This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Atheist of Faerûn: From YKTTW
Refusenik Atheist launched as Flat Earth Atheist Discussion: From YKTTW
Known Unknown: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure being an atheist is not the same thing as "not believing the supernatural." I think supernatural and divine are somewhat... different. A person could live in a world of magic, werewolves, vampires and the like and still choose to be an atheist if they wish to, without seeming hypocritical.
Unless, of course, you mean atheist as a general term for disbeliever, in which case the description is completely right.
Hiroe: your probably right, hell I take my computer for granted despite it being basically a magical rock that can think... I'm also an atheist.
Eric DVH: I guess so, but it's still a convenient shorthand.
Erica MZDM: Not really a 'trope' aspect per se, but I think it's worth noting that 'god' can mean any number of things - from 'Supernatral, powerful being with enough sex drive to cause a mortal man to self combust'(Zeus) to 'the creator of the universe', to 'Omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent entity who's rules are the one true and absolute foundation for morality.' A lot of
Flat Earth Atheists seem to be those that, while they believe in the first and sometimes the second category, disbelieve in the third.
Eric DVH: Yeah, but I suppose the only criterion that would be impossible for Sufficiently Advanced Aliens to fulfill is the creation of the universe. As many things can become powerful to the point of omnipotence in a lot if franchises, but the universe can only be created once.
The Defenestrator: Removed:
- When Haruhi Suzumiya is told by Kyon about the true identities of herself and the other SOS Brigade members, she tells Kyon to stop screwing around with her. Kyon himself doesn't believe what he was being told either until Yuki and Ryoko fight.
because while the Haruhiverse does have a lot of weird and magical stuff going on, none of it is at all obvious to Haruhi.
Daibhid C: "The gods of the Discworld are fools, and their priests are hedonistic fraudsters"
The former is certainly true (for the most part), but where is the latter stated? Both Dios (Pyramids) and Vorbis (Small Gods) are fraudsters (they believe in the power of being High Priest, not in the god), but neither of them are hedonistic. Most of the Omnian clergy is shown as vaguely well-meaning, if incapable, unbelieving and terrified of Vorbis. Ridcully's brother (High Priest of Blind Io) generally seems like a decent chap who take his responsibilities seriously, and later Omnians (Constable Visit and Mightily Oats) seriously believe. There's the Offlerians, and their concept of "sacrificing" sausages, but it's entirely possible they really do believe that (Good Omens, also by Pratchett, features a stereotyped televangelist, with a footnote saying it was easy to assume he was a conman, but in fact he spent a lot of the money on what he genuinely believed was the Lord's work).
Ross N: I dunno... clergy on the Disc seem to come in for an exceptionally high level of bashing, even by Discworld standards. There are the priests of Seven Handed Sek in The Colour of Magic who accept a bribe to have their statue photographed (after claiming it was blasphemy before hand); the homicidal druids of The Light Fantastic; the homicidal and hypocritical Tezuman priests of Eric; the High Priest of Blind Io in Guards! Guards! whose first move is to try and hand the crown to the dragon; the Omnian prophets who are called outright lunatics in Carpe Jugulum (albeit from a pretty suspect source) and the Abominations of Nuggan in Monstorous Regiment.
Perhaps I'm seeing things that aren't really there - Terry Pratchett is a supporter of the British Humanist Association and I find his writings about religion can get a little Writer on Board, IMO at least.
- Considering what things real world religions and their believers have done (or still do), Discworld simply draws from real world examples and satirizes them. Deal with it.
Daibhid C: There's a certain amount of truth here, but I wouldn't consider any of these people "hedonistic", and only the Tezumen priests are fraudsters (their homicidal tendencies, however, are an only slightly exaggerated version of what Aztec priests were like). The priests of Seven-Handed Sek change their views rather quickly when offered money, but it's a view they must have only came up with minutes earlier (since they didn't know about iconographs before that; they can't have a general proscription against imagery or there wouldn't be a statue in the first place), and for all we know the money goes straight to the charity school mentioned in Men At Arms. The High Priest of Blind Io is merely doing the sensible thing in offering something he believes to be gold to the dragon in the hope it will go away. The Omnian priests are, granted, called lunatics not just by the Count, but by Om himself in Small Gods, but are also shown as devout and probably good. Nuggan is insane, but again there's no evidence the priests are hedonistic, and they're only fraudsters because Nugganism is actually impossible to maintain.
