Guild Wars 2

Aseyhe.2948:

SirPenguin.5931:

Gods are clearly different than the rest of living beings.

Different in what way? There are many creatures in the Tyria which hold substantial supernatural power. In what way are the human “gods” special? Why should we regard Grenth as a god when Zhaitan, Baelfire, or even the Mighty Oouo are not?

The Gods clearly have some control over the Mists and people’s souls.

They know there are gods, they just do not worship them. I dont think their Atheist.
In fact, I think they’re Charr.
(dun dun dunn)

geldedgoat.5928:

Keldrath.4735:

Many buddhist sects have no belief in the existence of any gods.

Refusing to take a stance is distinctly different from responding negatively (or positively), so it’s just plain wrong to label them atheist. Really, read up on that parable I linked to.

Atheism says nothing about the supernatural.

Well, I already explained why that’s wrong, but believe what you want. ‘Atheism’ certainly isn’t the only term that’s been forced to evolve from its classical origins (which you do accurately describe).

I’ve already explained to you why your explanation is incorrect, and it’s simply because atheism deals with the god claim. not any supernatural claims. The only evolution the term actually made was that it originally only dealt with the greek gods. Now it pertains to all gods, both imagined and unimagined.

Not all buddhists are atheist but many are. not all buddhists believe in gods, though some do. Not believing in gods is the only criteria for being an atheist.

Dark”

By definition, magic is natural in the setting, not supernatural.

I think you’d be better served to look at the definition of supernatural. Unless you can explain the physical mechanisms for how Tyria’s magic works, then it’s still just magic… and supernatural. Otherwise, what you suggest would mean that the supernatural could only ever exist in stories, as once it becomes it observable in the real world, it would automatically become ‘natural.’

Keldrath.4735:

atheism deals with the god claim. not any supernatural claims

As I said before, believe what you want. Have fun worshipping spirits and whatnot with the Wiccans and Amerindian shamans. :P

Not all buddhists are atheist but many are.

Nope. Poison arrow.

“Do you believe in a god?”
“…”
“Well, he must be an atheist! He didn’t say yes!”

I quote:“Atheism is the denial that gods or higher powers exist”
What do you mean denial? If I’d say: “people who believe in religion are in denial that they believe in something fictive”, would you be offended by that?

geldedgoat.5928:

I think you’d be better served to look at the definition of supernatural. Unless you can explain the physical mechanisms for how Tyria’s magic works, then it’s still just magic… and supernatural. Otherwise, what you suggest would mean that the supernatural could only ever exist in stories, as once it becomes it observable in the real world, it would automatically become ‘natural.’

Doesn’t matter, the very first definition: of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
Within the setting, it’s not unexplainable. Just ask the Asura. They appear to apply the scientific method towards magic.

In the real world, supernatural does not exist, no.

They aren’t atheist, if Charr was real they’d be more like Satanists than Atheists, here why:
In the intro it said “we killed our gods”. This means the Charr believe the gods have once lived but they have destroyed them.

Satanists hate god and all that but they’re still Theists because they believe god exists. Atheist believe god doesn’t exist and have never existed.
If Charr were atheists they wouldn’t believe there was any gods to kill in the first place.

Asura on the other hand has a sort of religion (The Eternal Alchemy), but just like Buddhists they don’t believe there exists gods, so they’re Atheists.

Humans are clearly theists.

I’m not sure if the Sylvari acknowledge the Pale Tree as a god or just a powerful being, so I’m not sure about them.

Norns believe in spirits but I guess that counts as gods.

They recognize deities but not a reason to worship them… So in a way the challenge all the ecclesiastic views !

In lore, the human gods have been silent ever since the ending of nightfall in guild wars 1. Chart gave up their gods when they saw that they were actually just powerful monsters. Go 200 years into the future and we have gw2, humans havent had any contact with the gods and many are questioning their existance, charr don’t believe in gods since their dealings with their fake ones, and now some don’t know if they existed to begin with. Other chart believe that the gods were just powerful beings like the destroyers. Gods also did not come before the world. In lore the gods FOUND tyria, and brought humans to it (suggesting that humans are actually aliens) to tyria. Charr were also on tyria before humans arrived. There are many theories but yeah, charr don’t think that there are any gods, just powerful beings like dragons, but they are strongly against the worship of said beings. They tell grawl to stop worshiping things all the time.

