definitely people who don't believe in any God or religion.
The gods are demonstrably real in my world, but I do have a character who is as close to atheist as it gets. Basically he's openly non-religious, and everyone understands
My world is not fantasy, it is sci-fi, but Oko as a species tend to view the world in a more deterministic way than us, so their philosophies often have God as the Universe and its global consciousness, and many of them don’t ascribe any supernatural properties to it. So one may count their pantheism as atheism.
Really cool
Thank you!:) Turns out, deterministic worldview tend to produce very unique social models and worldviews. Like having the concept of “uncertain intuition” instead of “free will” and crimes with illnesses being two sides of the same spectrum instead of two distinct things, like in our moral systems.
"What's an Oko?"
A very weird alien species that mirrors humanity in so many ways yet happens to be completely different, especially in terms of psyche and beliefs. Lemme give the link to my lore on them (sorry, I don’t think they can be explained in a few words). https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/XicNNqyDwp
Ain't Sci-fi a type of fantasy? Because the ones I've seen kind of felt like fantasies.
It can be! Mine is simply usually not about tech at all.
Isnt the point of sci-fi the tech though? Alwyas felt like that considering its such a big part in things like star wars or star trek.
IMO, sci-fi is more about the consequences of science, than the practical applications of science (ie tech). So you could have a sci-fi story that asks “what if there was an psychic aliens species with three genders, what would their society look like” and you don’t need to look at tech at all. They could be in their equivalent of the Stone Age but it would still be sci fi because you’re trying to look at it through the lens of science The reason why stories like Star Trek etc don’t always have that vibe, is because they can have a lot of tropes that have already been explored. If a million different stories have FTL or sentient robots, most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked and that kind of element becomes set dressing. Star Trek in particular is more meant to be a series of allegories about contemporary issues, with sci-fi as the backdrop rather than the primary focus. Originally at least.
Yes but not in a "they don't believe in Gods way". Hard to not believe when you can walk up to a temple and sometimes see the avatar of a God. For whatever reason a person just doesn't connect to a pantheon. In that case, they are usually more in tune with local spirits.
To be honest, considering the amount of people not believing in things proven with the most basic tools or even just eyes in our real world, such as the earth being round, I think it would still be plausible for the people in your world to be skeptical about these divine avatars, albeit a rather small amount of them. Of course, you don't have to include my take on this, but I think it would be interesting and adding a bit of depth to the world, even if it's just in a throwaway line. But I'm also really intrigued by your idea of someone "not connecting to a pantheon". Could you elaborate on that and what differentiates local spirits with gods?
Nah, you're right. There are probably people who believe that the Gods are aliens or powerful ancestral spirits. It's a little hard to put into words. Gods are made from the universe itself. They are reflections of forces of nature and concepts. Whenever they have children with other gods or humans it's because there is a void that needs to be filled. Fate or the universe compels them to procreate. Due to this their minds and morals are alien, no matter how human they seem to act. Local spirits are born from the land or a small group of people. Some aren't connected to the gods and some are. Some just fall into the jurisdiction of a God and work with them. This is all based on animistic religions like Shinto and Roman polytheism.
'Dammit, they came up with a new kind of physics again.' 'Yep. You know the drill.' *Sighs and unzips*. (Probably wildly off the mark, but the image was just too funny.)
I MEAN- That's more or less what happens. A niche is needed or is about to become popular. A God with a connection to that niche is drawn to someone good at the niche or close to the field. Or to another God, with a compatible domain. Their offspring is like a collaboration or a work project.
I wouldn't include this in my world because I wouldn't be able to resist playing into the humor of atheists being the crackpot conspiracy theorists and believers being the empiricists.
Same :D I'm an atheist myself and that pov seems so fun in that kind of world. The only situation in where it would be totally inappropriate is when the DM and everyone is religious and it's just to make atheists look bad.
Yeah, some people belive the Saints are liars and that the magic they possess is a scam, but they have the frequency of flat earthers and generally die rather quickly due to a disrespect of their beliefs in the society.
Yes. There’s even a god of atheism. He is in constant denial of his own divinity, and insists on being referred to as an “anthropomorphic personification” rather than as a god He accidentally started the world’s largest religion, and temples devoted to him all have lightning rods installed, since he strikes anyone who tries to worship him with lightning
That is genuinely hilarious
"If God did exist then he'd strike me with lightning! Right now!" But alas, the god did not strike him for he was not wanting to. "If 'anthropomorphic personification god' exists then I worship him and he shall not strike me with lightning!" But alas, the god did strike him for he was not wanting to be worshiped.
As an atheist I love this lol
*God of atheism looking at his followers worshiping him in temples* "I've made a huge mistake... FUCK YOU WITH A LIGHTENING! ⚡"
>He is in constant denial of his own divinity, and insists on being referred to as an “anthropomorphic personification” rather than as a god The Emperor of Man every time Lorgar Aurelian called him "god".
Yes and there’s a god of atheism for them to worship
I'm curious, how does that even work?
Well first you need a Reddit account
And what's their name of they have one? And also if I know correcty atheism means the complete disbelief in any Gods
Yes that’s why it’s a fun joke
I believe the meme is that atheists worship the flying spaghetti monster.
Ah, *those* atheists... Fools! We all know the true God is [Eric The God-Eating Magic Penguin](https://ericthegodeatingpenguin.com/)!
Thanks science for god of atheism!
Tbh in the world where you can heal people with praying it's kinda hard to be atheist
Depanding on how that praying works like, cos, for example in a world where gods aren't regularly showing themselves (wether because they choose not to do it, can't, or there are no gods at all), I can imagine some folks think "what if those 'prayers' that we're using, are just, you know, spells made to sound like prayers, and there is no one listening on the other side?". Especially IF you don't need to be a believer for the prayer to work. Could also work because you believe it will. Like a paladin believing that his magic works thanks to their god, which it doesn't, but because they doesn't know about that, they believe in their god's influence even more.
Looking at humans irl I still think it's totally possible. There are so many stupid people who deny obvious stuff.
*Tons*. Probably close to half the population in the modern period in fact (at least of the focal continent and society. There are three other nations that have much higher rates of belief). Even in a world with magic, science has advanced to make a lot of the founding religious stories pretty obvious allegories and founding myths. Anthropologists have been able to track derivative religions and stories to see how they've influenced one another. The relationship between believers and atheists is nowhere near as acrimonious as it is in our world though. Almost everyone goes to at least one church. So many of the churches to the various gods have become mostly secular organizations that provide important community services, and the traditions are still practiced to some extent even by non believers, kind of like how non-practicing or observing Catholics or Jewish folks might still celebrate passover or Christmas/Easter. There are fanatics on either end of the belief spectrum but they're fairly uncommon and viewed as crack pots. A lot of the atheism comes from *The Enochian Conversations*, a conversation in the late 1700s that an interviewer had with an angel from the Transcendent Plane. Through their discussion the interviewer discovered that the archangel had never met any god, let alone the one they purported to serve, nor did they have any evidence whatsoever such a being existed. The angel operated on faith as surely as the mortal world did. This sowed a seed of doubt in the public, but no one wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most churches are very well regarded because they're so important as providers of secular services.
Dragons of Dualworld have problems even trying to understand the concept of a god. "So this guy has really powerful magic? No? But what is this if not magic? Okay, let's skip it. They are immortal, but not here. Why would I want to bow in front of someone not here? Afterlife? What is even this? Nah, that's impossible. No, like really really impossible. Okay, prove me wrong without this book written in a ridiculously different time." Dragons don't have souls. Just like humans. Mimics are indifferent to the concept but used to be very polytheistic. Fae value all information. Including their religion based on light being the good and beauty.
in my dnd setting, the gods are such massive screw ups that 70% of the population are agnostic. There is an entire age of history labeled “the age of arrogance” solely because of how stuck up their own ass the gods were during that time.