On the other hand, lets look at the wizards, the ultimate Humanist-atheists on the Disc. <A comparative list of scenes in which wizards are portrayed as childish, selfish, hedonistic and potentially murderous has been cut for reasons of space>.
Oh, and I disagree even more with the recently added bit that "just about everybody on the Disc is a fool or a fraudster". Out of the sixteen characters listed on the characters page, I count two fools (Rincewind and Colon) and one fraudster (Moist von Lipwig, obviously). Most of them are refreshingly imperfect, though.
"Then again, just about everybody in the Discworld novels is a fool or a fraudster — after all, they are comedies." Sorry, what? Who wrote that? Are we reading the same novels?
Daibhid C: Just heard Pratchett on the radio, and thought this might shed some light on his attitude to religion: "Humanism was not initially the same as atheism. As far as I'm concerned, God is immaterial, in two respects of the world. We do the best we can for our fellow man. That's it. Any god worth believing in would automatically accept that as a pretty good thing to do."
Nerdspringer: One possible example I have is that in just about every Christmas movie or special on TV, adults in general refuse to believe in Santa Claus even when he has been established to be real. The issue is that their kids should be receiving presents that neither parent has any memory of buying. Do these parents automatically assume that they have some weird form of Christmas present amnesia even though they never have any similar problems right before birthdays? Besides, surely someone would have noticed Santa flying on his sleigh with his reindeer (he was perfectly visible to the adult narrator in the poem "The Night Before Christmas").
Mr Death: To whoever put up the
MGS 4 info without putting up a spoiler: Thanks dipshit! (To clarify for those reading this down the line: The game came out
last week.)
Looney Toons: Deleted Mr Death's useless commentary
- Use spoilers! Some of us haven't played the game yet, asshole.
as being pointless natter.
Mr Death: However did you know it was me? :-P Anyway, sorry about that, just a little pissed at the time, I'm sure you can understand.
The spoiler was still bad! As it was, it seemed to be a Sons of Liberty spoiler, in order to spare other from the immense pain I am feeling right now, I have edited it. /mcflygare
Grimace: I took out a bit of the natter about Mr Terrific (starting with my own entry made a wee while back). Whoever made the point about DCU's
Fantasy Kitchen Sink setting allowing pretty much any and all viewpoints to have supporting evidence was on the money. Should anyone feel that the bits after that should be kept in, I've pasted it below;
- It helps that he's really, really smart, and thus his Standard of Proof is a mite bit higher.
- That's not burden of proof, that's unfalsifiability. He routinely changes what he believes in subtle ways to accommodate new evidence that he's wrong. The fact that people do that to explain the existence of God is exactly why most atheists are atheists. Only his explanations are even worse than the ones for religion (of course science can explain anything, that's what science means, knowing that God operates within the laws of science as He defined them doesn't mean in any way that He doesn't exist, if anything it makes His existence make more sense). As a Christian who has had to deal with being accused of exactly that tactic, it infuriates me that he can get away with it for some reason.
- This is because Mr. Terrific is a major victim of Character Derailment and uh... re-railment? Depending on the Writer, his atheistic beliefs may be well-reasoned, or he may be any variety of Hollywood Atheist.
- That's pretty much the conclusion this troper came to. Though I called it the Stargate solution.
- ...Except there IS a God in the DC Universe; in fact, it created The Spectre, one of the most powerful beings in the universe, and coincidentally the person who started Mr. Terrific's career by preventing his suicide. Of course, it might that Terrific simply believes that even God's power could be explained by science someday; it doesn't mean he doesn't recognize his existence. Also, given how God in The DCU seems to interfere arbitrarily even if the whole Multiverse is dying, knowing He exists doesn't mean everybody will worship him...
Filby: Took out the Mr. Terrific natter
again. Most of it just seemed like "See,
see?! There
is a God in
The DCU, you silly atheists!" with some pseudo-philosophical gobbledygook thrown in. And besides, the Presence was invented by Neil Gaiman, not Grant Morrison. Also took out some of the Dr. Thirteen sub-examples since they add nothing that wasn't in the text already, instead just going on about how ridiculous he is.
Kerrah: Removed my
Justifying Edit about the
Sword Of Truth series. I've advanced a book forward since and now I came across a case where Richard actually does say something along the lines "our enemy fools their citizens by lying about nonexistent paradises".
Filby: Since when does Doctor Thirteen believe the Earth is literally flat? I'm taking that nonsense out.
