Why are there atheists in fantasy games?

In games you can call upon a gods wrath quite easily and openly, why are there still atheists?

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Because though they are mighty, they are not worthy of worship.
If you believe might is the same as divinity you are being led astray.

the way I see atheism in fantasy games is people who understand how devoted you have to be in order for a god to have significant sway in your life and know they don't have the willpower to achieve that status
>tl;dr it's too hard to get a god's favor so they don't bother

who could be behind this?

That's why U stopped believing in God.

>Tfw went through alot of shit
>Prayed all the time for something anything to help
>Doesn't happen
>Say fuck you god
>I fix everything myself

Mask of the betrayer did that so fucking right.

Because there will always be people who will deny something exists even though everything else says otherwise.
For example : ______________

Because even retards exist in fantasy worlds

Retardation

Especially if you're an atheist in Faerun

The key difference is in fantasy settings miracles are fairly common and you're likely to witness one firsthand at least once in your life as long as you're surrounded by faithful people
you bastard

ok that makes sense, have not thought about it that way.
but obviously does not apply to each game.

Because fantasy games rarely display clever writing or world-building.
They slap in gods because mythology and that is how mythology works, then they slap in whatever real, contemporary world bullshit issue they think will resonate with the player because they assume the player to be a moron.

Good worldbuilding is incredibly rare in genre fiction.

spend too much in world building, and people tend to sleep on the scene

its hard to do it subtly

Just because a god exists doesn't mean you have to have faith in it. So, you can still be an atheist.

>for example: pic related

>spend too much in world building, and people tend to sleep on the scene
Good world-building has absolutely nothing to do with the actual pace or tempo of the fiction: that is really the least of an issue.
There is a different problem, mostly in literature, which is the fact that stories that focus heavily on world-building tend to be bad, because the generated world tends to be too constrictive to conduce a good plot, or the plot is simply an afterthought. But that really usually isn't the issue with games.

The real problem especially in games - possibly the SINGLE MOST WORLD-BUILDING SUITED medium in the fucking universe, the only one where you can get away with good world-building and bad plot - is that it's hard, requires a lot of imagination, and a lot of literary education, a lot of research, and a lot of risk taking.

...

Actually, it's even worse. If gods exist, FAITH is uneccessary completely. It's an irony of fantasy genre build like this, especially when it features complex religions, akin to say, Christian church, that complex religion exists PRECISELY BECAUSE GODS DON'T. And that is not some fedora-tipping meme, I don't thing this actually in any way discredits the institution.
But it's a fact: religion fills up a certain void that in a world where gods would exist would not be necessary. Faith most certainly would not be.

because the gods are assholes
by actively believing in them, you are only enabling their bullshit

Maybe some people really dont give a fug
The word you are looking for is gnosticism kid

But in a fantasy setting normal humans can be magically adept so miracles can easily be dismissed as "oh, a wizard did it"

Thaos is abotu the farthest you can get from an atheist tho

I have to disagree, if Zeus was real, and was actually blasting dudes with lightning bolts wouldn't you want him blasting the baddies and not yourself?
would there not be schools devoted to finding the best ways to encourage Zeus to blast baddies and please him so he protects you from being blasted by the other gods?
isn't there usually some effort to differentiate between godly intervention and just pulling energy out of the aether/ley lines?
and if not, isn't that bad worldbuilding?

>god physically manifests in front of you and fucks you in the ass
>"REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE this isn't actually real!"
>proceed to get god-dicks shoved down your ass

Because atheists are inherently so stupid that they're not capable of grasping obvious truths.

>I have to disagree, if Zeus was real, and was actually blasting dudes with lightning bolts wouldn't you want him blasting the baddies and not yourself?
Sure.
Also, it a lord holding a nearby castle has a considerable army, I'd rather him using to raid enemies and not me. And I'd even probably make some "sacrifice" - perhaps offer him part of my food stockpile to do so. Perhaps if he spoke a different language, I'd devote time and people to learn how to talk with him etc...
Does that mean I'd consider him divine? Fuck no.