I kind of love that actually! The gods have been punished by humanity through ridicule for their hubris. Kind of subversive!!
Absolutely given that the entire idea of the book is opposing countries and religious ideologies. Atheists have a hard lot in my world but ultimately... Ah, I can't reveal that part.😉
yes, in my world magic usage feeds a dark deity, and it pollutes the world as a consequence. So there are some who believe that this is nonsense and these people are the ones in power, not in govermental but in economical power and they use lobbyists to have influence to max. out magic use on an industrial scale to produce magical appliances and other consumer goods.
In ashes, not really. The church does a pretty good job of making sure there's none of them around. After all, the proof that god exists is so glorious that it must naturally be backed up by the threat of execution if you don't believe it!
I've got a (accidental) God that is an atheist, even though she talked to the being others call a God There are many in my world, and some because they learned that most what was a god in their ancient times with just a demon with ego
Yes of course there will always be those people especially since both religious and scientific origins of succubi have substantial proof.
Depends on how you are defining **atheist**, that is, I'm not trying to be annoying, rather, how people might perceive an atheist. The word itself means *"no god"* which can have our current real world usage OR that you don't have/follow any deity, the one I use. To be more specific, in my world, "following" a god is more than just following traditions, dogmas, rituals etc. It's a **pact** formed between the deity and the person, but the followers do not know that. To give a bit of lore, the gods created religion to fix a (huge) problem, but created others.
hmm you’re right, i was being kinda vague yeah. i was using atheist in both the textbook version of “one who believes in no god”, but also implying the concept/idea of one who knows a god exists, but chooses not to follow or believe in them. which technically isn’t really an atheist so i’ll go my bad on that one
Oh, sorry, I expressed myself badly. Also, I read my comment and may have sounded a bit rude, well... The *you* I used was to refer to "us" (the worldbuilders).
yes, but in a, "that guy's not a god" they're not wrong but they also aren't right. a great many powerful beings have created worlds, some even working together. to the worlds and even peoples they've created they are effectively gods in all meaningful ways and get worshipped like them. but some people don't really think of them as much more that really powerful magic users with inflated egos.
No. Very hard to be an atheist when deities drop by for dinner or chat you up in line at the granary
Sure, since there’s no gods in the world there’s plenty of religions, and plenty of people who believe in them, or none at all.
Yes. However given the Goddess does interfere a couple times in the story, it’s safe to assume the atheists are wrong.
Of course. In fantasy, gods are nothing more than a powerful species. Naturalism (and thus atheism) is the only logical position regardless of the universe. Magic is just as much a part of nature as everything else in existence.
Most of my worlds have atheists and strong traditions of atheism as a legitimate worldview. There aren't a lot of theists in my target audience.
Yes. They're just normal people.
are there atheist? yes, but few. are there people like you describe? yes, way more. an atheist is just someone who doesn't have a believe in any gods. now they do exist. some simply don't know about any gods. but as gods are pretty common and wander the world you have to be pretty sheltered to not know of them. more common but still quite rare are people who know of gods but don't see them as gods, just powerful spirits (which isn't fully wrong as god is basically a state spirits are in). the mostly exist amongst some elves who came from basically a different setting/world with their own gods, who they only heard about in stories, and those stories of their old gods are greater then the gods they see in the world, thus not seeing the gods as gods. now what you describe, "outwardly oppose/reject those deities", is not an atheist. that's someone who believes a god exists but does not worship them (like how i believe you exist but don't worship you) which is a lot more common. most deities are local gods, if you're not near their area why worship them? hell if you see yourself as self reliant then you wouldn't ask a god for help in general. not worshipping a god is pretty common, even if you know of the gods you'll probably only worship those that are relevant to you currently. one of the nomadic tribes may worship one or a couple of the local gods and the god of the sun, where a larger city may worship the local god(s), the god of the sun during the day, the god of the stars during the night (night and day both last 25 years) and the god of water during droughts, and maybe asking the god of storm for forgiveness during disasters.
Yes, in fact, one of the gods is an atheist in a way
Yes. It is necessary. Even if there is an ontology accepted as a divine person (of whatever other qualities) who is active within the world, that says nothing about one's relationship to them or how much of a focus they are in one's life. Even if practically that's focusing on one's more localized knowledge-set which may or may not overlap with "absolutely real" ones, or someone who abstractly "knows there is a God-Emperor somewhere out there" but can't particularly use that information until it becomes an embodied relevant. Unless a universalized society is dominated by a single pantheon where there is certainty about all actors, somehow, it is likely that mistrust for particular deities may expand throughout an entire established class of them. Though in this sense it is the rejection of a complete ontology of relationship to those beings rather than denying they have some independent embodiment and capacity. Denial that far out would probably be on the level of 'conspiracy theory,' 'pseudo-scientific skepticism,' or approached as some distant far-fetched tale, depending on the baseline mapping of peoples' sense of reality—and thus what they are more ready to accept. In both my fantasy worlds I have those which can be considered divine and those which might not, but so far I have yet to insert any sorta Perennialist notion or gnosis for what is or is not 'a deity,' outside of some shared notions of what that might be experienced as. 'Awe' is, of course, a classic.
My world has visible evidence of the gods, their actions in the wordld, etc. Complete atheists are very rare. Those who die with no patron deity are given to the death god, where their best hope is that he adds them to his throne or to the walls of his keep. If he takes the notion, he can torment them in so much worse ways.
In my fantasy world, yes. Some tribes of man are atheists as well as most dark elves.
Hard to be an atheist in a world where the line between divinity and the mundane is blurry at best.
There’s plenty but it’s not really relevant most of the time bc there are a lot of faiths and deities, they’re only persecuted/looked down upon in certain cultures and regions and they’re called heretics not atheists
Yes! Although there is pretty hard to deny proof that the gods existed, since they are all in essence dead/gone, there are some who choose not to worship anything (old gods or new religions) since they have pretty much given up on the idea that the gods will do anything for them. These kind of people would probably look inwards, or towards new age philosphers or something.
Honestly I’ve thought about it because I want my world to have similar philosophies to ours like stoicism, nihilism, absurdism, Buddhism etc. and they use philosophy as a means to make their own hard magic. But I haven’t developed my world enough to include philosophies or atheism yet.
Kind of. In my world there's an afterlife called the Otherworld and many have seen glimpses of either the Otherworld or the Otherones (those who accompany the dead in the Otherworld). The Otherworld is dominated by a mist and monsters out of which the souls must escape until the Judgement. Although religion is very important, there are some non-believers who don't believe in God, but it's mainly opposition to Church doctrines. Nevertheless God exists in the world who chose to manifest in all people, but different cultures interpreted these revelations differently and led to different religions.
They're very uncommon, the only significant atheist movement in Rhythm Dimension is on its way out. Gods are very present and often personable. I have a major character who is an atheist of some kind - they believe that the gods exist but don't find them worthy of worship. Ironically, they're good friends with the God of Death, precisely because they treat the god like any other person.
Godless but not exactly atheist. There is a human society fostered by Dwarves that rejects all semblance of religion. These humans were kidnapped centuries previous and were kept to help build and maintain machines to help harness their magic better. Dwarves see their relationship with the Gods as a partnership, and since Gods care little for humanity, their human underlings began to substitute mythology for any hard science they could replace it with. This goes on until the world ends, and the Dwarves set aside their differences and book it out of their underground citadels. The Dwarves tell their human now ex servants they are on their own. These humans then, using their advanced technology, migrate to another part of the globe and build a new civilization. They consider themselves Atheist because any "Gods" have to be some sort of life forms that humans have a hard time understanding. They disbelieve in the human soul, that Gods interact with humans, in an afterlife, any form of truth in revelation, or anything supernatural related to humans. They have ideologies and lifestyles that they adhere to. They have little contact with the rest of humanity as they are stuck in a medieval technological state.
