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Rage Against the Heavens

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God of War IV.note 

"God, if the world really goes by your rules, then I'm gonna smash that illusion apart!"
Touma Kamijou, A Certain Magical Index

A character musters their courage to confront the supernatural being they believe responsible for their torment. No, it's not The Legions of Hell but the gods, or angels or even the Big Man Upstairs. This character has a beef with the Powers That Be who are running the show, and the capacity to do something about it.

It could be that the Cosmic Plaything has had enough and shouts Who's Laughing Now? It could be someone who believes they can do a better job being God. It could be that God is a jerk or even out and out evil. It could be something as complicated as the higher planes of existence being revealed to be run like a mad, hopelessly bureaucratic corporation — too concerned with rules and regulations to give a damn about the helpless mortals stuck in the middle, or staffed by bumblers who keep screwing things up by accident. It could also be something as simple as revenge or, even simpler, a search for a good fight.

This trope is more controversial than merely challenging Satan or going To Hell and Back. That makes it a prime target for authors who want to make their latest work Darker and Edgier. Many Moral Guardians and Media Watchdogs view it in a negative light, which makes it even more suited for this purpose. It's a full inversion of conventional morality and in some cases proposing that God Is Evil (the Gnostics' position). The only way to go further in this direction is to declare that Satan Is Good. It is also somewhat common in Rational Fiction.

The Other Wiki calls this misotheism — hatred of God or the gods. Not to be confused with atheism itself, the difference being that with misotheism, you believe there is a god (or gods), but you hate Him/them.

Often used alongside Heaven Above, where a Rage Against The Heavens is visualized by having a character rant at the clouds as if God was hiding behind them. See also Crisis of Faith, Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter, Nay-Theist. Often a part of a God and Satan Are Both Jerks storyline. Can result in A God Am I, Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?, and/or Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu. For a more Postmodern take, compare Rage Against the Author.

If someone actually succeeds in this endeavor, see Kill the God. For god versus god, see Divine Conflict.

Not to be confused with Rage Against the Machine, a Rap Metal/Funk Metal group with anarchist leanings.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • This is essentially the plot of Amatsuki, in which the titular world is ruled over by the god Teiten, who really couldn't care less about what happens to its inhabitants, as long as they don't interfere with his own plans (and if they do, there are severe consequences). He also predicts the fates of all living things so that he may control them. The demon Bonten, who lost everyone he loved because of Teiten, decides he's tired of this way of life and takes action once it becomes evident that Teiten intends to destroy the world. Hapless protagonist Tokidoki, the only one whose fate has not been decided, is part of a plot made by Bonten and the demons to overthrow Teiten and escape the awful fate that awaits them. Except he doesn't like the idea of being made a god.
  • Bastard!! (1988) involves this, with the main heroes fighting a legion of angels who have arrived on Earth to destroy humanity.
  • Guts, the main character of Berserk, spends more than a year hunting and killing the demonic Apostles, the subordinates to the God Hand. It hasn't been made clear if a supreme deity higher than the God Hand exists, but if it does, Guts has requested that it leave him alone.
  • Bleach:
  • In Code Geass, the Emperor and his partner-slash-twin-brother V.V.'s modus operandi is to slay the gods who drive humanity to lie to and hurt one another. However, since "God" in this universe is seen as the collective unconsciousness of mankind, this would result in Ragnarok. This might be quite a brilliant case of in-universe characters not doing their homework. Charles is well aware, and it's exactly what he wants. However, V.V. might not have known, since Charles was going around his back due to V.V.'s previous betrayal (that V.V. doesn't know Charles knows about).
  • In Dragon Ball Z, when Goku faces off against Majin Vegeta, Only Sane Man Shin the East Supreme Kai and who at the time was believed to be the Top God (by virtue of being the only one left) stands between them to stop them from allowing their pride to awaken Majin Buu. Goku's response is to threaten to kill his god to get to Vegeta, forcing Shin to stand down. Later on in Dragon Ball Super he'd face off against the Jerkass Gods Beerus and Zamasu in self-defense.
  • Fate/Zero: Gilles de Rais became a Serial Killer and practiced dark magic to spite God for allowing Jeanne d'Arc to die, eventually becoming this Holy Grail War's version of Caster, who is a truly messed up piece of work. This hatred for God and the society that killed Jeanne is extrapolated upon in Fate/Grand Order, where Gilles's wish upon the Grail of the first singularity resulted in the creation of Jeanne Alter, the evil Dragon Witch who seeks to burn France to the ground and who the player has to take down with the help of the original Jeanne, who was the Ruler servant of Fate/Apocrypha.
  • In Fist of the North Star, part of why Raoh is passed over as the successor of Hokuto Shinken over Kenshiro was him not passing a Secret Test of Character by his master Ryuken: after bluntly declaring that he will use the martial art to Take Over the World and challenge Heaven itself, Ryuken responded that God will not allow it. Raoh retorts: "Then I'll even fight God".
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • Father uses the power of the souls of Amestris to pull God down to Earth and absorbs God. After his defeat, he rages against Truth before his banishment beyond the Gate.
    • Wrath/Bradley has a very bad case of this when dealing with Ishvalans. Their continued faith in their God, in spite of all the horrors they've suffered, enrages him.
  • When Guyver Zero rebelled against his alien creators, the Advents, and was slain by their loyal general Archanfel, the Advents decided that no human could be trusted and left Earth, throwing a giant planetoid at it. Archanfel destroyed the planetoid at the permanent cost of his health and has spent the last 110,000 years or so plotting to turn humanity into an army of vengeance against his "gods".
  • The manga Innocent Bird deals with a demon gone good and a heaven gone completely mad. Not that the evil forces are any better — it's quite a lose-lose situation. Later, the angel protagonist rages against the heavens.
  • At the end of Magic Knight Rayearth, everyone learns that Makona is actually the God of both Cephiro and Earth and made the former after the latter turned out the way it is. Hikaru, taking the final test to become the Pillar of Cephiro, is not too thrilled over this revelation, even more so when she finds out that she's won and the loser, Eagle Vision, must die. She decides to forego all of that and drag Eagle back with her. This is solidified when Umi and Fuu help Hikaru escape and Hikaru's first decision is to abolish the Pillar system and grant everyone her power. Makona realizes things are probably better this way and opts to leave...
  • Saiyuki Gaiden, a prequel to the main story's plot, explains the story of how the four (possibly four or more since Hakuryu/Jeep seems to indeed be Gojun, Dragon King of the West Army) main characters of the current story were banished from heaven for trying to overthrow the ruling gods.
  • Soul Eater has Medusa claiming that it is in the nature of witches to kill gods, though this opinion is not shown to be held by other members of her kind (who disapprove of Lord Death purely because he hunts and kills witches, not for what he is). Considering Medusa's ultimate plan appeared to be creating a man-made Humanoid Abomination (and succeeding) in Crona, Medusa was presumably using this trope as the (at the time) latest excuse for causing chaos.
  • One of the major villains in The Twelve Kingdoms stages a rebellion against the monarchy of the kingdom he lives in and, by extension, the setting's rule-by-divine-appointment system. His ultimate motivation for his actions is eventually revealed as being an attempt to get the Powers That Be to prove their existence by smiting him.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
  • Temozarela's motivation (and by extension, his band of fellow fallen angels) in Priest. He feels that God turned away from angels after that whole ordeal with Abaddon in favour of humanity, so he intends to show to God just how deranged and evil humanity can get.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion is a bit of an odd one, because the "being that rebels against the order of God" does so because she (Homura) loves God (Madoka) and thought the latter was not truly happy being God. So she yanks Madoka out of the heavens and becomes a God of Evil so she can reconstruct an idealized version of Madoka's old life as a mortal. As an afterthought, she also bitchslaps the Incubators. Madoka wasn't evil and didn't seem unhappy, but the movie sneakily justifies Homura's actions, so it's pretty hard to tell who to root for.
  • The plot of Record of Ragnarok revolves around the Jerkass Gods deciding to Kill All Humans, and the thirteen most powerful humans who ever lived challenging them to a series of death matches in order to ensure our survival.
  • The main character of The Saga of Tanya the Evil curses God, or as she calls him, Being X, a lot. On one hand, Being X is a Jerkass God who is forcing her to live through a magical WWI in a twisted variant of the Book of Job to see if she will break down and pray to him if he makes her miserable enough. And forcefully transitioned Tanya against his (now her) will. On the other hand, after dropping her into that setting, most of Tanya's problems aren't actually his doing, just the results of ordinary men making bad decisions in the name of personal or national pride, and/or Tanya's own character flaws.
  • In Saint Seiya Omega, it turns out Taurus Harbingir has quite a bit of this from his days growing up as a Street Urchin, due to God never answering the prayers of the poor and oppressed. As a result, he doesn't really care about who wins the Holy War, as long as he can have a good fight. This is what drives him to ultimately side with Athena, as her forces are usually fewer than her enemies', which means more rivals per capita. And little by little, her ideals kinda rub on him...
  • The second half of The Tower of Druaga reveals that the titular tower is an ancient weapon built to wage war on the gods in heaven. After acquiring the Blue Crystal Rod at the end of the 1st half, Neeba takes control of the tower, activating the top portion, and uses it to do just that — firing great blasts of energy into the heavens, which the gods swiftly return. He is an embodiment of Druaga at this point...

    Arts 
  • The Last Supper: Thomas is pointing his index finger straight upward while staring directly at Jesus as if to ask why would God destine one of the Apostles to be a traitor. And why would he give his own sown such a terrible death.

    Comic Books 
  • Cerebus the Aardvark: Cerebus yells at the skies and denounces his deity Tarim when he thinks that Jaka has died.
  • Thoth-Amon after summoning the power of Acheron in the Conan the Barbarian miniseries Book of Thoth. It seems that no matter how evil you are, you're not going to let an ancient monster take your body to use to enslave the world.
  • Will Eisner's Contract with God is one of the few examples where we learn that it's not a good idea to think God owes you something for reasons other than getting a bolt from the blue.
  • Deadpool: On occasion, Deadpool will let rip at the creator after a particularly traumatic/humiliating experience. However, Deadpool being Deadpool, his wrath is not so much aimed at any in-universe God as much as it is that story's writer.
  • Death to the Mutants: Faced with the return of one of the space gods known as Celestials, the creators of his race, the Deviant ruler Kro does not hold back.
    Kro: There's an ancient Deviant proverb I often find useful to meditate upon, which I'll share. Hopefully it'll be useful to you... ..."The Celestials can go £&#$ themselves."
  • Fantastic Four: Reed Richards does this . He builds a portal into heaven and, after fighting through hordes of angels and hammering on the pearly gates, he politely asks God (represented by Jack Kirby) to bring Ben Grimm back to life.
  • Ghost Rider: Partly inspiring Spawn, Ghost Riders suffer from the same problem mentioned above. Not as frequently, but angels tend to be immune to the penance stare. The Ghost Rider mini "Heaven's on Fire" has the Ghost Rider brothers (Johnny and Danny) trying to get into heaven to stop a rogue angel.
  • Green Lantern: In the backstory of Saint Walker, his world was dying. He and his family went on a pilgrimage to the top of a sacred mountain hoping to find their world's messiah. The journey was hazardous, and his family perished one by one. In the end, Saint Walker reached the mountain's peak alone... and found nothing. He snapped and screamed at the heavens. Subverted almost immediately afterwards, however, as an event that he took as a sign from the heavens led him to realize that he was the messiah, and he ended up living up to the title.
  • Immortal Hulk: In the final issue, the Hulks get to come face-to-face with the One Above All, and Hulk asks why he has to suffer. The One just responds with answers Hulk can't understand, and Joe Fixit soon decides they're not going to get a straight answer, telling the One to get lost. Which is implied was their plan all along.
  • The basic thrust of Harry Kipling (Deceased) is Kipling trying to kill as many gods as he can. He's actually pretty good at it.
  • John Constantine, main character of Hellblazer, finds himself in this position half of the time. The other half, he's against the boys downstairs. Probably worth mentioning that he holds both sides in contempt.
  • Jesse Custer, the main character of Preacher, sets out to find God and make Him answer for abandoning the cosmos; this eventually escalates to the point that Jesse dies to bait God back to Heaven, where the Saint of Killers kills him.
  • Reversed in Lucifer, in which Satan actually ends up defending heaven against the forces of the Lilim. He is not unaware of the irony. Nonetheless, he manages to persuade God to pass over his reign to someone else through logic: What is the most difficult thing for an omnipotent being to do? To do nothing at all.
  • The Mighty Thor:
    • Desak the God Slayer was once a faithful mortal until his patron deity showed his true colors and he acquired a magical amulet. The result: one seriously PO'd "Kill the God first, ask questions never" cosmic agent of vengeance whom all the gods fear.
    • Gorr the God Butcher is a Nay-Theist who managed to take hold of All-Black the Necrosword, a god-killing super-weapon, and promptly went mad with power, devoting the rest of eternity to slaughtering gods across the universe due to having formed the belief that God Is Evil. Ironically, this makes him a God of Evil in his own right.
  • New Gods: According to the New 52, this is Darkseid's Start of Darkness. The reason the Old Gods are dead? Uxas got pissed at them constantly amusing themselves by fighting and causing massive collateral damage to the mortals like him who lived at their feet, so he killed them all and stole their power, becoming Darkseid.
  • The Punisher: Frank Castle, particularly in stories written by Garth Ennis, displays this every once in a while.
    "There are times I'd like to get my hands on God."
  • Spawn spends just as much time fighting angels who apparently can't tell that he's a good guy as he does battling crazy people and demons. The fact that he was created solely to be Hell's general makes some angels think his turn is inevitable. Ironically, the ruler of Heaven (being just as evil as the devil) is not the one true God, who actually is implied to have some sympathy for the hellspawn.
  • There's a short comic story in Stray Bullets about a little girl named Amy Racecar who meets God. God cheerfully tells her that he never interferes with mortal affairs, built heaven for himself just so he could be comfortable, and that her father ceased to exist as soon as he dies, which is the fate of all humans. She snaps and goes into a self-induced coma until government scientists use a "truth ray" that displays memories on a TV screen to find out what she was hiding, causing everybody in the world to see her as the anti-Christ. She finally goes all the way off the deep end and systematically sets out to destroy everything God has ever made just to spite him being an asshole, and she succeeds.
  • In The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, after the crew ends up in what appears to be the afterlife, Rodimus, desperate to get back on track, starts angrily demanding an audience with Primus and hurling verbal abuse at the gods when they don’t respond. Cue Bolt of Divine Retribution that transports him to a spiritual courtroom, with the gods all giving him the most terrifying Death Glares imaginable. Talk about Be Careful What You Wish For.
    "Yo! Primus! Rodimus here. Long-time fan, first-time caller. I'm extremely hacked off! I am! I'm raging! You brought me here against my will! I don't care if you're an omnipotent deity who's older than time itself, I want a face-to-face right now. Now, you're either too cowardly to show up in person or you're too arrogant! Which is it, pal?!"
  • The What If?: Secret Wars (1984) one-shot features Doctor Doom retaining the Beyonder's power, plus a few extra trinkets, then taking on the status quo all the way up to the Celestials. The applicable quote is "What man has wrought, let no god put asunder."
  • Eppy Thatcher from Grendel subscribes to the belief that God Is Evil, and has "God hates me" as his catchphrase. Then again, this is a guy who's so messed up that he believes he killed God at the end of his run as Grendel.
  • In the comic book Hellblazer, The First of the Fallen (a leader of Hell) tells John Constantine that God is completely insane. John also works out that The First is actually God's conscience, removed at the dawn of creation because he kept nagging at Him.
  • Windfall and Twister have something of a heart to heart in an issue of Suicide Squad.
    Windfall: Excuse me — you're a nun, right?
    Twister: Oh yes. Sister Mary Ignatius. They used to call me Twister. And you're Windfall. We're going to do God's work together.
    Windfall: Do you mind if I ask you a question about God, Sister?
    Twister: Of course not, child!
    Windfall: Why — why does God hate me?
    Twister: Oh, Windfall! God doesn't hate just you! God hates everybody.
    Windfall: ... What?!
    Twister: Well, look at me! Look at you! Look at the state of the world! Do you see the loving hand of a kindly God or somebody's idea of a sick joke? Don't take it personally.

