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This is one of her less blasphemous utterances.

Eugene Hoff: All these men have come to kill me!
Olivia Benson: Shut your mouth, Eugene!
Eugene: Why?! Because they know! They know that I am greater than man! I am greater than God! And they're afraid of what I can do!

A character decides to compare themselves favorably to a deity. This can either be joking or serious (although either one can still be blasphemous).

The exact form can vary. One of the most common forms is a variant of saying one has "more X than God" (usually something that the deity in question wouldn't even bother to possess according to the theology). Also, the most common thing to top is money (especially someone in the Fiction 500). A more serious form is claiming to be greater than God.

This usually involves the Abrahamic God, but not always. Regardless of which God, in a setting where Gods do exist, the character often ends up Tempting Fate. They might even do it right in front of a real god. Depending on the god and the situation, a Bolt of Divine Retribution (or divine laughter) may immediately follow.

A Super-Trope to A God Am I, Bigger Than Jesus.

A Sister Trope to Blasphemous Praise (giving this boast in the third person), Answers to the Name of God, Pride. May sometimes overlap with Badass Boast. Compare to Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter when the person is taunting God.

Contrast Like a God to Me.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Claire Stanfield of Baccano! He suffers from a severe case of solipsism (the philosophical idea that only the reality of a person's self is absolute, and that everything else could very well just be a figment of their imagination), and believes himself to be the complete ruler of reality. He claims at one point that he thought up God and made the divine ruler bestow him with his seemingly otherworldly abilities of strength, agility, and stamina (He actually got them from his time spent as an acrobat in the circus). The fact that he is able to back up his claims by holding his own against legitimately immortal beings causes one to at least consider his viewpoint.
  • Dr. Black Jack is usually said to have the hands of God when it comes to surgery. Given from what he actually does, he doesn't seem to be far off.
  • Black☆Star from Soul Eater frequently refers to himself as "the man who will surpass God" or "the man who has surpassed God'', although it's (probably) just his ego talking. By the end of the manga, however, he becomes powerful enough to rival Kid's True Death God form and earn the title of Warrior God from Asura of all people.
  • The Mazinger Z is said to be so powerful that it effectively renders its pilot a Physical God. Then they had to go on and make an even more super Super Robot. And, if you read Shin Mazinger Zero, he is NOT joking, although it crossed with Harsher in Hindsight.
    Dr. Juuzo: If you have Mazinger Z, you can be either a god or a devil... But with Mazinkaiser, you can be superior to God!
  • When That Man is disposing of Pedro in Excel♡Saga, he remarks that "This is what happens to anyone who crosses me, even God."
  • Plenty of characters in Jujutsu Kaisen are arrogant enough to pull them out:
    Satoru Gojo: Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honoured one.
    Aoi Todo: The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things. The color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. HOWEVER! We are the exception!
  • In Jormungand, with plan Jormungand nearing initiating, Koko compares herself to all the people that have spoke of and sought out world peace, when in the end, it was an arms dealer that achieved it. When talking of God's "work" (letting countless wars pass through the years), she calls herself more than a god as she plans to...
    Koko Hekmatyar: ...separate humans from war!
  • Zoro of One Piece has been described as being "more arrogant than God", due to the swordsman making several of these. Fitting that this comes up in an arc where the Big Bad is a guy who actually thinks he IS God, who then kicked Zoro's ass with ease.
  • Touma in A Certain Magical Index claims that his hand cancels anything, and can even cancel the divine. Index is slightly skeptical because, among other things, he happens to be an atheist (at least at the start of the series) and offers to test his claim on her blessed clothing. It works.
    • Also If Jesus, Then Aliens. He says that there is definitely no magic, and a bit later she says "An atheist like you?", and he doesn't mind.
    • Someone in the part of the verse not (yet) adapted to anime remarks that yes, Touma really might be higher than God. Even his family name can be translated as "The person superior to God".
    • The title of Fiamma of the Right translates to "The One Above God."
    • Of course we also can't forget a certain doctor who has gained the title "Heaven Canceler".
  • The Chouginga Gurren Lagann is described as "One who matches the gods." Considering that its power is supposedly tantamount to a sub-Universe, this makes some sense.
  • Variant: In Hikaru no Go, the go-players are looking for the so-called "Divine Hand", the ultimate answering (or preemptive) move.
  • Shiki makes one in The Garden of Sinners, claiming her eyes can see the death of anything, even God himself. May not be so blasphemous after all, considering she is connected to the Origin and is a Reality Warper.
  • At the climax of the anime of Devilman Lady, Lan Asuka claims to be the new incarnation/child of God. The titular Jun's response? "If you're God, then I'm the Devil, and I will continue to rise from Hell to battle you!"
  • In episode 11 of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, we discover that Garterbelt the priest was formerly a crime lord, murdered and then revived. He threatened to break God's dick with his ass and then God zapped him with a Bolt of Divine Retribution that turned his hair into his famous Funny Afro. Yes, it's that kind of show.
  • Elfen Lied: Near then end, Big Bad Director Kakuzawa boasts that not even God can stop his Evil Plan.
  • The anime version of DNA² opens with a spoof of this: The first thing Karin does on-screen is to wonder if her ability to travel through time and remake DNA means she has surpassed God, before gushing on the awesomeness of the boast and generally acting supremely funny.
  • High School D×D: The Devils who explain it to him state that Issei's Sacred Gear could overpower God himself, given enough time. This counts as Playing with a Trope, as it's later clarified that All Myths Are True and God is (well, was) an extant entity with defined powers, making this assessment of a Balance Breaker's potential an accurate statement of fact.
  • The Fruit of Evolution: In one fight, Rurune brags that she would kick God to death if he stood between her and delicious food. In another, she stares down her current enemies and tells them that they should bring as many gods as they can find if they want to have a chance of beating her.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions: While showing off his new Augmented Reality system, Seto Kaiba says regular reality is boring and he would basically fire God for creating it.

    Comic Books 
  • The X-Men graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills has its penultimate showdown between the team and the Sinister Minister William Stryker, who wants to rid the world of mutants because they are not "children of God", at a revival. When Stryker points to Nightcrawler and questions his humanity, Kitty Pryde angrily tells the preacher that she chooses her friend over Stryker's God. Stryker points a gun at Kitty ("Let those blasphemous words, child, be your epitaph!"), only for him to be brought down by a policeman's gun.
    Bystander: That cop — shot the reverend!
    Other Cop: Yup. Who was trying to shoot an unarmed little girl. If that's the word o' God, it's sure changed some since Sunday school.
  • Karnak of The Inhumans has a simple but very good inversion:
    "Satan was just a story. I am Karnak."
  • In an issue of The Simpsons, Homer becomes the owner of a new boat and proclaims that it is so powerful that God himself could not sink it. And then Moe drives a truck carrying a large ice cube into the boat, causing it to sink; following the repairs, Homer claims that he wishes to retract his earlier comments about God's ship-sinking abilities, also offering praises to Allah, the Buddha, and Ra for good measure.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): In Sonic Universe, Shadow delivers a particularly epic one right to a god.
    "Deny me all you want, but with [a Chaos Emerald], even a god must bow before the Ultimate Life Form."
  • In Suore Ninja, the Pope boasts that the Catholic Church is richer than God... because all of God's money is handled by the Church.
  • Rodimus tries this in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, when he launches into a Rage Against the Heavens speech where he demands to see the afterlife's manager — assuming that God isn't too chicken, anyway.
    Swerve: Even if you're right, you can't just — you can't just demand an audience with God.
    Rodimus: Watch me.
  • In Transmetropolitan, when Spider is concussed and comatose, he perceives it as being in a dark, empty room. He briefly wonders if he's dead and this is the afterlife but decides there can't be anything beyond death because "If there was a God, he'd be here right now, surrendering his throne to me." Spider later concludes that he is in Hell, since being stuck in a never-ending blackness with nothing to write about, nothing to write on and no cigarettes is Hell to a journalist.
  • In the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy, after leading the first operation in the universe to successfully drive off Gah Lak Tus, Nick Fury has this to say:
    "I tell you, Cap. All this made you think there might not be a God. You know what all this makes me wonder? I'm wondering that when I get up to them pearly gates...
    ...Is God gonna put up a fight, or just move over and let me sit down?"
  • In Wanted, Adam One doesn't see the point in Mr. Rictus advocating for the Fraternity to step out of the shadows, since they're "already sitting here with more money than God".
  • In the first few issues of Young Justice, Agents Fite and Maad are introduced and claim to "have more clearance than God".