This is not really how religion works. This is a deal, with something that is just a mundane (if relevant and important) part of your life. Religion IS rooted in pragmatic though, but not in pragmatic deal with the mundane. The whole concept of sacred is predicated on the assumption that what I know about the world from immediate, empiric experience is not actually all, there is more to it.

The only actual solution and perhaps a more sensible answer than the idea that in a world where gods were real, no faith would exist, is the answer that in a world where "gods" were really, they would no longer be considered Gods, and humans would instead invent new "fictional" (it's not really just fiction, there is more to an idea of god of course) ones and worship those.

>Atheists are too stupid to know Allah is real
Gets me everytime

In some games, unbelief is a power in itself.

See, you, like many many others, made the mistake in thinking God will just give you anything you pray for. Accept anything that happens to you, and pray you have the strength to endure. The rewards lies in the afterlife

Name ONE game where deities openly show themselves to fuck shit up and there are still atheists.

Iovara for other part...

Not really, she know the god do exist, and want to share the knowledge.

Its more like a if gods are created are they true god in the moral font kind of way

Are there any other games that allow me to break atheists?

Oblivion, forget which town she lives in though. Though it's meant to make fun of the concept rather than be played seriously.

Just because a God exist, doesn't mean I'd believe in him.

>god
>lives in a town
??

>afterlife meme

The best you can hope is reincarnation, otherwise, there is no proof of afterlife

>The rewards lies in the afterlife
No it doesn't, assuming Christians turn out to be right. AFAIK I won't be saved just by praying because salvation requires you to believe in the trinity of god.

What's the difference between a God and an epic-level Wizard, for example?

Sure they can warp reality and perform miracles, but so can high level Wizards, Clerics and Druids.

To a Lv.1 random peasant there doesn't seem to be much difference to me.

>Gods aren't actually Gods, just super powerful souls! Don't pray for them.
>Please listen to the fucktard trapped in Limbo because she tips her fedora so hard she can't be reincarnated.
She does fit it to a T.

The most recent magic set has five gods walking and living among the people of the plane
The ultimate honor of the people living on this plane is to be personally killed by one of these gods in particular
it's weird

Allah is meta-real.

>Does that mean I'd consider him divine? Fuck no.
>Religion IS rooted in pragmatic though, but not in pragmatic deal with the mundane. The whole concept of sacred is predicated on the assumption that what I know about the world from immediate, empiric experience is not actually all, there is more to it.

I was about to agree with you, but I'm not sure to be honest. For example, the ancient Norse considered their gods to exist among them and affect their mundane lives every day with their divine blessing.

Regardless of how many thunderbolts you witnessed a day or number of harvested crops, wouldn't it all still simply boil down to a question of faith? Not all gods in religion are considered equal. Some of them are considered more "divine" or sacred than others, while some are simple folktales and mythos.

You can consider your daily life experience "divine" with or without facing any comparative miraculous phenomenom.

it is the believing man's fetish

How can you tell the difference between a god and a sufficiently powerful wizard?

Knowing gods exist =/= believing in them/worshipping them

Runescape

>leather fedora
Badass!

>the ancient Norse considered their gods to exist among them and affect their mundane lives every day with their divine blessing.
Sure. Shintoists in Japan (which despite the pools are actually a practical majority of the population) still kinda-sorta-believe that.
But that is the problem: what does it mean to "believe" and what does it mean to be "real". And I think those things are a lot more complicated than it initially seems.

I think the concept of religion is not a misunderstanding of reality of the world. It's actually much more sophisticated - it's an abstraction of reality: a meta-reality if you want. People did not believe in gods because they were "filling in the gaps in their knowledge of real world", but precisely because their knowledge was pretty good, to a point where they "distilled" it into an abstract ideal. The fun thing about it is that despite being abstract and idea, it's also deeply rooted in reality, and that is why you assume it's always applying to you, and why you embrace codified rituals or "shorthand thoughts" to make it a part of daily lives.

The whole point, however, it's to figure out a "meta-reality", something it is rooted in, but at the same time IS MORE than reality.