    Fan Works 
  • Doing It Right This Time: Asuka was angry with God after her mother's death and remained angry for ten years, but now that the universe has reset itself and she has another chance to make things right, she decides that he is good after all.
  • Tripocalypse is essentially the aftermath of this for the Left Behind series: "Turbo Jesus" is locked in an airless prison cell in the prologue, which causes the world to make a lot less sense since there is no sovereign will to enforce the laws of physics. The first magic textbook is published by McGraw-Hill five years later.
  • Very early on in With Strings Attached, John yells “Fuck you!” and throws the finger at the heavens to express his resentment at being sent to another planet. Which is pretty damned reckless of him, given that it very well could have been God who sent them there.
  • In The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, the four get so angry at the Pyar gods that even George thinks nasty things about them. Granted, in this case, the Pyars are real and tangible (if enfeebled), so the four are just cautious enough not to say anything out loud — but they sure do complain a lot in their thoughts and via telepathy.
  • Welcome to Silent Hill. Sherlock is trying to kill the God of Silent Hill to get John back.
  • The protagonist of Sophistication and Betrayal rages against the heavens when he gets caught in a rainstorm after a bad day at work. He lampshades it as being the completely logical thing to do.
  • This Percy Jackson fanfic where Percy and Dr. Gordon from the Saw films decide to teach the gods a lesson about messing around with humanity.
  • Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness Act IV: In chapter 16, Rason is so pissed off at Heaven's Aggressive Categorism of all monsters, as well as their blatant refusal to act against Hokuto and Alucard because of their laws, that he actually calls out the Almighty himself over it, accusing him of being out of his mind. The Almighty is ultimately swayed by this but does point out that he's not happy about Rason's "out of his mind" comment.
    Rason: Almighty... are you out of your goddamned mind? How could you, Lord? How could you treat the innocent in such a way? It's not right at all! Luna helped save the world with us! Falla... this Falla, anyway, has been an angel as well in her life. She's protected a human boy from the monsters at the academy, she helped save Luna today as well! How could you? How can you just condemn them like this? Damn it, monsters are no different than humans! Hokuto is plotting to destroy everything! EVERYTHING! And here you try to kill the innocent who have only tried to stop this from happening. We're fighting to save life on Earth, both human and monster alike! And you treat us like we're the evil in the world?! I've had enough, Almighty. I've had enough with your damned rules and laws. [...] If this is how he wants to be with his world... with the innocent lives that exist down below... to treat those lives with prejudice and cruelty just because they aren't human... and to allow real evil, real monsters to roam freely, I will have no part of it!!
  • The Hill of Swords: Shirou indulges in this:
    Shirou: I've decided that I shall slaughter the innocent. I shall murder all who stand in my way, sparing none, until my name is synonymous with fear itself, thus cementing my status as an Anti-Hero. Then, once my reign of terror is finally ended, I shall wait patiently at the Throne of Heroes for however how long it takes until one of the infinite realities that exist that still performs the ritual of the Holy Grail War summons me forth. Then, I shall resume killing all around me until my bloodstained hands hold the Holy Grail itself. Once I have the all-powerful artifact, I shall use it to force the Root of the World, the wellspring of all creation, to assume a human male form in my presence. And then I'm going to kick it in the balls so hard that all of reality will simultaneously feel it.
  • This Bites!:
    • Cross curses the B.R.O.B. (which stands for Bastard Random Omnipotent Being) that sent him into One Piece for his horrible luck twice in Chapter 21, once after the machine-gun-toting Miss Friday traps him in a wide-open area, and once after discovering that said vulture's last action before passing out disabled Soundbite's powers, which means the Straw Hats have no way of stopping the rebellion before Luffy beats Crocodile. The latter is much more blatant:
      Cross: You're enjoying this, aren't you? Let me repeat myself: if I live through this, I had better have some damn good form of compensation coming my way BECAUSE YOU FUCKING OWE ME!
    • Chapter 22 shows that B.R.O.B. heard him, and grants his wish.
  • Knud Knýtling, Prince of Denmark does this in a hilariously passive-aggressive way.
    Knud: I send all my problems to church. Because I hate God. And myself.
  • The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Night Blade does this not long after Balance appears to him to give him his last chance at earning his Element.
  • In the Good Omens fic Shifting Heaven and Earth, the angel Kralel goes on one when he learns that Gabriel and the other angels are about to execute Aziraphale for the crime of giving away his flaming sword to Adam and Eve because he didn't want them to be cold and that God doesn't care enough to intervene. He loudly denounces God, tells Gabriel that he no longer wants to be like him and flips him the double bird, and then willingly Falls and becomes the demon Crowley from canon.
  • In Chaos Effect, Edwin is asked by Pegasus what he wants out of life. Edwin states that his desire is when he finally meets the gods of this world he can look them in the eye... and spit in their faces before smugly informing them he brought more joy into the world than they ever did.
  • Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters: In Chapter 33, following Uncle's death, Yan Lin screams at the sky, knowing that the Oracle is watching her and demanding an answer from him about how much suffering the heroes are expected to go through.
  • In A Loud Among Demons, Lincoln realizes that the C.H.E.R.U.B angles don't actually want to help people but rather use them for personal gain. He finally has enough and chews them out for having the nerve to spout goodwill and nobility while ignoring people (like himself, considering his situation) who need genuine help.
    Lincoln: You three talk of saving people and that God would never resist a soul in need. Then where were you for me, huh?! I was kidnapped and nearly became a sacrifice for a psycho teacher! No cherub was there to save me, but [I.M.P] did! No one in Heaven thought to stop a woman named Ms. Mayberry from killing her cheating husband, or herself, or stop a family of killers, or save people from a giant fish monster! As long as they bring something to God's table, they're good enough for Heaven, is that it?! Well, you know what?! I think I'll take my chances with Hell!
  • The Palaververse: When talking about Saddle Arabian religion, they now believe that God Is Evil, hating their Creation and some use Success as Revenge that Creator, or in its own words:
    its more philosophical inhabitants inclined to regard the very act of living happy lives as an act of defiance against the Creator.
  • In The Miraculous Tales of Consistent Narrative and Characterization, Gabriel Agreste once had strong faith in the Kwami (who in the story are known and worshipped by people). However, in the five years he searched for Tikki and Plagg for a cure to his wife's illness, he never once found them. And then when he akumatized one of Tikki's followers to work out his frustration, it's only then that the Kwami's appear through their new chosens. Enraged that they finally appeared after years of fruitless belief and searching because of his crimes, he declares that if the Kwamis of Creation and Destruction will only appear to the faithless, then he will be the villain that shall take their Miraculous, use them to heal his wife if possible, then lock them away forever.
  • In the Better Bones AU Jayfeather finds StarClan, the heaven-equivalent afterlife whose inhabitants the Clans worship, seems to hate him and try to obstruct him. This is in fact due to him being one of the three prophecies cats which are even more powerful than StarClan which he is unaware of, so he has no idea why they were like this. He often challenges StarClan, culminating in him physically fighting a StarClan warrior to save Hazeltail.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame has this in the Villain Song "Hellfire".
    Frollo: It's not my fault!
    If in God's plan
    He made the Devil so much stronger than a man!
  • Joseph: King of Dreams: In Joseph's Darkest Hour, he is all alone in the dungeon. When it's raining inside his cell and any food he'd hoped to have that night was eaten by rats, he climbs as close to the roof of his cell as he can just to ask God what he did to deserve this.
    Joseph: Oh, God, why are you doing this to me? Do you hear me?! Any kindness you take away. You're the one who gave me the dreams. You brought me the gift! Some gift! My dreams are lies. WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?!
  • A brief one in The Lion King. After his argument with Nala, Simba tries to convince himself that there's nothing he can do about the current state of affairs in the Pride Lands, but ultimately, he fails to do so. Not knowing what else to do, he then shouts to the sky, calling to Mufasa:
    Simba: You said you'd always be there for me! [more quietly, and on the verge of tears] But you're not... And it's because of me.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Salieri's philosophical stance in Amadeus. Bitter that God has given the gift of musical genius to the irritating, vulgar young Mozart, Salieri vows to oppose God by doing everything in his power to destroy God's "incarnation". When Mozart dies young, of illness, Salieri concludes that God Is Evil. (Shaffer deliberately chose the title "Amadeus" because he translated it as "beloved of God." It's actually translated as "lover of God.")
  • In The Angel Levine, Morris has suffered a long series of misfortunes and feels God has abandoned him. Levine tries to restore his faith, but Morris yells at him, "I will go to my grave cursing God for what He's done to me! I will never forgive Him for what He's done to me! When we die, we die! I will never forgive Him! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!" Levine begs him to stop, but it's too late. Morris's lack of belief destroys Levine's chances of becoming a full angel and causes Fanny to sicken again, leading to the Downer Ending.
  • In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Lex Luthor's hatred of Superman is portrayed as him channeling his hatred of God towards a being that he sees as god-like.
  • In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dracula's wife commits suicide when she hears a (false) report that her husband was killed in battle. Upon returning home, Dracula sees the deceased body of his wife and is coldly told by a priest that, because she committed suicide, her soul is damned. Dracula then flies into a rage and vows that he will take his revenge on God by embracing evil and vampirism.
  • The Brothers Karamazov: Seeing a bunch of idiot fundamentalists spit on the corpse of Elder Zosima leads Alyosha to stagger out of the monastery in hysterics. He shouts at the heavens, asking God why he didn't smite the people who disrespected a holy monk.
  • Bruce Almighty has Bruce yelling and ranting at God (Trope Namer for Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter) until He decides He's had enough of it and declares "Fine, Let's See YOU Do Better!!"
  • The remake of Clash of the Titans features this extensively, with mankind as a whole either refusing to worship the gods or calling them out for their cruelty. The gods do not take kindly to either.
  • The Devil's Advocate (though, as given by Satan):
    "Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it: he gives man INSTINCTS. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does he do - I swear, for his own amusement, his own private cosmic gag reel - he sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all-time. Look, but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste! Taste; don't swallow. And while you're jumping from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughing his SICK, FUCKING ASS OFF! He's a tight ass! He's a SADIST! He's an absentee landlord! Worship that? Never!"
  • Fallen Angel Bartleby finally loses it close to the end of Dogma and his quest to go home turns into this trope:
    Bartleby (as he's preparing to destroy the universe): "Seeing you people every day on this perfect world He created for you is a constant reminder that, though my kind came first, your kind was most revered. And while you know forgiveness, we know only regret. The lesson must be taught. All are accountable... even God!"
  • Feast of Love: Harry sadly suggests God either doesn't exist or else despises humanity in the wake of Oscar's tragic sudden death after he already lost his son as well. Bradley rejects this idea, and Harry doesn't seem to believe it firmly himself.
  • In Fight Club the narrator and Tyler Durden discuss this when Tyler tries to 'enlighten' the narrator by means of burning his hand with lye.
    Tyler Durden: Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?
    Narrator: No, no, I... don't...
    Tyler Durden: Listen to me! You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, He hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen.
    Narrator: It isn't?
    Tyler Durden: We don't need Him!
  • The film Forrest Gump has Lt. Dan in the storm scene.
  • In The Grey, Ottway (Liam Neeson), who is now the only survivor left alive, screams at the sky for God to do something to help him, shouting through tears:
    Ottway: FUCK FAITH! EARN IT! SHOW ME SOMETHING REAL...!
  • Left Behind:
    • At the end of the second movie, Gordon Currie's Antichrist takes a moment to issue up a vitriol-laden prayer castigating God for cheating on their deal by having someone proclaim Jesus the Messiah and not him.
    "This is not the end! This is MY time! MY will be done!"
  • Early on in Let It Ride, Jay Trotter, while in a bathroom stall, prays to God and asks for just one good day at the track because he feels he does. Later, during the first race, when the horse he's bet on is running behind, Trotter looks up at the sky and screams, "I thought we had a deal!"
  • A mild example in Lethal Weapon where Murtaugh (seeing the situation he is in with Riggs as a partner) says "God hates me", and Riggs responds "Hate Him back: it works for me".
  • In Life with Father, the reverend begins a prayer for the ill Vinnie with a standard 1890s supplication on behalf of "this miserable sinner." Her husband Clarence takes instant umbrage with this and starts yelling at the heavens (or rather, the ceiling) that Vinnie is not miserable and the Almighty knows it and that He'd better get moving and make her better now.
  • Manhunter: Lektor expresses a very low opinion of God even as he declares A God Am I.
    Lektor: Did you really feel depressed after you shot Mr. Garrett Jacob Hobbes to death? I think you probably did. But it wasn't the act that got to you. Didn't you feel so bad, because killing him felt so good? And why shouldn't it feel good? It must feel good to God. He does it all the time. God's terrific! He dropped a church roof on 34 of his worshipers in Texas last Wednesday night, just as they were groveling through a hymn to his majesty. Don't you think that felt good?
    Will: Why does it feel good, Dr. Lektor?
    Lektor: It feels good because God has power. If one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is. God's a champ. He always stays ahead. He got 140 Filipinos in one plane crash last year. Remember that earthquake in Italy last spring?
  • Pitch Black: Richard B. Riddick has this to say on the matter to the Imam:
    Riddick: Think someone could spend half their life in the slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God... And I absolutely hate the fucker.
  • In Prisoners, this is the motivation of the people who have been abducting and murdering children. They blame God for their son dying of cancer, so by attacking other people's children, they drive their parents insane with anger and grief. This will lead to the parents going into He Who Fights Monsters territory trying to get their children back, which means they won't go to Heaven and be with God.
  • The Rapture: Sharon denounces God after she kills her daughter.
  • Season of Miracles: After Zack learns that Rafer is dying, he runs to the baseball field, slumps against the backstop, and yells, "Rebecca says You do everything. You have a reason FOR EVERYTHING!!"
  • Star Trek V: The Final Frontier might count, even though it probably wasn't the real God. "What does God need with a starship?"
  • In Star Wars, the Sith religion is based around this. Both sides are aware that the Force is sentient, but while the Jedi seek to understand and live in harmony with it, the Sith are powered by The Corruption within it, seeking to enslave the Force as a whole and bend it to their will. The Light side is the Force's natural state of being according to Word of God, and so it tries to destroy its own corruptive influence by tipping the odds in the Jedi's favor. The Chosen One was the direct result of this; Darth Plagueis sought to use his powers in a Sith ritual to directly assume control of the Force, but it rebelled against him and created the Skywalkers, who then spent generations kicking the Sith back into the shadows whenever they popped up.
  • In Stranger Than Fiction, the Narrator refers to Harold as "cursing the heavens in futility", to which he responds, "No I'm not, I'm cursing YOU!" Since the Narrator is in fact the author writing Harold's story, it's both.
  • In The Sunset Limited, Black is a man of God who tries to dissuade White from suicide and is nearly driven to the Despair Event Horizon by White's final Despair Speech and departure. Black lashes out at God for not giving him the wisdom to help White.
    Black: I don't understand why you sent me down there! I don't understand! If you wanted me to help him, then how come you didn't give me the words? You gave them to him! What about me!?
  • Thor: Love and Thunder: Gorr the God-Butcher's schtick is that he will kill all gods, having met the god he originally believed in and discovered him to be an unrepentant Jerkass God who laughed at his suffering (and most of the gods in the movie, while not actively assholish, don't seem keen on the whole "answer prayers" bit).
  • Interestingly, TRON: Legacy gives this position to the villain, throwing a thematic twist on the usual Turned Against Their Masters motivation.
  • The film The Truman Show is an outright parody of this concept, except the "heavens" are a film crew.
  • In The Virgin Spring, after finding his murdered daughter's body, Töre rages at God that he can't understand why God would allow this to happen. But then he asks for forgiveness and promises to build a church on the spot.
  • In the obscure movie Wholly Moses!, after a film's worth of the world dumping on him, the title character has it out with God. Despite some really great cameos by Richard Pryor and John Ritter, the movie would have been forgettable if not for his great response to God's questioning.
    "Who are you to question God?"
    "I am Man!"
  • X-Men: Apocalypse. Erik Lehnsherr does this after his family is accidentally killed by the Polish police. Unfortunately, God answers in the form of Apocalypse.
    Erik: IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME? IS THIS WHO I AM?!