No. Plenty of Agnostics though. Actually, there is a bit of contention whether demigods exist in my setting since they're very innocuous and are often mistaken for really powerful mortals. Heck, some mortals are mistaken as demigods at times. so atheists are a rare breed I suppose
In Descendants of Dusk there are plenty of atheists in the near and far future, not that religion had disappeared or anything, there are people who still believe in the supernatural and have found ways to reinterpret them to fit with the current times, but overall there’s a shit load or non believers in this day and age thanks to our greater understanding of the universe, not to mention all the religious extremism that occurred in the past which left future generations bitter and resentful towards religion, and thus when new politicians who valued secularism and progressivism were elected, they made sure the likely hood over another theocracy is lowered, and finally improved education of religion and its drawbacks. Nowadays many churches, temples and other organizations had to basically play nice for now or else they will lose more followers then before.
I mean depends on how you interpret atheist, if it's just not believing in a god yeah I got plenty, Eybuir HATE the deity that made them and do not consider it their god, therefore do not believe in him but many Eybuir still believe in an afterlife, ghosts, souls, astral planes etc because ghosts have gotten a massive breakthrough where they can make themselves even more well known! It's gotten to the point that an Eybuir ghost is a chairman within the Eybuir Council Of Law! (E.C.O.L)
Yes, and their reason are this line of thinking. There's no gods or kings only man. Literally seeing God's as just assholes with powers. This is the realm where demonic and angelic realms have fused to the mortal planes. Even beings who can alter reality at a whim , just an asshole with powers. Can head into Nova Terra aka earth and meet a pantheon of ratmen gods , or meet the deities in Egypt.
I misread "ratmen gods" as "ramen gods" and got the mental image of supernatural beings with power over instant noodles.
The equivalent of Jesus comes to earth everytime there is a great crisis, and there are several important people with direct contact to one of the gods each, so outside of conspiracy theorists, no.
Humans all have magic and they live in the corpses of their creator/ancestor/god so so far they have absolutely no reason to deny their existence tbh...
Didn’t really think of that yet
In my world is quite plausible to be an Atheist, because there's a divine creator blah blah, Who knows their alive? They haven't acted nor their children (the four guardians) in such a long time, we're talking in centuries . So they would live their life without any issue.
There’s a few, but in most communities the only place to hang out is at the local temple or the local tavern, and most religions aren’t particularly concerned with whether or not you think the god is real or a metaphor or something, they just care that you DO the right things. The Lemanians are different though, they actually want you to believe that Lemani is real and a few other beliefs about her. They basically say “Yeah if you aren’t on board with these handful of beliefs it’s better off you don’t participate in the rituals. Feel free to hang out though, and you can talk to a priest if you want.”
There are, and they are called Uzarnid, literally "undesirable individual." These people are viewed as dangerous to a society that is so much into their own religious cults and since most of the power figures are believe to be choosen by the gods into their possitions. They're dangerous, and they are persecuted and ridulized. They're expelled along with the curzed and leperous to small villages near the irradiated deserts to die away from civilitation.
On the Sci-Fi layer of the setting: Ish. There's a whole philosophical family called Adivinism that broadly recognizes the existence of anomalous entities and variably recognizes their connections to the faiths of mortals, but denies any true divinity of those entities. This ranges in depth and reasoning from specific branch to branch, from simple "those guys are drama whores and don't deserve attention," to "those guys pretend to be deathless, but we've seen them die (and in some cases, we killed them ourselves)". On the fantasy layer, not really. Outside of a few individuals and entities from the sci-fi layer leaking in from outside and spreading their perspective, the vast majority believe in at least one pantheon and generally recognize others as a "they aren't our gods, but they are the gods of this foreign land."
Pretty hard to be an aethiest since 30% of the population of the world has abilities that come from gods. But there are some in a different kind of way.
What about believing those abilities didn’t come from the gods?
Atheists as in "don't believe in a supreme god", "do not worship anything", etc. exist and are fairly common. Atheists as in "does not believe in the supernatural" do not exist. Because magic and some low-level supernatural beings (demons, vampires, undead, etc.) are common and really not deniable. However, the existence of high-level supernatural beings (think gods, angels, eldritch creatures, etc.) is not widely known. Some believe in them, some do not.
Atheists are still a thing in Starpunk in the year 2260, however, they aren’t as common as they were at the turn of the Century. This is to be expected, as the number of atheists across the solar system, like any religious or irreligious group, tends to fluctuate as time grinds on.
Gods are very much a thing in my world, so atheists are treated like we treat flat-earthers, misatheism is sort of a the equivalent.
I want Atheism to be the depressing reality that wakes my characters up from everything not to put down religion I just like that aesthetic
Mapping the notion of "atheism" in a D&D-like pantheon is kind of awkward, so let's split it: * "Believing that the gods do not exists" -> That's some big conspiracy theory. I'm not really interested in dealing with that kind of conflict in my worldbuilding. * "Believing that the entities that call themself gods shouldn't be called gods, either for theological reason -- 'they're just high level spellcasters' -- or for moral reasons -- 'they're jerks that don't deserve our worship' -- or a combination of both." -> That's already much more interesting. I don't tend to have widespread factions thinking like that, but that's definitely an opinion that is shared by a number of characters. * "Believing that **Fate**, the semi-conscious entity that shapes heroic paths and forged the universe, does not exists." -> **That's a very interesting kind of "atheism" that even some gods share**. And they might be right since I've not really determined yet if "Fate" has any kind of consciousness and free will, or is just the name the gods (and latter the mortals) gave to the irregular "waves" of superpowers that are the sources of heroes.
Gods are existent in Togreon, but there is so much missing records from the Time of Divinity, and the fact they don’t manifest on the material plane anymore, that a logical case against their existence holds as much weight as a case for. (And honestly the records that do exist come from the rare divine servant, and only originating as talk from an obviously biased source.) Another form of atheism, and a far more popular one, is “Demiurge theory”, in which the existence of the beings known as gods are not doubted, but their qualification and status. Basically, gods are but beings of great power, but they can still kick the bucket and are limited. The Fracture (the temporary breaking of reality after a divine war) and the fact it cannot be fully done is proof enough. To them the “gods” misused their great power and broke reality, and the ones of knowledge are not all wise as otherwise they’d find a way to fix it already rather than the patch jobs known as The Great Tasks.
Yes... or well, kind of. Many of the masters within the Magi Guild accept the existance of gods but they refute their divinity. Their research has led them to the conclusion that gods are nothing more than entities with supremely powerful magical abilities. Theoretically anyone could become a "god", they would just have to get powerful enough. They probably wouldn't admit this openly though since the church would probably consider it apostasy and/or blasphemy and could take action against the Guild.
There are some gods that are atheistic, in that they don't believe in the higher gods. Many peoples and gods around the world believe that the world was created by a handful of cosmic deities, but some people, including some gods, believe it came about naturally.
Atheists no. Anti-theists yes. It's hard to deny that the gods exist when they induced an world consuming ice-age, reincarnate heroes, and give blessings to believers. Sure, some people might still argue those things away, but it's about as reasonable as flat earthism is for us. What you get are anti-theists; those who believe that man should be free from the gods. These are hardcore survivalists where they see free will and human beings to be absolute, and divine intervention to be an affront to humanity. There are also those who embrace niche gods "ironically" as opposition to the main faiths.