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 
  • In Kancolle Alt, the Aircraft Carrier Water Demon reminds their flagship of the air superiority they boast.
    "I am the Aircraft Carrier Water Demon.
    When you look up at the skies and hope for a miracle, pray to me, and my planes shall deliver fire and brimstone from above on a level that will make even God envious."
  • In Time Braid, Sakura once makes reference to Naruto having 'more chakra than God' after being exposed to the various side effects (namely, he can't have sex with normal women without knocking them unconscious by overwhelming them with his aura, and there's a similar problem with his using the Yamanaka mindwalk jutsu). Technically, she herself is a Kami-descended, ergo Goddess material, and therefore is right.
  • "Welcome to NERV. God's in His heaven because He's scared of our superior firepower."
  • In Christian Humber Reloaded, the main character references this. Considering that he's a God-Mode Sue who keeps on growing in power after this, it's not an exaggeration.
    "Not even god and Satin can stop me, which is kind of cool not having to worry about getting punished by god because you can strike back at him."
  • Mines of Dragon Mountain: Tirac brags at one point about how he killed all but three of Equestria's gods in the ancient past.
  • In The Prayer Warriors, Hades claims that he cannot be defeated by anyone, even by God or Jesus. The Prayer Warriors prove him wrong by simply praying.
  • The Pony POV Series:
    • In Dark World, the Valeyard does these quite frequently, as he believes himself higher than the Elders.
    • According to a Loose Canon Recursive Fanfiction story, Havoc actually keeps track of how many times He's heard certain blasphemous boasts from people condemned to His domain. He even tells the Valeyard exactly how many times He'd heard each of his.
      Havoc: I Heard Your Rant About Villains Not Playing By The Rules 325,285,347 Times, Your Claim About Perfection 186,032 times, Your Speech About Life 432,874,222 times, Your Declaration Of Controlling The Universe 987,873,365,321 Times But Your Final Speech Was Something New For Once.
    • Nightmare Eclipse's claim that she chose her name for eclipsing Celestia and Luna and exceeding them is considered this by the Dark World!Mane Cast. She also claims to be above all the other Gods and outright states she's going to destroy the Goddess of Fate.
  • In the Professional Wrestling Massive Multiplayer Crossover wrestling promotion story "Character Championship Wrestling", The CCW Female's Champion Gwen Tennyson began to call herself a goddess following her match with Chell at the PPV "Meltdown", where she nearly died due to bloodloss. She has taken this gimmick as far as reciting Bible verses and rewording them into her own words and using the term "Gwendamn" when swearing.
  • ''A Far Cry From Home'' is a mixture of one-shot drabbles featuring characters from various different Far Cry games. Chapter 4, "The Father and The Prince", features Ajay Ghale, now a US Marshal after returning from Kyrat, is arresting Joseph Seed. Seed warns Ajay, "God will not let you take me", to which Ajay sarcastically replies, "Well, I guess he'll just have to take that up with my gods, and we'll see how things shake out down here at the bottom of the hill." Bold words, Ajay.
  • Dark Sakura in the Street Fighter and Naruto crossover The Newest Challenger, is extremely protective towards Naruto:
    "You're mine. You know you're mine. And I'll move whoever I have to out of my way to keep you. No girl will take you away from me. If God reaches a hand down to pluck you back to wherever you came from… I'll tear God's arm off with this power."
  • Bound Destinies Trilogy: After acquiring the Triforce, Veran openly mocks and disrespects Din, Nayru, and Farore, declaring that now that she has their power, she not only doesn't fear them, but curses their very names. She states that after she's done with Hyrule, she plans to invade and conquer the Sacred Realm itself.
  • In Legend of the Goddesses, a young Celestia and Luna brag about their accomplishments, and, on a whim, declare "We rule the sun and moon." Cue Queen Stellaris, the being who actually does that, who punishes them by actually giving them that responsibility... without making them immortal.
  • The Bridge: After Grand King Ghidorah repeatedly gave several A God Am I type boasts, Kaizer Ghidorah retorted with the following:
    Kaizer Ghidorah: "You are no god, but I am the Devil."
  • In "Arm Candy", part of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts series, one of Bruce Wayne's girl friends jokingly asks if he's not worried about her making off with some of his valuable stuff:
    Bruce: I have more money than God.
    Tara: Does God have a lot of money?
    Bruce: No. He's not a capitalist. That's the other guy.
    Tara: Do you have more money than the devil?
    Bruce: Not yet, but I'm working on it.
  • Megami no Hanabira: Once Phillips enters his Villainous Breakdown and devolves into A God Am I, he delights in this: starting off claiming God would reward him for his service by putting him among the highest spheres of angels, he quickly changes his tune to overthrowing a God who he sees as too soft on humanity. Metatron is understandably off-put by this assertion and sacrifices Phillips to manifest and take on Mai and the others himself...only for Phillips to take over his body, at which point his boasts get even wilder.
  • In the Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series movie trailer, a brief scene involves Yugi getting swarmed by fans and exclaiming "I'm more popular than Jesus!"
    • Within the series itself: "Hah! Seto Kaiba one, Jesus zero."
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
    • Freeza incites a Bolt of Divine Retribution this way.
      Freeza: If I'm really as evil as you say I am, then let God strike me down where I stand. [ZAP!] Ha! Nice try, jackass! Next time, give it your A-game!
    • It runs in the family. When his brother Cooler had been referred to as "he", he once replies: "That's 'He' with a capital 'H', by the way!"
    • Piccolo dabbles in it when he battles Android #17.
      17: Seriously, the f***'s a "Kami"?
      Piccolo: It means "God". Now, bow.
    • Downplayed in the Broly special since Broly is just an extremely powerful Saiyan with a god complex, but...
      Broly: What is a king to a god?
      Vegeta: What is a god to A NON-BELIEVER?!
  • In Sword Art Online Abridged Kirito gives one to the thoroughly out-leveled Titan's Hand.
    Kirito: But I've got good news. You see, there's no need to wonder where your god is. 'cause he's right here! [whispered aside] And he's fresh out of mercy.
    [Titan's Hand member starts crying]
  • In Hellsing Ultimate Abridged, Maxwell boasts about being the new God of the world (remember, he's supposed to be Catholic) while slaughtering the innocent of London. When Dracula's familiars shoot down the chopper carrying his "Holy Popebox", Anderson ruptures said Popebox and exposes him to said familiars explicitly because of this. Along with demons and heretics, the Iscariot Organization is tasked with eliminating false gods. Also, Anderson saw Maxwell had become a daft cunt.
  • God Slaying Blade Works: At one point, Shirou Emiya calls himself "The Strongest Steel". That title belongs to Artus, the most powerful God of Steel and The King of the End.
  • In A.A. Pessimal's Discworld fics, mentions of the late Granny Wheatherwax are answered by the Reflexive Remark of Reverence mayhersoulhavemercyonthegods.
  • The Way, Truth, and Light: While making some friendly small talk, Cu Chulainn says that he and Jesus are pretty similar because they are both the sons of gods who died to save their people. Even though Cu is obviously just trying to be friendly, Jesus calls his words blasphemy because he, the mere son of a false pagan god, is comparing himself favorably to the son of the real one. Because of this blasphemy, Jesus doesn't lift a finger to save Cu when he is killed by Mordred Alter, saying his hubris meant he had no faith, and those without faith will be denied salvation.
  • Boldores And Boomsticks: When Salem learns about Legendary Pokemon existing on Earth, this is her response.
    Salem: I have experience with so-called Gods, and I'd like to know what I need to kill before we begin making headway on a new base on Earth.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Just as Judge Frollo is about to strike down Esmeralda and Quasimodo in the climax, he utters this gem: "And He shall smite the wicked and plunge them into the fiery pit!" Guess what happens to Frollo?
    • Ironically, it is Frollo who is the wicked one and God smites him to Hell. A great deal of the problems stem from Frollo being unable to separate his arrogance from his faith, and that he is nowhere near the pious Christian he thinks he is. Others have repeatedly pointed out and even condemned him for using religion as an excuse to justify his evil and hypocrisy, but to his dying words, he never realizes the Bible's true message on compassion and pride. For all the repeated Holier Than Thou harping he does throughout the movie, Frollo is just a paranoid Tautological Templar who irrationally blames others for his issues.
  • Batman: The Killing Joke sees Batman respond to someone he's interrogating saying "I swear to God!" is the same as in Batman Begins: retorting with "Swear to me."
  • Mok's Villain Song in Rock and Rule:
    "My name is Mok, thanks a lot!
    I'm the power Sodom used on Lot!
    I am the drum, I am the snake,
    I'm the beat that makes you shake!
    I am the killer, I am the source,
    And you will worship me, of course;
    I'm the Oracle, I'm the Seer, the Wit,
    There is no question that I am IT! (Hey girls!)"
  • Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Puss always brags of how he 'laughs in the face of death', which on hindsight, is very dangerous to do in a world where myths and fairy tales are real, and concepts can take physical form. Sure enough, The Wolf who's been hounding Puss is revealed to be none other than The Grim Reaper himself.
  • An Inversion in the 2018 Tabaluga movie (a.k.a. Ice Princess Lily) in Arktos's Villain Song, where he claims that the Devil has nothing on his deathly cold evil as the song reaches a crescendo.
    "I am worse than the Devil, I'm so mean, I can turn the fires of Hell to STEAM!"

