“You do, you know,” said The Lady. “Everyone has gods. You just don’t think they’re gods.”
- Terry Pratchett
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Insistence doesn’t change reality.
Very insightful. I made vague mention of your god, and you immediately guessed correctly who I was talking about, and even offered Him a prayer. I wish I had such a keen gift for seeing to the end of allusions as you do.
Is a god a God though if we don’t think about that god as an God?
No, but most people do think of Reality as a god. But they don’t think He is a god. There’s an important distinction between thinking of one as something, and thinking one is something. One is conscious, the other is unconscious. People are perfectly capable of worshipping, praying to, and generally being religious towards someone they refuse to believe is a god.
For example, the Corpus very clearly treat Parvos Granum as a god, despite maintaining he’s only a man. It’s a very obvious contradiction. He maintains false humility.
No, but most people do think of Reality as a god.
But they don’t think He is a god
These two statements directly contradict eachother. Either you think of Reality as a god, or you do not. If you don’t think reality is a god, then you don’t think “he” is a god (wow, the tautology was weird to type).
Also, there are many examples of religious people who don’t think reality is a god. Deists, for example, believe that god showed up, made the universe, and left. Under that belief system, the deist god and the universe it created are two entirely separate things.
There’s also pantheons, where gods exist within their own higher reality with their own set of rules, limitations and powers that interact with our reality. Reality (either ours or the supernatural plane in these belief systems) are clearly separate from the gods operating under these rules.
People are perfectly capable of worshipping, praying to, and generally being religious towards someone they refuse to believe is a god.
What’s your opinion on people who do neither? That don’t believe in a god and don’t pray to anything either?
I said this to them above- I honestly cannot think of a way to define ‘reality’ as a god. The universe? Fine, that’s pantheism. But reality is an aspect of the universe, it isn’t the universe itself. Reality is just what we think is true. Truth is a god?
There are plenty of new age wuwu types that do define reality as a god. If I thought they had any legitimacy I wouldn’t be an atheist, but the core idea is that we essentially exist as constructs within the imagination of this god.
So basically simulation theory without the computer. Or I guess solipsism, but you’re not the one who exists.
If we put what we think is true up on a pedestal, and say it cannot be challenged, and all must have faith in it under threat of violence, is that not exactly the way we treat gods?
I treat all my garbage the same. That doesn’t mean I think a banana peel is a piece of junk mail.
Also-
and all must have faith in it under threat of violence,
Dude, crazy people wander the streets without being touched.
They don’t contradict. There’s a subtle difference, which is whether it’s conscious.
Take Donald Trump worshippers, for example. They think he’s a god, but they won’t admit it, even to themselves.
Sorry, I edited in the stuff about deists and pantheons as you were responding. What’s your opinion on that?
How is reality a god? It’s not a being. It has no intelligence or agency. I can’t think of a definition of god that “reality” would fit.
Parvos Granum
My searching tells me that this is a character in a video game, which is a weird thing to reference when talking about actual beliefs.
@[email protected] is from dormi.zone, the warframe instance. I was talking to Darkenfolk in language I knew they would understand.
Maybe broaden your references for your entire audience next time.
And a fictional character’s beliefs doesn’t support your argument regardless of who would understand it.
I thought we were talking about Discworld.
I’m your god
The corpus worship Parvos yes, but that doesn’t mean he is actually worshipped as a god though.
We can worship our fellow men as just that: extraordinary people who are glowing examples of our species in certain aspects.
If worship alone would be enough to be considered a god we would be absolutely drowning in gods.
We are drowning in gods.
The Japanese worship eight million divine beings. We’ve got about that many too.
Are they actively worshipped as gods though, or are they simply remnants of the past?
Not everyone worships every god. Most of them are very minor deities, like the god of a particular river. You might worship that kami if you fish in that river or use it for transportation, but not if you live somewhere else. Likewise, I don’t worship Trump or the Kardashians, but many people do.
D’argo: How did you know about their sacred text?
Rygel: Where were you raised? Every religion has one.