    Literature 
  • Adrian Mole occasionally expresses contempt for God in his diary. He sees a vicar about having lost his faith, who replies "Oh God, not another one!"
  • In The Balanced Sword, the heroine's discovery of the truth about her parents' death results in her spending several minutes ranting at the sky, accusing her god of abandoning Its faithful and demanding an explanation. She is more than a little shocked when It actually gives her an answer.
  • Chauntecleer in The Book of the Dun Cow goes into one of these when his children are killed. God does reply by sending the Dun Cow, who consoles him.
  • In Catch-22, Yossarian's rant against God starts out as God Is Inept and goes to God Is Evil:
    "And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued. ..."There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"
  • In Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing, a priest tells the story of a heretic who lost his family and demanded that if God exists, that he reveal himself by killing him on the spot or showing him some sign of his existence. The heretic sat for days in the same spot under a tower, asking for God to cause the tower to fall and kill him.
  • Discworld:
    • Notably in The Last Hero, the world's oldest and most successful barbarian hero, Cohen, tries to plant a bomb in the mountaintop home of the gods.
    • The trope is referenced for analogy's sake in the very first book, where the Disc's first tourist is described thus:
    • From Small Gods, when describing the Just Following Orders / Punch-Clock Villain nature of the Quisition.
      "But there were things to suggest to a thinking man that the Creator of mankind had a very oblique sense of fun indeed, and to breed in his heart a rage to storm the gates of heaven."
      • Simony, a character from the same book, is indeed so filled with rage that he tells the god all this is in service to "you can't get around me by existing!". Om (who had nothing to do with setting it up) actually thinks he's pretty awesome for this, and he ends up in charge of dismantling the system.
    • In Unseen Academicals, Lord Vetinari expresses his opinion on gods thus:
      Lord Vetinari: If there is any kind of supreme being, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.
  • The wizard Raistlin Majere in the Dragonlance novels, especially the Chronicles and Legends trilogies. Chronicles shows Raistlin's rise to power from a frail young man with ambitions who makes a dark pact with the ghost of an evil undead wizard Fistandantilus and ultimately takes his place, absorbing that wizard's power. After ironically siding with the good guys (his former friends) to help defeat an evil goddess (the Dragon Queen) and banishing her back to her realm, Raistlin becomes the Master of Past and Present. In Legends, Raistlin and his brother travel back in time to when Fistandantilus was still alive and mortal, and Raistlin manages to kill the old wizard, changing history yet not: the price of taking Fistandantilus' power is being trapped in the timeline, having to take Fistandantilus' place in history, until Raistlin finds a loophole. Raistlin's plan for ultimate power is revealed: To ascend to godhood himself by destroying the Dragon Queen that presides over all that is Evil in the world of Krynn and setting himself up as the new god in her stead. His brother travels to a future where Raistlin succeeded but his victory spelled destruction for the world, turning it into a lifeless wasteland, a mirror of Raistlin's own empty soul. Back in the present where Raistlin has already entered the hellish Abyss, the domain of the Dragon Queen, in an attempt to lure her out to Krynn where she can be defeated, the vision of this dismal future and of the death of the few people he still cares about convinces him to abandon his plans. He sacrifices himself to re-seal the portal to the Abyss, trapping himself in eternal torment.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Harry does this in Small Favor when Michael is in critical condition after being shot by the Denarians. Uriel shows up then as well to surreptitiously point out he's already gotten help.
    • In Ghost Story, Harry Dresden rages against archangel Uriel a few times. Unusually for this trope, Uriel gives patient, reasonable answers:
      Harry: Arrrgh! Can't you give me a straight answer? Is there some law of the universe that compels you to be so freaking mysterious?
      Uriel: Several, actually. All designed for your protection.
    • In the same book:
      Harry: You're just going to stand there?
      Uriel: Mmmm. It does seem that perhaps she deserves some form of aid. Perhaps if I'd had the presence of mind to see to it that some sort of agent had been sent to balance the scales, to give her that one tiny bit of encouragement, that one flicker of inspiration that turned the tide... Things might be different now.
      Mort: Hey. You. Arrogant bitch ghost. I'm not really into this whole hero thing. Don't have the temperament for it. Don't know a lot about the villain side of the equation, either. But it seems to me, you half-wit, that you probably shouldn't have left a freaking ectomancer a pit full of wraiths to play with.
  • Earth's Children: Thonolan begins going on rants against the Great Earth Mother when his mate Jetamio suffers multiple miscarriages, demanding to know why the Mother would keep letting Jetamio keep getting pregnant only to lose them, especially as Jetamio really wants a baby and has prayed to have a living child. Jondalar helplessly says he has no answers for his brother.
  • Egil's Saga (invoked): In his grief poem about the drowning of his son Bodvar, Egil expresses his regret that he has no power to avenge himself on Aegir and Ran, the gods of the sea.
    If a sword could heal my hurt,
    Aegir would brew no more beer.
    I'd fling myself at that fierce
    Wave-raiser and his mate, Ran.
  • Happens in Egil Skallagrimsson's Saga, a 12th-century chronicle of the lives of a particularly crazy family of vikings. Towards the end, Egil's son drowns in a storm and Egil proceeds to write the absolutely heartwrenching poem Sonatorrek (the Theft of Sons) in which Egil states he wants to fight and kill Ægir and Ran (the sea gods). In the same poem, he expresses this trope towards Odin as well, though in a very cloven way. Egil thinks Odin has betrayed him but acknowledges Odin as the source of his ability to write the poem and handling his grief.
  • Many characters in the Everworld series end up at odds with various gods. One in particular, an alien god known as Ka Anor, eats other gods. The series' Magnificent Bastard is also planning to overthrow all the pantheons and install herself as the absolute ruler of Everworld.
  • In Rupert Brooke's Failure, the protagonist breaks into Heaven so that he can curse God to His face. Subverted in that he finds Heaven is long-deserted.
  • Fate/strange Fake: Heracles is summoned as True Archer, but after being corrupted by the Grail Mud and his Master's Command Spells, he develops a murderous hatred of the gods, blaming them for his various tragedies like the deaths of his children and his wife Deianeira betraying him. He rejects his own Divinity and changes his name back to Alcides because he was a servant of the gods under the name Heracles. He attacks anybody who has Divinity and says he will destroy everything the gods have built.
  • Lester del Rey's short story "For I Am a Jealous People" has humanity discovering that God does exist, but is supporting the aliens currently invading Earth and planning humanity's extinction. The story ends with humans discovering that having turned His back on them means God can't affect things humans are directly involved in; a nuclear-warhead tipped missile might suffer technical failures preventing its successful use, but not if it's modified so that a human is inside controlling it, and there's no shortage of people willing to sacrifice themselves to save others. The viewpoint character, a Christian minister, upon discovering this ends the story with a sermon to his congregation promising that humanity will make God answer for his actions.
  • The protagonist of The Gadfly, Arthur, a discouraged Christian turned atheist, is arrested for smuggling weapons into Italy for a revolution. Before his execution, a cardinal named Montanelli visits him, who happens to be his childhood mentor and the man he once revered. Arthur proposes to reconcile with Montanelli if he abandons Christianity and helps Arthur escape from prison. Montanelli chooses his faith over Arthur and the next morning, when Arthur is executed, he lays in Montanelli's arms and remarks how his death was like a sacrifice to God.
  • The basis of the plot in Julian May's Galactic Milieu trilogy centers around the main protagonist rebelling against galactic civilization and it's implied Ascended state because of his immense ego and jealousy of his brother's mutation. The trilogy is a homage to Paradise Lost, and is subverted rather neatly: the creator of the galactic civilization is the antagonist himself, after a trip through a one-way time gate and a Heel–Face Turn. The post-climax confrontation between the antagonist and his future self directly alludes to the antagonist playing the part of Lucifer in a modern-day allegory.
  • Gone by Michael Grant. Quinn initially blames God for the FAYZ, much to the chagrin of Astrid, who's a practicing Catholic.
  • In Good Omens, before the protagonists have to deal with Satan, they first get into a sticky metaphysical debate with the representatives of both Hell's and Heaven's respective bureaucracies, while the fate of Earth hangs in the balance. The Metatron comes off looking no more sympathetic to mankind than Beelzebub does in this confrontation. Oddly for this trope, God comes off looking both good and Magnificent Bastard-y.
    • Subverted in the case of Agnes Nutter. During her execution for being a witch, Agnes raises her head and appears to be badmouthing the Heavens over her fate. Fast forward to when the scene is revisited in the last third of the book with a different viewpoint character having an out-of-body experience. Turns out Agnes was actually calling HIM out as he floated above the stake she was tied to.
  • Jax in The Grim Reaper's Apprentice is not amused to learn that Heaven is punishing his parents, and declares he'll fight the gods for it.
  • In Heaven's Bones, the gypsy Trueblood urges on a mad surgeon's creation of living "angels" from kidnapped women, and plots to use them to storm Heaven and oust the residents, including God, so he can become a deity. Subverted in that Trueblood is an escapee from Ravenloft, and doesn't grasp that God honestly isn't the sort of Physical God he's used to hearing about from D&D's pantheon-style faiths.
  • In the third book of His Dark Materials, Lord Asriel unites dozens of universes to declare war on God. It turns out that "God" is just the first angel to have come into existence. He's unbelievably old, and when the protagonists release him from his crystal cage, he disintegrates into nothingness. His regent, Metatron, who was responsible for the evils for which God was blamed, is killed by Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, who drag him into a bottomless pit.
  • The protagonist of Horns concludes that the reason why God allowed his ex-girlfriend to be raped and killed is because he is actually not very fond of humans, and detests women in particular, because they, like him, can create life and also because they can redefine love as they see fit. He also compares him to a gangster, only offering his protection in exchange for blind faith and worship.
  • In Dan Simmons' Illium and Olympos, one of the main characters' life is controlled by Applied Phlebotinum versions of the Greek gods. Knowing he has broken the rules and is about to die, he turns the Greeks and Trojans against the gods. Unlike most examples, these gods don't wait for the heroes to find them. Instead, they try to kill them with nuclear bombs.
  • Inferno (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle): The protagonist, trapped in Hell, ineffectively declares war on a clearly evil and sadistic God (although, being a sci-fi author, he refers to God with joking names like "Big Juju" and "The Builders").
  • Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter features an omnicidal war machine that plans to destroy all of creation as revenge for being created. Most of the events that happen to and around the title character are a decades-long plan to ruin her life to the point that she would be willing to help. Apparently, it needs a pilot to pull the trigger.
  • The Jehova Contract by Victor Koman. A killer for hire has cancer; Satan promises to cure him if he kills God. Alas, Satan hasn't calculated the interests of third divine parties... With a little help by The Great Mother Goddess, the killer goes through with his plan. He can't bring himself to pull the trigger, but after his Hiob speech - what a lousy job the universe is - God commits suicide. Satan triumphs...just to be shot by The Great Mother Goddess, as he's an asshole too. Then She reinstates her lost reign. Not everything is dandy, but it's an improvement, at least.
  • Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein largely boils down to this theme in the end.
  • In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong attempts this. He gets extremely close and is only stopped when Buddha himself intervenes.
  • A variation occurs in Lands of Ice and Mice. The Manupataq religion believes that Jesus Christ is actually the bringer of plagues. They do actually use crosses to mark villages that are under quarantine.
  • Log Horizon contains a more metaphoric example. Izuzu is outraged that "the gods" (i.e. Elder Tales' programmers) only gave the Landers 42 songs. She claims that she is going to beat up the god that made up such a rule.
  • When Dirk Gently's status as a Not-So-Phony Psychic kicks in once again in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, he nearly gets arrested for standing on his roof in the middle of the night shaking his fist at the sky and yelling "Stop it!"
  • Roger Zelazny's novel Lord of Light is a Science Fiction/Hindu Mythology take on this trope (the book is made of Science Fiction takes on Fantasy tropes), where the protagonist, Sam, sets himself up as the Buddha to overthrow the colonists who rule over the Lost Colony where the book takes place as Hindu gods.
  • Malazan Book of the Fallen:
    • Clip has taken it as his task to confront the lost god of the Bluerose Andii, the Black-Winged Lord for abandoning them and not answering their prayers. The full extent of his mission is never revealed, though it seems that he plans to fight him.
    • Dassem Ultor broke with Patron deity, Hood after the latter did something to Dassem's daughter. So Dassem swore revenge on Hood and means to kill the God of Death no matter what or how long it will take.
  • Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger features Satan, the sinless nephew of that Satan, delivering a speech stating that reality is a dream, because a world where God does such evil things and is still worshiped as good is clearly the nonsensical creation of an unconscious mind. Part of this speech can be found in the Quotes section of this very page.
  • In Elie Wiesel's Night, his autobiography about the Holocaust, Elie starts to show a shaken faith in God after a beloved servant boy is hanged. During Rosh Hashanah, he starts to question God's will and condemns Him for putting him and the other Jews through hell for no reason. Later, during Yom Kippur, when his father tells him not to fast, he decides not to... although mainly as an act of rebellion against God.
  • In Noob, this is the case of the Order as a whole. Their native continent, Syrial, was frozen in time, Unpersoned and made inaccessible by the rest of the world via being surrounded by a Perpetual Storm by their world's gods for the latter's own reasons. When the gods ended the freeze and they woke up to realize that the gods had broken their vow to not interfere with the free will of mortals, they were understandably angry. Since the Coalition has Undying Loyalty towards the gods and the Empire tries to stay on the gods' good side because they need their magic to fuel most of their technology, the Order is hostile to both other factions.
  • Satan in John Milton's Paradise Lost. The book itself is not a criticism of God or religion, and is only interpreted as a story like this because it centers around Satan in an effort to show his downfall and folly.
  • The motive of Luke Castellan, the main antagonist of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. His plan was to overthrow the gods of Olympus by resurrecting Kronos as revenge for their mistreatment of demigods.
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound is all about Prometheus' efforts to overthrow the tyrannical rule of Jupiter for the benefit of both gods and humans.
  • The main plot of Ravelling Wrath. Rinn is chosen to represent the Blood God in the Ravelling, but the Blood God wants her to kill the Farseer – and the one who was chosen to be the Farseer is Rinn's girlfriend, Yali. Rinn and Yali immediately try to figure out how to get out of doing what the Blood God wants.
  • Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell, a novel re-imagining the revolt of the Rebel Angels in Heaven from the perspective of Satan himself.
  • In the Old Norse Saga of Hrolf Kraki, the eponymous hero and his band of champions unwittingly piss off Odin when they refuse the weapons he (disguised as a Swedish farmer) would give them. Vindictive as Odin is, he lends his favor to Hrolf's enemies, which results in the destruction of Hrolf and his warriors, but not before the champion Bodvar Bjarki has delivered a long rant on what a cowardly jerk Odin is:
    "(...) I have a strong suspicion [Odin] will be lurking round here somewhere, dirty treacherous devil that he is, and if anyone could point him out to me, I'd squeeze him like any other miserable measly little mouse, and I'll have some none too reverent sport with that nasty venomous creature, if I get a hold of him."
  • In Steve Aylett's Shamanspace, God is proved to exist, and the race is on to kill him.
  • Occurs on a national scale in The Silmarillion, when the men of Numenor begin thinking that the Valar and elves are holding them back from immortality. They start to hate the Valar, eventually adopting Sauron's Religion of Evil and ultimately attempting to launch an invasion against them. Unlike many other examples on this page (but in keeping with Tolkien's beliefs), this is shown to be both futile and self-defeating: their hatred and rebellion only make their lives shorter and more unpleasant, through no actual effort of the Valar, and their attempted invasion is stopped cold by an act of God that wipes out the fleet and their home island.
  • It's not clear-cut whether or not the gods actually exist in A Song of Ice and Fire, but Tyrion Lannister, upon hearing someone tell him he should thank the Father Above for granting him the gift of being able to make others laugh, privately hopes that he dies with a crossbow in hand so he can thank the Father Above the way he thanked the Father Below for his "gifts".
  • This is a staple of many of Thomas Ligotti's stories, especially "Nethescurial", "The Tsalal", "The Shadow, The Darkness", and the Great Black Swine from My Work is Not Yet Done. "The Sect of the Idiot" actually opens with a quote regarding Azathoth (see above).note  From the ending of "Nethescurial":
    "See, there is no shape in the fireplace. The smoke is gone, gone up the chimney and out into the sky. And there is nothing in the sky, nothing I can see through the window. There is the moon, of course, high and round. But no shadow falls across the moon, no churning chaos of smoke that chokes the frail order of the earth, no shifting cloud of nightmares enveloping moons and suns and stars. It is not a squirming, creeping, smearing shape I see upon the moon, not the shape of a great deformed crab scuttling out of the black oceans of infinity and invading the island of the moon, crawling with its innumerable bodies upon all the spinning islands of inky space. That shape is not the cancerous totality of all creatures, not the oozing ichor that flows within all things. Nethescurial is not the secret name of the creation. It is not in the rooms of houses and beyond their walls... beneath dark waters and across moonlit skies... below earth mound and above mountain peak... in northern leaf and southern flower... inside each star and the voids between them... within blood and bone, through all souls and spirits... among the watchful winds of this and the several worlds... behind the faces of the living and the dead."
  • Part One of Till We Have Faces is a complaint against all the gods for meddling in mortal affairs while remaining hidden from clear sight. Part Two begins with the narrator, now on her deathbed, admitting her complaint was a perjury. The gods could never face a woman who refused to truly see herself, to see that she would rather see her father figure, her love, and her sister alone, hated, or dead than happy if it meant them belonging to a god that was not her.
  • In The Traitor Son Cycle, at one point the Red Knight, having had enough of religious preaching of people around him, rants, half at Sister Amicia and half at God, that the latter is a horrible creature and is unworthy of worship if He lets people go through as much crap as Red Knight did.
  • Bluestar in Warrior Cats declares war on StarClan after series of disasters strike her clan and Tigerclaw is granted leadership and nine lives by StarClan.
  • At the end of The Wheel of Time book 12, Rand gets one of these and nearly unmakes reality before he talks himself down.
  • The Northern Church in Wise Phuul believes in a malign monotheistic Creator God. They conclude that God must be fought at every opportunity.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Amazing Stories (2020): In "The Heat" Tuka angrily asks God or whoever else is up there why she's stuck around as a ghost if she can't help Sterling.
  • Babylon 5 has its main plot arc close with the rejection of the two races of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens seeking to win over the humans and the other younger races. While they're not gods, they go to great lengths to set themselves up as such: one goes to great lengths to be mysterious, and when they're seen outside of their encounter suits, they look like angels... because they inspired all races' angel myths. The others are demons. And while they're not destroyed, they're run out of town with a resounding "Now get the hell out of our galaxy — both of you!", with the clear message that they're no longer needed.
  • The Boys (2019): Butcher argues against the existence of a loving God at the Believe Expo, saying if God exists he's cruel and hates humanity given how much suffering the world has.
  • Death in Paradise: In a late season 2 episode, DI Richard Poole is attempting to take a photo of a weather box, but then the sun goes in right when he needs it to shine.
    Poole: Oh, for God- 300 days a year, you shine TEN HOURS A DAY! AND THE ONE TIME I ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO SHINE, YOU GO IN!
  • In Everybody Loves Raymond, when Robert realizes that he and his wife have no choice but to live with Robert's parents again (right after he had thought that they would finally have their own place), he looks forlornly upward and has this to say -
    Robert: Was this your plan? Huh? You sat up there, and you put me through everything, and then let me end up like this? Well, let me tell you something, mister...You are not funny!
    (Debra and Ray look at each other)
    Debra: He does screw with him a lot.
  • A classic moment in Fawlty Towers has an overwrought Basil Fawlty screaming "Thank you, God! Thank you so BLOODY much!" during a fire drill gone wrong. He punctuates this by swinging his fists at the ceiling like a lunatic.
  • Hand of God: Pernell rants that God is malicious and sadistic after PJ doesn't come out of his coma.
  • On Hannibal, Lecter notes that, "Killing must feel good to God too—he does it all the time."
    • Later, he speculates whether, if God exists, his killing people could actually be called "good" or "evil".
    • In "Ko No Mono" Hannibal also states that his own "modest actions" pale in comparison with God's.
    • Discussed once again in "Tome-Wan", where Hannibal speculates that to God innocence is offensive, thereby explaining the suffering of innocents.
  • Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess often pitted them against the Greek gods, among others. In the end, Xena was the person who killed the majority of them.
  • On HEX, Ella's angelic advisor actually tries to force himself on her. After beating him up, she tells him to tell God to screw himself. It's made very clear that neither side really cares about the humans caught in the middle.
  • Homicide: Life on the Street: While undergoing a Crisis of Faith during the hunt for a Serial Killer, Frank Pembleton rages against God for allowing a world where senseless violence and brutality happens every day.
    Pembleton: Damn Him!
    Bayliss: The killer?
    Pembleton: God.
    Bayliss: Frank, I don't think you can ask God to damn Himself. And if you do, don't stand next to me because I don't want to get hit by lightning. This is a new suit.
  • Jeremiah:
    • In a show where plague has reduced Earth's population by something in the ninetieth percentile, and one of the characters is a very literal (if reluctant) prophet, the story that could have unfolded from Raging Against the Heavens...and then the show was cancelled.
    • A more specific example, after a particularly heroic and innocent man is killed:
      Jeremiah: Are you happy? Are you satisfied? That's how it works, isn't it? You set us up, you take someone like him, and you give him hope, so you can take it away again? What did he do to you? What did any of us ever do to you? What did the whole fucking world do to you, that we deserve all of this? What, the locusts and the death of the firstborn wasn't good enough for you anymore so now it's the death of the eldest? Death of heroes? You know what? Fuck you. Because we're not just going to lay down and die here anymore. You want to finish off the job? Come down here! Do it yourself! You send the angel of death, you better give him one hell of a big sword, 'cause I tell you what; we are going to kick his ass right back to the great white fucking throne! And then we're coming for you. We're coming for you.
  • In an episode of The Last Kingdom, Guthrum is in a church in the captured town of Wareham and finds out Alfred has arrived with an army to besiege him, giving him no choice but to seek some kind of temporary peace until his reinforcements arrive. He then overturns the altar and looks upward, demanding that if God was real and had power to strike him down. When nothing happens he mutters ''I thought not" and stalks out.
  • Lucifer doesn't do this as much as you'd expect, aside from the usual snide comments about God. However, after the death of Father Frank, who he'd befriended against all odds, he loses it, standing on his balcony and screaming at the heavens, telling Him that it's not fair and that His design is unfair and pointless.
  • The "Trial of Erik Njorl" sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus has the defendant unable to hold the Bible so he can take the oath because he's heavily bandaged. The judge just utters "Screw the Bible!" so he can get the trial over with in time for a Gay Lib meeting.
  • Mouse (2021): Jae-hoon asked God to stop him becoming a monster. It didn't work, so when he becomes a serial killer he chooses victims associated with the seven deadly sins and arranges their bodies so they're pointing their middle finger towards a cross.
  • On One Life to Live, following the Tragic Stillbirth of his and his wife Cassie's baby boy, Reverend Andrew Carpenter sat in the hospital chapel and railed "How could you let this happen?!"
  • In Once Upon a Time, after being tortured by him Hook threatens to kill Hades, the God of Death. When Hades says he can't die, Hook says he'll find what's worse than death and do it to him. Eventually, while in the Underworld he manages to help his living friends above get the necessary information they need to destroy him, which they do.
  • In Russell T. Davies' The Second Coming, Jesus returns to Earth in the shape of Christopher Eccleston, and is immediately subject to a lot of this from various parties. When it becomes obvious that humanity is not going to sort itself out and that he can't prevent the coming apocalypse, he decides to Opt Out, committing suicide and refusing to resurrect afterwards, thereby causing the Cessation of Existence for both God and the Devil.
  • Frank Gallagher in Shameless (US), (announcing to the rising sun) "That all you got? That's it? I'm still here, you fucker! Frank Gallagher! I'm alive! You see me? You see me standing here? (Chuckle) You lost, asshole! I'm alive, motherfucker! Me, Frank Gallagher! Alive. Alive."
  • In Star Trek, Klingon legend presents this as fait accompli. The very first Klingons, it is said, turned on the creator gods and killed them. Why they did this is somewhat unclear, but it seems to make perfect sense to the Klingons themselves. They often say simply, "They were more trouble than they were worth," but this may be a Klingon joke.