    Films — Live-Action 
  • MGM Studios used a less divine form, with the old slogan, "More stars than there are in the heavens."note 
  • In π, the slogan of stock brokerage firm Lancet-Percy (one part of the Big Bad Ensemble and, quite frankly, the more evil one) has as its slogan "Only God Is Perfect", boasting about the firm's eighty percent reliability with its predictions. They spend the whole movie hounding mathematician Max Cohen, first with sweet talking and later with goons and a gun to his face, so he will give them a number that they believe will allow them to manipulate the stock market at will and definitely will turn their prediction rates an even hundred.
  • (500) Days of Summer: a reference by the protagonist's younger sister to his ex dating a guy "with abs like Jesus".
  • The Avengers (2012): "Puny God." And actually justified, given that the speaker has just smacked a literal god into submission.
  • Batman Begins: SWEAR TO ME!
  • The Riddler in Batman Forever: "For if knowledge is power, then a God am I..."
  • This exchange in The Blues Brothers. Justified, in that they are actually trying to save a religious orphanage. But knowing the Blues Brothers, that would be the last thing you'd expect from them.
    Jake: Ma'am, would it make you feel any better if you knew that what we're asking Matt here to do is a holy thing?
    Elwood: You see... We're on a mission from God.
    Mrs. Murphy: Don't you blaspheme in here! Don't you blaspheme in here!
  • In Bride of Re-Animator, Herbert West has a pretty high opinion of his work. "'Blasphemy'? Before what, 'God'? A God repulsed by the miserable humanity he created in his own image? I will not be shackled by the failures of your God. The only 'blasphemy' is to wallow in insignificance! I have taken the refuse of your God's failures, and I have triumphed!"
  • After getting God's powers in Bruce Almighty, most of Bruce's dialogue could qualify as this, but one in particular:
    Bruce: You can't leave me! I'm the Alpha, lady! I'm the Omega, baby!
  • Just before the final battle of Conan the Barbarian, the title Cimmerian prays to his people's god for the first time. For putting on a good show, he asks Crom to grant him revenge on his enemies... but if Crom doesn't listen, "then to Hell with you!"
  • In Creepshow, Aunt Bedelia is said to be "older than God."
  • Dune (1984): "Usul, we have wormsign the likes of which even God has never seen." Justified in this instance as they are deliberately attracting as many worms as they possibly can in defiance of all normal logic. Is it blasphemous if it's literally true?
  • The Fantastic Four (2005) movie has Johnny Storm saying that Victor Von Doom has more money than God. In comparison Reed Richards is worth "less than a postage stamp." (He may have a point, considering Reed Richards Is Useless ...)
  • Fearless: Max Klein, after surviving a plane crash and what amounts to a suicide attempt screams at God, "You can't do it! You want to kill me, but you CAN'T!"
  • In First Blood, there's this exchange between the Sheriff and Rambo's former commanding officer.
    Sheriff Teasle: What in God's name would possess him to make a man like Rambo?
    Col. Trautman: God didn't make Rambo. I made him.
  • In The Founder, Ray Kroc compares McDonald's golden arches to the crosses on churches.
  • An early example can be seem in Frankenstein (1931), where the Mad Scientist's "Now I know what it feels like to be God!" drew so much ire in its time from Christians that it had to be cut (a loud clap of thunder was substituted on the soundtrack). The full line wasn't restored until 1999.
  • In Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, the evil witch Muriel corners a man who starts begging for his life and praying. She tells him prayers are useless because, "Even your god knows better than to come here!"
  • In Hellraiser: Bloodline, Pinhead is threatening John Merchant’s son with eternal torment.
    John: For God’s sakes!
    Pinhead: Do I look like someone who cares what GOD THINKS?!
  • Used in a slightly tragic sense in Hobo With a Shotgun: Drake, following the death of his son Slick, proclaims that he knows more pain than God does - God's son came back in three days. The hobo, who's noticed Drake's complete lack of compassion for his other son, dismisses this with, "You're a fool, and a shitty father."
  • In the Godfrey Ho film Honor and Glory, the bodyguard Jake Armstrong's business card is said to read "You couldn't be safer in the hands of God." He seems to actually believe it, too.
  • James Bond villains:
    • GoldenEye:
      Janus: What's true is that in forty-eight hours, you and I will have more money than God.
    • Tomorrow Never Dies:
      Carver: Soon I'll have reached out to and influenced more people than anybody in the history of this planet, save God Himself. And the best He ever managed was the Sermon on the Mount!
  • In Keeping the Faith, Anna says, "I work harder than God. If He had hired me, He would have made the world by Thursday."
  • Consider this beauty from Kill Bill Volume 1: Hattori Hanzo on his latest sword, "I can say with no ego that this is the finest sword I have ever built. Should you encounter God on your quest, God will be cut". It's a callback to a similar line in a voiceover near the beginning, which in turn references a Zen Buddhist saying: "If you meet a buddha, cut him down. If you meet a demon, cut him down."note 
  • In Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence is confident that he can safely cross the Sinai desert and inform his superiors about the siege of Aqaba. He compares himself to Moses, which offends Auda.
    Auda: In ten days you will cross Sinai?
    Lawrence: Why not? Moses did.
    Auda: Moses was a prophet and beloved of God!
  • From Dr. Hill's deposition in Malice:
    Dr. Hill: The question is, 'Do I have a God complex?'
    Riley: Dr. Kessler says, 'Yes.'
    Dr. Hill: Which makes me wonder if this lawyer has any idea as to the kind of grades one has to receive in college to be accepted at a top medical school. If you have the vaguest clue as to how talented someone has to be to lead a surgical team. I have an M.D. from Harvard. I am board-certified in cardiothoracic medicine and trauma surgery. I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England. And I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you, when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry, or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death, or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trauma from post-operative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, you go ahead and read your Bible, Dennis, and you go to your church, and with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, He was in Operating Room Number Two on November 17th, and He doesn't like to be second-guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex? Let me tell you something: I am God.
  • The Matrix Reloaded:
    Bane: Oh God...
    Agent Smith: Smith will suffice.
  • In Monty Python's Life of Brian: "All I did was say to my wife, 'That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!'"
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street: The line that introduced the world to Freddy Krueger's snark:
    Tina: Please, God...
    Freddy: [brandishing razor-glove] This is God.
  • In the comedy "Otto — Der Film", Otto begins the retelling of his story: "Now, what was in the beginning... In the beginning I created heaven and earth." God, knowing Otto is a notorious joker, gives him a fair thunder warning, as a hint that there might be a Bolt of Divine Retribution following. Otto quickly adds: "OK, OK, that was you."
  • Pink Flamingos:
    Mr. Vader: Do you believe in God?
    Divine: I AM GOD!
  • The Kill Bill line is a reference to the 1981 Japanese film Samurai Reincarnation — starring Sonny Chiba, who played Hattori Hanzo in Kill Bill — where the swordmaker Muramasa makes a sword to fight demons for the hero, Jubei Yagyu (Chiba), and tells him "Master Jubei, if you encounter God, God will be cut. If you encounter an evil spirit then it will be cut."
  • In Speed Zone! (a.k.a. Cannonball Fever), the Strothers Brothers characters are described as "having more money than God's accountant".
  • In both the play and the film versions of Steel Magnolias Ouiser—pronounced 'Wheezer'—tells Shelby that "The only reason people are nice to me is because I have more money than God."
  • In Phoebe In Wonderland, Hillary Lichten, Phoebe's mother, considers her children gifted and compares Phoebe's "poetry" to the work of esteemed classic writer E.E. Cummings to impress her friends (it doesn't).
  • In Tropic Thunder, the director Damien Cockburn calls the helicopter that brought the actors to the remote part of the jungle as God, and himself as Jesus Christ, making this the ultimate Blasphemous Boast. Given the nature of the movie, it was probably inevitable. And 10 seconds later he gets blown up by a landmine.
  • In Marriage, Italian Style one character scolds a dressmaker for how his bride's wedding dress is being tailored poorly to his taste; he kisses the bride and says "she has to look prettier than the Maddonna".
  • In SHAZAM! (2019):
    Dr. Sivana: What in God's name...?
    Mister Mind: I name the gods, Doctor, not the other way around.
  • Prince Valiant (1997): When Princess Ilene is mortally wounded, Valiant screams at God to save her, then says if He does not, he will become His enemy. God was apparently listening because healing energy comes out of Excalibur and saves her.

    Jokes 
  • An old joke: In an English village, the vicar visits a beautiful garden and congratulates the owner:
    Vicar: Isn't it amazing what a good gardener can achieve with God's help?
    Villager: You should have seen it when it was tended by just God on His own.
  • During the Tehran Conference, Churchill decides to taunt Stalin and says:
    "You know, gentlemen, last night I had a dream in which God himself appointed me the Prime-Minister of the world."
    Roosevelt chimes in:
    "And I had a dream in which God appointed me the President of the Universe."
    Stalin starts his pipe, then calmly replies:
    "And I, comrades, had a dream in which I changed my mind and revoked both your appointments."
  • Another old joke: two inmates at a mental asylum are talking, and one proclaims:
    Inmate #1: I am the King because God told me so!
    Inmate #2: I've told you nothing!
  • A joke about prolific Dutch author Harry Mulisch, told by comedian Herman Finkers.
    Mulisch: You know, sometimes I've written a sentence, and when I look back and read it I think: no, I didn't write this, God wrote this.
    Finkers: How can you be so sure that God was the author instead of you?
    Mulisch: I write better.
  • Mathematicians like to tell this one:
    "Biologists think they are biochemists. Biochemists think they're physical chemists. Physical chemists think they're physicists. Physicists think they're God. And God thinks he is a mathematician."
  • A similar one at the expense of surgeons:
    "What's the difference between God and a surgeon? God doesn't think He is a surgeon."
  • One often told between tabletop gamers:
    "The GM is not god. God is merely a minor NPC."
  • I wish people would stop comparing Freddie Mercury to God. I mean, he's good, but he's no Freddie Mercury!

