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So, most of the HH novels include some morsels about whether or not the big E has got his sights set on being a god, or quite the opposite. So I ask:
Was he actually a god pre Horus heresy? If not, is he trying to become one through the worship of the Imperium? (post Horus Heresy)
Or has his stasis on the golden throne allowed the Imperium to deify him thereafter, effectively making him one against his consent?

The emperor is not, and does not want to be a god. But there were those who arose during the heresy who believed he was, and from there the imperial cult started

The Emperor as presented in fluff hated religion and thought it was a downfall of humanity, from this it could be said that if he could leave the golden throne he would be very annoyed.

The worship of the Emperor is basically a mirror for the rise of the early roman catholic church/empire. Jesus is presented as a visionary and a free thinker, believing in independant thought about the devine. Once he died and a hundered years or so had passed it had all changed, once a political power takes on a religion (or vice-versa) belief is replaced with dogma and thats what the imperial cult is.

A near immortal super human that united the worlds of mankind, who risked his life to stop it falling to chaos and even in his half-lfe state protects and guides mankind, its pretty easy to see why normal humans started to worship him.

In the words of the imperial cult: Only those who are truly divine deny it (or you know, something like that).

Now I'm not saying that the Emperor was a bad guy or anything, but getting rid of all the other religions, then going around doing godly stuff certainly makes it easy to make yourself into a religious icon. Obviously, as you've mentioned, the fluff states his strictly atheist views, and denies his own godhood, but there were a few other things he denied for his own ends, like say....chaos, daemons, etc.

The most interersting thing to me is where the Lectitio Divinitatus came from and who wrote it, but that's slightly OT. Seeing how the Emperor made so many human mistakes I'd say he's not a really a divine being. A truly divine being would probably instruct his subjects about Chaos and teach them how to ward it off, the Ignore it and it goes away tactic wasn't that bright in my opinion

The Chaos gods aren't gods. The Emperor isn't a god. The Eldar gods... probably aren't gods either. The Star gods aren't gods. The orkish gods aren't gods.

Chaos gods are so gods *fanboyrage!!*

purplefood wrote:The Chaos gods aren't gods. The Emperor isn't a god. The Eldar gods... probably aren't gods either. The Star gods aren't gods. The orkish gods aren't gods.

Care to elaborate on your reasoning?

The Chaos 'Gods' are simply incredibly powerful warp entities. Admittedly their power can be construed as godlike and they may be near impossible to kill but they aren't gods.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reanimator wrote:

purplefood wrote:The Chaos gods aren't gods. The Emperor isn't a god. The Eldar gods... probably aren't gods either. The Star gods aren't gods. The orkish gods aren't gods.

Care to elaborate on your reasoning?

There are no gods in 40k. Ironically it's peoples ignorance which makes them think they are gods. This contrasts with the advanced sci-fi setting which is usually about super advanced tech and usually very little religion.

Thats a reasonable enough opinion to hold, given the technicality of your argument. However given the nature of the discussion, I then move to ask you whether you would care to answer but substituting the word god in my question with whichever term you care to use to indicate said pantheon of very powerful warp entities.

Namely, should the emperor be counted among their number, and with or without his consent/intention?

No. He's a man. Admittedly a very special man with very special powers. But he isn't a god. Not in my opinion at any rate.

If he was to actually physically die i could see that turning him into a 'god' with alot of power

The Emperor is mainly the logical extension of human psychic potential, his "soul" is the combined souls and potential of all the pre-emperor birth shamans, holymen and any other people who showed "magic" potential whom all committed ritual suicide together to make something that could actually protect humanity from the preditations of the things beyond the Veil.

He was born to mortal parents in what is called modern day turkey around 8,000 BCE, a place that was ravaged by religious conflict for several thousand years. (several crusades, religious purges, Inquisitions; all showing the fallibility of religion to be used for the greed of the people on top) Thus he witnessed the worst of the worst in human interactions, seeing all those types of institutions as detrimental and corrupt by nature.

This would explain his hatred of religion, even if it actually helps his cause. You notice that he is very understanding with his sons on all but the topics of Religion and the Warp, which in his eyes are linked with the ruination of mankind (the entire reason for his existence is to prevent that).

Just my take on it, info from HH books and such.

I think we need to define divinity to answer this question.
Clearly, though, none of the "gods" in 40K are divine by Judeo-Christian standards.

God is defined as a creator of worlds and being able to bend anything with little to no effort and also is multidimensional being and cannot be killed or trapped. It is basically energy. That is uncontainable and can think for itself.