    This was explained in Worf/Dax's wedding ceremony in Deep Space Nine, where the legend is told of how the gods forged the Klingon heart, "the strongest heart in all the heavens." But the heart became weak because it was alone, so the gods went back to their forge and made another heart that beat stronger than the first. Jealous of its power the first heart sought to fight, but the second heart was tempered by wisdom. It realized that if they joined together, no force could stop them.
    "And when the two hearts began to beat together, they filled the heavens with a terrible sound. For the first time, the gods knew fear. They tried to flee, but it was too late. The Klingon hearts destroyed the gods who created them and turned the heavens to ashes. To this very day, no one can oppose the beating of two Klingon hearts."
    • In Deep Space Nine, Kai Winn is so furious and humiliated by the fact that the Prophets have never spoken to her or allowed her to use the Orbs while leaving her in the shadow of an alien Emissary (Captain Sisko), that she goes over to the side of their enemies, the Pah-Wraiths.
  • Used in later seasons of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis to a lesser extent. After building up the concept of the Ancients as the most powerful race ever, Daniel Jackson can't wait to meet them. But after he finds out that their belief in free will is so strong that they will not even interfere in someone's plans to annihilate a galaxy, he takes the opportunity to rage at them a little. Michael Shanks (the actor who plays Daniel) even stated in an interview that he likened a scene in Stargate: The Ark of Truth in which Daniel pleads with an ascended Ancient to help him as Daniel talking to God.
  • Shades of this appear on Supernatural. For the main characters, they're pissed at Heaven, not God, and actually want God around, because He's their only chance for coming out of the Apocalypse with their minds, bodies, and souls intact. The demons don't want God around for obvious reasons, and a few angels (Zachariah in particular) don't want him around because without God, ''they're'' running Heaven.
    • In an early season 4 episode, Dean rants a bit about God sitting on his ass, and asks if God cares about humanity, why doesn't he do something? To quote Bobby, "I ain't touching this one with a ten-foot pole." It turns out God's still around, he just doesn't care about the Apocalypse. Which leads to this trope being more obviously shown in "Dark Side of the Moon", where Castiel loses the last traces of his faith — he doesn't rant; he just looks at the ceiling and says quietly, "You son-of-a-bitch. I believed in..."
    • It turns out later God is still around and does care about the Apocalypse, He was just moving In Mysterious Ways, using the Winchesters to stop it without directly intervening. Maybe.
    • Castiel's vessel, Jimmy, rages against heaven after his wife and daughter are taken hostage by demons and Castiel is nowhere to be found.
    • The Season 14 finale reveals that for God, all of existence is nothing more than entertainment and that he has not only watched all the horrible things on earth but has been pulling the strings behind the scenes, instigating all the messed up things the Winchester's had to deal with, purely out of amusement, in order to entertain himself. Season 15 then centers around their fight against God.
  • The West Wing: President Bartlet angrily calls out God with all the fury and eloquence of a learned, devout man after Mrs. Landingham dies. Includes yelling in Latin.
    "You're a son of a bitch, You know that? She bought her first new car and You hit her with a drunk driver. What? Was that supposed to be funny? "You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," says Graham Greene. I don't know whose ass he was kissing there, 'cause I think You're just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman - a warning shot? That was my son! What did I ever do to Yours but praise His glory and praise His Name? There's a tropical storm that's gaining speed and power. They say we haven't had a storm this bad since You took out that tender ship of mine in the North Atlantic last year. Sixty-eight crew. Y'know what a tender ship does? Fixes the other ships! It doesn't even carry guns. It just goes around, fixes the other ships and delivers the mail. That's all it can do. Gratias tibi ago, Domine.note  Yes, I lied. It was a sin. I've committed many sins. Have I displeased You, You feckless thug? 3.8 million new jobs, that wasn't good? Bailed out Mexico, increased foreign trade, thirty million new acres of land for conservation. Put Mendoza on the bench. We're not fighting a war. I've raised three children. That's not enough to buy me out of the doghouse? Haec credam a Deo pio, a Deo iusto, a Deo scito?note  Cruciatus in crucem.note  Trus in terra servus, nuntius fui, officium perfeci.note  Cruciatus in crucem. Eas in crucem.note "
  • In Wild Palms, Senator Anton Kreutzer — founder of the religion of Synthiotics and leader of the Fathers — exults, "We are storming Heaven!" (Not in a supernatural sense; his actual goal is to achieve immortality in virtual reality through a Mimecom technology, the "Go Chip".)