    Literature 
  • In a SF short story (author? title?) where two competing washing powder companies compete for the most white-washing powder. When it's physically impossible to wash whiter, one company resorts to "only God washes whiter than Brand X" and then the other to "only the Devil can withstand Brand Y". Thus a narrow aversion, but still a baaaad idea.
  • In The Arts of Dark and Light, Elf King Mhael's speech to the Amorran embassy when they object to his magic ends on this note, disparaging the Church's equivalent of the Bible. The elves, he says, have much older and better scriptures:
    You put much faith in an old text, priest. If you value ancient writings so, I shall show you our library. We elves possess many such texts, some written by elf, some by man, some through demons, and some from gods. All of them are far older than those scribblings that give meaning to your fantasies and your dark dreams of slaughter.
  • The Beginning After the End:
    • After the reveal of the Lances during the announcement of the Council, King Glayder encourages the audiences to follow in their path by saying this phrase as he closes off the announcement.
      King Glayder: Grow strong and noble as not even the heavens are the limit!
    • Arthur's Bond One-Liner to Taci, who had been sent by Kezess to purge his friends and family in Dicathen for going against his (Kezess's) plans.
      Arthur: You want to know what I've become? Godkiller would be appropriate.
    • On the other end of the divine spectrum, at the end of the Siege of Vildorial Arthur gets the remaining Alacryans to flee with an insult towards Agrona, the Lord of the Vritra and practically the God-Emperor of Alacrya. Considering how at this point Arthur is already The Dreaded among the Alacryans, they wisely retreat before he exerts his wrath upon them.
      Arthur: Agrona has exhausted my patience. You have ten seconds.
  • The Belgariad: The Mallorean emperors secretly use the honorific "Kal", meaning "King and God", following in the footsteps of the Physical God who founded the empire. "Secretly" because they didn't dare actually say it while said god was alive, instead adding an apostophe at the beginning of their names to stand in for it. Kal Zakath thinks it's ridiculous and abandons the practice after meeting real gods.
  • Interestingly invoked by Jesus Himself in The Bible.
    "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."
    • Played straight with Herod Agrippa, who was killed for his blasphemy:
      "...Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man." Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died."
  • Toyed with at a few points in the Circleverse series. A character will compare another character to a god — Briar thinking that with Rosethorn near it's as if her Mila of the Green is standing there — and immediately dissemble, thinking to themselves that they meant no disrespect.
  • In The Culture, one of the Culture Minds, Lasting Damage, describes himself thus: "I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an Al through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side."
  • Discworld:
    • In the series, the Gods are mostly the petty vindictive sort found in Greek and Roman mythology, so many characters are dubious about their superiority. On the other hand, saying so out loud is unwise unless you're lightning-proof.
      Dorfl: [after being struck by lightning for doubting the gods] I DON'T CALL THAT MUCH OF AN ARGUMENT.note 
    • Unseen Academicals: Lord Vetinari doesn't outright claim to be better than God, but does declare this to be a goal worth pursuing:
      Lord Vetinari: One day I was a young boy... when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. Even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued... As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and the pink roes spilled out much to the delight of the baby otters. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.
  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe: In the final Eighth Doctor Adventures novel, The Gallifrey Chronicles, a Time Lord named Marnal claims "Most races pray to lesser beings than the Time Lords."
  • Dune: When Paul enacts the first phase of the plan to break into the Harkopnnen stronghold, namely lighting off some nuclear warheads to both remove some inconvenient terrain features and attract sandworms from far and wide, this exchange happens:
    "Stilgar, have we wormsign?"
    "Usul we have wormsign the likes of which even God has never seen!"
  • It's briefly played around with in the The Godfather novel, where Vito's best friend and consigliere Genco is painfully dying of cancer and cries out for Vito to save him, as he apparently is so far gone he believes Vito has the power of God. However, Vito, who is a devout Catholic, finds this blasphemous.
  • Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Phryne Jamil boasts that she is more beautiful than the goddess Freya. This eventually gets her killed by Freya's followers (just Ottar in the anime), who were enraged that she made such a claim.
  • It's not exactly a boast so much as a sarcastic jibe, but in Johnny and the Dead, Yo-less claims "My mum spends more time in church than the Pope. My mum spends more time in church than God."
  • Gene Wolfe in "The Last Thrilling Wonder Story": Wolfe as author destroys a church and only just stops short of declaring himself the hero's god. By the end of the story, it appears that God himself may be intervening to teach Wolfe a lesson.
  • Nicolae Carpathia in the Dramatic Audio version of the Left Behind book Armageddon, right after confessing that he is the Antichrist.
    "I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will be like the Most High...for I AM THE MOST HIGH!"
  • In Orson Scott Card's horror novel The Lost Boys (unrelated to the movie of the same name) a young software engineer will tell anyone who listens that he makes more money than God. If only he had actually told people the dollar amount, he might have found out sooner that his boss was cheating him royally.
  • Marion Zimmer Bradley's Lythande at one point tells herself "I am Lythande! Who dares challenge me, man or woman or goddess?"
  • More poetically, Alexander Pope once wrote, "Yes, I am proud; I must be proud, to see/Men not afraid of God afraid of me."
  • In Sard Harker and Odtaa, the Dictator of Santa Barbara proclaims himself God and announces that henceforth no other religion shall be permitted in Santa Barbara, and that all churches must be turned over to worship of himself.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire has a few, although the most epic (and terrifying) probably belongs to Euron Greyjoy, a psychotically cruel pirate whose excesses causes a case of Even Evil Has Standards from other members of his culture, a grim raider society who believes that raiding others and carrying off their women is a sacrament. When Euron returns from years of exile and attempts to claim the throne for himself, his fundamentalist brother Aeron attempts to stop Euron, saying that no godless man can be their king. The full quote is on the quotes page, but here's the heart of it:
    Euron: Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.
    Aeron: They pray to trees and golden idols and goat-headed abominations. False gods...
    Euron: Just so, and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and sow their screaming women with my seed. Their little gods cannot stop me, so plainly they are false gods. I am more devout than even you, Aeron. Perhaps it should be you who kneels to me for blessing.
  • Used indirectly in C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, where the Fox claims that Istra is "prettier than Aphrodite herself". Orual is concerned about this, but the Fox dismisses her concern as foolish superstition. Turns out the gods are not amused.
  • In The Thebaid, Capaneus' whole M.O. is renouncing the gods, so he'll always go into the battle praying to his right hand or mocking others for relying on divine protection. Jupiter doesn't see much reason to deal with it, until Capaneus grows bold enough to boast that the Thunderer was too scared to face anyone that wasn't a defenseless maiden. Then comes the logical conclusion of this trope: the Bolt of Divine Retribution.
  • A god-on-god variant occurs with Kyprioth the Trickster in the Tortall Universe. He likes to boast that he is the greatest of all the trickster gods, of which there are many. Unsurprisingly, they take issue with this, and one of them gleefully gets one over on him in Trickster's Queen by helping his Chosen One elope and leave the country she's supposed to end up ruling.
  • Unsong:
    • The Comet King does not take it lightly when the devil pisses him off.
    "You can’t harm me," said Thamiel. "I am a facet of God."
    "I will recarve God without that facet," said the Comet King. He does.
    • After Nixon sees a broadcast showing what Hell is really like and begins regretting his decision to ally with Thamiel, Kissinger assures him "We did what we had to do. If the good Lord disagrees with me, I will be happy to point out His tactical errors."
  • In the Warrior Cats series, Tigerstar claims that he is more powerful than StarClan because he changed the number of Clans in the forest from four to two.

    Live-Action TV 
  • All My Children In the midst of his Took a Level in Jerkass era Dimitri Marick declared, "Not even God himself can stop me!". He was promptly crushed by a falling tree. His injuries and recovery forced a Heel Realization and Heel–Face Turn and by the end of the year, was back to the Nice Guy he'd initially been.
  • Angel: Part of Angelus' M.O. at one point was to carve the image of a crucifix into his victims' left cheek so as to spite God.
  • Babylon 5:
    • There's "Ivanova's mantra" that she takes a moment to tell some folks after they refuse to obey her in a Season 1 episode. She takes a quick moment to apologize to God for the boast after she's finished and nobody else is listening.
      "Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out!"
    • A much more subtle one comes in the Season 2 episode "Comes the Inquisitor". Captain Sheridan is shocked that a human is working as an agent for the Vorlons, since as far as anyone knows the only Vorlon interaction with humanity was sending an ambassador to the station. When questioned about it, the man coolly informs Sheridan, "Yes, the Vorlons have been to Earth. The Vorlons have been everywhere. The Vorlons are." (Explanation: The traditional name for God in Hebrew comes from "Yahweh", meaning "I am." The parallel with "The Vorlons are" is undoubtedly intentional, especially considering the nature of the character who says it.)
  • Blackadder II episode "Bells".
    Lord Flashart: [to Melchett] Still worshipping God, eh? Last thing I heard he started worshipping me!
  • Bonanza: In "Thunder Man", Joe Cartwright confronts William Poole after exposing him as a rapist and murderer. Poole threatens him with a vial of nitroglycerin and boasts that no force on Heaven or Earth can stop him. He is proven wrong when Joe shoots him before he can hurl the vial, causing him to drop it and blow himself up.
  • Boston Legal gives us this gem:
    Denny Crane: You hear the one about the man who died and went to the pearly gates? Saint Peter lets him in. Then he sees a man in a striped suit with a briefcase giving a closing argument. And he asks, "Who's that?" Saint Peter says, "oh, that's just God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."
  • Spike's very first line of dialogue in Buffy the Vampire Slayer deconstructs another vampire's Blasphemous Boast:
    Big Ugly: When I kill her, it'll be the greatest event since the Crucifixion. And I should know, I was there.
    Spike: You were there? Oh, please. If every vampire who said he was at the Crucifixion was actually there, it would've been like Woodstock.
  • Community: Pierce at one point claims to have written a song that will "make the Devil poop God's pants". That might be some kind of blasphemy record.
  • The Daily Show used the money version to highlight different Middle East countries. There were the conservative, "death to America" countries, and then there were those with more money than God.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Davros declares in "Genesis of the Daleks" that releasing a virus that would destroy all life (an analogy the Doctor uses for his creation of the Daleks) would "set me up above the gods". Many years later in "The Witch's Familiar", he still thinks like this, as shown when pushing the Doctor to commit genocide:
      Davros: Are you ready to become a god?
    • This exchange from "New Earth":
      Novice Hame: And who are you, to decide that?
      The Doctor: I'm the Doctor. If you don't like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, there isn't one. It stops with me!
    • There's a reason why one of the Doctor's many titles is "The Lonely God"...
    • At one point, the Twelfth Doctor tells someone that he's old enough to be their messiah (at that point, the Doctor is over 2000 years old).
    • The Twelfth Doctor had a particularly awesome one when he remembers why he chose his "face".
      The Doctor: I'm the Doctor, and I save people. And if anyone happens to be listening, and you've got any kind of a problem with that, TO HELL WITH YOU!
  • Elementary offers a variation when Captain Gregson emphasizes his By-the-Book Cop nature: "Look, you bring me solid evidence, establish probable cause, I'll put cuffs on God himself."
  • Frasier:
    • Inverted in an episode; Frasier's producer Roz is considering hiring Frasier's less-than-noble agent Bebe Glazer. When Roz is trying to justify it be saying "It's not like she worships the Devil," Frasier retorts with "She doesn't have to; he worships her."
    • However, it's played straight in other episodes:
      Lilith: [upon seeing Frasier taking a bathrobe] My god!
      Frasier: My goddess!