The Charr deny human gods as gods. They’re powerful entities. So is Baelfire. Titans. Destroyers. Powerful with “magical effects” donn’t make it a “God” to the charr. They don’t worship them, they see them as something to take down, to beat, to kill.

The Charr have no gods. They don’t say Balthazar never existed. They say he was never a true-god or something to worship, and if he ever exerted force over Charr they would kill him (or die trying).

That’s not agnostic. That’s not “accepting them as a god, even if they don’t believe in him”. That’s antitheist from the get-go.

Well, in the charr intro they quite literally state “with engines of destruction, we killed out gods”

take it how you wan’t, in my humble opinion the charr believe in themselves, and in their allies(, if they were to prove themselves). If you are not with em, you might be against them, and if so they will kill you, or die trying.

Um, okay. Apparently pointing something out by itself doesn’t contribute anything.

Here is Ignosticism with a wiki link then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignostic

This seems more fitting than atheism, considering they do not deny that all beings referred to by others as ‘gods’ actually exist, but may not consider them ’true’* gods. Thus if you asked whether gods exist, the answer would probably depend on what you meant by ‘gods’.

*They use the word ‘false’ in reference to some. I’m assuming this is meant in the ‘not genuine’ sense.

Okay, juuust going to step in here and take a snippet from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_Legion this handy little site… “…has shaped current charr society towards maltheism.” Maltheism, or more properly, Misotheism, is hatred of Gods, not Atheism- and that’s directly from the Guild Wars 2 wiki, which in turn used a PAX Interview of Anet developers as its source for the article. Seems legit to me.

Like any fantasy people believe what they want. So many need some direction in their lives or some “thing” to believe in, others do not. labeling them is childish in my opinion. I get a kick out of people calling each other names by religion and also naming people that do not believe as they do some other name they feel is appropriate in their eyes, and their line of thinking.

So Charr do not believe what the other races believe, but they believe in something, themselves. Calling them atheists is as ridiculous as saying RL gods are real, or religion for that matter. Its all in your head when it comes to religion, and it needs to stay that way.

No because gods in this game actually exist so you can’t believe they don’t exist. they do however reject the idea of worshiping them.

there’s no proof of gods in real life so it’s reasonable to reject the notion of them, but if one came and actually interacted with the world then you wouldn’t be able to deny that they exist.

Charr acknowledge the existence of god-like beings such as the Six Human Gods; they just don’t believe them to be true “gods”, but simply powerful creatures that can be fought and killed, and therefore unworthy of worship. (And to be fair, Abaddon’s fate in Nightfall lends strength to their theory.) The arrival of the Dragons and the way that Jormag just slaughtered the spirits of Owl and potentially Ox and Wolverine probably does nothing to discourage their belief either.

Charr are Atheist, or at least the 75% of them, the other 20% wants to start fighting humans again, and the 5% rest still believe in the false gods (excepting flame legion), that is why their motto “Rely on Iron, not false gods”, if u read their history u would find that the flame legion came out with the idea they needed a “religion”, because that was what they lacked fighting against the humans of ascalon in which they believed in the 6 gods, so they sent teams to find some “gods” and they end up finding the titans they have revered as the aforementioned, now, even rytlock, when a religion topic show up (like citadel of flames as example) put the idea as “the charr will stumble even against the human gods”, but that is applied only on those charr who lives inside the charr territory, the charr from lions arch and other areas outside of charr homelands are like knowing the six gods, but they do not acknowledge them as theirs gods.

Depends on the definition of “god”.

Suppose aliens do exist and they come to Earth. Their technology would likely be thousands, even millions of years beyond ours. Should they be considered gods or merely powerful evolved creatures?

Similarily, suppose a person from 21st century came to a caveman, driving an Abrams tank, he would be unkillable in combat and immensely powerful. From their perspective, the roaring beast would clearly be a god. But from our point of view, it is just a tool, a powerful machine, that’s it.