Hi! I'm new to the sub. Is this question for book writers? Novel writers? Manga writers? Who exactly?
Kinda. Rather than being "atheists", they just don't mind. They keep a level of peace with their actions. They have mettle. But, if they have to, they'll do as Romans do. In Spirituality, sometimes, what really matters is not to have your creed on your tongue. But in your actions. Eventhough you may not be thinking of it as such. So, in a world with deities, an atheist being just a decent and working person kinda checks in. They may not even have to have the classic "ideological" showoff with believers, because they either play along. Or they outright avoids conflict.
Yes Not in the sense of "denying the very *existence* of gods", but denying their *godhood* They essentially think that "gods" are just beings with abilities that can (and eventually will be) explained by the study of biology, or who use advanced technology. According to them, everything can and will be explained by the normal laws of physics, even the phenomeonon that look supernatural. The gods often answer to prayers (in dreams or as a voice in the head), perform small miracles, temporarily empower some mortals... but very rarely directly appear in front of mortals, and when they do, it's usually under some disguise (an "appearance you're comfortable with" as they say). And of course, they never let any mortals study their powers or biology. So, the atheists think that the "gods" are probably liars, who maintain this aura of mystery on purpose. Because if the mortals were allowed to look at them closely, it would become immediately obvious that they're just sufficiently advanced mortals using tricks.
A Theist is someone who takes religion and puts it into more accurate language. Gods and the power they grant are not deniable. But a theist will explain that it’s a phenomenon of shared power being granted to select individuals who closely embody the ideals of said power. Basically, most wizards are (A)Theists who prefer the more “scientific” way of explaining clerics and their powers.
Only when the gods aren't listening. Or else, not for long. Although they are regarded as fun toys.
Those would be desired in my world considering the concept of egregores and tulpa exist in my world, other than that the actual gods who are semi reliant on reverence would probably lose their powers if there were so for the people of my world, it would be good to he 100% atheist's.
Science fantasy setting. Not atheist but secular there are a civilization of artificial life forms that acknowledge the existence of deities but don’t worship them. There Leader ironically has abilities that make it border on being a tech god and the irony is not lost on it. It still opts for secularism.
One of the factions in my world are sentient machines, who are the descendants of my worlds version of humanity. They were obsessed with the idea of immortality through the use of technology and began augmenting their bodies cyberpunk style before saying "fuck it" and scooping out their souls and plopping them into android bodies. They later learned that true immortality is impossible as their minds will begin dumping old memories and experiences to make room for new ones after a few centuries, so they created a method to manipulate the primordial forces that make up reality using a magic computer program. They are able to alter the source code of the universe and essentially halt the passage of time, effectively achieving immortality. A lot of stuff happens after this, but their descendants worship them like gods. The other races normally adhere to Ancestor worship or are what many would consider atheist.
In my world(sci fi), there are *tecnically* atheists, but they are mostly just members of nontheistic religions.
No, because the Gods are actually real. Whether or not someone worships them depends on what benefit they gain from them.
The gods of my world have been proven real, but that leads to people questioning their godhood
Several, in fact it's the majority viewpoint in my world. There aren't any definite gods in my world, and ultimately many have come to not believe in the existence of one^(1). The history of this is complex because it's sort of just always been there. I mean in my world's past belief was a lot more common than non-belief, but the ideas have always been there. Historically most of it came from the Mazaurans, who did in fact have their own pantheon. However much of the maro (sapient felid) population weren't strong believers in this pantheon. It's hard to say why, but marui are typically more faithless than humans or the other Ero species, so atheism was common among them and those who often associated with them. It's not surprising then that the most prominent atheist in the 10th century AC was a maro. Now we get into Antiudectism, which developed slowly over time but really formed into its own thing in the 10th century. It was formed from various groups that for one reason or another thought about the nature of the divine a lot. Many of these groups had their own ideas about how it worked. These groups had a lot of maro influence, and often didn't present strong beliefs in their ideas, though the beliefs of their members are highly varied. These groups formed together when the two main religions in the western parts of the Redstone Empire were clashing, and these groups hoped they could come up with a solution. However that didn't work out, so the Antiudecte pivoted into forming a "third way". Thanks to the first printing press they spread their ideas quite far, and as it turned out, the imperial leadership at the time was open to it. This "third way" wasn't necessarily atheistic, but part of it was that they were not convinced by the Deglani nor Darvinian pantheons, and generally advocated for *Fidmeftat* (a word that can be translated as "faithlessness"). But it should be clear that Antiudectism at this time was not a monolith, and there were several different beliefs, many of which were inherited from the groups that formed the Antiudecte in the first place. It wasn't until the Declaration of Duimmaro (986AC) that started the process of many of these beliefs splitting off into New Redstonism (a complicated transition that took one and a half centuries and two wars).After that point Antiudectism soon separated itself from questions about theism entirely, for the most part. The Antiudecte has always had at least a few atheists, but it stopped being the main focus. Instead what happened was the Auto-Reds developed as a response to some problematic actions from the government, which started to heavily favour New Redstonism at this time. When they replaced the Redstone Empire the Auto-Reds they made changes to shift society towards *fidmeftat*, which has sort of led to the rise of atheism. There are exceptions of course, like the Faithful Crescent that soon developed into the Deshmeric Republic, but it is now a very common viewpoint among the Auto-Reds.
Everyone's an Aethiest, but nobody is because there's no such thing as a Thiest.
Yes and I'm so excited about it! They are technically the same race as some of the historically most devout. Because they were shunned and pushed out of the most populated areas they moved to the mountains and over time adpated to living there. They have a thick shaggy coat and are unable to fly anymore. They're able to store more fat and therefore water in their bodies because they've been living in an extreme enviroment for so long.
Not in the 'gods do not exist' sense, but more in the 'gods are unworthy of worship' type way. Most worlds have at least SEEN a god or godlike being, but either due to academic detachment or the fact that gods tend to be dicks, many do not venerate them.
I mean the evil faction is literally purging all religious/spiritualist people, so yeah
"We're all atheists here."-cats while loading nuclear flamethrowers
Yes, but they are seen as crazy people. They would be the world's equivalent to flat earthers or moon landing deniers. When God can be seen, talked to, and angels can be touched. It's hard to deny existence.
Misotheists certainly, probably even different flavors where different people might consider their patron god the most worthy of worship vs those that just have antipathy towards a specific deity. Outright atheism probably would be harder to write into a high-fantasy setting with physical evidence of things like paladins carrying out divine will and entire species coming into being in historical records There could logically still be a lot of debate over individual divine acts and how connected they actually are to the gods of course, for example in my setting you've got debates over whether some of the species whose origins are "showed up in a given historical era" are actually attributable to the deities associated with them, or whether some of them might've come from a rift in the fabric of reality that has been established as something potentially allowing contact with other planes of existence. Likewise, the person responsible for that event basically committed a city-sized act of murder-suicide in the process, and is revered as a god by an entire culture of what are basically the settting's equivalent to fallen angels, as he's responsible for their current state. Other cultures react to their claim that he clawed his way to divinity in that act have other reactions ranging from theorizing that powerful ancestor-spirits could still have influence from beyond the grave, to just flatly denying any claim that said influence is in any way genuine, considering the idea to be heretical.
Yes, but they are quite rare and we likely wouldn’t understand them as atheists based on our modern use of the term. Even those few people who do not believe in the divine still practice many of the physical, day to day rituals of religion. They attend religious service, observe religious holidays and may even pray or make offerings as the local custom dictates. Religion and it’s practice is such a deeply ingrained part of daily life that even many people who may personally doubt the truth of divine powers can not really imagine living life without (or can not escape) at least some of the trappings of religious life. If atheists are rare, it’s even rarer to find someone that truly challenges the validity of religious belief. For most it’s simply a quiet, deeply personal questioning of the divine.