      Frasier: By God? Do you believe this man's grandiosity? I'm God, and he knows it.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • The illusion of Drogo in the House of the Undying explains his presence by saying, "Maybe I told the Great Stallion to go fuck himself and came back here to wait for you." Dany admits that sounds like something he'd do.
    • Littlefinger delivers one to the face of several religious zealots in "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken":
      Littlefinger: We both peddle fantasies, Brother Lancel; mine just happen to be entertaining.
    • Euron Greyjoy has a good one that he gives to Balon.
      Euron Greyjoy: I don't mock the Drowned God, I am the Drowned God. From Oldtown to Qarth, when men see my sails, they pray.
  • A small one in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Iolaus claims that the town that Herc and he saved should have built a shrine to them. A lightning bolt strikes a nearby bush. The duo speculate if it was the gods or not. So Iolaus tests the "lightning never strikes somewhere twice" concept by repeating the line right next to the bush. It happens again. Oddly enough this gives Iolaus precognitive abilities at the low, low cost of being fried with a lightning bolt.
  • Done accidentally, in the show High Tide. One guy makes loads of friends, so much that they keep asking him to be godfather to their daughters. So one of the protagonists quips that, "You have more goddaughters than... God."
  • There's a Season 2 episode of House actually called'' "House Vs. God". Chase keeps a running tally on a whiteboard with House's successes on one side and God's on the other. It ends in a tie.
  • One episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit had a cult leader get shot by his pregnant twelve year-old wife for pulling one of these during a three-person Mexican Standoff. He had told the girl to shoot the liar in the room. As Olivia tries to talk the girl down, he keeps yelling more and more fire and brimstone scare tactics at the girl until he claims that he was greater than God. She immediately shoots him because "He told a lie. No one is greater than God."
  • Several episodes of Monk, such as "Mr. Monk and the Billionaire Mugger" and "Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect", include characters being described as having more money than God. In "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail", one character wrote a book entitled "Richer Than God: The Lambert Lawson Story".
  • Mouse (2021): Jae-hoon writes "I am the Almighty" at the scene of a murder.
  • Kinga Forrester of Mystery Science Theater 3000, during a Christmas episode, maintains that her forthcoming ratings-stunt wedding is way more important than this Jesus person.
  • The Outer Limits (1995): In the episode "The New Breed", the protagonist, the inventor of nanomachines that can heal any damaged or diseased cells in the body, is accused of playing God. His response: "Let's just say God created a flawed man. I think I can do better." Let's just say his attempt to do better doesn't quite go according to plan.
  • Played with in an episode of Peaky Blinders, wherein two members of the titular criminal organisation, outraged at hearing of the horrific abuses that children suffer within an orphanage in their territory, confront the nuns in charge. The nuns coldly state that they answer to God. One of the criminals threateningly retorts that be that as it may, but God lives in Heaven... and the Peaky Blinders live just down the road.
  • A quickie in the pilot episode of Royal Pains, we have this exchange:
    Evan: This is where God would party.
    Hank: Yeah, if he could get in.
  • In an episode of Sleepy Hollow Abbie discovers that an uncooperative witness in the search for her sister Jenny (who has escaped from a mental institution) is violating state law by not providing proper food and accomodations for her current foster child. She delivers the following threat:
    Abbie: You have one chance right now! You tell me something, anything that will help me find her or so help me I will rain legal brimstone down on you so hard it'll make God jealous!
  • In The Sopranos episode "Armor Fou", Jackie Aprile Jr. to his getaway driver before robbing Tony's gang:
    Jackie Jr.: I don't care if God passes by, you do not move this car.
    • But averted in that Jackie Aprile Jr. is in fact a Too Dumb to Live Darwin Award contender that has little claim to such authority.
  • Supernatural:
    Castiel: I'm your new God. A better one.
  • Taboo: In episode 1, Sir Stuart Strange boasts that the honorable East India Trading Company has more money than god. He acknowledges this is blasphemous, but says it's justified.
  • There is an arc in Twin Peaks where Benjamin Horne reenacts the American Civil War with models as a way of solving the personal problems that caused his nervous breakdown. However as he gets better the side he chose (the South) starts to win. As his troops are about to enter Washington D.C. he says (in an affected Southern Drawl) "Only God can stop us now; and I believe in my heart that the Almighty is a Southerner!"
  • Wilhelmina in Ugly Betty episode "Betty's Baby Bump", regarding her latest scheme to regain control of MODE:
    Wilhelmina: As I march up the steps of the Meade building, it will be the greatest comeback since... Jesus.
  • Done in the Yes, Minister episode "Doing the Honours" while discussing the Order of St Michael and St George. The Order has three grades: Companion (CMG), Knight Commander (KCMG) and Knight Grand Cross (GCMG). Jim Hacker's Principle Private Secretary Bernard Woolley explains what the abbreviations mean in the Civil Service:
    Woolley: ...Of course, in the Service, CMG stands for "Call Me God". And KCMG stands for "Kindly Call Me God".
    Hacker: What does GCMG stand for?
    Woolley: "God Calls Me God".

    Music 
  • Kanye West: "I Am A God" is this in spades. The streaming version of this song credits 'God' as a feature. That's not even mentioning the album that it's on is called Yeezus. However, he also downplays this trope by adding:
    "I am a god, even though I am a man of God
    My whole life in the hand of God"
    • He is well aware that having such a title would immediately draw a firestorm, and intentionally did this to piss people off.
  • "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" has the Devil make a bet with Johnny as to who's the better fiddler. Johnny immediately replies "It might be a sin, but I'll take that bet, and you're gonna regret 'cause I'm the best that's ever been!" And once the contest concluded...
    The Devil bowed his head because he knew that he'd been beat. And he laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny's feet. Johnny said "Devil just come on back if you ever wanna try again. I done told you once, you son of a bitch, I'm the best that's ever been!"
  • Heather Dale: In "Black Fox", when a fox-hunting party fails to track down a quarry, the huntsmaster grouses that "If only the Devil himself ran by, we’d run him such a race!" Cue a little black fox with bright red eyes suddenly bolting out of a hole...
  • House of Pain's song "Jump Around" has a non-blasphemous version: "I've got more rhymes than The Bible's got psalms." Since it's accepted that the Bible has a finite number of psalms (150, to be exact), nobody gets offended (and the claim is still pretty impressive).
  • Porcupine Tree's "Slave Called Shiver"
    "I may be nothing now, but I will rise
    I'll have more followers than Jesus Christ"
  • Lil B has claimed to be God, to be the Devil, and to look like Jesus. He also claims to be "The Based God."
    • This deserves details:
      "Niggas hatin on me bro, but I don't give a fuck, bitch!
      Young Based God in the motherfucker
      I'm god, I look like Jesus
      And I'm coming with that motherfucking heater
      Bitch, suck my dick."
  • Jacques Brel was notorious for his blasphemous boasts in his songs, for instance in "Le Dernier Repas", where a man about to die wants to cry "Dieu est mort!" ("God is dead") one final time before he leaves this Earth.
  • The song "Creation & Destruction" by Immortal Technique is a Boastful Rap.
    "Devils are incompatible
    I been around since the planet was inhabitable
    I spit in the ocean and created microscopic animals
    Which evolved into two species: the righteous and the cannibals
    But until then, I had alien women suck me off
    When God said, 'Let there be light', I turned it the fuck off."
    • And the stinger at the end of that verse:
      "Cause I allow God to let you motherfuckers exist"
  • The song "Disasters" by the Non-Prophets
    "How do you expect someone to take you seriously
    When it's obvious the god you trust is hateful and inferior to me
    'I'm kidding'; Really folks, who asked us to be modest?
    Thinking when you hear these jokes you laugh just to feel smarter."
  • An interesting variant occurs in Larry Gallagher’s "I Am Better Than Your God", in which, as the title implies, the singer claims to be better than God. This isn’t because the singer considers himself to be great or powerful but because the version of God he is singing about is an extremely reprehensible being.
  • Hollywood Undeads "We" are has this nice line: "You can see God when I take my mask of"
  • Fela Kuti: "Shuffering And Shmiling"
    "I want you all to please take your minds
    Out of this musical contraption
    And put your minds into any goddamn church
    And goddamn mosque, any goddamn Celestical
    (...) We now have to carry our minds out of those goddamn places."
  • "Dear God" by XTC from their album Skylarking is one huge tirade against God in whom the singer doesn't believe and whom He blames all the misery in the world.
  • Patti Smith's infamous quote on her Horses album: "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine. (...) my sins, my own, they belong to ME! Me!"
    • Paraphrased by the punk band Crass in their extremely blasphemous song "Reality Asylum":
      "Jesus died for his own sins, not mine."
  • John Lennon's "God" from John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band has him listing all kinds of heroes and icons, several from religious origin, he doesn't believe in. He eventually concludes he only believes in himself and his wife and "that's reality". The song "I Found Out" also deals with false religion and idols.
  • Marilyn Manson's "The Fight Song" from his album Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) has the line:
    "I'm not a slave to a God that doesn't exist."
  • Nas has had a few lines like this.
    "When I was 12, I went to hell for snuffin' Jesus."
  • Arthur Brown's song Fire famously begins with Brown shouting "I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, AND I BRING YOU FIRE!"
  • The Edge commented on the enormous LED screen behind the stage on the PopMart tour: "If God watches television, his screen isn't as big as U2's".
  • In "Wrote My Way Out" on The Hamilton Mixtape, platinum hip-hop artist Nas describes himself as the "black Elohim from the streets of Queen."
  • Green Day has a Greatest Hits album titled God's Favourite Band.
  • Brian McNeill's "Ewen and the Gold", about a Scotsman who spent his life Walking the Earth with Gold Fever:
    "For God made Ewen Gillies, God gave him wings to fly
    But only from the land where he belonged
    But I'd fight with God himself for the light in Ewen's eye
    Or with any man who tells me he was wrong."
  • From Shining Wizado's "Burial Time", which is about Professional Wrestler Triple H.
    "(BURIAL TIME) I buried London and I buried Charlie Sheen
    (BURIAL TIME) I buried Hitler and his whole goddamn regime
    (BURIAL TIME) I buried JFK and I buried Lincoln too
    (BURIAL TIME) And if you think I'm goin' down then I'm burying you"
  • Dr. Dre and Ice Cube's "Natural Born Killaz" combines Badass Boast, Blasphemous Boast, Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? and Refuge in Audacity.
    "So fuck CHARLIE MANSON
    I snatch him out of his truck
    Hit him with a brick
    And I'm dancin'"
  • "Alpha & Omega" by King 810
    "Bitch, I am the powers that be
    I am Christ crucified on the T
    I am the Alpha and the Omega
    I'm the messiah the gnashing of teeth
    No one meets death until they see me
    I am the Alpha and the Omega"
  • Summoning has the song "Mirdautas Vras", which is a war anthem of the Orcs of Mordor, sung in the Black Speech. Since they're in the service of Sauron, essentially a fallen angel, it mocks his enemies, the "gods"/archangels of Middle-Earth:
    Fire and ice, the Nazgûl fly
    It is a good day to kill!
    Red is earth and sky
    Even Manwë will bow down!