-Farscape
Not to contradict the great Dominar (although it wouldn’t be the first time someone did), but there are many pre-literate folk religions that don’t have any sacred texts. There’s also no universal sacred texts for Wiccans and Shinto doesn’t really have sacred texts. There are texts considered important, but I don’t think sacred would be the right word for them since they’re not considered divine.
Which god do I have that I don’t think is a god?
Do you work for an employer?
Here in the States we are forced to work to eat and survive (we’re not allowed to go off into the woods and trap animals and pick vert and live as a hermit.)
You may not personally worship money, but your captives certainly do.
If I don’t worship money, how is it my god?
I asked which god I have.
Your life is dictated by the whims of money, despite your lack of belief, in much the same way that the gods of the Discworld go around beating up atheists.
My life is also dictated by the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere and my telomeres.
Are oxygen and DNA also gods?
Can you find one single definition of ‘god’ anywhere that defines it as ‘what you need to live?’
I do not worship money. It is not my god. I have no gods and it is not your place to tell me what I believe. You are, whether you understand it or not, unable to read people’s minds over the internet.
Frankly I’d prefer to dispense with money altogether. It’s nothing but a human construct which has turned out to be more trouble than it’s worth. It elevates primarily those least deserving of power, while denying all needs to those most in need. The heedless societal pursuit of it is clearly the path of doom for the entire world. It can do nothing at all without us, and we would be better people without it. Money is not a god. It’s neither living nor dead. It’s a virus.
I think the real problem here is that OP doesn’t understand what a god is. They seem to think it’s “something you need to survive,” which is not true about the Christian god or the god of any other religion I can think of.
I don’t think OP understood what Terry Pratchett meant either. Or the limits that his fantasy series applied to real life.
As suddenly as it had appeared, the magical tornado vanished. And there, occupying the space where the frog had been, was a frog.
“Fantastic,” said Rincewind.
The frog gazed at him reproachfully.
“Really amazing,” said Rincewind sourly. “A frog magically transformed into a frog. Wondrous.”
“Turn around,” said a voice behind them. It was a soft, feminine voice, almost an inviting voice, the sort of voice you could have a few drinks with, but it was coming from a spot where there oughtn’t to be a voice at all. They managed to turn without really moving, like a couple of statues revolving on plinths.
There was a woman standing in the pre-dawn light. She looked she was - she had a - in point of actual fact she…
Later Rincewind and Twoflower couldn’t quite agree on any single fact about her, except that she had appeared to be beautiful (precisely what physical features made her beautiful they could not, definitively, state) and that she had green eyes. Not the pale green of ordinary eyes, either these were the green of fresh emeralds and as iridescent as a dragonfly. And one of the few genuinely magical facts that Rincewind knew was that no god or goddess, contrary and volatile as they might be in all other respects, could change the colour or nature of their eyes…
“L-“he began. She raised a hand.
“You know that if you say my name I must depart,” she hissed. “surely you recall that I am the one goddess who comes only when not invoked?”
“Uh. Yes, I suppose I do,” croaked the wizard, trying not to look at the eyes. “You’re the one they call the Lady?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a goddess then?” said Twoflower excitedly. “I’ve always wanted to meet one.”
Rincewind tensed, waiting for the explosion of rage. Instead, the Lady merely smiled.
“Your friend the wizard should introduce us,” she said.
Rincewind coughed. “Uh, yar,” he said. “This is Twoflower, Lady, he’s a tourist-“
“-I have attended him on a number of occasions-“
“And, Twoflower, this is the Lady. Just the Lady, right? Nothing else. Don’t try and give her any other name, okay?” he went on desperately, his eyes darting meaningful glances that were totally lost on the little man.
Rincewind shivered. He was not, of course, an atheist; on the Disc the gods dealt severely with atheists. On the few occasions when he had some spare change he had always made a point of dropping a few coppers into a temple coffer somewhere, on the principle that a man needed all the friends he could get. But usually he didn’t bother the Gods, and he hoped the Gods wouldn’t bother him. Life was quite complicated enough.