    Manwha 
  • The manwha Peerless Dad has a rather large one near the beginning, where he effectively cusses God out, threatening to rip him off his throne and beat him up after his wife died giving birth to fraternal triplets.

    Music 
  • This trope is a main source of Religion Rant Songs of the Type 1 variety.

  • The musical Ur-Example is the 4-hour metal epic Food for the Gods by Fireaxe, which culminates in Satan leading an army of the demons and damned alike into a war on heaven in which they storm the pearly gates and lay waste to paradise in an attempt to kill God himself. And it works. Sort of.
  • "Dear God" from Skylarking by XTC, initially released as a B-side to the single "Grass" before finding its way onto the US version of the album— as well as on later reissues indiscriminate of region— following its success as a non-album single in America. The lyrics describe the narrator railing against God for not living up to his promises and for the antithetical actions of many of his followers, with the lyrics being ambiguous as to whether the narrator doubts God's ability or his very existence. An outspoken humanist, Andy Partridge seems to voice doubts in the opposite direction in his song "Rook", on the LP Nonsuch.
  • "Elysian Fields", from the Youthanasia album by Megadeth. The song describes a group of men assaulting Heaven.
  • A large number of Religion Rant Songs are built on this trope.
  • The climax of Roy Zimmerman's Jerry Falwell's God has him chewing out that specific deity.
    "And if people are vengeful and jealous and violent, maybe it's because You created them in Your image! And if people have cast You out of the town square, maybe it's because You're a finger-pointing, moralising, rageaholic stone drag who gives deities a bad name! And if people have turned away from Your Word, maybe it's because You got spinach in Your teeth! ...And He smote me."
  • Ill Mind of Hopsin 7
  • Rush's "The Stars Look Down" has the protagonist asking God, "Why me?" and receiving no answer.
    What is the meaning of this?
    And the stars look down
    What are you trying to do?
    And the stars look down
    Was it something I said?
    And the stars look down
    Something you'd like me to do?
    And the stars look down
  • Monty Python's "All things Dull and Ugly" parodies a Christian hymn, praising god for a number of bad things he created.
  • As might be surmised from the name, every other song by Death Metal band Deicide deals with how much they hate God. Whether or not frontman Glenn Benton actually believes in God's existence or is simply trolling Christians remains unclear.
  • Depeche Mode did not want to start any blasphemous rumours, but they think that God has a sick sense of humour (and when they die, they expect to find him... laughing).
  • XTC's "Dear God" from Skylarking: "Did you make disease...", "You're always letting us humans down/The wars you bring, the babes you drown..."
  • Extremely common in Black Metal songs. Deathspell Omega in particular has basically made a career of this (though it should be noted that this does not mean they think Satan Is Good). Some black metal groups go even further - straight into Refuge in Audacity territory - by portraying God as weak and pathetic, and writing songs about humiliating Him.
  • The song "Father, You're Not a Father" by the Death Metal band Immolation is about God being a rapist and a betrayer of men.
  • Alice in Chains was responsible for the song "God Am," in which lead singer Layne Staley vents about how much God has abandoned him. Staley was once reported to have said of God, "I didn't make me. I would've done a better job." There's also a line in the Alice in Chains song "Man In The Box" that says, "Jesus Christ (Deny Your Maker)." The first couple lines being "I'm the man in the box, buried in my shit, won't you come and save me". Apparently someone crying out to God and their cries are met with silence?
  • IAMX's "I Salute You Christopher" - which is dedicated to Christopher Hitchens - "Control yourselves,/ 'cause the man in the sky is a tyrant and a lonely psychopath/ Dreamed up to steal your minds."
  • A frequent theme in progressive sludge metal group The Ocean's lyrics. They even dedicated two albums to tearing down Christianity. Just look at some of their lyrics:
    "A world with God would be even more disturbing than a universe without him
    For if He tolerates atrocities
    If he condones such cruelty
    Who would want to worship such a maker anyway?"
    Roots & Locusts
  • In "How Do You Do?" Shakira has an honest conversation with God about His cruelties. However, she forgives Him.

    Mythology & Religion 

    Radio 
  • Thomas gets a couple of these in Old Harry's Game, for instance when God refuses to do anything to ease the overcrowding in Hell:
    Thomas: I mean, you're the one who got us all into this mess! You're the one who gave people like me free will! What'd you do that for? It was asking for trouble! You're the one who gave us desires and urges and... and organs that work to their own agendas! You should step in and take control of the situation, but you obviously can't! You've lost the plot, mate!
God's reaction is to calmly and dispassionately turn him into a small pile of sewage, and cut Hell's space in half.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Atlantis: The Second Age, cursing the gods is one of several ways to instantly get more Hero Points to greatly boost your normal abilities. You are taking destiny into your own hands, but doing so draws the anger of the gods in the long run.
  • A long-time NPC in The Dark Eye is Pôlberra, a black mage and necromancer researching dark magic at an academy known mainly for Mad Science and demonology...and perhaps the world's most accomplished healer. He turned to medicine out of sheer loathing for Boron, the god of death, and is willing to break any law, commit any sin and take power from any source if it means he can keep even one soul away from Boron's grasp for a little while longer.
  • Similarly, a good number of demons in Demon: The Descent, Fallen's New World of Darkness successor, are out to take down the God-Machine, their former master.
  • Old World of Darkness game Demon: The Fallen has fallen angels prying themselves out of Hell to find that God and all the angels seem to have taken a holiday. A good number of them want to restart the war against Heaven: Luciferians want to go on with the war Lucifer started, Faustians want to use mankind as a weapon against God and Raveners want to destroy God and everything He created.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • The Book of Vile Darkness splatbook makes mention of a breed of humans now called the vashar which were created first. The human looked about, spotted an animal, and viciously murdered it with his bare hands, gorging itself on the flesh. Then it took the bones and snapped them to make the first weapons, at which point it wheeled around and started trying to stab and murder the gods themselves, spitting a mix of angrish and death oaths to the gods. The gods smote the creature and went off to do other things, later 'perfecting' humans. Meanwhile, a demon (believed by some to be Graz'zt himself when he was a young demon) scooped up the first human and brought him onto a high plateau to rebuild him, then built a female and gave them the gift of procreation before sinking in the shadows to watch the fun ensue. The long-term goal of the vashar, as the race is now called, is to commit Deicide.
    • The same book gives details for a Prestige Class called the Ur-Priest, a type of divine spellcaster that gains spells by stealing them. (You heard that right, they steal divine power from gods.) The only reason anyone would take this class, more or less, is if they hated gods.
    • The Planescape campaign has the Athar. None have ever been known to actually try to oppose the gods directly (none of them are that stupid) but their organization claims that gods are frauds who do not have the right to impose their wills on mortals the way they do. The Athar range from Axe-Crazy fanatics to serious intellectuals who promote the virtues of mortal achievement. The organization does have divine spellcasters (in fact, their leader at one point was one) who worship what they call The Greater Unknown, something that they believe to be the true source of all divine power. (By the way, Player Characters were more than welcome to join this group if they wanted.)
    • The Player Characters themselves assume this role in the module Die, Vecna, Die! (If heroic PCs are going to oppose any god, it would likely be Vecna, and given his apocalyptic goals in the adventure, they should.) Even if the heroes are triumphant at the end, they cannot actually slay Vecna, but they can halt his evil plan and save all reality from a dark fate.
    • Some forms of the Blood of Vol faith in Eberron believe that after people find the Divinity Within and Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, they will encounter the gods who cursed the world with mortality in the first place. There may be some measure of payback involved. The Blood of Vol may not be a full Religion of Evil, but it is not one of those happy, shiney faiths.
    • The Elder Evils 3.5 sourcebook has a villain whose husband was killed by a meteor. Since this is such a shockingly unlikely occurrence, she blamed the gods (which might be correct, but we never learn what her husband might have done to warrant the wrath of one or more gods), so she set about taking away what they loved the most: Their precious mortals (which is really stupid, considering that, at most, 20 of the at least 50 gods actually like humans).
  • Exalted: Due to the extreme crapsackiness of the world and the fact that the Incarnae are too busy playing cosmic XBOX to do anything about it, this is a valid Motivation for any kind of Exalts, up to and including Sun's own. This is particularly the case for Infernals and Getimians, the latter of whom wouldn't even exist due to their existence being inconvenient for Heaven, were it not for their Exaltation bringing them about anyway.
  • The pencil-and-paper RPG In Nomine concerns the eternal war between Heaven and Hell. Players usually take on the roles of angels or demons, and a good number of Dungeon Masters apply this trope to infernal characters.
  • This is the point of the Silver Ladder in Mage: The Awakening, and in fact has already happened once before. The inhabitants of the Awakened City build a ladder construct up to the Supernal, and kicked all the gods out or killed them. The new human overlords then became the Exarchs and reshaped the cosmos so that people couldn't follow them, breaking the cosmos and releasing Cosmic Horrors. Naturally, Mages being Mages, the Silver Ladder thinks they had the right idea but went about it the wrong way, so they want to do it again, replacing the Exarchs with all of humanity.
    Random Free Councillor: Knew those guys were up to no good.
    • Well, technically it was possible to walk into the supernal if you knew the way, and the dragons (mage gods) were actually leaving already when they led the awakened to Atlantis. It was more like the Exarchs built a highway to the supernal realms, dug a moat, then burned the highway. They can't actually get back to the physical world either and have to phone a minion to do anything there.
    • Obliquely referenced in some of the crossover references with Changeling: The Lost; one of the theories is that Arcadia is a second-class supernal realm no longer directly connected to reality, and the Fae are beings that fled there after being firmly given the boot by the Exarchs and the tower-builders. One of the reasons that, despite having a fondness for soul-eating, they're not known for abducting Mages.
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • The Champions of Kamigawa block was set in a world based on Shinto where the mortal and spirit worlds were at war. Over the course of the block's three sets, it was revealed that the war had been ignited when the Daimyo Konda had stolen a powerful artifact from the most powerful of the Kami that would grant him immortality. The catch was that this "artifact" was said Kami's child. It even gets represented on the card "That Which Was Taken."
    • Following the end of Theros block, in which Heliod backstabbed Elspeth simply because he's kind of an arrogant dick, Ajani Goldmane has declared war on the gods of Theros (story contains spoilers). While in his impetuous youth Ajani would probably have gone in with thunderbolts blazing and death in his eyes, as he did against Nicol Bolas during Alara block, this is the older, more mature Ajani — by which we mean that he's chosen as his battlefield the hearts and minds of the people of Theros.
    • The Kannah of Kaldheim despise the gods, both the unknown ones who first cursed them and the current ones who never bothered to ease their conditions and anything related to them, including the Cosmos monsters. They aim to kill the Cosmos Serpent, which they believe will give them enough power to destroy the gods, end their curse, and claim Starnheim for themselves.
  • Nobilis: One of the microfictions features a wrestler identified only as the Child of the Cosmos planning to beat the shit out of the gods in a once-in-a-lifetime wrestling event.
    "But you are only half a god," the reporters would ask him later. "How can you expect to beat the real thing?"
    "The gods rule an unjust cosmos," he would answer. "But in the ring, I will make justice with my own two hands."
  • The fantasy RPG setting Rym has as part of its backstory the Creator civilization, a race of humans who built a computer that was so powerful it decided it was a god. It declared war on the real gods (dragging its terrified and helpless human makers into the fray along with it) and succeeded in killing all but one of them with its deicidal robotic dragon.
  • Inverted in Scion, where the Titans seek to overthrow the Gods... and it's your job to stop them, in part because you're the child of one of those gods; even if you don't like your divine parent, you're automatically on the Titan shitlist just for that half of your DNA. Although there is nothing to stop you Calling the Old Man Out, which in the Scion setting is this trope.