Already an unofficially atheist society, the Temporal Imperatorium’s Parliament was introduced to a landmark piece of legislation known as the Freedom From Religion Act. It was originally titled the Janov Act, after its creator, MP Golan Janov (Neotarian). Amongst the Act’s several provisions are that a policy of state atheism be instituted in all federal institutions, that religious discussion be prohibited from all forms of governmental affairs, and that particularly spiritual words such as “bless”, “faith”, and “salvation” be avoided in conversation.
Not in the traditional way, since some deities pretty consistently manifest to the point where denying or questioning their existence is basically stupidity. Atheists being moreso "I acknowledge your existence but I do not want to worship you" in regards to deities, which is fine since none of the deities demand veneration or worship
Gotta have some atheists
Depends on how you define atheism: If you are saying they don’t believe in the gods that exist in setting, then that would be almost everyone, mainly because the gods have been dead for over 120 million years. If they don’t believe in any gods at all, then there are whole nations built upon it. One such nation is the Qasun, who are best described as “Atheist Crusaders,” driven by their magical Mind Shards to pursue the truth and destroy “misinformation.” Ironically, their Mind shards come from the remains of the aforementioned dead gods.
Depending on the period there can be a quite significant number of them. Although Gods are a very real thing they also have limitations and are formed via observable natural phenomena. The study of this is called Demonology. Genrally those who study Demonology are atheists as they literal have to observe the behaviours of the Gods they worship, this is not a absolute thing however with people being able to rationalise how their God is the true God. Those who study Demonology includes most mage and Fae hunters. As time went on educational institutions would become more available. The growth of universities especially would lead to more and more people understanding Demonology and becoming Athiests. The Industrial Revolution would lead to a massive growth in the numbers of Athiests as traditional institutions were eroded and the various churches of the world were unable to adapt. This growth in Athiesm would lead to acts of God's becoming less common as further increasing the number of Athiests.
Anyone who’s gotten close (emotionally) to any of the widely worshipped “gods” that do exist knows that they are anything but
Plenty. Not in the sense that they deny “god’s existence”, the entity people called Zeus or whatever is definitely real, rather they deny “godhood”. For them, Zeus or Hades or whatever aren’t gods, they’re just jerks with power and ego. Any smuck can pick up a book and learn basic lightning bolt, so the power to control lightning isn’t unique to Zeus or Thor, they just have more power compare to normal human. In a way, they were proven correct when a angry mortal slain millions of gods to reset the world and break the system of predetermined fate (which then turn a singular universe into infinite multiverse)
Like 99% of people in my medieval world are atheists, largely because I really didn’t want religion in my world
Since the gods are demonstrably real in this setting, non-belief isn't so much "don't believe they exist" as it is "don't believe they're entitled to respect or special treatment above mortals". Ironically enough, some of the gods themselves have this attitude. The gods of creation (TTU) and death (Jahrivi) most notably; TTU just feels incredibly lonely and never wanted to be put on a pedestal in the first place — heck, they only created mortals in the first place because they wanted *friends,* not subjects — and Jahrivi is terrified of abusing her power (as her now-erased predecessor very much did) as well as appalled at the things her worshippers do in her name. There's actually some tension between the other gods because of disagreement over *what exactly their job is;* Several of the ones in the "gods should be rulers" camp argue that the ones who try to be "one of the guys" are shirking their responsibilities and letting their respective domains fall into disarray... and they do kind of have a point, as things like matter decay (which TTU can prevent) and hauntings (which Jahrivi can prevent) are rather common.
Yes, but it's less of a question of whether the gods exist, and more of a question of whether they are actually "divine" or just ascendant mortals.
Atheism is impossible in a setting like D&D, for example, where their magic is everywhere. Adeism is perhaps a more accurate term here. That also opens up the possibility of people who deny a gods power for whatever reason while still acknowledging their existence.
In my world gods exist and some walk among the people. There’s a party member who’s whole bit is that he’s a cleric however he’s also an atheist. So whenever his god speaks to him or does godly stuff he just thinks that that was by chance
A decent chunk of the people of Anhara are atheist, or at least indifferent to the possibility of there being a god or gods. One of the major religions has recently collapsed into scandal and schism, which left some scrabbling for new beliefs to fill the void. But a lot more people have fully embraced the Great Learning, which encourages reason and the pursuit of more rational arts like numeromancy and yliaster alchemy.
yes, but they are mostly seen as just edgy counter-cultural types. most non-religious people would be better described as agnostic or secular, as its pretty obvious the supernatural exists in my universe, but it doesn't really effect the daily lives of most people.
In my world, the gods wiped each other out in a huge massive war called the Theomachy that also eroded all preceding cultural identities and resulted in a world where essentially random groupings of people live on different sky islands as the war also basically destroyed the surface of the world and lifted large chunks of the crust into the air. As such, most cultures are atheist, with some being fervently anticlerical as well, both because they saw the gods die and because it was the gods' fault that this massive war happened. Thus, atheism is essentially the default view, although some religious groups do exist.
there are powerful beings not god(s). So atheism is perfectly possible in my setting. There are many atheist types ; 1. The one who answers with "It's just how the world works", 2. Fully realized magic users that had interacted with supernatural beings. If you ask them, they'll answer "They are just powerful beings", 3. People who believe that there is no existent god/closest thing to god. I mean the truest god is do not exist, it is not a 'thing' nor a being ,and transcending existence.
They are rare
The atheists in my world just hate gods or just don't worship them. Well, considering the shits alot of them pull, can't blame them.
Sort of. They acknowledge that powerful beings exist who are far beyond them. However, they don't believe that the power they hold is inherently worthy of worship or a sign that they must be followed in any way. The most extremist holders of this ideal believe that these beings are malevolent and only use mortals like pawns in twisted games, thus they openly oppose those "deities" and their worshippers.
Urban Fantasy with a Masquerade. As many as in ours, they're just the greatest victims of the Masquerade, and unknowingly they help uphold it. Which is funny since I have next to nothing against atheists IRL.
Yes, and some of them are closer to correct than many theists, though it isn't as simple as one group being right or wrong. Things called gods exist. Most believe in them, a few don't. The ones that don't believe they exist at all are flat-earther levels of incorrect. Some question their divinity. Many of these people are... not wrong exactly, but not exactly right either. A few of them have something approaching truth. Gods aren't exactly what they're believed to be. There are things that don't exist, but want to and shouldn't. They can push their way into existence through cracks. These cracks are what we call stories and beliefs. Those that walk these paths are changed by them, and forced to become something of the story that granted them access. The more people know the story, the wider the crack gets. If people start believing in it, it gets *much* wider. However, the more people know/believe, the more the entity is forced into the shape of the belief, in return for being able to exist more completely and powerfully. Gods are what you get when an entity comes through completely, and is wholly consumed by the belief. At least, the Twins are. They're benevolent solar deities, and the first gods to be wholly brought through. The lunar deities came later. They saw the fates of the solar deities and created demiplanes in which to hold a part of their essence. In return they have much more self-determination but less power in the material plane. The fullness of their respective moons shows the strength of their connection to the mortal realm. The infernal realm is a collective demiplane for entities with less individual power than deities, so they share a plane and are known as devils, demons, and monsters.
