Charr Atheism

[Oglaf.1074]

It is kinda amusing to see in a fantasy setting where the various gods are literally walking the earth, so to speak.

 

But then again, I guess it is more like anti-theism in that the Charr can’t really deny their existence either but simply consider them unworthy of worship?

 

Makes you wonder if there is any other spiritual belief (such as an afterlife) which wouldn’t necessarily be tied to the worship of a deity.

[Ariurotl.3718]

It is anti-theism. It's "charr need no gods" rather than "charr don't believe in gods". I think humans' behavior in the game is more interesting as many were born after the gods left Tyria, so for a while all they had to confirm their existence was belief... and, well, magic. It wouldn't be shocking if a few fringe atheist groups sprang up. I mean, we do have flat earthers IRL.

[Oglaf.1074]

Good point. Since everyone pretty much knows that Kormir isn’t a “true goddess” in the sense that she was a human who ascended you’d think that at least some humans would refuse to worship her.

 

And then there is Balthazar who clearly shows that the image of the human gods as benevolent patrons of the human species in Tyria isn’t exactly correct. After his rampage you’d think at least some people would start to question the other gods as well.

[Orangensaft.7139]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> Good point. Since everyone pretty much knows that Kormir isn’t a “true goddess” in the sense that she was a human who ascended you’d think that at least some humans would refuse to worship her.

>

> And then there is Balthazar who clearly shows that the image of the human gods as benevolent patrons of the human species in Tyria isn’t exactly correct. After his rampage you’d think at least some people would start to question the other gods as well.

 

But the other gods could have very well all been normal humans too

we dont know enough about their true origins... actually seeing how a normal mortal can become a god (like you mentioned with kormir) it could spark questioning if the other gods are maybe not so far above us after all and just happened to be in the right place at the right time to ascend to godhood

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> Good point. Since everyone pretty much knows that Kormir isn’t a “true goddess” in the sense that she was a human who ascended you’d think that at least some humans would refuse to worship her.

>

> And then there is Balthazar who clearly shows that the image of the human gods as benevolent patrons of the human species in Tyria isn’t exactly correct. After his rampage you’d think at least some people would start to question the other gods as well.

 

The Six Gods are not gods because "god" is a biological species. Godhood is earned, not given. So Kormir is still as much a god as Grenth who was born of a god and mortal. We actually don't know the origin of most gods - we only know that Kormir, Grenth, and Abaddon were not always gods, and we know Kormir's and Grenth's origins. Lyssa's origins are outright stated, in lore, to be unknown and forgotten. Balthazar, who has a father, is likely a mortal or half-god who ascended into godhood much like Kormir or Grenth.

 

Whether the same rules of divinity applies to other gods (actual or potential in the setting including Zintl, Great Dwarf, Koda, Mellaggan, and Ameyalli among others) is fully unknown.

 

I would also point out that the gods were never universally benevolent. I mean, even if we forget about **Abaddon and Dhuum**, two of the main antagonists of GW1, Grenth was seen not as "kind" but "just" - as in he'd punish those deserving it without batting an eye. Balthazar struck down a guy in a fit of rage for losing to a *board game*. And this is the Nightfall manual for Lyssa, the goddess of love:

 

The patron goddess of Mesmers wears many masks, appearing in myriad forms. Patrons of the arts effusively praise her particularly in the courts of wealthy Vabbi but some fear her as a temperamental goddess. Behind her beautiful façade, some say, she maintains a deep communion with chaos. Displays of art and culture please her, but **her wrath is terrible to behold.** Her followers use her magic for illusion, **trickery, and deception,** twisting the magic of others to suit their own goals. By her whims, **her enemies are brutalized by despair and hopelessness,** while her beautiful followers are elevated to heights of rapture.

 

Even Prophecies had some darkness to Lyssa:

 

The twin goddesses of beauty and illusion, Lyssa is the patron god of the Mesmer profession. Many a spellcaster has fallen under the charms of these two, making it easy for them to choose to specialize in the mesmeric arts. Lyssa is usually portrayed in her natural state—a pair of twin, intertwined goddesses, back to back, no illusions or glamours involved. There are stories of young men stopping to gaze longingly at statues of the beautiful goddesses, **only to forget themselves and die of thirst while simply looking on.**

 

Would a benevolent goddess let people die of thirst because they cannot stop looking at her?

 

As far as I can remember, the only god ever proclaimed to be benevolent was Dwayna.