Charr do not worship gods, they see them as powerful creatures, they do not “believe”, therefore they are atheists.

Theyre not exactly atheists since in GW Gods ACTUALLY exist and have done stuff and all… and Atheism is NOT BELIEVING in Gods. Well, obviously they have to believe something that is right in front of them. However, they dislike Gods and push them away.

ITT people try to convince each other that Charr society would agree with whatever philosophy they happen to follow.

Tulisin.6945:

ITT people try to convince each other that Charr society would agree with whatever philosophy they happen to follow.

Yet even the worst reasoning here is better than the none whatsoever you’ve offered.

Even Ree Soesbee has referred to the Charr as “atheist”. But, there are exceptions, just because their society as a whole rejects the authority of gods, does not mean all charr do. I have not come across any, but Ree did say that religious (non-Flame legion) charr exist and actively worship their deity(ies) of choice.

In other words, for those RP-ers who dislike the idea of playing an atheist character (I know you are out there) you have options.

The big problem is nothing in the story ever states whether the Charr absolutely don’t think there is a higher authority above the current dieties or not. All we know is that the current higher authorities that are present arn’t cutting it as gods.

The other problem here is that people are putting our own reality of the situation of gods into the setting a fantasy game.

In GW2 there are extremely powerful dieties running around. The Charr figured out how to kill one. Therefore, in their eyes, it’s not a god. Nor are any of the other beings of the same power.

I’m sure if we people of earth ran into some aliens posing as gods and we used nukes to utterly own their kitten we’d have a clearer understanding of the Charr Athiest / Thiest position.

Basically, if it ain’t all powerful, it ain’t a god by Charr standards. If it can die to a bunch of cannons and arrows, then it ain’t a god by Charr standards. So far, nothing in Tyria represents the almighty, so according to the Charr there arn’t any gods.

Sounds a bit Thiest to me.

Because, the Charr have stated a definition of what a god should be. Nothing is reaching that definition.

Nothing in the story ever states whether the Charr absolutely don’t think there is a higher authority above the current dieties or not. all we know is that the current higher authorities that are present arn’t cutting it.

Great post Urrelles. Charr have a diffrent qualifyer for what a god needs to be. They in fact require it to be a God (Omnipotent) rather than a god (Limited) that the humans worship.

So, while it may sound like the same idea, it really isn’t when charr and humans mighht have a theological discussion. Apples and oranges.

Charr are atheist. They recognize things as beings of power, but not gods. These sources can be controlled or killed by the Charr if the Charr wish to invest the time and energy to do so.

So in their universe, they don’t believe in any gods. There is simply energy and the manipulation of it. Any details about their beliefs on creation are unknown. They may have a scientific approach, or they may ignore the question because they shun the whole topic.

Charr as a whole acknowlege powerful beings that others consider gods. They imply a required characteristic for them to consider any being a god. meaning, they have a specific definition for what a god is and it is shown in their rejection of everyone elses definition.

it really is an apples and oranges situation here but more than that, it is circular reasoning. By their definition a god that is not worthy of worship due to that gods ability to die is not a god. Their definition of what a god is is completly dependant on whether they deem it worthy of worship (Whether or not it’s omnipotent). This implys a couple things;

1- They believe in the possibilty of a God (omnipotent).

2- They weigh known gods in a subconsious effort to find a real one (because they leave the possibility open).

3- They are less cerebraly atheist and more emotionally atheist as a reaction to the percieved betrayal of the titan.

so while they are atheist for all intents and purposes, they have theistic tendancies and are really just wounded theists at heart.

Dustfinger.9510:

2- They weigh known gods in a subconsious effort to find a real one (because they leave the possibility open).

I don’t think this is necessarily true (that they’re ‘looking’ for one). Absolute power could just be a handy yardstick: a way to draw the line between god and generic powerful being without having to come up with some abstract level of awesome a being has to be before it achieves god status.

LameFox.6349:

I don’t think this is necessarily true (that they’re ‘looking’ for one). Absolute power could just be a handy yardstick: a way to draw the line between god and generic powerful being without having to come up with some abstract level of awesome a being has to be before it achieves god status.