A "real" fantasy god, no matter how powerful, is just reality. It's not an abstraction, it's not placed outside of pragmatic experience, and therefor it's not really divine. No more than actual animal or a human being.

Which is why I really think, if Thor was just a guy next door, people would invent fictional god to explain why Thor exist, and ultimately worship that fictional diety (maybe by proxy by worshiping Thor, just like people in Egypt worshiped Apsis THROUGH a physical being, a sacred bull.
But the BULL was not really the god. It was a proxy for a god. And in a world where powerful creatures like Thor exist, the being would be - at absolute best - proxies for real god that is something else than the dude with the lightning hammer.

Before runescape 3, Prayer in game felt like an actual religion.
You even had these buffs that were completely invisible and made you unsure if they even worked. But you kept faith they did, you couldn't notice a clear difference for the most part.
The gods were brought in partially by choice if one cared to quest and read dialogue, it wasn't all PowerPointed in the beginning like a slideshow

Sounds like an interesting approach.

What about drooling retards who were proven beyond doubt that the gods exist and yet insist that they aren't real?

Mask of the Betrayer's story is centered around the fate of people who reject worshipping gods, you should give it a go.

fugg, forgot pic

They are like the flat-earthers of the in-game world

Isn't releasing her soul to the cycle the worst you can do to her?

I always wondered in the MotB universe, do the gods accept people just worshipping them out of fear?

Like "I don't actually feel much admiration for you but if I don't pick one of you to worship I'm gonna get stuck in the Wall of the Faithless so I'll worship you so I don't get fucked for all eternity"

But she was right, because the gods weren't really gods, just powerful beings created by man. Might as well call Skynet in the Terminator series a god.

Gods need worship juice, so yes.
The thing that never made sense to me was that in a universe with easily confirmed afterlives, why anyone would choose to follow a god with a shitty one.

Like evil gods should have one hell of a difficult time getting converts
>so what happens after I die
>you get turned into a demon slime and bullied for eternity
>let me just back away slowly

gods are powered by belief you cuck
enjoy giving power to the gods while they fuck your wife

She also cries like a bitch when you delete her soul because she won't feel smarter that everybody else.

I don't think anyone would be happy about having their soul deleted.

>Black and White
>literally pick people up with your divine hand
>"Go ahead! Do your worst! I don't believe in YOU!"

What the fuck does that even mean

Dunno about that game, but if I was stuck in some shitty circle of reincarnation setting where 99% of your lives involve being a dirt farming peasant over and over I'd beg for my soul to be deleted

So... you are basically a Buddhist then?

People ask me all the time whether I'm atheist or agnostic
What's the actual name for when I don't give a single shit about God(s) or religion in general?

I don't think most people would like to be stuck in limbo for eternity either, but there she is.
Her soul is already stuck outside the circle of death and rebirth for her refusal to accept the Gods, so why not allowing your soul to be deleted and actually be free of the whole thing?
But she refuses, because she wants afirmation of her being better than everybody else.

Atheist: believes that god/s do not exist
Agnostic: believes that it's impossible to know or make a conclusion about existence of a god.
Person who does not give a shit: a person who does not give a shit.

You don't have to be either agnostic, atheist or theist. Those are not actually the only options. Just tell them that you don't know and you don't care.

From what I remember she wants her soul to be baleeted, she only really loses her shit when you tell her you're freeing her soul and make her forget what she learned. (Which imo is the pinnacle of petty fedore autism.)
The gods are man-made, deal with it you cunt, it won't change anything about them or the world you live in.

>Which imo is the pinnacle of petty fedore autism.
Consider this:
She lives in a world full of monsters, undead abominations, were altering the soul of people is seen as a normal thing to do, where the city police is planning to bind souls to armors so they can have robocops and people created a divine nuke.
And the most important shit to her is the fact the Gods are artificial.
How can somebody like this cunt?

Depends on the setting

You're incorrectly assuming there is a difference

agnostic

Same reason there are atheists on the discworld.