Bonzothe Fifth: This article is confusing in a few ways for me, personally... What, exactly, is the Flat-Earth Atheist denying, exactly? That those characters that claim godhood or some sort of supernatural power don't, in fact have them? That can be considered acceptable, assuming one has a proper definition of 'god' and 'supernatural'. Unfortunately, in most contexts, these definition fit on a sliding scale that seems to shift to be just outside of what we witness in a particular universe. Two good examples that come to mind immediately are in Star Trek: The Next Generations' Q and the Ancients/Ori from Stargate:SG 1. Both have super phenomenal, semi-cosmic abilities, most of which aren't even given so much as a technobabble/handwave attempt at an explanation, but just accepted as is as just something these characters can do. But dare to suggest that they might have a legitimate claim on godhood, and you're considered small-minded, weak, or otherwise backwards. Which really begs the question of what, exactly would qualify as a god in those contexts... It seems that a clarification of terms would be really helpful here, as it seems to undermine the whole point of atheism or skepticism once you just start arbitrarily shifting your parameters to avoid dealing with uncomfortable questions and does a real disservice to those who truly subscribe to those beliefs (or lack therof) in the real world).
Eric DVH: As I said above, creating the universe would be a pretty strong argument for cosmic-level divinity. Creating humanity or the world would probably be sufficient for smaller settings.
Diamond Weapon: But how does one prove the creation of the universe? Even if the audience knows it, any in-universe character would still only have the alleged god's word on it.
Eric DVH: Um… Point out an Easter Egg, like their mom's recipe for a perfect biscuit buried a zillion digits down ℏ. If The Creator wasn't cute enough to sign their work, maybe travelling back to the beginning of time or having them create another universe would do.
Meta Four:
Nay-Theist has been launched so I moved the following over there:
Moved to Nay Theist
- Rakushun from The Twelve Kingdoms, sort of. He knows gods exist, it's just he doesn't see much point in praying to them:
"Well then, who do normal people worship? Anyone?
"Not me. Why, if you work the fields well, and the weather holds, you'll get a bountiful harvest. No Emperor is going to change that, and it's the climate that'll say whether you weather is good or bad. You can cry and you can laugh all you want, but when the rain falls, it falls, and when it don't, it don't. Praying won't help anything."
- That's not atheism. It's stoicism, ala Marcus Aurelius.
- Well. Considering not only the existence but also the rule of an emperor directly affects land and weather patterns in the kingdom — as can be witnessed in the various Mordor settings of emperors not doing so well ... that isn't the wisest of Rakushun's musings.
- Harry Dresden of The Dresden Files describes himself as "theological Switzerland." Despite being a wizard, being possessed by a fallen angel, and hanging around with a "Knight Of The Cross" — a paladin by another name — he doesn't acknowledge or desire the influence of God or gods in his life.
- Also from David Eddings is Zakath in The Mallorean, who admits that while he acknowledges the existence of the Gods, he still can't accept that they play any sort of role in the world.
- He's basically got the right end of the stick on the gods; Aldur and UL are the only ones who still interact with their followers to any degree anymore, and even they don't really get involved unless they must (Aldur to get Belgarath, Belgarion and Silk away from Vorduvai, and UL to tell Relg to stop being a troublemaker and go with the companions.) He's seriously wrong about the Prohecies not having any real impact though.
- Digger, from the Ursula Vernon webcomic by the same name, doesn't so much disbelieve in gods as consider them a colossal waste of time.
- David Weber has the Bahzell Series, where Gods manifest and chose champions all the time, with almost two dozen champions of the God of Justice running around. The race of Dark Elves/Orcs Hradani haven't had a single champion since the end of the last wizard war made the entire race into Flat Earth Atheists. It's so ingrained that most of the first book is the main character, Bahzell, running from clerics, wizards, and The Gods Themselves rather than being talked into being their champion.
- To be fair, Bahzell (and other Hradani) never deny that the gods exist, they deny that they're good. Bahzell particularly regards Tomanak (god of justice and righteous war) as all talk.
- In the world of Arcanum Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura, most everyone is apparently an implicit Flat Earth Atheist, not bothering with religion at all. The sole exception is the Panarri religion, which is demonstrated to be false during the main quest. Given that an optional, obscure and rather difficult sidequest involving making offerings at altars of the "old gods" will actual confer blessings giving significant bonuses to the player characters, it is rather odd that the worship of these deities has been abandoned.
