Atheists in Fantasy really depends on the setting.

They clearly don't work in DnD 3.5 or Pathfinder worlds like Golarian (why do I keep wanting to type Glorantha, when I type this name?) or Faerun.

However, if you are running something like The Witcher's Continent or Final Fantasy XIV's Eorzea, I could totally see a person being an atheist there.

In Eorzea, the only gods most common people know to exist are terrifying avatars of destruction who are less Gods and more collective Tulpas given form by magic.  Sure there's Zodiark and Hydeline but these are Gods in the Lovecraftian sense of immensely powerful beings beyond mortal comprehension.  They care not a whit for worship

As for The Witcher, I like how Sapkowski managed to have his cake and eat it to by having priests who seemingly possess divine powers, but Mages have studied them and come to the conclusion that what is actually happening is that the true believer priest is actually engaging in self-hypnosis.  The real power source for priestly magic is Chaos:  the exact same force that Mages and Sorceresses wield to cast spells.

Personally I prefer gods not to hand out powers or if they do that its actually near all-mighty.

In general I find religeons most interesting when they are based in faith and not power.

IF anything, the Existence of Warlocks is a great argument in favor of being an Atheist in a fantasy setting.

A warlock is just someone who made a pact with a powerful being and gained power from it. Clerics and Paladins are just that on a larger level*... So to an atheistic Wizard let's say. They can look at Paladins and Clerics and just see them as worshiping beings who are a little more powerful than the ones Warlocks serve.

Atheist Paladins are still stupid though.


*(This did make me think of an interesting "Dawn of time" style setting where Clerics and Paladins didn't exist yet, Just Warlocks because none of the Gods were yet powerful enough to create them.)

This is one of the reasons I really enjoy Fantasy AGE.  There are no mechanics that rely on active gods and no character class for cleric, much less paladin.  That is possible because it has no default setting with active gods.  There can still be religions in a GM's setting and of course those religions require clerics as administrators and may have holy warriors to defend them.  But if any of those people want magic, they have to learn the same spells that the wizards use.  Even that does not preclude real and active gods if you want to add them.  They simply aren't required in a system that has good, flexible mechanics.

If you choose a setting with real and active gods you should certainly validate it with clerics and paladins who properly honor those gods, so I understand why people are disappointed in the new Golarion.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129166IF anything, the Existence of Warlocks is a great argument in favor of being an Atheist in a fantasy setting.

A warlock is just someone who made a pact with a powerful being and gained power from it. Clerics and Paladins are just that on a larger level*... So to an atheistic Wizard let's say. They can look at Paladins and Clerics and just see them as worshiping beings who are a little more powerful than the ones Warlocks serve.

The issue is less what the "reality" of supernatural beings is and rather how the paladin relates to his source of magical power.  An atheist or agnostic paladin makes no sense because the paladin's entire reason for being is as a holy warrior granted power by divine authority.  A warlock is engaged in an entirely different kind of relationship.  Dr. Faust isn't the same kind of figure as Joan of Arc.  For a paladin to be a paladin they must have unshakable faith in their divine mission - and since they are able to manifest supernatural powers granted to them in pursuit of that mission they would most certainly see their belief as justified.

If you believe that Gods have the sole ability to grant power then you can not have an Atheist Paladin.

Unfortunately in DnD you have magic using classes out the wazoo that dont get their power from Gods so that hypothesis fails.

Quote from: Shasarak;1129157Cheliax has slaves in the official books but I think not in S'mons home game.

I've never run a game in Cheliax so it never came up! I remember issues around why didn't Korvosa have slavery in my Curse of the Crimson Throne game, since they ape Chelish culture & King Arabasti had a harem.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1129056I can see an atheist in a fantasy world. They'd just believe the 'gods' were really powerful beings, but not capital G gods.
...

LOL... I'm playing a rouge in our groups current 5e 'Waterdeep Heist' campaign that believes essentially that!

The so-called "gods" of the D&D pantheon/Waterdeep are just really powerful horrible people.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129077You all miss the point, atheism is the lack of belief, of faith, no faith needed when you KNOW they exist. What difference does it make calling them aliens from mork?