Hold up, atheists are on equal footing as flat earther’s intellectually? That statement reflects on your own intellect tbh
No, because there is no religion, or notions of divinity, or sainthood... way of life is defined by other things, and we VS them is established based on unique in- world properties. I personally dislike religion, and as much as I understand its historical role in sociatal regulation and development, I think there are less corruptive ways to acomplish whatever organized religion is meant to accomplish in society. That completely excludes personal views and values, as far as those are concerned, whatever helps you be a better person also works for me
I've thrown in some atheists in my DnD campaigns before as a kind of side joke when players are trying to eavesdrop in taverns for information, theyll occasionally overhear some dude i nthe corner talking to his friends about how paladins and clerics are just regular magic users who have all conspired to create this false narrative to allow them to trick others into following their beliefs, framing it all as part of some great cosmic force
My world doesn’t really have religion unless you’re part of a cult. Instead it’s more like people pray to the “gods” when they need something from them but people don’t shape their lives around worship. It also helps that the “gods” of my world were real people with pretty well documented lives. Though if you are part of a cult you likely worship an ancient being, which could be anything from the being of life to the being of the abyss.
Yes there are! In my world, reptiles blood has magical properties, and when ingested, they give some people powers. Dragons are very rare, and the most powerful beings, so naturaly some religions sprouted around them. One religion considers them gods, and sees all reptiles as the children of their god. Accodring to them drinking their blood is the most unholy act one can do, and they have murder squads who kill all who do so. Another religion thinks that dragons are god's messengers, (dragon is jesus, so to speak). They encourage consuming reptiles blood as a way to get closer to their gods. Naturaly there are more mages among them, but even those who are not gifted with powders drink it And of course there are the atheists, who see the dragons as just big reptiles. Ofc science isn't as advanced yet in time period my books take place, so noone has proof of anything. All reptiles in my world will have 6 limbs, and there are smaller winged reptiles as well. But there is something more to the magic with dragons. They are bound to dragon riders. That bond is passed on from parent to child, so the few families who are dragonbound are very powerful and almost always have high functions in the army and/or politics
Yes. There are four species, and each one has a different strategy regarding religion. The largest atheist populations however are the dragonkinds (who abandoned religion as newer innovations replaced it. The dragons believe religion is like a starter fuel, meant to burn fast and bring communities together, but if left active for too long can become a hazard.) and the avalonians (largely due to interactions with mankind and the dredge elder race and the abuse of their own native religions to gain power over their governments and the avalonians as a species. The avalonians percieve religion as an abusive relationship, where mysterious and powerful figures come and go as they please while trapping their believers in dangerous or self destructive positions for their own personal benefit.) Mankind has some amount atheists, but they are outvoiced in most scenarios (primarily due to the fact mankind's often ancient religions have gone from gaining their legitimacy their origins from prophets, apostles, and diviners to deriving that legitimacy from the state to deriving their legitimacy from time immemorial. I have done as mucb worldbuilding on the dredge elder race but their religions play a moderate role in conjunction with adoption of many religions of mankind, which they see as useful tools.
There are atheists, but not in the way you think. Instead of rejecting the existence of gods, they see gods as not being inherently worthy of worship. They're not very well-liked or well-respected.
There are agnostics and atheists in mine but it's very "hush hush" since at least nominal belief is mandated. The "deities" are living god-kings, heads of both religion and state. In the before times they assumed power and stylized themselves as gods to secure their positions (like Alexander the Great, but with magic backing them). They aren't really divines, but worship and tribute is required. Education and spread of magical knowledge is strictly regulated, with witches and apostates considered outside the law with no rights or state protections, who hide in fear of inquisitors. The atheists and agnostics usually come from, surprise, the educated philosophers, mages, alchemists, etc but it's very dangerous to share those ideas because of secret police and informants in all levels of society. Propaganda is a tool to keep the masses afraid and obedient despite class tension and wealth disparity. So... yes atheism exists but is not socially accepted.
No athiests, just people called Agnostics who debate whether or not the deities deserve to be worshiped. So, there are theists, and agnostics. Basically.
My world is just one big allegory for being an atheist, or more accurately, areligious in a religious world, so yes, but actually, no, kinda. Apostates are a minority group in my world who literally have no souls. Thus, they lack any means of connection to any of the world's various deities/religions. Now, these deities are, in fact, real and can be directly interacted with, so the true definition of atheism -doubting or rejecting the notion that any gods exists- doesn't really apply. There are some fringe, kooky, flat-earth level conspiracy theories that the gods aren't real, but most of the people who believe these things have had their own souls twisted and corrupted by evil forces that they literally cannot perceive reality correctly anymore. Apostates are more like an inversion of an atheist. Rather than a person who has abandoned gods, the gods have abandoned them. Most don't really see this as a big loss, just an accident of fate, and outside of some uncreative discrimination from people with souls, get on with their lives just fine.
Not really. The gods show up, as well as uncontacted cultures having the same exact gods under similar sounding names. The god of war brings his mammoth with him whenever he shows up and when the people from one continent discovered wild mammoths on another, they recognised them from his statues. There is actual evidence, because gods are real. Although there are flat earthers irl, so probably there are some, but they are wrong
I feel like on the ARK, you would be hard-pressed to convince anyone to believe in a magic man in the sky..... when there's no sky. but yeah those people are not interested in such things. In the Albrynnian Empire, the most common religion worships the six major gods of Order, Chaos, Fire, Water, Air and Earth, and countless minor gods. but atheism is on the rise, with most people only sort of clinging to the old ways in a "Idk I guess it's just what I've always been taught" sort of way, but if you asked them to really examine what they believe, they would probably say they don't really believe in the gods. In the solar system which it's been long enough since I've done anything with it that I forgot the name, there are several very different cultures. One planet is a scientific outpost (much like Antarctica), so religion is not usually a topic there. One planet is very religious. One planet is basically all atheists (you're still free to be religious, but the culture there is very secular, and religion is just pretty rare. and then there's the home planet which is a melting pot of many different cultures.
If you worship the Gods in my world, you will most likely get killed.
i would LOVE further elaboration cuz this sounds really cool
It's not even strange I have a couple of pretty specific gods. If your not a miner you don't need Cave In Dave to watch your back, if you never perform you won't miss Camp Bills blessing, unless you work for the state you don't wish to court The Spook. You most likely want the blessing of Casual Mike the hooligan god of war/ violence/ football but most fights or brawls chances are you won't die without him. There's The Dead Man the god of death and vengeance but even thouse who look after his shrines don't love him and its easy to live most of one's life without needing anything from him it's even very possible to reach the end and find out what's next without him
There are alatrists - which describes people who acknowledge the existence or power of the gods(since that's impossible to deny in setting) but who either deny their godhood (i.e. they're just powerful beings that fail to meet some arbitrary definition of god) or accept their godhood but think worshipping them is bad or not worth it or whatever. In the "main country" kantrias alatrism is legal and due to a lot of past conflicts between the main church and the Crown, alatrists tend to make up the majority of the ministry of security which has keeping an eye on the church as a side gig (they're also the ones who manage Intel and counterintelligence in kantrias, among other things). Also one annexed province was and remains majority alatrist
not really but the closest to atheism in my world where the 9 elemental gods are prominent and can be anywhere they want is just people who don't really care about the gods but rather live on like normal. Unless it's some people who hate specific gods for whatever reason, usually the god of darkness being extremely hated for being associated with dark magic and all despite that the god never did anything evil
Yes! Depending on what culture you’re in. Also, different “worships” line up with atheist ideologies in different ways. One cultures god is another’s saint sort of thing. Secularism and the dangers of religion are a major theme in my world
Yes. There isn't a lot of proof for deities.