- The Dwemer in The Elder Scrolls universe weren't atheists per se, but had no particular use for the gods and eventually conceived of a plan to perform a magical ritual on the heart of a dead deity in the hopes of elevating themselves to godhood. Instead, the ritual caused their entire race, to the last man, to spontaneously vanish from Tamriel, and for thousands of years hence Tamrielic loremasters have debated whether they were destroyed by the gods for their arrogance or whether they actually Ascended To A Higher Level Of Existence.
- The Dwemer in Morrowind certainly had a rocky relationship with the various god-like powers. The tale of Azura and the Box is about one particularly irreverent Dwemer who tried to disprove Azura's omnipotence. It involved a supposedly sealed box, and sleight of hand to trick the people watching into believing that Azura saw something in the box that wasn't there. They were cursed for their troubles, obviously.
- Oblivion also has a minor Comic Relief character, Else God-Hater, who acknowledges the existence of the gods, but, as her name implies, despises them all.
- Turns out that Else God-Hater is a daedric cultist of the Mythic Dawn anyway.
- To be fair, it is heavily hinted, if not out right stated in Oblivion that , the whole world the game takes place in is just a daedric realm that got jacked by some slightly less powerful God-like beings.
- Then again, he could easily be lying. The amount of conflicting history and mythology in The Elder Scrolls means that, barring actually talking to Lorkhan himself, any interpretation is equally invalid. And even then, he isn't known as "the trickster" for nothing. Or is he?!
- I would like to point out that Mankar Camoran was an insane, fanatical Daedric cultist intent on summoning Mehrunes Dagon to Tamriel via any means neccessary. He is known for repeatedly and perniciously lying to his own followers, so really, to be quite honest, it's highly unlikely that what he says about Tamriel and the Nine holds any water at all.
- In Sigil, Flat Earth Agnosticism is enforced by the Lady; people objectively know the Gods exist but the Lady doesn't permit worship of them, not even herself. The Gods and their respective afterlives are spoken of as pure mechanics of the multiverse, their functions and properties analyzed and archived and lectured on. There are 'Factions' which are spiritual paths and practices somewhat slanted toward the outer rim of the outer planes, but the majority of the population don't really even believe in them. And some, like Morte, consider cosmic laws such as the Rule of Three to be superstition.
- The Civilization IV mod "Fall from Heaven" features the Grigori, an entire nation of atheists. Their leader, Cassiel, doesn't deny the existence of gods, but claims that they did not create the world, are unworthy of worship, and should not interfere with mortal affairs in any way. Seeing as Cassiel is an ex-archangel who abandoned Heaven, he should know.
- In Guild Wars (this is clearer in the lore that's been released for the upcoming sequel, but it is present in the current game) there is an interesting aversion of this. The Asura and the Charr both have beliefs that could be described as atheistic, but do not deny the existence of the gods. Basically, the Asura believe that they are subject to a force called the Eternal Alchemy (as-yet vaguely defined), while the Charr refuse to worship them. Seeing as there are cases of beings passing themselves off as gods, including the Religion Of Evil that the Charr worshipped until the players beat up their 'gods', and the gods of Tyria do not seem too inclined to punish unbelievers, these are not unreasonable ideologies.
- Hawkgirl was revealed to be an atheist when she fought a Captain Ersatz of Cthulhu in one episode. Apparently, her people worshipped this Eldritch Abomination until they decided that it wasn't compatible with their beliefs.
And I cut this because I can't make heads or tails of it. Someone who knows something about Dungeons And Dragons should sort through this and add the relevant info to Nay-Theist and Flat-Earth Atheist.
massive clusterfrack of natter
- The Athar faction of the Planescape setting, who are really more like Flat Earth Agnostics. They don't necessarily deny the existence of gods and other Powers (although some do), believing in the possibility of a non-personified "Great Unknown," but they believe that none of the gods running around smashing windows (Zeus, Odin, Helm, Moradin, Iuz etc.) are the real deal. Their former leader, Factol Terrance, was a cleric of the goddess Mishakal (from the Dragonlance setting) who simply woke up one day and realized he was no longer awed by his deity's power; he knew for a fact that she existed, but no longer believed she was genuinely divine. Their motto: "The gods are frauds."
- This is actually pretty close to the Judeo Christian view that all deities except the Judeo Christian one are cons running around on Earth starting cults and trying to pretend to be the real God Who Created Everything.