Quote from: Shasarak;1129072Just because they exist does not mean that you would worship them.  ...

Exactly - one does not believe that these powerful beings should be worshipped.

Atheist = One who disbelieves in the existence of God or gods.

I.e. The "Gods" in D&D are just really powerful assholes. Not anything resembling what a 'God' worthy of worship would be.

I'm doing it in the D&D game as a reaction to the fact that the way D&D does pantheons/religion is pure ass. It is simply impossible for me to take seriously as a form of in game religion.

 Plus I get a kick out of the fact that IRL I'm the only really religious one in the group and I find it funny the way the other players have their Characters try to take the D&D pantheon seriously when my Rouge goes on a "They're not really Gods..." Rant.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129166IF anything, the Existence of Warlocks is a great argument in favor of being an Atheist in a fantasy setting.

A warlock is just someone who made a pact with a powerful being and gained power from it. Clerics and Paladins are just that on a larger level*... So to an atheistic Wizard let's say. They can look at Paladins and Clerics and just see them as worshiping beings who are a little more powerful than the ones Warlocks serve.

Atheist Paladins are still stupid though.


*(This did make me think of an interesting "Dawn of time" style setting where Clerics and Paladins didn't exist yet, Just Warlocks because none of the Gods were yet powerful enough to create them.)

Atheism is about the lack of faith, if you know such powerful beings exist you need exactly zero faith.

If anything the existence of Warlocks is a great argument over not needing faith, you make a deal with a demon and it grants you powers.

The best handling of all this is IMHO found in DCC.

Sure, a Wizard might think or believe Clerics, Paladins and Warlocks to be delusional and just channeling the same energies as him up until the point when one such entity crosses his way.

Imagine if you will Richard Dawkins walking and Jesus comes down from the heavens, performs all sorts of miracles in such a way as to leaving no doubt it's not a trick. Would you expect Dawkins to still not believing Jesus exists? He might have a bad opinion of him sure, but his existence? That would have been proven without a doubt.

And Dawkins would need exactly zero faith to think Jesus is real.

Quote from: Shasarak;1129173If you believe that Gods have the sole ability to grant power then you can not have an Atheist Paladin.

Unfortunately in DnD you have magic using classes out the wazoo that dont get their power from Gods so that hypothesis fails.

Unfortunately in DnD you have such entities crossing your path.

Quote from: Jaeger;1129176LOL... I'm playing a rouge in our groups current 5e 'Waterdeep Heist' campaign that believes essentially that!

The so-called "gods" of the D&D pantheon/Waterdeep are just really powerful horrible people.





Exactly - one does not believe that these powerful beings should be worshipped.

Atheist = One who disbelieves in the existence of God or gods.

I.e. The "Gods" in D&D are just really powerful assholes. Not anything resembling what a 'God' worthy of worship would be.

I'm doing it in the D&D game as a reaction to the fact that the way D&D does pantheons/religion is pure ass. It is simply impossible for me to take seriously as a form of in game religion.

 Plus I get a kick out of the fact that IRL I'm the only really religious one in the group and I find it funny the way the other players have their Characters try to take the D&D pantheon seriously when my Rouge goes on a "They're not really Gods..." Rant.

In your game you can houserule whatever, but, according to the mechanics of the game there are churches to worship the gods, why?

And clerics and paladins need to follow a code or loose their divine powers.

Well I'm running a Pathfinder 2E campaign in my own homebrew world.   I've been using my homebrew world for years.  I very much prefer my own world vs prepackaged worlds others come up with

As far as agnostic Paladin's go:  Paladins are Champions and Champions are in Paizo's own words:  divine servants of a deity so I think the OP is getting D&D 5E paladin's wires crossed with Pathfinder's

Quote from: Zalman;1129101...
As far as paladins go, they really don't make sense outside of Christianity. When the paladin sheds that mantle and becomes a "holy warrior", it introduces a "generic holiness" to the game that is by its nature morally relative. And once those gates are open, then anything can be a "holy" or sacred purpose, including atheism. I agree it's ridiculous, but it's a natural consequence of trying to retrofit a Christian archetype into "you know, whatever religion."

100% This.