The “Looking” is a subconsious effort. the diffrence between denying a possibility completely and weighing the known examples against that ideal. otherwise, they wouldn’t need a yardstick at all. but the fact that they have one and they use it indicates that they are looking. Like a branch of science. the scientific method is utilized in a search. That search is “looking”. The hypothesis may not always be true but the “quest to find” or “looking” is still there.

I don’t think I follow. Why does wanting to identify something when they come across it necessarily mean they are subconsciously looking for one specific thing it might have been? Perhaps they’re simply ruling out the things it isn’t.

Even their battle cry (among other things it says) claims that ‘charr need no gods’. Supposing they did come across a ‘real’ one, and it wasn’t making any valid existence-ending threats against them, for all we know they might simply accept that it’s there and move on without paying it much attention.

LameFox.6349:

I don’t think I follow. Why does wanting to identify something when they come across it necessarily mean they are subconsciously looking for one specific thing it might have been? Perhaps they’re simply ruling out the things it isn’t.

Even their battle cry (among other things it says) claims that ‘charr need no gods’. Supposing they did come across a ‘real’ one, and it wasn’t making any valid existence-ending threats against them, for all we know they might simply accept that it’s there and move on without paying it much attention.

Because their way of identifying involves circular reasoning. They also don’t seem too eager to catogorize anything beyond “Not a god because it’s not a God”. So we see that their goal isn’t simply wanting to identify things.

“Char need no gods”: The attitude that the human gods are unworthy of worship because they are killable indicates that that finding a ‘real’ one would make it worthy of worship. Factoring that in, the constant self affirmment of not needing a god seems to be more out of bitterness and eventually a bitter-sweet pride than a self realization of pure atheism.

So the rejection of known ‘gods’ by itself can indicate a true spirit of atheism. But couple that with the indication that a true God is worthy of worship and it points to a diffrent conclusion.

I think the ‘not a god because it’s not a God’ thing makes a bit more sense if you’re operating under the assumption that it’s not actually possible to meet the criteria of a God. Along the lines of ’you’d have to be perfect, but nothing is perfect’.

As far as needing one goes, however the saying started out, it does seem as though they’ve lived up to it thus far.

As I said, it makes sense that way if taken alone. but it’s not alone.

And they haven’t seen anything that’s met their criteria so living up to it would be pretty easy :P

Dustfinger.9510:

As I said, it makes sense that way if taken alone. but it’s not alone.

I probably wasn’t being very clear there (meh, midnight with a splitting headache) but this is actually what I was addressing. Thinking back to their initial adoption of gods, this was something that took place when they encountered humans (backed by their own gods) and were unable to defeat them. Since they decided they would need gods of their own to deal with that, I’m assuming they’d never really interacted with any before, and this encounter probably formed their initial ideas of what makes a ‘god’.

So this could explain where they might get this vaguely defined idea that a god is something beyond the reach of mortals, rather than just a being with really amped up power. Maybe not strictly unkillable or unbeatable, but perhaps only by other gods. This also (as far as I can tell) was when they first really began to worship anything.

FFW through a few campaigns and two fairly significant things happen: first, their own ‘gods’ turn out to be inadequate and lose. By itself that wouldn’t mean too much (they could always just attribute it to not finding good enough ‘gods’ like the flame legion seemed to) but on top of that, Abbadon being killed now demonstrates that even the humans’ gods are actually not that out of reach.

Currently all this has left them fairly disillusioned with gods, and (so my theory goes) the idea of godliness itself. After all, none of them ended up being as much as they initially seemed. They have this concept of a ‘better’ god that’s worthy of worship – because at one point they believed they had found that – but there’s now nothing to show that it’s even possible, as it came from misinterpretation. To say that X gods are false, and false gods are unworthy of worship, could just reflect the feeling that there is nothing worthy of being categorized as a god and worshipped; that the idea itself is false.

Of course this is all just idle speculation, but something about needless dichotomy irks me, so I felt like adding another possibility.

Dustfinger.9510:

And they haven’t seen anything that’s met their criteria so living up to it would be pretty easy :P

In this case I’m assuming they mean either (or both?) that they don’t need help from the sort of ‘gods’ the other races have in order to survive, or perhaps that they’re emotionally free of the need for them (which would be an understandable sentiment, as that idea never exactly went well for them).