- The Athar have set up a settlement around the base of the giant pillar in the center of the Concordant Plane of the Outlands (said to be the hub around which the multiverse of Planescape revolves). Above the "top" of the pillar floats Sigil, the City of Doors. Magic in the circular plane of the Outlands is strongest along the rim, where the portals to the Outer Planes are, but it diminishes the closer you get to the pillar in the center; first mortal magic fails, then intrinsic supernatural abilities, then divine magic of the gods. The region around the foot of the pillar is a magic-dead zone where even the various Powers of the planes dare not go, although various Powers (i.e. archons, demons, devils, avatars of gods) sometimes meet for negotiations halfway to the Pillar, where all their powers are diminished. The Athar use their settlement as a place where they can philosophize and experiment with non-magical engineering without being disturbed.
- It should be added that in 3rd edition Dungeons And Dragons core rules, it is entirely possible for a cleric or paladin to follow no specific deity but instead to follow a philosophy or code of honor. Likewise, a class called The Archivist (from the Heroes of Horror supplement) can bypass gods entirely, despite casting "divine" magic. Archivists are scholars of the occult who can "steal" spells from all sorts of sources (be it clerical or druidic magic, ranger spells, paladin spells or clerical domains); they learn spells like a wizard does and use prayerbooks to collect them. AD&D already has priests "of philosophy".
- Let alone in specific settings... Like Dark Sun with its priests of Elements and spirit-worshipping druids.
- The Netherese of Faerun were ruled by wizards (human, but very powerful) who believed that the gods were just entities who had stumbled across some really advanced magic, and that in time the Netherese would achieve this knowledge too. To the point of refusing to be healed by divine magic out of fear that it would prevent them to become gods. They were wrong and when the most powerful cast a spell that stole the divinity of the goddess of magic, things went very, very badly.
- Actualy they were correct in the assumption that gods were just really powerful people. Only Lord Ao is like God. This is suported by the fact that his spell worked, he just didnt have the ability to control that power to keep magic from falling apart all over the world. He also didn't act fast enough so the diety he had targeted was able to kill him. The book notes that even after being turned to stone he was still briefly aware of events all across the world, as "almost dead almost god".
- On the other hand, this demonstrated that gods aren't so much above, but it was yet another way to shift existing power, not "clean" apotheosis. When one dragon tried "make up a god" experiment, it didn't worked the way it was supposed to. Sort of "conservation of divinity".
- Technically, "Gods" in Planescape universe are special subclass of the loose group "Powers" (the rest doesn't deal with faith and divine magic, that's all), with compatible power scale. Lord Ao can be considered one of these, though higher than Greater deities, feeding them just like later Death Gods subsidise Jergal. On the other hand, Animal Lords are demigods' equals (e.g. Cat Lord vs. Bast), even though they aren't Powers.
- In fact, nonbelievers in Faerun face an eternity of suffering and dissolution.
- Not true; in The Book of Hell (an admittedly hard-to-find supplement) it is explained that Ahriman, who sits at the bottom of the Pit, uses the souls of atheists to heal himself from the wounds he gained when he Fell (why no, I do not recognize the allegory, why do you ask?).
- That was apparently never particuarly well explained, and then retconned with Neverwinter Nights 2. It's not that they suffer an eternity of suffering and dissolution-it's that their erase from existence comes via a period of suffering and dissolution.
- That doesn't stop Valygar in Baldurs Gate, who believes the Gods exist, but feels that there is nothing inherently morally superior or deserving of worship in them.
- Gann from Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer refuses to worship a god even after talking to Kelemvor in front of the Wall of the Faithless.
- To be fair, an individual can't just switch faiths and start genuinely worshipping a god just because he's learned that hell does actually exist. If so, it would be worship out of fear and not out of principle, which would likely still qualify as lip service in regards of being judged as a Faithless. Therefore, Gann's example is not completely appropriate since he's basically just refused to cave in and switch one faith (in spirits) for another (in Faerun's deities).
- Not to mention all the Fridge Logic that comes into play when you realize that since Myrkul was only the god of the dead for Faerun, other parts of Toril shouldn't even follow the same rules. The Forgotten Realms suffers from continuity issues similar to DCU when you start slapping Kara-Tur and the like into the mix.
- This troper remember hearing arguments from some characters in D&D that gods are merely extremely powerful outsiders. They acknowledge their existence as such, but not the way we actually consider a "God".