    Mythology and Religion 
  • Interestingly invoked by Jesus Himself in The Bible.
    "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."
    • The wicked Pharisees, who refused to believe that Jesus was actually the Son of God, accused him of blasphemy during his trial for saying he was the Son of God, for saying he could forgive sins, and his various other promises. Of course, since Jesus really was who he said he was, he was actually innocent.
    • Played straight with Herod Agrippa, who was killed for his blasphemy:
      "...Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, 'This is the voice of a god, not of a man.' Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died."
    • Also played straight in the book of Ezekiel, which is the trope namer for A God Am I:
      "Because you are haughty of heart, you say, 'A god am I! I occupy a godly throne in the heart of the sea!'" (Ezekiel 28:2)
  • In Classical Mythology, the gods are quick to take offense and retaliate when they catch anybody doing this. Bottom line: Do Not Taunt Cthulhu.
    • Odysseus would have saved himself several years of hardships had he not bragged to Poseidon to the point of refusing him a sacrifice, or mocking his son Polyphemus after blinding him. As a man of proverbial wit, you'd expect him to know better than anger the god of seas, especially if you and home sweet home are hundreds miles of sea apart.
    • Polyphemus also made one. When he imprisoned Odysseus and his men and started eating them even after they offered him a gift of wine, Odysseus tried to appeal to the law of Sacred Hospitality made by Zeus. Polyphemus mocked him and said since he's the son of Poseidon, he doesn't have to listen to Zeus' laws. Odysseus then decided that if the laws of hospitality didn't bind Polyphemus they also didn't protect him, and got Polyphemus drunk and shoved a sharpened stake in his eye.
    • Queen Niobe brags in public that she has more children than "poor" Leto (the mother of Apollo and Artemis!). The two promptly take it upon themselves to avenge their mother by killing each and every one of the queen's children (some traditions have them spare one son and one daughter, so Niobe doesn't have more kids than Leto) and she turns to stone from grief.
    • A certain Arachne claims she's a better weaver than Athena? Let's just say there's a reason we call spiders "arachnids" today. The exact details vary Depending on the Writer, but all versions end with Athena transforming Arachne into a spider.
      • This myth is referenced in Cryptonomicon, where the teller of the tale points out that Athena plays fair during the challenge and actually admits Arachne is as good as she thinks she is. It's not Arachne's blasphemy, but rather her hubris, that results in her being cursed.
      • Another version has Athena get angry when Arachne matches her, and blowing her off so rudely that Arachne tried hanging herself. That's when Athena came to her senses and saved her by turning her into a spider.
      • Yet another version says that Athena didn't punish Arachne for claiming to be better, but because during the contest Arachne's masterpiece entry was a giant tapestry mocking Zeus and his extensive history of infidelity (which besides being disrespectful in general terms was also hubris—a mere mortal making a magnificent tapestry to mock the gods?). No way was Athena going to let Arachne make fun of her father like that.
      • In another version, Athena wins the competition, and the condition was that the loser would never be allowed to use a spindle or needle again. In this version turning Arachne into a spider was an act of mercy on Athena's part, as she saw Arachne would be unable to live without being able to weave. Being a spider allowed her to weave without use of a spindle or needle.
    • The reason Perseus had to save Andromeda from the sea monster was because her mother, Cassiopeia, claimed Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids, beautiful creatures of the sea and daughter of sea deity Nereus. The patron God of the Oceans, Poseidon, took this blasphemy as a hubris and drowns Cassiopeia's town and sicced his sea serpent to devour anyone that comes across it, and the only way to stop that was to sacrifice Andromeda.
      • In Ovid's account, after Perseus saved Andromeda, Phineus attacked him with a spear and some soldiers to try to claim her as his wife, boasting that neither his winged sandals nor Zeus himself could save him. Perseus turned Phineus and his troops to stone with Medusa's head.
    • In one version of the story, Medusa got turned into a monster after having an affair with Hephaestus, and then claiming that she was more beautiful than his wife Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. Other versions of the story don't have the boasting element; most have her born a sea monster, while Ovid's story has her being punished for being raped in Athena's temple.
    • Aphrodite had to deal with this a lot, apparently, since suitors were saying that Psyche (who ended up being the one to catch flack for their boasting) was more beautiful than hernote . Ultimately it worked out much better for Psyche than its typical with such boasting in Greek mythology, since Aphrodite's son Eros agreed with the suitors' assessment.
    • Another case of Aphrodite was the time that a certain woman named Myrrha had her mother boast about the same thing Cassiopeia did unto her daughter... compared to Aphrodite. She ends up cursing Myrrha to commit incest with her father, but then it turned out a bit better and showed Aphrodite's tender side when she took pity on Myrrha's son Adonis... who, in one story, died because he made a boast about being a better hunter than the resident Goddess of Hunting, Artemis. Artemis then sicced her hunting boar to kill him while Aphrodite was away. (In other stories, Adonis died because Ares was a Yandere to Aphrodite)
    • During the siege of Thebes, the warrior Capaneus declared that not even the fire of Zeus could stop him from scaling the city walls. Unsurprisingly, he was promptly zapped off the ladder.
    • The nymph Aura thought it was a good idea to Slut Shame Artemis of all goddesses for being curvy and having big breasts while talking up her own boyish figure as being more appropriate for a virgin. Artemis consulted Nemesis, who determined that the best punishment would be for Aura to lose her virginity so she couldn't boast about it any more... i.e., get her raped. This act drove Aura insane and she tried cannibalizing her two children (Artemis saved one) before drowning herself.
    • When the Trojan War was over, Ajax the Lesser raped a priestess of Athena while she was taking shelter in her temple. Angered, Athena persuaded Zeus to zap his ship while he was sailing home, blowing it apart. He survived, swam to shore, and stood on a huge rock while boasting that not even the gods could stop him from getting home. Poseidon promptly split the rock, he fell back into the sea, and this time, he drowned.
  • Journey to the West: The Monkey King Sun Wukong proclaims himself "the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven." Granted, he eventually did kick Heaven's collective asses. Heaven eventually needed to call upon the Deus ex machina that is Buddha.
  • Some versions of the Flying Dutchman myth says that the Captain of the ship swore such an oath to round the Cape of Good Hope if he had to sail until the Last Day. When God appeared and asked him to give up his foolhardy quest, he cursed God and repeated the oath. His punishment was to sail, with a crew of ghosts and cowards, until the Last Day.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's legendary "Austin 3:16" promo upon winning the 1996 King of the Ring, forever cementing his place as a future legend.
    You sit there and you thump your bible, and you say your prayers, and it didn't get you anywhere! Talk about your psalms, talk about John 3:16... Austin 3:16 says "I just whipped your ass"!
  • Aja Kong's entrance theme comes close:
    "God made the Devil just for fun
    When He wanted the real thing, he made Aja Kong!"
  • Kane once declared himself "the Devil's favorite demon." Later on, his (in-character) brother, The Undertaker, simply stated "You may be the devil's favorite demon, but in this ring? God calls me sir."
  • Jimmy Jacobs bows to no man. If Jesus Christ was around, Jacobs would stand face to face with him.
  • CM Punk once famously told The Rock, "Your arms are just too short to box with God."
  • John "Bradshaw" Layfield called himself the "Wrestling God" at the height of his final run.
  • Back in 1999, Sabu had an official website and the link banners featured the slogan, "There are men, there are gods and then there is Sabu."
  • Averted with Mick Foley. Although many signs in the Attitude Era declared "Foley is God," Foley himself suggested they were one letter off: Foley is good.

    Roleplay 
  • Darwin's Soldiers:
    Subject 19: So come on! Give me a real challenge! Give me a fight against a god!