It seems that every race at one time or another were lead by beings of emense power, and were worshiped as gods. You could say that the emperor was humanity's god in terms of 40k dieties. But in today's definition of god, the emperor doesn't fit.

One day I was bored at work and started thinking about this (What a fething loser right?). So, here's the cycle I stayed in;

Big E is mortal, albeit one of the most (If not THE most) powerful psychic forces in history.
The Warp is the closest thing to 'God', as it's pure energy that creates. However it is not sentient.
Given that, sentient emotions/worship can give rise to sentient Warp Entities that correspond to such emotion (Khorne---rage, Slaanesh----pleasure, etc).

So questions;

So...even if Big E was not originally in the same class as a 'Chaos God'.....would blatant worship of the ideal ubermensch----create a Warp Entity in its image?
Could it be Big E's plan all alone....to starve the Chaos Gods of their power by abolishing religion and superstition....therein gaining the ability to be worshiped/deified?

AgeOfEgos wrote:One day I was bored at work and started thinking about this (What a fething loser right?). So, here's the cycle I stayed in;

Big E is mortal, albeit one of the most (If not THE most) powerful psychic forces in history.
The Warp is the closest thing to 'God', as it's pure energy that creates. However it is not sentient.
Given that, sentient emotions/worship can give rise to sentient Warp Entities that correspond to such emotion (Khorne---rage, Slaanesh----pleasure, etc).

So questions;

So...even if Big E was not originally in the same class as a 'Chaos God'.....would blatant worship of the ideal ubermensch----create a Warp Entity in its image?
Could it be Big E's plan all alone....to starve the Chaos Gods of their power by abolishing religion and superstition....therein gaining the ability to be worshiped/deified?

Or was he doing it ensure the survival of humanity and all other races?

I'd say no, but yes. While the Emperor was not a god at first, the mass worship of him after the Horus Heresy has produced results (though they may be the results of psychic forces), such as SoB's acts of faith, which is channeled through worship. You could say he ascended to godhood unwillingly.

Asherian Command wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote:One day I was bored at work and started thinking about this (What a fething loser right?). So, here's the cycle I stayed in;

Big E is mortal, albeit one of the most (If not THE most) powerful psychic forces in history.
The Warp is the closest thing to 'God', as it's pure energy that creates. However it is not sentient.
Given that, sentient emotions/worship can give rise to sentient Warp Entities that correspond to such emotion (Khorne---rage, Slaanesh----pleasure, etc).

So questions;

So...even if Big E was not originally in the same class as a 'Chaos God'.....would blatant worship of the ideal ubermensch----create a Warp Entity in its image?
Could it be Big E's plan all alone....to starve the Chaos Gods of their power by abolishing religion and superstition....therein gaining the ability to be worshiped/deified?

Or was he doing it ensure the survival of humanity and all other races?

That's another option. Perhaps he knew it would end with the Horus Heresy but also knew it was really the only chance humanity had. So he was a martyr....which would explain why he could be so powerful yet not see his own demise..

purplefood wrote:The Chaos 'Gods' are simply incredibly powerful warp entities. Admittedly their power can be construed as godlike and they may be near impossible to kill but they aren't gods.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reanimator wrote:

purplefood wrote:The Chaos gods aren't gods. The Emperor isn't a god. The Eldar gods... probably aren't gods either. The Star gods aren't gods. The orkish gods aren't gods.

Care to elaborate on your reasoning?

There are no gods in 40k. Ironically it's peoples ignorance which makes them think they are gods. This contrasts with the advanced sci-fi setting which is usually about super advanced tech and usually very little religion.

if the chaos gods are so powerful why dont they just burst out of the eye of terror and kick some imperial

necrongod wrote:

purplefood wrote:The Chaos 'Gods' are simply incredibly powerful warp entities. Admittedly their power can be construed as godlike and they may be near impossible to kill but they aren't gods.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reanimator wrote:

purplefood wrote:The Chaos gods aren't gods. The Emperor isn't a god. The Eldar gods... probably aren't gods either. The Star gods aren't gods. The orkish gods aren't gods.

Care to elaborate on your reasoning?

There are no gods in 40k. Ironically it's peoples ignorance which makes them think they are gods. This contrasts with the advanced sci-fi setting which is usually about super advanced tech and usually very little religion.

if the chaos gods are so powerful why dont they just burst out of the eye of terror and kick some imperial

Well thats the crux of the problem in my mind; apparently none of these Gods are omnipotent or omniscient. Just super powerful entities or gestalts, not really gods.