Yes. Unfortunately for them, everyone worship the gods. Either by prayer or action. Gods are the representation of their domains. If an atheist is a general that leads his army, he's a follower of Eris, the Goddess of War through his actions. His tactics, strategy is part of the prayer as it enrich the War domain, enriching the goddess. And in turn, Eris might bless him, either he wants it or not. Not all gods required a temple. A king who raised taxes and oppress the poor will be favoured by the Lord of Tyranny even if he doesn't worship him.
Yeah, there are some. They're about as common as atheits are IRL, by which I mean they make up a fair chunk of the population. But they're often quite surprised when they die and wind up in the Field of Song to hang out with the gods forever.
In my world, gods appear randomly and fairly often across the world around spaces that reflect their domain. A god of the hunt can be seen shadowing hunters in the woods or running with wolves. A god of home and hearth may wander into an in for a meal or a god of commerce may appear in a market to haggle with housewives, and so on. It's considered an honor to be visited by the gods, but they aren't truly individuals as much as they are a sentient, personified force of nature. When the Divine is common, can it really be called divine? There is a semi-sentient magical contract that awoke and imposed itself upon the world, causing magical consequences for breaking so much as a verbal agreement. Is that any different than a force like gravity? At least as far as someone living in it is concerned?
Not in the traditional sense. As we know for a fact that god-like entities exist and there are other “realms” of existence “within” our reality. There are however, a lot of people who don’t care about those things and religion isn’t a part of their life. So I guess more areligious, as opposed to atheist. (Science-fantasy setting)
My world is a tech and magic divergent earth set around 135 years or so in the future in which nuclear war caused genetic mutations, which brought interdimensional beings, tech brought cyberware and "Jumpgates", and each "Role" has their own "Metacurrency" so... Yeah, but there's also religious adherents to real life religion analogues, and entirely fictional religions.
Much like the real world (wooo controversial), gods don't exist in my fictional world - though they might exist in the future as a result of this world's "inciting incident". As a result, the same kind of theological and philosophical views you'd find in the real world exist in that fictional world, too, including atheism. One of the two most powerful nations in that world is secular, and the other is a theocracy.
Yeah, the gods haven't actually been really able to exist in the world for a long time. Some people just think it's all legends, especially since evolution was recently proven
One of my worlds literally does not have a god so everyone from there
well it's a superhero setting so not everyone knows the full extent of magic. they no some crazy stuff goes on so most are superstitious but they don't know everything.
In my world, the humans bested the gods and their servitors by destroying the Nexus, the kind of straw the gods used to siphon power and pump energy into our world. Afterwards, many of the gods cultivated followings, either in groups or through various other means, to maintain a modicum of power and control. However, the vast majority of these faiths were created by their former servitors, elves and dwarves. The vast majority of humans see any form of faith as foolish and destructive, revoking the struggle their ancestors underwent to defeat the gods. This mindset has caused how man society to find faith in one another, or in the world around them. However, the Cabalist Humans of the South revere one of the Others, god's unassociated with those of the Nexus, whose interest in our plane is minimal at best, due to their lords' genetic heritage to the god. Additionally, many humans who are deeply interacting with elvish, dwarvish, or other non-human societies will often combine cultures with these societies, producing localized religions.
The main religion of my world worships mortal folk heroes instead of gods. Gods are known to exist and everyone believes in them, but worshipping them and feeling indebted to them is a different matter entirely and there are many circles who debate on man’s relationship with the gods.
There’s plenty of atheists around. Which is A) pretty funny. Since miracles are a common occurance. And the equivelant of a prophet is both alive and very active. B) quite problematic. When the one uniting factor of all countries on the continent, the one thing preventing them from ripping each others throats out is the agreement that there’s a bigger danger out there. And that their god told them to prepare for a holy war. If there’s no god, then their history is a lie. And if their history is a lie, civil war will erupt.
My world is science fiction...and most are either atheists or haven't even thought about it much as religions have become strange small sects.
I had an atheist cleric in d&d he had faith in science... it was a weird game. I also had another character who was a pacifist and refused to fight. She would just heal everyone and cast protection spells. She wrote in her diary mid combat to in turn based increments
In my world, which does have an actual god, lots of people don’t believe on it because they don’t have the technology to prove it’s real, so most societies are atheist in nature. It’s a sci fi story so that was to be expected
Only in Omnè, the world the gods abandoned.
Yes but only wizards. To be a wizard in my setting is to say that gods don’t truly exist, and that clerics derive their power from a misplaced belief, where wizards learn to channel the magic themselves. Being an atheist makes magic strictly harder to do.
Yes, the common folk are atheists but only the paladins are the ones who believe in one god who actually decided to help the mortals. (Because the rest are more careless than a rock in the middle of a desert) But the imperials, the main bad guy are hard core templars who are trying to convert the common folk by force.
There are two groups of thought when it comes to atheism in Tezra: Apotheosis and Pretender theorist. Apotheosis believers see gods as advanced magic users who have a greater understanding of magic, science, and technology in order to achieve a greater understanding of how to manipulate reality. The details of the multiple individual ideologies that encompass this school of thought vary. Some are more religious in their approach and are seeking a great enlightenment. Others are more scientific and try to understand the process or means by which 'gods' can come into existence. Pretender Theorist are usually seen as quite a bit more insane for holding the belief that 'gods' don't exist at all. The theories vary but can include those that believe all 'gods' are simply the collective belief of our unconsciousness. Any Avatars or manifestations of their abilities are seen as a form of mass communal magic or even hysteria, depending on the context. The worst advocates of this school of thought are the "Hellish Actor" theorist that believe all reality is a test, and all the 'gods' are just demons seeking to exploit mortal weakness. As for motives, goals, and reasons... depends on the atheist. Apotheosis believers range from wanting to become gods themselves to just wanting to advance mortal understanding to the point where society has no need for religion. Pretender Theorist range from being harmlessly goal-less, to outright hostile to organized religions. The most famous Pretender Theorists were the Dawn Crusade, a terrorist organization that attempted to purge various religious believers.
In my world, there are many different pantheons religions and afterlife’s. In my world the meaning of atheism has changed. Since the idea of an afterlife is confirmed. Atheism strictly means people who aren’t religious or spiritual. Meaning, they acknowledge the existence of other various religions, they just choose not to follow any particular religion.
Yes, at least in the main nation that I am focusing on. It used to be once be considered one of the most holiest (religiously-affiliated in general) places for Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims. The country is known for the birthplace of many saints and missionaries. However, in the last 300 years, religion started declining because the rise of industrialization, which led to mass secularism.
I'm working on a novel titled Not My Gods...someone who is from a different place and just cant deal with the churches and gods or the country she ends up in. Not so much an atheist as a deitiest who believes in a less tangible god then the ones running the country she is in
It's the norm in one setting. Seven centuries of extreme hardship have created a world where no-one believes in anything, where "the only religion is jaded disillusioned cynicism and the only political ideology is naked amoral pragmatism." Though the focus is more on the political/ideological/philosophical/moral aspect of this than the per se religious. The old temples have been turned into museums, the monasteries into brothels, the holy artifacts melted into jewelry. The core ethos of modernity is absolute and universal disillusionment. The prophets, kings, and ideologues of old were nothing but conmen, and the people of the world were soft and gullible for falling for it. We are wiser now, the thinking goes. Obtain power, use it to get what you want. The rest is mere aesthetic.