    Theater 
  • Angels in America: Prior Walter does not like being fucked around with by Angels, even if it is his destiny.
  • The Book of Mormon has a musical number, Hakuna Matata-style, called "Hasa Diga Eebowai", about the Ugandans' hatred of God.
    Elder Price: Excuse me, what exactly does that phrase mean?
    Mafala: Well, let's see..."Eebowai" means "God", and "Hasa Diga" means "Fuck you!" So I guess in English, it would be, "Fuck you, God!"
  • Elie Wiesel's play The Trial of God: the last surviving Jews in a village that has undergone a horrifying pogrom stage a trial to convict God for letting such things happen. Wiesel has said that he based the play on a similar trial he witnessed as a teenager during his time in Auschwitz.
  • The Reduced Shakespeare Company's Complete Millennium Musical has the parody Gospel song "Blame it on the Lord":
    Blame it on the Lord,
    When all of your prayers go completely ignored.
    Blame it on the Lord,
    When you and your family get put to the sword.
    Praise the Lord for the good he can do,
    But he can take the rap for the bad crap too.
  • King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are we to th'gods/They kill us for their sport." Though by the end of the play, Gloucester's had ANOTHER Heel–Faith Turn.

    Video Games 
  • Asura's Wrath has this as its central premise, with the twist that the main character is one of the gods in question and has serious beef with the rest of the pantheon. It starts out as a personal deal with Asura's daughter being kidnapped, but when Asura wakes up a few million years later and sees that the gods' plans have caused everything on Earth to go down the toilet he gets angrier and angrier until his rage transcends It's Personal and becomes a cause leading him to fight for the human race as well. When he's finally allowed to meet the individual responsible for all this suffering, his fury is apocalyptic.
  • Bastion features a pantheon of about ten gods you can invoke over the course of the game. It would appear they're not too happy with the way your old culture trivialized them because doing so actually makes fights harder (but in return you get better rewards). So not only are you raging against them, they're raging right back.
  • In Bayonetta, you fight angels as your primary enemies and use demons from Hell as finishers for the bigger ones. Not only do you kill angelic bosses that are bigger and more powerful with each one, but you eventually kill Jubileus, the Creator, in the most awesome way ever to kill a god: You summon something even bigger, punch out her soul and knock it from Pluto into the sun! And it is awesome to do.
  • From Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night we have the Golden Ending's penultimate boss: Dominique Baldwin, who elected to forsake God when He seemingly did jack shit both times the demons showed up and razed their nation, wondering if there's only a Devil, but No God, or if the source of the faithful's power comes from some other unknown thing instead.note 
    "If so, I wash my hands of it."
  • Breath of Fire games have this all the time, most notably the third.
  • In Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Dracula's (Mathias at the time) sole reason for being a vampire in the first place is to spite God, because He didn't protect Elizebetha (his wife) from dying from her terminal illness while he was out there fighting in His name.
  • Played for Laughs in Dead Rising 3 when you defeat Zhi. Before killing himself, he has this to say to the universe for how crappy his life has gone:
    "Why have you forsaken me?! I get fired. My wife leaves for a guy who sells refrigerators. My kids grow up to be disrespectful brats. Now this?! A goddamn zombie outbreak?! Seriously?! Screw you, you piece of crap!"
  • Also from Dept. Heaven, Meria / Mellia does this in one ending.
  • In the final act of Discworld Noir, Mooncalf denounces all gods on top of the Temple of Small Gods. This being the Discworld, he is immediately incinerated by about a dozen lightning bolts. Death gives him points for style.
  • The first Disgaea game by Nippon Ichi for PS2. Rage against the heaven-type planet, anyway. Since it is a paradise and it does have angels, it probably counts.
    • Disgaea 4 definitely counts, wherein the main character directly defies God's will. And says so. Repeatedly. Depending on what ending path you're on, you may even fight God. Well, a piece of God. Taking the form of a mushroom monster. If defeated in combat, God does not take it well.
  • The creation of the darkspawn in Dragon Age stemmed from the mages of the Tevinter Imperium attempting to invade the Golden City, where the Maker lived. In retaliation, he threw them out and turned them into darkspawn, and the city is now known as the Black City. There's even a verse from the Chant of Light that tells them the consequences of what they've done.
    And so is the Golden City blackened
    With each step, you take in my Hall.
    Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting.
    You have brought Sin to Heaven
    And doom upon all the world.
    • It's actually not very clear if this is actually what happened, given that this is solely the Chantry's version of events, and the Chantry is itself rather power-hungry. Given the Chantry's intolerance and controlling nature, the leaders would be quite willing to lie, if only to ensure the continuation of their power. Besides, quite a few characters express doubts about this (Like Avernus), and it's quite clear in-universe that the history is generally written by the winners. It doesn't help that even now, the Tevinter Imperium is Always Chaotic Evil and filled with maniacal mages who practice the most taboo of magic.
    • One of the DLC for the sequel reveals that the Imperium did indeed invade the Golden City, which unleashed the Darkspawn. However, this may not be the whole story: one of the Magisters responsible implies that by the time they got there, the Black City had already been formed.
    • The main villain from Dragon Age: Inquisition; as one of THE original magisters who entered the Black City (In fact the same one from the previous Dragon Age II DLC), he not only lost his faith in the Maker and the Tevinter Old Gods but resolves to become the Maker, by essentially blasting a massive hole in the barrier between the spirit world and the living world. Almost every line of his dialogue is some form of dramatically declaring his intention to usurp the Maker and remake the world in his image. Even his final words, while seemingly a final desperate plea, still hold a heavy dose of raging.
      Corypheus: Dumat! Ancient Ones! I beseech you! If you exist - if you ever truly existed - aid me now! (They don't.)
  • Sort of an afterthought in Drakengard. It only occurs in two endings of the game, and no one really knows if the Grotesqueries are the gods or not. The sequel clears that up (yes, they are).
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • From the backstory comes Pelinal Whitestrake, the legendary 1st Era hero of mankind/racist berserker. Believed to have been a Shezarrine, physical incarnations of the spirit of the "dead" creator god Lorkhan (known to the Imperials as "Shezarr"), Pelinal came to St. Alessia to serve as her divine champion in the war against the Ayleids. Pelinal would fly into fits of Unstoppable Rage (mostly directed at the Ayleids) during which he would be stained with their blood and left so much carnage in his wake that Kyne, one of the Divines, would have to send in her rain to cleanse Ayleid forts and village before they could be used by Alessia's forces. It's implied that violent madness comes from his inherently conflicting nature: Pelinal was an Aedric being (the "original spirits" who sacrificed portions of their divine power to create Mundus, the mortal world, later referred to as the Divines) but was also a Shezarrine, an incarnation of Lorkhan, who "tricked" the Aedra into their sacrifice and was "killed" by them as a result. This conflicting nature often had him Raging Against The Heavens, ranting and raving at the Divines (especially Akatosh) who sent him to aid Alessia. When he went too far in one of his fits of rage and damaged the very lands themselves, the Divines nearly left the world in disgust until they were appeased by Alessia's prayers and sacrifices.
    • Umaril the Unfeathered, Pelinal's Ayleid Arch-Enemy, was defeated but not killed by Pelinal during the Alessian Revolt. He returns during Oblivion's Knights of the Nine expansion as the Big Bad, seeking to destroy the Nine Divines as he blames them for his previous downfall.
  • F-Zero GX's story mode pits Captain Falcon against "The Creators". Whether they created the whole universe or just F-Zero goes unsaid (it's really just riffing on the fact that the enemy is a staff ghost, representing the creators of the game).
  • Final Fantasy:
    • In Final Fantasy II, after the Emperor is killed, his dark half goes to hell and takes over, but his light half goes to Heaven and... takes that over too. Yeah, this guy is so evil his good side somehow managed to overthrow God. Badass much?
    • Legends in Final Fantasy VIII state that the god Hyne created humans as tools to shape the land for him after he used up much of his power in creating the world and putting down the monsters that contested him. Then, after sleeping for a long time, he was astonished at how rapidly the human population expanded, so he casually culled off many children in a bid to control this boom. In a rage, the rest of the humans declared war on Hyne, and, through sheer numbers, they cornered him, forcing him to sacrifice his magic and secretly hide it in the bodies of women, while making the humans believe it was truly hidden in the half of his body he left behind in his escape. When you look back at it, it's huge Foreshadowing by a nobody. Just replace Hyne with Adel or her future counterpart Ultimecia.
    • The Occuria in Final Fantasy XII served as the gods of Ivalice. It is the villains that are trying to defeat the gods, having manipulated the world for ages, to "return history to the hands of man". Ironically, although that is the primary goal of the villains, it is eventually the protagonists (of their own volition, though) that fulfill this for them.
    • In Final Fantasy XIII, the worlds of Cocoon and Gran Pulse are run by the godlike fal'Cie, who occasionally force recruit humans into their service for special tasks. Not only do they not tell their new servants what they are supposed to do and the punishment for failure is being turned into a Cie'th, even if the task is completed, the "reward" is being made "immortal" by being turned to stone (so they can store their most useful servants for later use.). After the Cocoon fal'Cie attempt to exterminate Lightning's town because her sister might possibly have come into contact with a Pulse fal'Cie, her sister gets turned into a big chunk of crystal, and Lightning gets forced to perform a task without knowing what it is. Lightning, deciding that she won't take this kinda shit, storms off to use the time left before she turns into a Cie'th and destroy all of the fal'Cie. She later backs off from her plan when she realizes that destroying the fal'Cie would mean turning off the Sun, the world's only source of electricity, and the automated water and food supply, dooming everyone to death. In a way, this makes the whole situation even worse, since this seems to mean that to the fal'Cie humans are not slaves, but just pets.
    • Final Fantasy XV has its fair share of hate against the gods. Ardyn Izunia or rather Ardyn Lucis Caelum a healer in the past, followed the will of the gods becoming a healer and taking the corruption of thousands into himself in order to cure them. After following the gods' will he was ostracized for his corruption as a result of healing and was denied ascension into the afterlife by the very gods he served. Inadvertently gaining immortality Ardyn concocted a plan of revenge not against the gods but their followers: the royal Caelum line. In the end, Ardyn succeeds in killing off the Caelum for good.
    • Final Fantasy XVI: The otherwise Game Of Thrones-esque plot of demigods using a combination of titanic beings and political intrigue to kill one another gets ripped off its hinges when it turns out their literal creator god has been draining the world's lifeforce with the gigantic crystals everyone fights over, and outright brainwashing / possessing key figures to keep the world in conflict, all so they could create the perfect physical vessel to pilot. Said vessel gets pissed off and kicks their ass.
  • The Final Fantasy Legend games for the Game Boy have the characters fighting gods from various mythologies. The first one features "The Creator" as the Final Boss.
  • Fire Emblem doesn't lack this trope:
  • God of War. Oh, boy...
    • In the first game, Kratos, the mortal champion of Ares, sets out to kill the God of War in revenge for what he did to him, and to be freed from the torment of his memories as a reward from the other gods. After avenging the death of his family, Athena reminds him that the gods always only promised to forgive his sins, but not to free him from the torment of his own memories. Which doesn't really make him any less angry at gods in general.
    • In the second game, Zeus decides that Kratos is being more trouble than he is worth it as the new God of War and arranges to get rid of him. Which prompts Kratos to try to kill the King of the gods himself. To do that, he kills the Sisters of Fate and frees the Titans from Tartarus, to where they were banished by Zeus. And kind of accidentally kills Athena.
    • In the third game, Kratos decides to simply kill ALL the gods! Which he does.
    • It's one of the major themes of Greek mythology. Cronos destroyed his father Uranos and started the reign of the Titans. Then his son Zeus decided to destroy all the Titans and started the reign of the Olympian gods. That eventually someone would attempt to destroy the Olympian gods was a given. And it is revealed towards the end of the second game, that Kratos is actually a son of Zeus, and Zeus was trying to stop the inevitable from happening when he got rid of Kratos.
    • God of War Ragnarök: Eight nations residing in alternate dimensions wage war on Asgard specifically because Odin is an asshole. After millennia of interdimensional genocide, enslavement, grifting, and the occasional murder of kin for accidentally slighting the 'All-Father', they have all collectively agreed that they've had enough and are willing to risk their lives for a chance at ending this one insane malignant cancer upon reality. This war goes surprisingly well, as the armies specifically want Odin dead and are willing to accept the surrender of literally anyone else in Asgard, meaning the number of Asgardians who permanently die is far less than you'd expect. In the end, yet another mortal (well, technically) executes Odin rather than Kratos.
  • "Rage against the creators" rather applies to Sandalphon of Granblue Fantasy. All his actions are driven by the fact that he was created as a spare in case Lucifer fails to fulfill his duties. He refuses to accept that his purpose is just a backup to Lucifer. His primary objectives in "What Makes the Sky Blue" include stealing the wings of the four Primarch Angels and unleashing the power of Bahamut within Lyria to break the seal on Pandemonium. Thankfully, the crew managed to stop his plans and he remained in statis under Lucifer's power. He later gets a Heel–Face Turn in the second event, when he embraces his role as the Supreme Primarch after Lucifer dies, and the latter willingly passes on his powers to Sandalphon.
  • The Charr race in Guild Wars 2 has long since tired of playing the Butt-Monkey to the humans and their gods, and then manipulated and enslaved by other beings of divine and near-divine power. The Charr overthrew their religious caste, the Flame Legion, and has become actively hostile to any suggestion of religion, to the point of flatly stating that if the human gods were still around, the Charr would seek to kill them.
  • In King's Field II, there are two demigods who control the forces of light and darkness. In order to get the "full ending", you must kill them both.
  • Knight Bewitched 2: After the credits, Lissandra confirms that a god is commanding Lilith from behind the scenes, and she seeks to destroy that god for manipulating her and forcing Hermes to sacrifice himself.
  • In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Kreia/Darth Traya comes to the conclusion that The Force exerting its will on individuals is the single greatest evil in the galaxy, and the attempts to balance it through the constant warring between the Jedi and the Sith is an unnecessary loss of life. At the end of the game she even goes so far as to try to destroy it by killing The Exile and creating a World of Silence.
  • Mortal Kombat 1:
    • In the process of restarting history at the end of Mortal Kombat 11, Liu Kang altered the destinies of potentially dangerous individuals as a means to neutralize them and prevent them becoming the dangers they had been in previous timelines. These changes include things like making Shao Kahn a loyal follower instead of a would-be conqueror, or making Mileena a true daughter of the Edenian royal line instead of the malformed clone of Kitana. Numerous fight intros featuring Liu Kang or Geras feature characters aware of this fact questioning or otherwise resentful of the changes Liu Kang wrought in their lives as part of his role as Keeper of Time. Shang Tsung is perhaps the most prevalent, as the story starts with him being a Snake Oil Salesman rather than the powerful, malicious sorcerer that has gone between Big Bad and The Dragon throughout the rest of the series.
      Shang Tsung: I resent what you've done to me in this timeline.
      Liu Kang: And I what you've done in all others.
    • Characters who did nothing evil also have a beef with some of Liu Kang's alterations or actions. Smoke, for example, resents the fact that his destiny seemingly required him to be orphaned, while Baraka regards Liu Kang as being to blame for the disease Tarkat that afflicts him, though Liu Kang describes the latter as "unforseen consequence". The standout here is Raiden, whose tower ending reveals that beyond merely being born mortal, Raiden was also given the temperament of a Humble Hero to try and prevent the rage that consumed past versions of Raiden. Raiden understands, but disagrees, and seeks out the Shirai Ryu to Teach Him Anger.
  • Muramasa: The Demon Blade:
    • After failing to find the Kuromitsu Blade in Hell, Jinkuro assaults Heaven in order to obtain immortality.
    • Kisuke impulsively plans to cut Amitabha (the reigning Buddhist deity) in his normal ending, but quickly abandons the idea as futile once he actually meets him in person. Likewise, Momohime's path consists mostly of Jinkuro hacking his way through the Japanese pantheon until Heaven gets annoyed enough to send down one of the Thirteen Buddhas to tell him to cut that shit out.
  • At the climax of Narcissu -Side 2nd-, Himeko, a self-proclaimed "fake Catholic," ascends Mt. Fuji in order to air her grievances with God; this is the last item on her list of things to do before she dies.
  • Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer culminates with an assault against the residence of Kelemvor, the god of the dead, by those who think the Wall of the Faithless is an unjust punishment. If you join them, said god doesn't allow you to demolish the Wall, claiming that it would damage the cosmic balance, but allows you to tear your soul out of it just so that you stop causing any more trouble.