[Demented Sheep.1642]

The human gods are...well HUMAN gods. They are really powerful, they bought humans to Tyria, they had a huge effect on the world and have effected races other than just humans but they still aren't your 'omniscient, creator of all things' type gods. You can acknowledge they exist without worshiping them.

[Rognik.2579]

All the races have a very different view on religion, which are remarkably diverse even if we stick with the five major races:

1. Humans are the classic polytheists, which physical bodies and domains over which they reign. They aren't omniscient, which is typical when you have more than one god, and they have the same range of emotions as humans do. However, Kasmeer and Marjory both demonstrate the different levels of human belief. Kasmeer was a devoted worshiper, praying to the Six regularly; Marjory, by contract, paid lip service at best. I suppose an apt comparison is Kasmeer is the type to go to church every Sunday, while Marjory maybe when on Easter and Christmas.

2. Norn are spirit worshipers. They pray to animal spirits, and even outside the four major ones, we know there are others like Owl and Minotaur. They tend to seek to live in harmony with the world, although they also want to make their legends known.

3. Asura believe in the Great Alchemy, which is a pretty big catch-all for spiritualism. I think the closest real-world concept is that of karma, where whatever you do in the world, the world will reward or punish you as you deserve. How the Great Alchemy affects how asura act is pretty unclear, but more than one have striven to learn the true nature of it.

4. Sylvari believe in the tenets written on Ventari's tablets... for the most part. Those who live in the Grove follow these writings as a means to live a good life. The Nightmare Court is a rebellion against these teachings, showing a desire to be free of restraints and act however one wishes; as such, they use cruel tactics to corrupt others to their way of thinking. The Soundless are interesting, in that they kind of resemble atheists, both rejecting the Dream yet not falling into Nightmare.

5. Charr did have gods, once upon a time. Back during the Searing days, their shamans saw the Titans as their gods, and built effigies of them. The Titans got released when the Lich Khilbron was killed, and that was the start of the change in attitude. We see with Pyre Fierceshot, and later Kalla Scorchrazor, the charr throwing off their oppressive shaman and declaring boldly that the charr will no longer have any gods. It's not so much that they don't BELIEVE in gods, but that they'd rather make their own way, and they've seen for themselves that gods can be killed.

 

The other races have various other religions, with the hylek believing the sun to be a god, the Itzel and their "The jungle provides" philosophy, the grawl praying to any interesting hunk of rock, the skritt and their devotion to shinies (tell me that's not their religion!), and the quaggan turning one of Melandru's statues into Mellaggan. I don't recall what, if any, beliefs the ogres hold, outside of their symbiotic relationship with pets even rangers can't (or won't) tame.

[draxynnic.3719]

> @"Rognik.2579" said:

>

> the skritt and their devotion to shinies (tell me that's not their religion!)

 

"The skritt have only a faint sense of faith—more a sense of empathy for the world than a belief in a divine source or power. Skritt feel that life exists simply so that one can have pleasant times and good memories. They are hedonists and are willing to gain their comforts from someone else's labor. They are scavengers, but picky ones. They're not the sort to dig through your trash, but rather the kind of mooch who convinces you that your extra sword is too much trouble to carry and you should give it to them. They do have a sense of material value, and prefer shinier, more advanced items. In time, skritt will likely break anything they've been given and come sniffing around for newer and better items to acquire."

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Those_Sneaky,_Sneaky_Skritt

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

> @"Rognik.2579" said:

 

> 3. Asura believe in the Great Alchemy, which is a pretty big catch-all for spiritualism. I think the closest real-world concept is that of karma, where whatever you do in the world, the world will reward or punish you as you deserve. How the Great Alchemy affects how asura act is pretty unclear, but more than one have striven to learn the true nature of it.

 

It's not so much a catch-all or spiritualism. The core tenant of the Eternal Alchemy is simply that everything that is, has been, or could be- even the mystical or metaphysical parts- operate on predictable principles that can be codified and quantified. In RL, with the modern fetish for science, many folks just take that for granted, but in a fantasy setting it's a much more radical (and potentially wrong) proposition.

 

Naturally, that means it doesn't have many implications for behavior, which is how you can get something so traditionally immoral as the Inquest accepted into the society. The only things that spring to mind off the top of my head are tendencies to look at the big picture ("We're all just cogs in the Eternal Alchemy"), tendencies to treat reality as a zero-sum equation ("There is no profit in the Eternal Alchemy", or Macha's theory of pseudo-karma), and a rationalization of death as the elements that make up an asura simply being dispersed and recycled into something larger than themselves.