Quote from: jeff37923;1129139I find that D&D 5E paladin concept disturbing because if you buy into that, you could pretty successfully argue that the 9/11 terrorist hijackers were paladins.

Exactly!

Because D&D does religion epically bad. In their defense, most RPG's do religion epically bad.

Shoehorning Monotheistic beliefs into a Pantheon sandal is not a very good fit.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129177Atheism is about the lack of faith, if you know such powerful beings exist you need exactly zero faith..

Faith is inseparable from belief but belief does not require faith.

Quote from: The Dictionarynoun: Atheism

A disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

Atheism is not about faith. It is about what one believes.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129177...Imagine if you will Richard Dawkins walking and Jesus comes down from the heavens, performs all sorts of miracles in such a way as to leaving no doubt it's not a trick. Would you expect Dawkins to still not believing Jesus exists? He might have a bad opinion of him sure, but his existence? That would have been proven without a doubt.

And Dawkins would need exactly zero faith to think Jesus is real.

Just because Dawkins may know the entity that calls himself Jesus is real - that does not mean that he would believe him to be a God.

The Bible has many examples of people who saw miracles, angels, the power of God. And yet still persisted in their disbelief of the one true God.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129180In your game you can houserule whatever, but, according to the mechanics of the game there are churches to worship the gods, why?

And clerics and paladins need to follow a code or loose their divine powers.

Powerful asshole beings who dole out power and favors in return for worship/doing what they say. Because they like to play games with lesser beings. It's just that simple.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129177Atheism is about the lack of faith, if you know such powerful beings exist you need exactly zero faith.

If anything the existence of Warlocks is a great argument over not needing faith, you make a deal with a demon and it grants you powers.

The best handling of all this is IMHO found in DCC.

Sure, a Wizard might think or believe Clerics, Paladins and Warlocks to be delusional and just channeling the same energies as him up until the point when one such entity crosses his way.

Imagine if you will Richard Dawkins walking and Jesus comes down from the heavens, performs all sorts of miracles in such a way as to leaving no doubt it's not a trick. Would you expect Dawkins to still not believing Jesus exists? He might have a bad opinion of him sure, but his existence? That would have been proven without a doubt.

And Dawkins would need exactly zero faith to think Jesus is real.

Arthur C Clarke pokes holes in that statement.."Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Dawkins and skeptics are more likely to see someone coming down and doing miracles while claiming to be Jesus as using some heretofore unseen or known Science. Something more advanced than what human beings are capable of. Faith, is extremely important to the metaphysics of Dungeons and Dragons worlds. Just because your deity can make themselves manifest does not mean you no longer need faith in them. Faith is what feeds them. You have faith in their ability to protect you, and provide power to you.

I'm not talking about Atheist Paladins anymore by the way. That's just a stupid concept as is. But one can very much be an atheist in the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy world, if anything being a Wizard is probably one of the best ways to do it. As a Wizard who has more knowledge, more ideas on how the cosmos works.. it's more likely you're able to see how the "Deities" of the universe work, and their direct, necessary relationship with Humans and come to the conclusion they're not actually Gods. Given without worship and without faith they shrivel up and die.

Having one of these beings cross your path doesn't mean you necessarily suddenly begin to believe they are Gods. It just means you encountered a powerful being. And given Mortals are capable of ascending to Godhood through various means, it stands to reason you don't need to actually believe they're the true architects of creation and the mysterious powers behind everything.

Quote from: Jaeger;1129190100% This.



Exactly!

Because D&D does religion epically bad. In their defense, most RPG's do religion epically bad.

Shoehorning Monotheistic beliefs into a Pantheon sandal is not a very good fit.




Faith is inseparable from belief but belief does not require faith.



Atheism is not about faith. It is about what one believes.




Just because Dawkins may know the entity that calls himself Jesus is real - that does not mean that he would believe him to be a God.

The Bible has many examples of people who saw miracles, angels, the power of God. And yet still persisted in their disbelief of the one true God.




Powerful asshole beings who dole out power and favors in return for worship/doing what they say. Because they like to play games with lesser beings. It's just that simple.

If you know such beings exist you don't need to believe jack shit. Plus Faith (religious faith) is the belief lacking evidence or even in the face of evidence against.