- In another Dungeons And Dragons world setting, The World of Greyhawk/Oerth, the native clergy of the Flanaess is opposed by the so-called Sceptics movement established primarily in the County and Duchy of Urnst. The more extreme members of the movement believe that the gods of Oerth are pure fiction and that their clerics are frauds, with clerical magic not granted by divine sources but coming from within like arcane magic or psionics. The more moderate Sceptics admit the existance of beings called gods, but they claim that these gods did not actually create Oerth and furthermore many of them started out as mortals who ascended to demigod status and later to godhood. Therefore the Sceptics deny these gods their faith. They're little more than a fringe group, and the one time a Sceptic gained political power, it turned out to be a disaster-one of the previous Dukes of Urnst drastically raised church taxes when he took the throne, caused a series of riots in the nation's capital, and ended up dying when no cleric would heal him after he was wounded in battle with mountain raiders.
- The gods of another D&D world, Krynn, have a more generous take on atheists — Chemosh, the god of death, oversees and judges the dead souls as they go on to the afterlife. A virtuous atheist is treated better than a hypocritical believer. This may be due to the unique cosmology of Krynn — the gods are real, but vanished for three hundred years after the Cataclysm (they still existed, just remained out of contact). Later, after the Second Cataclysm they appeared to leave once again but it was later revealed the most powerful evil goddess had stolen the world and hidden it from the other gods. So at certain points of Krynnish history Chemosh was mostly receiving the souls of nonbelievers anyway.
- It's more likely due to the fact that Tracy Hickman, one of the chief architects of Dragonlance, is a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, which explicitly declares that virtuous unbelievers are not subject to torment in the afterlife, and may enter paradise as soon as the necessary rites (baptism and so on) are performed on their behalf by proxy by those among the living.
- The Eberron setting avoids this trope entirely. Divine Magic is the product of faith, Arcane Magic is just a force of the world. Someone with the proper training could have divine magic if he believed enough. Its even possible for clerics to turn from their religion and keep their spells. In fact, some mortals (and undeads) have set up faiths centered around them, and their clerics get divine magic. Gods do not take physical form (except for one, The Traveler, and even then its more the stuff of myth, like in ancient Greece). There are miracles who COULD be the work of the gods, but that is opened to interpretation. In the setting, the actual existence of gods is up to a character's belief, as the gods do not act as proactively as they do in the Forgotten Realms for example. Fiends are the original occupants of the material plane, and their religious implications are downplayed. Angels and Devils are just outsiders. There are even some books that suggest the gods are based on the legends of certain Dragons.
Wizard Joni: I'll check what I can. And after some editing, I ported what I could.
Can anyone explain to me where the "flat earth" part of the title comes from?
Probably from Discworld: "It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows."
— Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic
Eric DVH: “Flat Earther” is shorthand for “excessively fanatical religious fundamentalist.” As a suggestion, the juxtaposition was simply too funny to resist.
BritBllt: Removing this one...
- Played with in an episode of Star Trek Voyager. Neelix is killed in an accident, then revived by Borg nanoprobes, and is disturbed by not having experienced any kind of afterlife. He then makes use of Chakotay's vision-quest device, and sees (among other things) his dead sister in the vision. She tells him that she's not real and there is no afterlife, then rapidly rots into dust. Considering how real the visions appear to be, and that Chakotay seems certain they have a genuine spiritual element, why not ask "How are you talking to me, then?"
Neelix believed that the visions of his sister, while disturbing, were a product of his own mental state: his real despair was over not having experienced an afterlife, and then not experiencing any sort of spiritual revelation in the vision that'd explain why he didn't go to the afterlife. Chakotay confirmed that Neelix's emotions could be distorting the visions, and warned Neelix that he shouldn't take them at face value, so the writers did address the implicit "how are you talking to me" question. But that does leave a perfectly good It Just Bugs Me! about why Chakotay thought giving Neelix such a vision would help anything, if that's the case...
Also...
- None of which provides proof that any specific god actually exists. (In fact, the efficacy of calling on other gods and goddesses kinda violates one of the basic tenets of Judeo/Christianity/Islam.)
- Not really. Many Christians believe that other "gods" exist, but that there is only one creator god (the other were fallen angels, worshipped by people)
Justifying Edits are bad, mkay? And "agnostic" doesn't just apply to Christianity.
Though, while we're at it...
- Buffy Summers from Buffy The Vampire Slayer claims to be an agnostic in the episode "Conversations With Dead People" despite the fact that crosses and holy water harm vampires, that gods and goddesses are regularly invoked by witches, and that she's been to Heaven.
Removing the original entry, and keeping a longer duplicate entry on the page. The longer entry seems to be a bit rambling, though, and it keeps getting sidetracked into Just Bugs Me issues, so it might need a rewrite down the road.