    Tabletop Games 
  • Warhammer:
    • The game uses this a lot with the chaos gods. A random Chaos worshiper deems himself greater than the gods and usually finds himself cursed.
    • Although sometimes it's a case of Cursed with Awesome: Wulfrik the Wanderer once declared himself the equal of any warrior, now he has to prove it by defeating every Worthy Opponent he finds, with his taunts magically preventing the enemy from refusing a challenge. Not a bad fate for a Blood Knight.
  • Warhammer 40,000: Every other threat or insult from Chaos forces to loyalists involves the God-Emperor and his lacking in divinity. The loyalists tend to shoot.
    "Your foe is well equipped, well-trained, battle-hardened. He believes his gods are on his side. Let him believe what he will. We have the tanks on ours."
  • From the flavor text of the Netrunner card 'Fortress Architects':
    "You want us to build that? Not even God has the money to afford that!"
    "You're working for Saburo Arasaka, not God."
  • Exalted, a setting rife with Odd Job Gods, has "I am no mere god."
  • In the backstory of the Dragonlance setting for Dungeons & Dragons, the Cataclysm was triggered when, to cap off generations of religious persecution and cruel oppression in the name of the gods of Good, the Kingpriest of Istar talked down to Paladine, greatest of the Good-aligned deities, and condescendingly offered to take the burden of omnipotence off His hands so that he, the Kingpriest, could run the cosmos properly for a change.

    Theatre 

    Video Games 
  • Professor Pyg makes one in Batman: Arkham Knight after Batman confronts him while he is converting one of his victims into a Dollotron.
    Pyg: Bad, bad, bad. Pyg is like clay. Pyg is like God. Pyg is here to fix us all!
  • In Choice of the Dragon, the dragon can come to legitimately believe themself to be a God. The universe's gods may not actually mind if the dragon still respects them, but if they refuse to let the goblins worship their god, raids the sacred temple for the universe's Gods, and deliberately starts their own cult of worshippers, the universe's Gods will respond with a Bolt of Divine Retribution.
  • A variant in Super Robot Wars, Sanger's catchphrase and Badass Boast is that "I am the sword that cleaves evil! There is nothing I cannot cut!" (This becomes "smites evil" in the English localization.) When fighting more powerful opponents, he sometimes replaces "evil" with something more dramatic and context-appropriate, including at one point "God".
  • Near the start of the life of the PlayStation, Sony released an ad campaign in the US that explicitly stated that the Playstation was "More powerful than God", attempting to prove that it wasn't for kids. Unsurprisingly, shortly afterwards, the campaign was taken down.
  • Implictly used by Cortana to describe the Master Chief in the trailer for Halo 3.
    Cortana: I have defied gods and demons.
  • In Octopath Traveler II, Dolcinaea Luciel claims that she's a better singer and dancer than Sealticge, the literal goddess associated with dancing, during the Grand Gala. The Gala is occurring at an ancient temple dedicated to Sealticge. The karma is that Agnea Bristarni, the Traveller who faces Dolcinaea, is blessed by Sealticge with a rare power to help her on a Misson From God to save the world and defeats Dolcinaea minutes after the boast is made in a dancing competition.
    Dolcinaea: Sealticge, the Lady of Grace, is no more. In her place stands another...
  • At the end of Policenauts, Gates Becker goes on a Motive Rant, claiming that God made a mistake in designing humanity as naturally unfit for life in space, and justifying the extensive organ harvesting syndicate which he oversees as merely "picking up [His] slack".
  • In Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, Marjoly claims to be mightier than God, more beautiful than Goddess, and the Devil's master.
  • Fate/Grand Order: Nikola Tesla is fond of claiming that his control over electricity has surpassed even Zeus, and considering that he is one of the most powerful Servants, his boasting seems to have some merit. Until the Olympus Lostbelt, where he appears as an ally and Zeus is the antagonist. Zeus utterly curbstomps him, offscreen to boot, proving, as many people in Ancient Greece learned, that you really shouldn't try to put yourself on the level of the gods.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Glass from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade has gained some fandom notoriety by claiming that his swordplay is so peerless that even the gods fear it. Considering the fact that he's just the level 2 boss, this turns out to be one of the most epic cases of Suicidal Overconfidence ever.
    • Ike from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn makes a similar boast at the end of the game right to the goddess Ashera's face. Unlike the sucker described above, however, he has the skills to back it up.
      Ike: Make your peace with whatever the gods worship. Your end is near.
    • Flayn from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, at the end of her support chain with Ignatz. She agrees to be the model for Saint Cethleann in his painting, on the condition he make her "more illustrious" than the Saint's sacred statue. Very unusual for the normally pious Flayn. Or would be, except Flayn IS Saint Cethleann.
  • Captain Falcon from F-Zero faces against god in a race, but not before saying it's cocky to think it can beat him.
  • Alex from the end of Golden Sun: The Lost Age is a great example of a Blasphemous Boast in the face of a near-god, and a better example of being immediately shut down by said god.
  • In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2:
    Brotherhood Knight: God is with me, monster!
    Dracula: That will be your ruin.
  • Inverted in inFAMOUS: Second Son.
    Delsin: Angels? Are you kidding me right now? So either one of the escapees can make angels… or I'm going after God. And I do not like my odds in that match-up.
  • In Saints Row IV, your character manages to come up with this offscreen.
    Kinzie: The President's remarks were taken out of context.
    Reporter: What is the context for "I'm the patron saint of America, they should change it to 'One Nation, Under Me'?"
  • In a Shout-Out to Conan, if you click Sonya enough in Heroes of the Storm, she'll start praying to her God, Bul-Kathos, to… improve her MMR, and if he does not listen, then to Hell with him!
  • Isador gives a double example in Dawn of War, since "Gods" refers to the Ruinous Powers:
    Isador: I am stronger than you ever imagined. I can feel the universe tremble at my approach. Even the Gods know my name!
  • Doom (2016): The UAC has a seven day work week, claiming that God created the universe in six days, but could have gotten a lot more done if he hadn't rested the day after.
  • Whiplash: The ad for the Robo Weasel enemy in the first level states "The Robo Weasel is mankind's greatest invention since God".
  • Bug Fables: In the Upper Snakemouth, there is a note where the Roach Scientists rebuke their colleague's pleas to stop.
    "Stop now? Preposterous. We're about to create something above the gods…!"
  • In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Galactus states the following as a pre-battle quote against Amaterasu (the Shinto Goddess of the Sun), Thor (the Norse God of Thunder), and Shuma-Gorath (an ancient God of Evil that rules numerous realms):
    Galactus: If you can be a god... then what shall we call Galactus?
  • Shin Megami Tensei: Demiurge is a recurring demon, and this tends to occur very often by the nature of his existence. His repeated claims to be the one true God are betrayed by the name listed in his text boxes. In Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, the quest to defeat Demiurge is titled False God in Chains.
    Demiurge: WORSHIP ME! THE CREATOR OF ALL, UNPARALLELED BY ANY!
  • Sonic.exe has "I AM GOD" as his catchphrase, despite being a demon.
  • Total War: Warhammer: If you choose Kairos Fateweaver as your Legendary Lord, he has one of these in his idle lines where he brags about knowing more than anyone. Even his creator and God of Knowledge Tzeentch himself. And the best part is, because of his dip in the Well of Eternity, he's entirely right about that.
    Kairos Fateweaver: "We know more than even he."

    Web Comics 
  • In the Bob and George fancomic Jailhouse Blues, one weapon that Mega Man gains after defeating "Obviously Compensating For Something Man" is "More Ammunition Than God."
    Mega Man: There's got to be a catch.
  • The Last Days of FOXHOUND: Psycho Mantis on Ocelot:
    Psycho Mantis: Look, this is a man who believes that if God himself came down from the heavens, pointed a shotgun at his head and fired, God would miss.
  • Sluggy Freelance:
    Riff: I put more spice on those wings than God could.
  • Touhou Nekokayou: Referred to as a "Blasphemous ... um ... Battlecry" in The Rant for comic #109:
  • Tower of God:
    Quant Blitz: A mere Regular acting on behalf of God? Preposterous! The true god of this testing area is ME!
  • Awesome Hospital alters a dialogue standard of the Medical Drama for context, but retains the sentiment:
    Nurse Punk Rock: You can't play someone's life like a Stratocaster, Sven! You're not Hendrix!
    Dr. Guitar Solo: In this hospital, I AM HENDRIX!
  • A rather meaningful one by General Izor in Dubious Company. Repeated later by said boaster's counterpart, Captain Walter:
  • Isometric:
    Dangerman: I AM GOING TO SHOOT A HOLE IN YOU THE SIZE OF GOD!
  • Noriko Null from Beyond the Impossible, to be expected when she's the main character fighting gods with science. She delivers a particularly badass one when fighting Hephaestus.
    Noriko Null: Even a god can't punch his way out of science, genius.
  • The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: Wonderella can be prone to this, as seen in the page picture. Being familiar with the Vaguely Greco-Romanic Godhead probably left her disillusioned about gods.
  • Kill Six Billion Demons: The Knights Belligerent include the rather creepy line "If my God should fail me, I will kill him too" in their mantra. Given what the Knights are like, it's not terribly surprising that their gods get as little respect from them as anybody else.
  • Awkward Zombie: In Marth's ranking system (and its extended version) for the social status of the members of the Super Smash Bros. cast, the "royalty" tier — including, of course, himself — is ranked above the "divinity" tier. Given that "divinity" in this context means actual deities like Palutena, Marth evidently feels himself to be more important than gods.
  • Grrl Power: After the assassination of Indinge Sr., Deus drops one for the history books.
    Indinge Jr.: You... you are the devil!
    Deus: The devil, you say? Satan was cast from Heaven for loving God too much. I have. No. Such. Failing.