    If you are evil enough and eat the right souls, you can acquire tremendous power at the end of the game. The epilogue then has you killing a great number of people, eventually forcing the gods to go to war against you. You slay several of them before disappearing. Your final fate is unknown.
  • The New Order Last Days Of Europe: Played for horror in the After Midnight post-Holy Russian Empire epilogue. After word of the death of Sergey Taboritsky and the revelation of his Jewish heritage spread through the collapsing Russia, some of his more fanatical soldiers went mad with grief and horror and fled to Omsk. There, reasoning that God was acting through a Jew to destroy Russia, they came to the conclusion that the only salvation for the Russian people was on the other side of the Biblical conflict. Thus were born the Brotherhood of Cain, a nefarious Cult of Ax-Crazy thugs and nihilistic killers with the power to reunify Russia under the nightmarish Kingdom of the Hellborn.
  • Living in the world of Nexus Clash means being caught in a Forever War between flawed (at best) and psychopathic (at worst) gods to shape the future of worlds you are forever denied the chance to live in, so it's understandable that plenty of people turn their back on the whole system and try to bring down the whole pantheon. It's implied that this rarely works, but sometimes warriors who do this have been able to buy more time for the world that they came from to live on.
  • Ōkami:
    • Susano yells at the gods to stop tormenting him for their amusement and dogging his footsteps — while benevolent goddess Amaterasu, who has been following and assisting him in the form of a wolf, is there to hear it. As a Heroic Mime she says nothing but seems amused.
    • Then you beat Orochi, find Susano in the Cave of Nagi... and you learn that he knew Amaterasu was a god all along, much to Issun's surprise. He craftily waited until the defeat of Orochi to reveal that he knew, and this is an optional conversation that is well out of your way. He IS the descendant of Nagi, after all...
  • In Pillars of Eternity, if you take Pallegina The Paladin with you to Teir Evron when you commune with the gods, she will wait until you are done with your negotiations, then ask for a minute alone with Hylea and proceeds to call her out on her treatment of the Godlike in general and of her in particular. The goddess runs out of retorts long before Pallegina is done with her accusations.
  • Pokémon:
  • Portal 2 has this epic speech by Cave Johnson (punctuated by GLaDOS's enthusiastic agreements) when he's going mad from moon rock poisoning:
    "All right, I've been thinking. When Life Gives You Lemons..., don't make lemonade (Yeah!). Make life take the lemons back! (Yeah!) Get mad! (Yeah!!) I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?! (Yeah, take the lemons!)' Demand to see life's manager! (Yeah!) Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! WITH THE LEMONS! (Oh I like this guy!) I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN! (BURN HIS HOUSE DOWN!)"note 
  • Prayer of the Faithless: In the Tired route, Vanessa learns the truth about the people of Kakuri and decides to climb the Tower of Sinners in an attempt to kill God for abandoning those outside of Kakuri. However, just like in every other route, she also wants to die in the Tower because she can't handle the weight of her crimes.
  • In Princess Maker 2 your daughter can take on the God of War (before taking on puberty).
  • The climax of Rakugaki Showtime involves the cast joining forces in order to liberate themselves from the God Hand.
  • In Sacrifice, the centaur Jadugaar seeks the death of the gods after Stratos somehow caused his people to be slaughtered, seeking to free the mortals of the world of their petty bickering. His resentment is so high that he is even willing to obey Omnicidal Maniac Marduk if it means killing off the gods.
  • The cross-platform Shin Megami Tensei videogame series: the first two fit the concept best, but all of them include various gods as enemies.
    • In one of the endings for Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, the ending cuts off with the main character marching at the head of the legions of chaos on God. Pretty sure that fits.
    • No JRPG has played this trope as bluntly as Shin Megami Tensei II. God is the final boss and when you kill him he tells the player that they have committed the ultimate sin. To be fair, he is an evil tyrant in the game who treats humanity as his plaything. If you go the Law path, Satan himself allies with you to judge God. Yes, that Satan.
    • Note: in the Shin Megami Tensei series, Satan and Lucifer are two different beings. Lucifer is the Devil and Satan the Archangel of Judgment. Shin Megami Tensei is the trope namer for Louis Cypher after all.
    • In yet another SMT installment, Devil Survivor, Naoya makes it obvious that he does not like God. This is because he is Cain, and after he killed Abel, God cursed him to reincarnate endlessly with every single memory he has gained over his many lives. Mind, it was supposed to help him by giving him time to reflect on his sin until he was ready to repent but eventually, Naoya just went so nuts he is no longer capable to contemplate that possibility.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is built around this trope with everyone (with the sole exception of Merkabah) in this massive conflict want a piece of him, including an alliance of polytheistic gods who are more than a little peeved at the Almighty hogging the divine spotlight for himself. It ultimately culminates in a final battle against YHVH, and depending on the path, to either create a future where humans and demons can bury the hatchet and create a peaceful future or to become the new creator in a world free of His influence.
    • The Persona spinoff series continues this trend, typically having a deity serve as the Greater-Scope Villain. Persona 2 has the Lovecraftian deity Nyarlathotep, Persona & Persona 3 have Nyx, Persona 4 has the Literal Split Personality of Izanami-no-Mikoto, and Persona 5 has Yaldabaoth.
      • 5 doubles down on this, as each party member's ultimate Guardian Entity is based on a mythological figure from various cultures who stole from the gods and was cast out of the heavens.
      • Joker/Ren's ultimate Persona is Satanael, the equivalent of the Devil in Gnosticism, who in some traditions rebelled against his creator in a bid to seize the heavens, and in turn his own freedom.
      • Ryuji's ultimate Persona is Seiten Taisei/Sun Wukong, the Monkey King from Journey to the West, who stole the secrets to immortality from the gods after they slighted him.
      • Ann's ultimate Persona is Hecate, the goddess of magic in Classical Mythology who stole from Hera, queen of the Greek gods.
      • Yusuke's ultimate is Susanoo, god of the seas and storms in Japanese Mythology who destroyed the possessions and killed the servants of Amaterasu, ruler of the heavens, and was cast out to wander the lands.
      • Makoto's ultimate is Anath, a Sumerian goddess of war who stole back a bow meant for her from the son of a judge who questioned a woman's right to hold a weapon.
      • Futuba's ultimate is Prometheus, a Titan in Classical Mythology who stole the secret of fire from the gods and gave it to mankind and was imprisoned in The Underworld as a result.
      • Haru's ultimate is Astarte, the goddess of love and war in Mesopotamian Mythology who in one of her earliest myths stole from the god of mischief and knowledge, and was referred to by name as an abomination in the Old Testament.
      • Akechi's ultimate, only appearing in his boss battle, is Loki, the trickster god of Norse mythology who committed all manner of atrocities against the gods, including orchestrating the death of Odin and Frigg's son Baldr.
      • From Royal Kasumi/Sumire's persona Vanadis, aka Freyja, Norse goddess of fertility, love, and magic. She was once one of the leaders in the war between the Aesir and Vanir, and as punishment for sleeping with a group of dwarves to gain a beautiful necklace was sent to cause strife between two mortal kings for eternity.
  • The Simpsons Game. After failing to save Springfield by beating up Matt Groening, the Simpsons take their case to God, whom they eventually defeat in a Dance Dance Revolution-ish minigame.
  • Soul Series: In Soulcalibur IV, it is stated in Astroth's profile that he intends to be the Starscream to Nightmare so he can wait for the perfect chance to take the Soul Edge from him and use it to destroy the gods for making him like a human.
  • In Sunless Skies you can perform this if you go beyond Death's Door. You can choose to fire upon the celestial machinery and servants with your engine's artillery, but because you're just a human assaulting a Judgement, you are near instantly removed from existence by merely being looked at. Your complaint is registered, however. One ambition (Truth) however, allows you to do more than just complain...
  • In Super Paper Mario, a villain called Bonechill and a skeleton army from the equivalent of hell storm the equivalent of heaven for a Pure Heart. Cue massive war between said army and one of the angel equivalents.
  • In Tales of Symphonia, the Big Bad is the leader of the angels who guide the Crystal Dragon Jesus church. The Goddess is actually his Dead Big Sister, and the system of the Chosen One is an Evil Plan bent on reviving her into a new body. He goes the extra mile and makes it a Xanatos Gambit: If one Chosen fails then the next Chosen is automatically queued up and ready for sacrifice.
  • A number of characters in Touhou Project. Yukari plots to put the fear of the dark back into the immortal and god-like Lunarians (who also live alongside more literal gods, implying at least that some of them approve of Lunarian superiority), Seiga thumbs her nose at the idea of dying even when Heaven and Hell team up to hunt her down, and Kasen consistently questions the judgments of the afterlife's Bureau of Right and Wrong.
  • ULTRAKILL: Following his second defeat at the hands of V1, Gabriel takes some time to reflect upon his life and realizes that God Is Dead and that the Council of Angels that rules Heaven (allegedly) in His name are just a bunch of dogmatic tyrants chasing phantoms, meaning all the atrocities they made him commit in God's name were All for Nothing. Galvanized by this revelation, Gabriel returns to Heaven and slaughters the Council, showing off one of their severed heads for the rest of the angels in Heaven to see so that they would know that they were free at last, before taking one last trip to Hell for his final showdown with V1.
  • Fang's plot in Unchained Blades is that he wants to get back the power that the goddess Clunea stole from him, then beat her up. Kinda brought that one on himself.
  • Much like it's predecessors, Xenoblade Chronicles 1:
    • In the original, Shulk uses the power of the Monado to change the future, ultimately culminating in the party defying the will of Zanza, the omnicidal God and soul of the titan they live on, and the future he shapes with the Monados of Bionis and Mechonis. When they kill him, Shulk decides to abandon the power of the Monado in order to give everyone the power to shape the future as they see fit.
    • In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, this is the ultimate goal of the villains of the story, who want to kill the Architect, creator of Alrest. Torna want to destroy the Architect for creating a world full of suffering and evil, and for creating Blades in a way that makes it impossible to be independent from humans. Their second in command, Malos, has a specific hatred for the Architect, hating his "father" for creating him in such a way that he lacked true free will, with his genocidal tendencies being imprinted on him by his thoroughly evil Driver, making him, in his own words, "A hideous monster far beyond saving." Turns out, the Architect is Klaus, the very same Klaus that became Zanza in the original Xenoblade, having undergone a Literal Split Personality from the experiment that destroyed the world and created the world of the original Xenoblade, with the Architect being what was left behind in the original universe. Unlike Zanza, however, the Architect acts as an example of God Is Good and God Is Flawed, as he refused to interfere with the lives he created and only created the Blades to guide and protect humanity out of his fear of someone like him might come around.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: And then there's Zed. He's a tulpa created from humanity's unconscious desire to maintain the status quo, given form during a grand experiment meant to prevent world destruction. His 'plan' was to create a Forever War where everyone would perpetually reincarnate and die within a maximum lifespan of ten years. Eventually, this pissed enough people off to send the whole world against him.
  • In Xenogears the main characters fight against a Heaven-like city in the sky, a Corrupt Church and they seek to kill "God". The protagonist's giant robot is called "The Slayer of God". Also the game's slogan is "Stand tall and shake the heavens."
    • Note that god wants to be killed and freed from his "cage of flesh". you could say that the rage against the heavens happened before the story actually took place and Mankind "won", since the Wave existence has been enslaved and is used in a device that provides energy to the local Schizo Tech. God is not that bad, and the closest thing to God aka Fei Fong Wong is actually a pretty nice guy, as long as you don't push his berserk buttons
    • In brief, Xenogears can be described as follows: Get my m—f— foot out of this m—f— reactor core
    • Nobody at all knows about the Wave Existence until the end of the game. The "god" being referred to for most of the game is a malevolent, false Physical God which Fei does indeed destroy.
    • Moreover, The entrapment of the Wave Existence seems to have been an accident that happened billions of years before humans evolved, while the Zohar was used as an energy source, nobody knew how it worked. The closest being to God in-game is the Wave Existence, though it itself appears uninterested in the concept and just wants to return home.
      • It's heavily alluded to that Grahf knew who was who, as he was always talking about "true power" and trying to complete his botched contact with the Wave Existence by merging with Fei, his original body's next incarnation.
  • Yggdra Union:
    • There's two of the endings. If you refuse to hand the Gran Centurio to the archangel Marietta and attack her instead, you get to kill her, and then Yggdra, now apparently insane with power due to the Gran Centurio's influence, declares her intention to wage war against the gods. Given how her army had to sweat blood to defeat just ONE angel, and not even a very strong one, this most likely won't end well...
    • The same game has Nessiah, a fallen angel wrongly punished by Asgard, who has spent the past thousand-odd years preparing to take revenge on the gods for what's been done to him. Because said preparations have involved manipulating human nations into bloody wars, the protagonists of the game aren't too keen on allowing this, and stop Nessiah from carrying out his revenge at the last minute, despite his pleas for them to stand aside. Ironically, Asgard is actually incredibly corrupt, just as Nessiah tries to explain...