The gods need a target to keep their aim sharp.

Agnostic is the Sup Forums way. It pisses off the most number of people.

>2017
>some still do not grasp that heaven and hell is about your life here and now

I think she just loved being a cult leader too much and at the end of the day it was all about stroking her ego.
Facing the truth that her message isn't the most important thing in the world was worse than death for her.

Atheism literally means "lack of faith", so I'd say that fits the bill, but it's one of those terms people tend to have different interpretations of. Depending on where you live it'd probably be less of a hassle to say you're agnostic (Or maybe just say you don't care)

Oh yeah, people who don't accept your convenient and scepticist-conforming reading of religion are all stupid.

Moses and Jesus did the same and yet people try to deny the existence of God in real life too. It just shows how ignorant people are.

user, that was a long fucking time ago and you can't exactly verify the veracity of those stories through modern textual criticism
they're hardly the same

Why didn't Jesus descend during modern times where there would be cameras to record and provide definite proof?

Someone redpill me on religion, please. Having grown up in a fairly secular environment it honestly seems mad to me. Barring some sort of supernatural experience, how do you convince yourself that there is a higher power out there? The whole idea of faith just seems so counter-intuitive to how the rest of society works. If I told anyone I believed in unicorns I'd get laughed at, at least without convincing evidence, but literally billions believe in some manner of unseen all-powerful creator who "works in mystic ways". I'd say the latter sounds a lot more implausible than a horned horse, but I guess that's not the case?

In fantasy games you usually end up punching a god or two in the dick.

It's kinda hard to believe that fag that you just murdered, is an omnipotent creator of all that exists.

What game has both gods and atheists in them?

In most fantasy game with gods, characters aren't atheist -- they merely choose not to worship.

I'd assume it has more to do with denying them worship than literally not believing that they exist.
Remember that in a lot of settings and real life divine power is connected to belief and veneration. If no one believes in you, you're shit out of luck.

You would believe it if you were indoctrinated from birth.

youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w

t;'dw it doesn't matter if God exists, clean your fucking room and kill the snake inside your psyche.

Because atheists think those are just very powerful ancient beings, not omnipotent Gods.

The fact many of those Gods can be killed kind proves that the atheists are right.

This.

Like, exactly what would compel people the likes of Bayonetta, Kratos, or Asura to "believe" and worship deities they could beat in fist fights? Yes, they deities may physically exist, but their claim of absolute power behind the workings of the universe become a bit sketchy if their lowly creations can murder them.

Gods like having something to aim at.

I was never big into religion as a kid (and did the "fuck you dad" edgy atheism thing) but I can't help but feel that the supernatural is a real thing and that there's more to the world than mundane shit. I haven't had any deep spiritual experiences or philosophical epiphanies though.

>Like, exactly what would compel people the likes of Bayonetta,

Bayonetta is a nun though.

In settings where you can literally beat up gods those gods don't usually claim to be the creator god.
Polytheists (i.e. Japs) don't really go out for the whole "all-powerful, all-knowing, all-encompassing" thing, gods are just beings that are much more powerful than the average mortal.

A nun who uppercutted God into the sun. I can't think of a better statement of Atheism.

Which games are you talking about, OP?

When you think about it user, there's probably a whole lot of shit in the world you've never actually seen for yourself, nor have you seen any proper evidence for it; because it's never occurred to you or anyone around you to even question such things. Animals you've never seen, people you've never met, places you've never been, etc. Although you could easily prove the existence of those things without too much effort, unlike religion, but why would you ever bother when you have no reason to question it?

Jubileus isn't god though. She believes in the judeo-christian god.

Why do people believe in religion in real life, when it's obviously wrong?

It's so obviously right that you just take it for granted unconsciously.

Thing is that you can go prove to yourself that, say, Italy exists with relative ease. It's reproducible, so if you take a plane to Rome you'll get off and see Rome. If you take some drugs or meditate or something, you may or may not see what other people see. You can't reliably reproduce supernatural experiences so if your worldview is pure empiricism then supernatural shit goes straight out the window.