 

> I don't recall what, if any, beliefs the ogres hold, outside of their symbiotic relationship with pets even rangers can't (or won't) tame.

 

We only got that from the Dolyak Express on the old forums, alas. _"Ogres are not spiritual in any fashion; they have no concept of gods or religious spirits, they do not worship anything or anyone, they do not have religious traditions, superstitions, or any other fantastic explanation about how the world works or how life was created. They simply do not care. Ogres care only for the here-and-now, the concrete reality of the moment, and have no spiritual belief system to address anything beyond that point."_

 

As far as their pets go, we actually get to practice the ogre method of taming in the PS- it involves beating and physically dominating a creature until it breaks and acknowledges you as dominant. That's not something that comes easily to someone without an ogre-like physique (imagine an asura trying to beat a griffon into submission!), and many rangers wouldn't want to do something that brutal even if they could.

[Oglaf.1074]

I've always seen the Eternal Alchemy as methodological naturalism modified to also take the magical into account.

 

After all, the GW universe very much is such a world where the magical is just another naturally-occuring thing like the laws of physics and the like.

[mercury ranique.2170]

To understand a deity like a god you need to look at the people who created the label. In a search of understanding, humans (real ones) started explaining things and in the process they envisioned a being doing extraordinary things. When we explored further we discovered some things assumed being caused by this deity was not caused by it. But we still have many mysteries unsolved and many people still believe in such a deity. So a god is to ‘blame’ or ‘praise’ The unexplainable. Now to gw2 universe. The thing less understood is magic. So it is safe to assume that the power of a God is magical. Something we know from the more recent story is thats magic is never bound to a specific entity. So a deity with extreme magic can be stripped of it. It can replenish using other sources and others can gather it and take the place. The charr do not deny the existentie of these deities, but choose not to worship them. Maybe they are starter then most races. Who knows ?

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Rognik.2579" said:

> 2. Norn are spirit worshipers. They pray to animal spirits, and even outside the four major ones, we know there are others like Owl and Minotaur. They tend to seek to live in harmony with the world, although they also want to make their legends known.

 

More accurately, they worship a specific pantheon of spirits. There is only one spirit for all the bears in the world, only one spirit for all the owls. And these are more than just typical spirits too, these are beings with divine-like powers capable of granting powers and boons to others, and they have their own set of avatars just like the Six Human Gods do (typically these are spirits of the animals they represent by all appearances).

 

A very wide pantheon, but still one with a very set number and very set individuals, and not just "worship animal spirits in general".

 

For all intents and purposes, the Spirits of the Wilds are gods. But they seem to be of a "different variety" than the Six Gods. And the same can be said other other gods worshiped - including but not limited to the Great Dwarf, Koda, Zintl, Mellaggan, and Ameyalli.

[draxynnic.3719]

> @"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:

> > @"Rognik.2579" said:

>

> > 3. Asura believe in the Great Alchemy, which is a pretty big catch-all for spiritualism. I think the closest real-world concept is that of karma, where whatever you do in the world, the world will reward or punish you as you deserve. How the Great Alchemy affects how asura act is pretty unclear, but more than one have striven to learn the true nature of it.

>

> It's not so much a catch-all or spiritualism. The core tenant of the Eternal Alchemy is simply that everything that is, has been, or could be- even the mystical or metaphysical parts- operate on predictable principles that can be codified and quantified. In RL, with the modern fetish for science, many folks just take that for granted, but in a fantasy setting it's a much more radical (and potentially wrong) proposition.

>

> Naturally, that means it doesn't have many implications for behavior, which is how you can get something so traditionally immoral as the Inquest accepted into the society. The only things that spring to mind off the top of my head are tendencies to look at the big picture ("We're all just cogs in the Eternal Alchemy"), tendencies to treat reality as a zero-sum equation ("There is no profit in the Eternal Alchemy", or Macha's theory of pseudo-karma), and a rationalization of death as the elements that make up an asura simply being dispersed and recycled into something larger than themselves.

>

Largely this, although there do also seem to be philosophies of interconnectedness and things happening for a reason in the Eternal Alchemy. But at the bottom line, the Eternal Alchemy philosophy views the universe as a machine, one that can be controlled (or at least influenced) by someone with a sufficient understanding of how the machine works. It certainly is, however, not what I'd call a religion _per se_ - the asura don't worship anything - although it does contain the concept of an afterlife. (But in a universe where it is not only demonstrably true that there is an afterlife but where people have visited it and returned, recognising the existence of an afterlife _is_ scientific.)