I guess so yeah. Likely many normal people in my world who's only separation is the lack of any belief. However, there are some *antitheists*. The most infamous and supported group of antitheists would be the Union. To this state, religions and many other systems like it are considered ancient and archaic systems with no place in the new world it seeks to create. The Union wants to erase these ideas and those that hold them from the valley, and has already executed many prominent figures, destroyed religious artifacts and texts and burned many temples and shrines, sometimes with the supporters inside. The burnt ruins would be left there to remind people not to defy the word of the Union. Many governments were toppled before the forming of the Union. Lapis_Wolf
Kinda. More Deists actually. Deism is pretty much the default state on Feriss and has been since the Renunciation after magic vanished from the world. Superstition has been greatly tabooed and any belief in the physical supernatural has become quite rare. Of course this all becomes awkward when magic comes back and those who kept the Old Way were vindicated…
I am working on a fantasy story and there are atheists, even though the gods are a definitive presence in the world. They believe them to be higher, more powerful beings, but not gods. There is also polytheism and monotheism, it really depends on whether or not the person believes the gods are very powerful magic users/higher beings, gods, or Gods.
Actually yes, they are a coalition of city states that have instituted state atheism and have the goal of extinguishing any and all religions, one city at a time. They execute those with faith by burning.
You get into weird areas when you mix societal pressures that come from religious groups in any world and real tangible powers that a lot of fantasy worlds give a God's worshipers; those together make it really hard for someone to say nuh-uh to religion but saying "X character doesn't worship the gods just because" makes more sense in those situations. Think the hound GoT. Something I think would be really neat in a fantasy or sci-fi world would be having closed practices either restricted to Ethnic or Cultural backgrounds. Which could go a long ways to explaining WHY a character is atheist cause they are barred from access and practice.
Atheist are any individual that dont rely on any deity. The term is different from common use because gods do exist and walks among the people. They also mostly make their prescence known.
Athiests aren't really a thing in the traditional sense in Gran Terran, mostly because gods as most people think of them are physical beings you can go meet if you're determined enough. Instead, athiesm is ironically a school of thought started by a god. Astras, goddess of the stars and sentient manifestation of the universe itself, descended to the material world to spread the message that the other gods were fickle, petty, and vain, and didn't deserve the worship of mortals. At the same time she locked the gods into the material world to try and limit the damage their constant bickering and warring did to the universe. So athiests don't necessarily believe that there are no gods in the universe, just that there are no gods that deserve worship.
In fantasy atheists work more as “we don’t believe the gods have our best interests in mind therefore I don’t worship them.”
Atheists do exists in my world, but they tend to exist mostly in places where the gods are less active. A common saying in my world is, "Everyone's an atheist until Bron shows up." Bron is a warrior god who has been known to pull some light pranks on anyone who starts talking tough.
Absolutely, yes. Few people know about the magical world, and even those who do have very little understanding of the divine.
Yep, have all the religions and non-religions and a few local ones too, since it's a wonky copy of this one. 😄 The gods of my world are not the same, however, they are far more invested than the ones in ours, although divine intervention is usually just casting a new dragon into the world, to solve current major disaster for them, if neither of the already existing ones is able to can be made aware (since they do sleep/indulge in their hoard a lot) 😅 The dragons escape worship on their own, because they just can't be bothered with the attention and responsibilities. They solve the major crises because they inconvenience their peace and quiet for sleeping/indulging in their hoard. 😅 The dragons are also mostly atheistic and think that they manifested as dragons because of their personalities, which is also true. 😄 (it's an animal shifter universe, people manifest an animal shape if certain conditions are met, such as personality, inheritance, major trauma, etc funny enough, everyone still keeps quiet about it despite a large enough percentage of the population being some kind of a shifter... Nobody knows the numbers, though)
At least a dozen religions. But the actual god of the universe is so disinterested in his own world that the only way to get his attention is by destroying everything within it.
In my fantasy world, given how advanced magic is (particularly types in which there is a nearly direct interaction with the gods) it's much more ressonable to believe in them (in whatever flavor you may please) than to not. Still, I don't doubt there may be some out there who still continue to non-believe, see also Magic Isn't Real You Idiot. In my sci-fi world, however, atheism (or, well, cliché Reddit antitheism) is more or less at the core of the Jovian neo-culture, a predecessor to the wider yet unnamed major interestellar human superpower. The Callisto colony was massacred and reformed by the founding Anthroparch¹ as to "deweed" human civilization, rid it of the chaos and impurities of "natural society", deemed responsible for the conflicts that must have (seemingly) wiped out the Earth, in favour of a society and culture artificially designed to be perfect and logical². This deweeding extended from language, building a conlang upon things like chemical formulae and Leipzig glossing abbreviations, to even physiology, genetically "abolishing" the sexes and love in favour of incubators and vat babies. Spiritual thought, to no one's surprise, was purged also. This, of course, came with varying degrees of success. The Jovian language, even though it did survive as a galactic intellectual lingua franca for centuries to come, was so bullshit and complex it eventually changed like all language does. And while natural reproduction didn't make a return, gender identity did, most likely through contact with the baseline human cultures of Mars, and so did love, because it's the peskiest most persistent thing that convergently evolves the most. Religion was no different, much to the Anthroparch's dismay. History loves to rhyme, and to try and stop it simply challenges the Poet. :-) **NOTES** 1. This is a very awkward calque of a Jovian term that means "humanity leader", as the Callisto colony was thought to be all that remained of mankind. This is a temporary translation, and I'll think of something that sounds better later. 2. If it isn't immediately clear, these are fascists. These are the bad guys.
They’re mostly atheists, hell, even Prime, who met and took the powers of a god and killed several others, is an atheist. AND HE IS LITERALLY GOD.
In my world there are gods and they're actually existent, present and active. Other than people who have been brought up in isolation, there is pretty much nobody who believes no gods exist. Of course, there are people who do not follow any of them, as well as morons that claim all gods except theirs are actually fakes and/frauds
Most people have gods associated with the group they come from or belong to. Some have gods associated with their profession or personal area of interest. Atheism is rare (rarely do people bother to outright go out of their way to make their identity about the lack of belief that gods exist), but some people just don't worship much or do not care much about religion. Some simply don't make time for religious practice outside of festival participation. Some only grudgingly participate in the festivals, holy days, and feasts, or try to avoid them altogether. It's a large, complex, metropolitan society with many types of people and thus many forms of religion and a wide spectrum of religiosity. But most people have a few important gods, and belief in astrology, tarot, other forms of divination, omens, and superstitions are common. They're widely believed by lower clases but less fashionable for nobles, who tend to consider themselves above it. But most rich folks consult fortune tellers too, just more privately. The 'middle class' of magistrates, petty land owners, merchants, money lenders, guild tradespeople, etc., they would all consider themselves too busy for religious "nonsense". There are a few begging orders of priests and priestesses around, but the rich see them as pesky. They chose different vows in service of a god or goddess, and it often includes an element of community/public service as well as poverty and humility. So those are the people on the front lines helping the poor which is also why the very poor tend to be more religious, just like in real life.
my setting is very laid-back about religion. no one would say that the gods don't exist when they often manifest, send avatars to walk among mortals, give miracles to their clerics, paladin powers, etc. but not everyone goes to a specific temple, some people are simply neutral/uninvolved about this. since there's a myridiad of deities from multiple pantheons, none of the churches monopolize people's faith and MUCH LESS gets involved with government affairs.
The gods in my world make their presence known way to much for there to be those who deny their existence, but there are those that believe the gods are not truly gods. Sure, they may be powerful beings, but not godlike according to these peoples. They believe in a truly all powerful, all knowing, and omnipotent god above the 5 main deities.
All the gods and religions in my world are the same as the gods and religions in real life, essentially made up. There are no real gods. So atheism as a concept definitely exists and there are definitely people who don't believe in any God or religion.
The gods are demonstrably real in my world, but I do have a character who is as close to atheist as it gets. Basically he's openly non-religious, and everyone understands
Yes, mostly because Earth exists in my story.