There were two gods, however, who were really terrifying. The rest of the gods were usually only sort of large-scale humans, fond of wine and war and whoring. But Fate and the Lady were chilling.
In the Gods’ Quarter, in Ankh-Morpork, Fate had a small, heavy, leaden temple, where hollow-eyed and gaunt worshippers met on dark nights for their predestined-and fairly pointless rites. There were no temples at all to the Lady, although she was arguably the most powerful goddess in the entire history of Creation. A few of the more daring members of the Gamblers’ Guild had once experimented with a form of worship, in the deepest cellars of Guild headquarters, and had all died of penury, murder or just Death within the week. She was the Goddess Who Must Not Be Named; those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn’t. She was like that. She didn’t like the clicking of rosaries, but was attracted to the sound of dice. No man knew what She looked like, although there were many times when a man who was gambling his life on the turn of the cards would pick up the hand he had been dealt and stare Her full in the face. Of course, sometimes he didn’t. Among all the gods she was at one and the same time the most courted and the most cursed.
“We don’t have gods where I come from,” said Twoflower.
“You do, you know,” said the Lady.”Everyone has gods. You just don’t think they’re gods.”
Rincewind shook himself mentally.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t want to sound impatient, but in a few minutes some people are going to come through that door and take us away and kill us.”
[And so on]
I love discworld. I don’t get the quote though. Anything you wanna add op?
It sounds like the typical “atheism is really a religion” nonsense.
More that we exhibit the same behaviors around some things that we exhibit around gods, even to the point of sacrificing life and limb to them.
Gridiron Football is quite godlike in the US. We lose only a few teen and college lives every year on the field itself (Twelve a year, according to NBC news), but the injuries and concussions are plentiful and life-defining. And it’s normal for us to erect vast stadiums for pro-ball with taxpayer dollars while children go hungry and workers are without medical care.
The immersion problem in grain silos fits right into American Gods in which small private farms don’t keep their grain silos adequately arrid (dehumidified) and so it sticks in chunks and has to be prodded down leading to twenty or so worker deaths by immersion, Sacrifices to Ceres or Demeter. The level of moisture also increases the mold growth in the grain, though I don’t know if it’s to dangerous levels.
My own favorite natural god is the sun which shines life giving energy on us every day for eons. Yet we have to avoid looking at it and without the protection of the Earth’s magnetic field would quickly be fried in its presence (at eight light seconds away). Without the sun, we’d freeze and die. And if we were to imagine the sun a human body, the rest of the solar system (mostly Jupiter) would be a blood draw, and the earth would be a drop of blood smeared on a slide.
As I said, the typical “atheism is a religion” nonsense.
I worship nothing and I never have worshiped anything. I’ve also never believed in something with supernatural powers that can control me.
I have no gods. I don’t really care what your favorite gods are, I never asked.
Quite the opposite, as it suggests that human societies behave to natural things as if they were supernatural. We’re superstitious. It implies that all those things we might call god, are merely lightning in a thunderstorm behaving according to electrostatic mechanics.
I don’t fear the Almighty, but I do fear militants who are determined to insist I do.
I do no such thing. You do not speak for me and neither does OP.
Wow, somebody’s crabby
I take it more like that the emperor that twoflower serves is their god, they just call him emperor instead
Does he? I suppose he does. Being an economist on the counterweight continent.
Yeah, exactly. Capitalism and the state are also gods. This sort of thing is, I hear, explored very deeply in Terry’s friend Neil’s book American Gods.
The Lady makes me think of the unnamed god in American Gods who is never identified but seems to be associated with gambling.
Wikipedia describes him thus:
The Forgettable God – An unknown god whom Mr. Wednesday meets in Las Vegas along with Shadow, whose name slipped from Shadow’s mind whenever Mr. Wednesday said it. He has a liking for Soma, a Vedic ritual drink. Gaiman has never confirmed the identity of this god.
Are you quoting an atheist author’s high fantasy about what a world with the divine would actually look like, to pretend that applies to the reality he viciously criticized?