Ah, I gotcha. I can definatly see that. I guess it just comes down to interpretation. I’ll hit one bit here though.

To say that X gods are false, and false gods are unworthy of worship, could just reflect the feeling that there is nothing worthy of being categorized as a god and worshipped; that the idea itself is false.

That seems very philisophical and to me the Charr seem more bitter than philisophical. But that would just go right back to interpretation I guess.

Oh I wasn’t expecting it would be something they consciously arrived at (or they might as well say it plainly). More like… just a feeling they could be left with after these experiences.

OOooooooohhhh! i gotcha.

This actually isn’t too far from where i’m at. The only question would be, if they did come across an “ultimate being” would they adopt it as their God if that God was willing?

I don’t think there’d be a cut and dry answer. IMO, some would, some wouldn’t. The majority would be averse to the idea at first but there is still something that allows the Fire legion the ability to keep recruiting. if that following proved to be beneficial without glaring drawbacks, i imagine the Charr could get a new God. But… we’d need an ultimate being for that to even be a possibility and I don’t think we know that such a being exists in the lore.

not atheist… they are in the know about the existence of “gods”. yet they killed their gods leveling them to themselves an if you will become a deitie as a race itself.

bow to the mighty charr legions you maggots!!

Dustfinger.9510:

OOooooooohhhh! i gotcha.

This actually isn’t too far from where i’m at. The only question would be, if they did come across an “ultimate being” would they adopt it as their God if that God was willing?

I don’t think there’d be a cut and dry answer. IMO, some would, some wouldn’t. The majority would be averse to the idea at first but there is still something that allows the Fire legion the ability to keep recruiting. if that following proved to be beneficial without glaring drawbacks, i imagine the Charr could get a new God. But… we’d need an ultimate being for that to even be a possibility and I don’t think we know that such a being exists in the lore.

Basically, yeah, I think it would be divisive. Flame legion obviously have a habit of seeking out gods by this point, and if it was truly benevolent (to charr at least) some non-flame groups might spring up as well. I wouldn’t expect an entire legion to do it, but who knows. Then there’s the ones who wouldn’t trust it after their recent history, and I imagine a lot just wouldn’t care much, sort of how they didn’t seem bothered by godlessness before they needed a way to beat humans.

Asmodal.6489:

not atheist… they are in the know about the existence of “gods”. yet they killed their gods leveling them to themselves an if you will become a deitie as a race itself.

bow to the mighty charr legions you maggots!!

lol. This gives me the mental image of a bunch of charr killing a god and then suddenly all doing the sword-in-the-air level up animation.

They know that Gods exist, but they see no reason to worship them. I don’t really think we have a term for that.

Thia.4891
They know that Gods exist, but they see no reason to worship them. I don’t really think we have a term for that.
__________________________________________________________________
hmm… how about half believers

Seriously lol, where do people get their information from? It’s pretty easy to find (as it being easily found on gw2’s wiki) that charr has reannouced ALL GODS AS FALSE

“The charr are a race of large, savage, feline creatures that occupy much of eastern Tyria. They have renounced all gods as false and instead view all of life, from magic to combat, with a hard, cynical eye. Their culture has developed into a military state where they are raised as warriors from birth.”-taken from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charr from the very top of the page.

“Due to their history many charr shun religion. They do not accept any god’s authority and quickly anger on topics of charr worship or manipulation by god-like beings. Charr acknowledge other races’ gods as beings of power but do not see them as something worthy of worship. In the case of the Human Gods, the charr view the deities as beings to fight and strive to kill.”-taken from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charr if you scroll down to “Religion”.

How anyone can take this as anything but “There are no gods, only powerful beings and creatures lying and claiming to be gods” I find hilarious. They may acknowledge the existance of these powerful creatures but not as gods, just as powerful beings.

Charr atheist? Yes sir.

I’ve noticed some debate on whether the human “gods” are indeed gods and not just very powerful creatures who arrived on tyria through the mists from somewhere else. anyway charr are indeed atheist in that they refuse to worship anything and rely solely on what they can accomplish with “claw and fang.”