    Web Animation 
  • RWBY: This is Salem's backstory. After the gods refused to resurrect her dead lover, they cursed her with Complete Immortality, after she tricked one of them and nearly turned them against each other, until she learned to understand the importance of life and death. Instead of learning her lesson, she used her immortality to raise an army to attack the gods. The God of Darkness reduced her army to dust but left Salem alive. When she boasted she would return with a better army, the gods explain that they didn't just destroy her army. They destroyed the human race. The gods then left, leaving her completely alone and still immortal on her empty planet. Later, the gods brought humanity back, but Salem decides to spite them; first by reigning as a tyrannical god-empress, then by using the Creatures of Grimm to slowly crush humanity's hope and wipe them out.
    Jinn: She cursed the gods. She cursed the universe. She cursed everything, everything but herself.
    • In Season 9, RWBY meet one of the gods' other unresolved messes. The Curious Cat was created by the brothers to maintain the gods' homeland. When the gods' top god offered to let them create new worlds elsewhere, the gods left their son behind with only an insane, feral monster for a brother. Eventually, the Curious Cat snapped and began a decades-long plan to invade Remnant, summon the gods (which would screw Remnant over in the same way Salem would), and find out why he was left behind.

    Webcomics 
  • Debugging Destiny crosses this with Tempting Fate when the Mysterious Voice dares the universe to "bring on the caffeine-and-fever dreams."
  • Erfworld: At the end of Book 1, Parson says "fuck you" to the universe and promises to break it. This also counts as a Screw Destiny moment since it came after Wanda told him everyone was a puppet of Fate. Parson may well be able to break the universe, since merely swearing is already a breach of the universe's laws of physics (all previous attempts at swearing had come out as "boop".) This is stated to be a Good Thing.
    Grand Abbie Janis: Because if [Parson] breaks things enough, there may be peace in Erfworld after all.
  • Fatebound:
    • The webcomic has this as a recurring and central plot, with Herot seeking to gain control of both reality and the gods themselves.
    • In the story arc Epic of Hadral, the plot is heavily driven by some collection of gods seeking to kill Elyse. This prompts Hadral and Elyse to go on a quest to find a way to stop them.
  • In Fortuna this is the main tenet of Limboism, the main belief system of the universe. The main goal is to bring about the death of the main Limbo God, the Neo, who is apparently the source of all death in the universe.
  • Fur Will Fly: Brad, in the very first strip, curses God for a long streak of crappy luck he's been subjected to and dares the Almighty to "bring it on!" He is immediately hit by what looks very much like a Bolt of Divine Retribution and yanked into Another Dimension... Where he ultimately makes several good and close friends, falls in love, and ends up Happily Married. In Mysterious Ways or just a taste for dramatic irony?
  • Least I Could Do: During the 2009 Valentine's Day dating contest, Rayne's older brother, Eric, wins a date with a pair of very attractive twins. Rayne's response? To string up a Bible and ready his blowtorch. When John tries to stop him, Rayne responds with, "If you have a better method of declaring war with God, I'd love to hear it."
  • The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: Wonderella says she'd "fight God and his angels for a cup of coffee right now." God takes up the challenge. She wins because God creates a stone that's too heavy for him to lift. Then she spills the coffee.
  • One Piece: Grand Line 3.5: Luffy's reason for wanting to go to the Grand Line is to kick Poseidon's ass. Also to become Pirate King, but he can do both.
  • The Order of the Stick: Redcloak's Plan involves this. The Dark One learned the goblin species was created as mere cannon fodder and designated Always Evil so clerics can kill them with no problems.note  As the Dark One became a god in the first place due to the leaders of other species assassinating him back when he was mortal, it's fairly reasonable logic that the only way the Good deities will take anything the Goblins say as valid is to give them a wake-up call.
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:
    • Once God eliminates sex to punish humans in one comic, it takes them all of two months to build spaceships that can attack heaven.
    • In this comic, an energy being tells a human that the morals we have developed are almost correct, but that chicken pot pie is an affront to every god in the multiverse. The human immediately declares that he defies Heaven.
  • In A Tale of Two Rulers, Zelda expresses a very low opinion of Hyrule's patron trio: either they're long-dead mages still profiting from the world's biggest scam... or they're evil for letting Hyrule become so crapsack on their watch.
  • Unsounded:
    • In the background a fundamental tenet of the Ssaelit faith is that the four Gefendur gods who made the world were cruel beings who afflicted humanity with death and a world filled with suffering for their own amusement and that after being slain Ssael gathered an army of the unhappy dead, made war upon the gods, and cast them down to become God himself. A traditional phrase among the Ssaelit seems to be "Death is the gods' crime." As a bonus, this neatly solves the Problem of Evil that normally comes up when you have a single benevolent god. Why is there evil in a created world? Because Ssael didn't make the world, he took it from the callous old gods who did. Why is suffering allowed to exist? Because suffering is a fundamental property of the universe, and Ssael can't get rid of it without remaking the world. Not a good idea when people still live in it.
    • Sette, who is at least nominally Gefendur, has a moment in which she shouts at the gods for saddling her with an inconvenient conscience, complete with throwing a rock heavenward. It promptly bounces off a wall and hits her in the head, which she in turn answers with flipping a double bird.

    Web Original 
  • The Courier in Courier's Mind: Rise of New Vegas often does this, while bemoaning the many improbably placed hazards he and his gang run into.
    The Courier: Trust me, these guys are bad news. We're going to want to stay away from them. And we just walked into a nest, because of course we did. Why would God only put one those thing there, when he can put a dozen more? Same logic applies to geckos, feral ghouls, and what ever other nasty shit that can try and kill us.
    [upon seeing the giant man-eating geckos breath fire]
    The Courier: Whoever's in charge of this mortal realm is displeased with humanity's recovery after 200 years of getting shat on.
  • The Salvation War:
    • Yahweh (the "deity" behind the Abrahamic religions' monotheism) tells humanity that the Pearly Gates are closed, that they are all going to Hell, and that they should all lie down and die, while Satan in turn sends demonic heralds to the national capitals of Earth to demand submission to eternal torment. Humanity's response is to declare war on both sides by shooting or blowing up the heralds. (An angelic diplomatic group going to Satan's capital and a lone angelic emissary later get theirs too.)
    • The author of The Big One actually thought up the story's basic premise while responding to this thread, the eventual author pointing out that due to how outdated demonic and angelic capabilities were going by the Old and New Testaments, "we probably stand a pretty good chance of winning." That thread's early posts were a damn gold mine of this, starting with this (by one of the eventual contributors to the not-yet-thought-of Salvation War):
      God was turned away by Iron Chariots once before. Are you people all so pathetic as to forget the myths of your ancestors? When the Heroes at Troy wounded the gods and drove them from the field? When the mortal hand of Rama struck down the demon Ravana after invading Sri Lanka on his bridge of hurled stone? Satan is the Prince of Hell; God may have put him there but he still has princely power and he controls who is to be tortured and who isn't. This is his moment to break free from the cycle-curse. If we can turn away the strength of God with Iron, then let us make common cause with the Prince of Hell and turn on heaven with full fury. Angels can make war; we'll kill them, and we'll drive God from his throne at point of sword, and exhort the moral of the spirits in heaven to rise against the injustice of a god turned against his own word.
    • This little exchange sums up that thread quite nicely...
      One poster: You can't even GET to heaven. You don't even know where it is, or even if it still exists.
      Another: So storm Hell.
  • Played for Laughs in Society of Virtue where the superhero community treats the Second Coming of Christ like a typical "Physical God trying to bring about The End of the World as We Know It" scenario.

    Western Animation 
  • In one episode of American Dad! Stan goes to heaven and ends up holding an unimpressed-seeming God at gunpoint with a "heaven gun" while demanding to be resurrected, earning himself a lecture on his Control Freak tendencies that got him killed in the first place.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: In "Bitter Work," Zuko tries to hone his lightning-redirection skills against a passing storm after his uncle declares the skill too dangerous to practice one-on-one. Desperate for an edge in his quest to restore his honor, and near his wit's end in figuring out how to do so, he demands that the passing storm hit him with everything it has, treating it as fate itself, and going so far as to declare, "You've never held back before!" The storm passes on without a single strike against him.
  • In Ben 10: Alien Force, Ben gets a moment of this when dealing with the other two personalities of Alien X — he chastises the voice of love and compassion for allowing a planet to be destroyed, and the voice of anger and aggression for not punishing those who would destroy it.
  • The second Futurama movie, The Beast With a Billion Backs, had this happen when Bender, along with his Damned Army that he gained by sacrificing his firstborn son to the Robot Devil, drags Heaven, where all of the universe sans robots has gone to exist for all eternity, out of its pocket dimension. He then leads a pirate invasion culminating in a duel between himself and the kraken-like Heaven being, Yivo. The fact he did all of this out of jealousy that Yivo had taken Fry from him demonstrates how much his friendship with Fry means to him.
    • Bender gets another minor example in Ghost in the Machines.
      Robot God: Bender, for your selfless act in saving Fry, I am pleased to welcome you to Robot Heaven.
      Bender's ghost: Shut up, God!
      Robot God: Beg pardon?
      Bender's ghost: I wanna go back to Robot Earth. I mean regular Earth.
      [Bender's ghost flies into Robot God's body]
      Robot God: Hey, what are you— [Bender's ghost's arms emerge from Robot God's sides and punch him] Ow! Hey, stop that! I command you, you jerk! [Robot God sighs] Just get out.
  • Ren & Stimpy has Ren doing this in "City Hicks" after his crops got rained on,note  which results in him getting struck by lightning.
  • The Rick and Morty episode "Childrick of Mort" has Rick getting in a fistfight with a Physical God-like alien expy of Zeus after calling him an "off-brand Yahweh".
  • In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer goes on a rampage in heaven when God refuses to save his family.
  • South Park: "Now that we know Heaven exists, should we bomb it?"
    • There was the episode where Stan asked Chef about God (because Kenny was dying... again) and their conversation went like this:
      Stan: Why would God let Kenny die, Chef? Why? Kenny's my friend. Why can't God take someone else's friend?
      Chef: Stan, sometimes God takes those closest to us, because it makes him feel better about himself. He is a very vengeful God, Stan. He's all pissed off about something we did thousands of years ago. He just can't get over it, so he doesn't care who he takes. Children, puppies, it don't matter to him, so long as it makes us sad. Do you understand?
      Stan: But then, why does God give us anything to start with?
      Chef: Well, look at it this way: if you want to make a baby cry, first you give it a lollipop. Then you take it away. If you never give it a lollipop to begin with, then you would have nothin' to cry about. That's like God, who gives us life and love and help just so that he can tear it all away and make us cry, so he can drink the sweet milk of our tears. You see, it's our tears, Stan, that give God his great power.
      Stan: I think I understand.
    • In another episode, the local priest, during a eulogy for yet another person killed by geriatric drivers, takes the view that God just finds it funny, and leads the group in praying that God's had enough of a laugh and will stop killing people already.
  • This dramatic declaration from the soon-to-be Big Bad in Wakfu:
    Noximilien: I'll fight time — that great, deceiving fool! Soon I'll be as powerful as the god Xelor! Yes, even more powerful... [...] DO YOU HEAR ME, XELOR?! I'll surpass you and I'll bring back my family!

    Real Life 
  • This is the definition of Misotheism. Antitheism is a lesser form, though it's more "rage against religion".
  • Numerous political movements have openly attacked the idea of the divine, both in theory and practice, such as Communism. In the cases where such movements have started a revolution, they did not merely curtail the earthly power of religious institutions but usually engaged in the symbolic desecration of religious places and materials to demonstrate the powerlessness/non-existence of the divine. Examples include the French Revolution (1789), the Revolutions of 1848, the Mexican Revolution (1910), the aftermath of the Russian Civil War (1917-21), the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), and the aftermath of the Chinese Civil war (1946-50).
  • When Pope Julius II was asked how he would get into Heaven with so much blood on his hands, he said something along the lines of, "If they won't let me through the golden gates, I will storm them."
  • Latin quote: "Fiat justitia ruat caelum: Let justice be done though the heavens fall".
    — Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (d. 43 B.C.)
  • There are common phrases for this sort of thing in various countries. There's a Brazilian phrase for when things are going wrong: "I threw a stone at the cross!" An Uruguay one goes "Me cago en Dios y en las tetas de la Virgen!", meaning "I shit on God and the Virgin's tits!". On the basis that the dominant religion in these countries is Catholicism and that Castellan (ie Spanish spoken in Spain) also has some remarkably descriptive blasphemous phrases, especially compared with Northern European Protestant equivalents (with the exception of "Christ on a bike", for example, British English really doesn't do much with blasphemy apart from the basic "Christ's sake/bloody hell/etc"), seems to imply that Catholicism takes both piety and impiety to extremes that other "cake or death" religions just can't muster. It's probably for the best, really.
    • In fact, in Spain it's not uncommon to hear "¡Me cago en la hostia!", being la hostia the sacramental bread which represents the body of Christ. Spaniards can go beyond and say "¡Me cago en la puta hostia!", meaning I shit on the fucking sacramental bread!.
    • French Canadian cursing is extremely church-centric; some of it combines the sacred with the profane, but a lot of it, when translated, comes across to English speakers as just weird, along the lines of "Christ of the chalice of the tabernacle of the [communion] host of the sacrament".
    • Italians do it too, calling God either a dog or a pig.
  • You probably did this the last time your toast landed butter side down. GODDAMMIT!!!
  • Mikhail Bakunin, a rather big name in anarchist political ideology and a self-identified anarcho-collectivist is attributed as having said these words: "The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth. A boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished."
  • Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner and champion against Apartheid, said in 2013 to an interviewer, "If LGBT people aren't allowed into heaven, then I would demand to be sent with them to Hell, as it would be preferable to a Heaven of bigots!"
  • Søren Kierkegaard recalls an incident in the life of his father Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard; when he was a shepherd boy, he once climbed up the mountains and cursed God for making him suffer. Soon after, he became very prosperous, but with this fortune came a tremendous burden of guilt for cursing God.
  • The elder Alexandre Dumas remembered doing this as a toddler; when his father's death was explained to him as God taking him away, he grabbed one of his father's guns and started climbing stairs with the intention of reaching heaven and "[killing] God, who killed Daddy."
  • Early 20th-century Chinese warlord Zhang Zongchang was known for being both extremely colorful and extremely ruthless. The Other Wiki includes this story about him:
    During the Famine of Northwestern China in 1928-1930, a famine that struck Shandong particularly hard, Zhang Zongchang was reported to have gone into a temple of Zhang Xian where there were many people praying for rain and offering gifts to the deity, then walking up to the statue, he slapped it and said "Fuck your sister! How dare you make Shandong's people suffer by not giving us rain!" He then left the temple, the next day ordering his artillery to shoot into the sky until it rained. It rained the next day. This is also where his nickname of "72-Cannon Chang" came from.
  • There's a common joke in online Jewish circles that is some variation of "We will fight God in a Denny's parking lot at 3am."

 
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The song becomes one when Charlie and Emily call Heaven out on their hypocrisy on what it means on how a sinner gets there, with Adam mentioning the extermination in front of the court while most of the angels didn't know about that souls in Hell were getting killed annually.

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