Clearly, there are no omnipotent/omniscient "God" parallels in 40k; so in the Judeo-Christian sense, of course he's not.

But in the way that ancient Greeks, Romans and (more modern day) Hindus and Shinto there are dozens of gods in the fluff. The chaos gods are in (including of probably lesser beings that the Big Four that only get occasionally hinted at) as are the dead Eldar gods, Mork and Gork and the C'tan.

Under this definition, the Emperor has to be counted amongst them. He has lived nearly 50,000 years (most of this time naturally ie not in the Golden Throne). His power is far and away beyond any other human and it's not particularly close. His spirit is believed to survive in the Warp now that his body is mostly useless. His will alone hold the Astronomican together. His own genetic material was used to create the Primarchs, who were super-human in every way.

Using a definition that calls Zeus or Shiva a "god", I think it's fair to say that the big E is very much a god.

AgeOfEgos wrote:One day I was bored at work and started thinking about this (What a fething loser right?). So, here's the cycle I stayed in;

Big E is mortal, albeit one of the most (If not THE most) powerful psychic forces in history.
The Warp is the closest thing to 'God', as it's pure energy that creates. However it is not sentient.
Given that, sentient emotions/worship can give rise to sentient Warp Entities that correspond to such emotion (Khorne---rage, Slaanesh----pleasure, etc).

So questions;

So...even if Big E was not originally in the same class as a 'Chaos God'.....would blatant worship of the ideal ubermensch----create a Warp Entity in its image?
Could it be Big E's plan all alone....to starve the Chaos Gods of their power by abolishing religion and superstition....therein gaining the ability to be worshiped/deified?

This is exactly what I was trying to get at, although I perhaps phrased my question slightly too bluntly, hence the confusion!

I agree that he's obviously not a God in the omnipotent, Judeo/christian/muslim sense, nor are any of the deities mentioned in the 40k universe. What I'd like the HH book series to elaborate on is maybe more of the Emperor's plan for himself, but I'm not sure if that would detract from the mystery surrounding him.

There's a big difference between God and god.

God (with the capital G) is the omnipotent being, clearly none of the gods (or the Emperor) of 40k fit this.

A god (with the lowercase g) is not omnipotent. What makes something a god is the entire crux of the argument. IMO, a god is simply someone or something that is directly worshiped by people. The Emperor is clearly worshiped by people, therefor he is a god. I don't think there's a "power" cutoff for this, anyone can be a god by having people proclaim you as such.

The Emperor wasn't at the start, nor did he want to be one as part of a plan, but, Irony Hammer!, he is on the verge of being one now...

Also is it still canon that the shamans could reincarnate into another body? But they started to lose that power when the warp became turbulent so there was a risk they could be consumed by warp entities before reincarnation and thats when they decided to all reincarnate into one being? So aslong as the Emperor could survive in the warp long enough to reincarnate after the throne fails he is for most purposes immortal.

I've only read the first two HH books, but what I gather from there is as Erebus said to Horus, that the Emperor was planning on ascending to godhood, but wasn't ready with the galaxy in such a sorry, torn state.

And on the subject of Chaos gods, I believe that Erebus stated it quite clearly, saying that the Chaos gods cannot exist in this material universe, and must reside in the Warp.

there are no gods on fenris... lol

but (a little) seriously, The Emp is not a god, nor will he become one, if he dies he is dead, now more interestingly the lack of a "focal point" for the faith of billions of billions of humans will vanish, and all that belief will create a "god" that has all the virtues of the Emp, but it will not be the Emp.

I always found it interesting that Religeous dogma can and has been the enemy of Reason and technology, that The Ad mech was allowed to exist by the Emp, I always wonder if he would have turned on them

Formosa wrote:there are no gods on fenris... lol

but (a little) seriously, The Emp is not a god, nor will he become one, if he dies he is dead, now more interestingly the lack of a "focal point" for the faith of billions of billions of humans will vanish, and all that belief will create a "god" that has all the virtues of the Emp, but it will not be the Emp.

I always found it interesting that Religeous dogma can and has been the enemy of Reason and technology, that The Ad mech was allowed to exist by the Emp, I always wonder if he would have turned on them

Eve heard of the Star Child theory?
Apparently if the Emperor dies he may form "the Star Child" and basically become a god in the warp.