    Web Original 
  • From this Cracked article: "Look, we're not trying to sound holier than thou on this matter. We're just saying that we are Jesus."
  • From TheBookOfRatings, Deadly Sins, from the entry on Pride:
    "I'm not sure how this one works. Is plain old everyday pride sinful or do you have to get into the realm of hubris before you're in trouble? Do you go to hell for saying 'this is a pretty tasty three-bean salad I've made, if I do say so myself,' or do you have to say 'why, I bet this is a better three-bean salad than GOD could make'?"
  • Babylon Bee: There's an article entitled Trump: "I Have Done More For Christianity Than Jesus"

    Web Videos 
  • The Nostalgia Critic:
    • "I am your Jesus."
    • "That's right! I am going to judge God!"note 
    • In his Conan the Barbarian (1982) review, he played the scene of Conan "praying" mentioned above, then spoofs it with wanting a specific Happy Meal toy.
  • In Mario Plush Forever, Giga Bowser claims to be more powerful than Master Hand. Big mistake.
  • From Powerthirst 2: "When God gives you lemons you FIND A NEW GOD!"
  • Carmilla the Series; In the Grand Finale, Carmilla challenges Mattie to a game, staking her newly won mortal life in a desperate bid to resurrect Laura after her Heroic Sacrifice:
    Carmilla: Pick any game you want. Tonight I'll kill a god if I have to.
  • Flander's Company: Alternate Georges Trueman, the Big Bad of Season 4, has a good one in the finale right before exerting Mind Control on his own brother and daughter:
    Alternate Georges: Fortunately, unlike God, I haven't imbued my creations with free will.
  • Played for Laughs in Vision of Escaflowne Abridged, which gives us this gem:
    Hitomi: Allen, you took a tentacle attack for me!
    Allen: Kinda makes what Jesus did seem pretty piddly, doesn't it?
    Hitomi: Hey, don't make fun of Jesus! Blasphemy's a sin.
    Allen: Yeah, but didn't Jesus die for those? Think what a waste that'd be if I never committed any.
  • Jim Sterling in their Jimquisition series takes their persona up a notch where they go Large Ham, act smug, and end their segments with "Thank God for me!" If they don't utter their catchphrase, then they're talking about something much more serious where the theartrics aren't needed.
  • DEATH BATTLE!:
    • "Lex Luthor vs Doctor Doom" sees Victor drop a truly glorious one after impaling Lex against the Lexcorp logo and destroying the entire building with a flurry of energy blades:
    Doom: This power... It's like that of a god's. Beneath me.
    • "Thor vs Vegeta" has Vegeta boast, "I have evolved beyond gods." While his Super Saiyan Blue and Ultra Ego forms give him power comparable to the gods of his universe, Thor is on a completely different level and Vegeta gets killed.

    Western Animation 
  • The Angry Beavers did a similar spoof as The Simpsons did at one point, with Daggett claiming that they were "Bigger than sliced bread", with people acting in an identical manner to John Lennon's "Bigger than Jesus" boast. Subverted, however, when Daggett clarifies that he meant that they were physically bigger than a loaf of sliced bread, placating the fans.
  • On The Boondocks, Jazmine asks Huey if he believes in God. Riley interjects that he's going to live forever, but if he does go to heaven he's going to smack God upside the head and tell him to get him some tacos.
  • Family Guy:
    • In the episode "Secondhand Spoke", Stewie helps Chris deal with some bullies by hiding in his backpack and feeding him one-liners to respond to the bullies taunts. Chris' new wit causes him to be nominated for school president. Stewie then claims that he's a better coach than God. And how do you expect Family Guy to run with this?
    "C'mon! You're getting crucified out there!"
    • In the episode "If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin'" Peter claims to have miraculously healed Chris' disease (which was made up in the first place). People begin gathering and worshipping Peter like he's God, and Peter runs with it, at least until the actual God starts sending the Egyptian plagues on him.
  • The Owl House Whole Episode Flashback "Them's the Breaks, Kid" has Eda and her older sister Lilith talking about all the cool things they'll do when they join the Emperor's coven, which Eda caps off by claiming that even the Titan (the Giant Corpse World that they live on which is treated as a quasi-godlike figure) will gasp in fear of them. Funnily enough, this is does prove to be an accurate statement as Eda's future adopted son King (who is revealed in a later episode to be a titan) actually does show fear when coming face to face with their cursed forms.
  • Rick and Morty: Rick does this so often it becomes almost reflexive.
    "I made your atomic matrix slightly lighter than air, and now your shoes are heavier than air, which makes you neutrally buoyant, which I find conceptually more impressive than walking on water, but what do I know? I wasn't born into the god business. I fucking earned it."
    • Rick's toxic counterpart is somehow even more assertive about it.
    Toxic Rick: Yeah, motherfucker! Yeah! Get it! Get some! Right up your fucking bitch ass, you fuck! Guess who just discovered a new element?! You think you could do that, Morty? You think anyone but me could do that ever in a billion years? Do you think if God existed he could do it? The answer is no. If God exists, it’s fucking me!
    • Jerry, of all people gets a possibly unintentional one in "Rattlestar Ricklactica" when he inadvertently catches Rick in a Xanatos Gambit:
    Jerry: "I am the Jesus Christ of Christmas!"
  • The Simpsons:
    • Homer got a perfect 300 bowling, and compared himself to God. He didn't actually say he was better than God, just equal in bowling ability. Which, if Homer always bowls 300, is simply mathematically accurate. Even God can't score more points than the maximum number possible.
    • In another episode, Bart declares that the revivalist preacher/faith healer Brother Faith "dances better than Jesus himself."
    • In yet another episode, Bart describes the gravy Marge and Becky made as "better than God's sweat."
    • Being a parody/homage of The Beatles, "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" references John Lennon's real life boast (see under Real Life below). The Be Sharps took Lennon's quote to extreme by naming their second album "Bigger Than Jesus", complete with a cover that showed the quartet walking on water (itself a takeoff on the Abbey Road cover).
    • And yet another example has Lisa convince Bart and Homer they have leprosy. Bart claims that in the Bible 'Some holy guy' cured the lepers. After remembering it was Jesus Homer quickly asserts "Wait, I know someone even Holier than Jesus! Flanders!"
      • In another episode where Flanders gives Homer info that could give him his job back, he calls him God, which embarrassed Ned especially when Homer starts worshiping him calling him higher than Jesus.
    • When Homer goes on a hunger strike to protest the local baseball team's plan to move, he sings a little song which includes the line "I'm kinda like Jesus, but not in a sacrilegious way."
    • When Homer buys a gun, he describes the feeling of power it gives him as "how God must feel when he's holding a gun."
    • Also towards the end of "Mr. Plow", Homer after saving Barney's life goes into partnership with him in the snow-plow business, shouting out that if two friends stick together, not even God Himself can stop them. Cue a voice from the clouds: "Oh, no?" and the weather immediately becomes warmer, melting all the snow.

    Real Life 
  • John Lennon's "Bigger Than Jesus" comment.
  • Averted by Mister T, who — back when he was a bodyguard to celebrities — advertised his service with "The best protection short of God Himself."
  • Nick Lowe's debut album was named Jesus of Cool. Unsurprisingly, it was renamed for the USA market to the much-less-cool-sounding Pure Pop for Now People.
  • South Korean sex change surgeon Kim Seok-Kwon claims to "correct God's mistakes."
  • From Long for This World, on Aubrey de Grey, "My wife borrowed my notebook and wrote to me in big block letters: HE IS MORE SURE OF HIMSELF THAN GOD."
  • Both inverted and played straight: During the 1970s a church in Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia put up a sign saying, "What would you do if God came to Hawthorn today?", under which an Australian Rules Football fan graffiti'd "Move Peter Hudsonnote  to centre half forward!". Upon hearing of this, Hudson jokingly complained that God had never attended a single training session.
  • Something similar from Germany: During the 60s a sign outside a church in Gelsenkirchen said "Niemand kommt an Gott vorbei" ("Noboby can get past God"). Gelsenkirchen is the home of football club Schalke 04, where Reinhard "Stan" Libuda played, who was famous for his dribbling skills. So it didn't take long for the sign to read "Nobody can get past God - except Stan Libuda".
  • Theodore Roosevelt was praised in his own lifetime that he was better than God. And given his record, who could blame them?
  • The surnames Quirós (from northern Spain) and Garrido (from southern Spain) are rather old. So old, in fact, that several lineages using either surname have the following as their family motto: «Antes de que Dios fuera Dios / Y el sol diera en estos riscos / Los Quirós eran Quirós / Y los Garrido, Garrido.» ("Before God was God / And before the sun shone in these cliffs / The Quirós were Quirós / And the Garridos were Garridos."). There has to be some truth to it, as not even the Inquisition took issue.
    • Many academics think the "Before God was God" bit refers to the time before Christianity arrived to the Iberian Peninsula, so it's just a fancy way to say something like "before we followed a single god". Still, whether taken at face value or not, it's a rather strong statement about one's family.
  • "Jesus Christ turned water into wine, but Vladimir Lenin turned words into bread." — a boast in the Red Armies during the Russian Civil War.
  • During Super Bowl XLVIII, Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett was heard to say, "Best defense ever! Hey, we'll beat the Greek gods!"
  • The first (official) chess world master Steinitz said he would win a game against God. Even giving God odds of pawn. (The much-reported quote is seriously in doubt, cf. here)
  • Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro once dared say that nothing in this world intimidates him. He doesn't fear God, because he loves God and God loves him, apparently.
  • A variant: When Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, Nikita Krushchev said in a speech "Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any god there", presumably intending to mock the stupidity of people who still believed in God. This line is often misattributed to Gagarin himself and mangled into something like "I didn't see any God up there", which Gagarin, a devout Russian Orthodox Christian, would never have said.
  • Regarding the RMS Titanic, it was famously said that "God Himself cannot sink this ship." It would appear that God enjoys a challenge...
  • Similarly to the Turkish one above, in Romanian there's an insult that roughly translates as "[Fuck] your mother's Easter and gods today and tomorrow, you asshole".

 
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Alternative Title(s): More Tropes Than God, More X Than God

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Threatening to shoot the Pope

When asked what he'd say to the Pope, the Witchfinder-General, a militant Protestant, immediately retorts that he'd just shoot him on the spot in flowery Antiquated Linguistics.

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