A contradictory concept: An Nay-theist or even Atheist God

Exactly What It Says on the Tin

A God who does not believe in other Gods, and feels they should not be worshipped, despite being a God himself.

He/she feels that mankind no longer need his fellow gods; that the divine are actually holding mankind back, and inspires humanity to abandon them at every turn, and at every opportunity.

This is a pretty rough idea, so there are still bugs to work out, but I may have him inspire people to Rage Against the Heavens and Kill the God on general principle (as in it doesn't matter if they are benevolent or not, their mere existence hold back humanity and that's reason enough to get rid of them) which I'm hoping will provide an interesting deconstruction of both concepts and look at them from angles that I'm hoping haven't been explored yet.

After this, I may consider a Fettered-unfettered. Not sure at all how that will work.

edited 21st Jun '14 4:06:05 PM by HandsomeRob

I believe this is actually how the Abrahamic God operates- 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me' -so it's not really as contradictory as it seems. Although I'm not sure if they actually know what would happen if someone tried to claim to God himself that there were others like Him.

edited 21st Jun '14 11:44:38 AM by CrystalGlacia

I don't have anything actually constructive to say, (posting while drunk ftw), but I;m pretty sure that one of the Discworld books had a god of evolution, who is powered by people disbelieving in him.

Heh. That's Disc World for you.

Well in one of my stories, there is a point where a pantheon of gods ruled over until they started fighting with other pantheons over control of the their affinities, (3-way nature God/Goddess wrestling!) which caused a war leading to death of a majority of the previously immortal beings. The few remaining ones gave up being worshipped and went to living life as simple nature spirits.

This is different that a god who doesn't believe in others but Stop Worshipping Me would be in full affect. Even better if a group of mortals start asking favors from a descendent of a god/goddess (who thinks they are just a nature spirit) and thinks deities are a myth from the past.

Hmm.

That's interesting.

Truthfully, I was thinking more along the lines of a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Boomerang Bigot, Hunter of His Own Kind, type who actually cares a lot about humanity and is so jaded towards his fellow gods that he believes that he has to inspire Mankind to destroy them even if some of them are benevolent to Mankind, or even say Stop Worshipping Me because as long as gods exist there will always be humans that follow and pray to them.

But some of the ideas here are also interesting.

edited 21st Jun '14 12:41:13 PM by HandsomeRob

When I read the title, I thought you were talking about a god who did not believe in itself. But yeah, this is essentially the concept of monotheism which is as old as Literature/The Bible itself.

Although in the case of Yahweh, the idea was not so much that he was in denial that other gods existed but that people were worshipping gods that truly did not exist instead of one that did.

edited 21st Jun '14 3:40:47 PM by shiro_okami

I think it's a very interesting concept, I'm not sure how thoughtful you want to be about it but it certainly leaves room for you to quest by what measure a god is divine.

I think the best way to deal with it is to have the god accept that he and his kind have god like power but deny this gives them a right to claim divinity, and that their power doesn't grant them any more right or responsibility.

I could see it leading to an interesting balance where it tries to use its influence to convince humanity they are capable enough not to need gods but simultaneously undermining its own influence by deny its divinity.

Malal from 40k, who's only nodded at in the current setting, is the Chaos God of those who no longer believe. This is because Chaos is (an often pretty warped) reflection of the emotions and thoughts of people in the real world.

And when people grow bitter and their hearts turn from their god or gods and the concepts they represent, they give strength to Malal, because that's how Chaos works; belief is power, emotion is power, and the lack of either is also power. As long as one person has given up on the idea of glory through battle, hope, the benevolence of the Emperor of Mankind, whatever, there will always be a Malal. And Malal, while generally weak in a world where belief in the gods can grant you physical power, has power of his own, and has champions dedicated to his service who hunt and destroy the champions and servants of the other Gods of Chaos on the mortal plane.

edited 27th Jun '14 4:21:36 PM by Night

Warhammer Fantasy RPG also had Nechoco the Doubter, the Chaos God of unbelief. All Chaos Powers are powered by emotion, and in his case the emotion was disbelief in gods. His followers would go and spread disbelief in gods, any god, since the more people not believing in gods, the more powerful he becomes.

Now, having a god who is powered by disbelief have followers might seem like a bit of a paradox, but presumably eighter his followers don't actually know they're doing the bidding of a god or/and Nechoco considers the loss of unbelief by having a small group of followers being outweighted by the increase in unbelief they cause by getting other people to doubt their gods.

but I;m pretty sure that one of the Discworld books had a god of evolution, who is powered by people disbelieving in him.

That was in The Last Continent. I don't recall the details of his belief situation though.

I like the notion of a being that does not believe itself a god whilst doing things that are provably impossible by conventional physics standards and essentially fostering a mythos based on its acts by accident.