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A god or gods can easily be non-extradimensional. Many of the earlier materialists perceived the gods/god as a (absentminded) part of the material, physical universe, made of the same matter as the rest of us.

40k. is a strange mix of different metaphysical world-views. On one hand it is written just as a well educated man would understand paganism in the 1990s. We have a physical universe where the laws of causality govern, and then we have a spiritual universe in a dialectic/and or binary relation to it, where the laws of symbolism and abstraction govern. However, this set up is further complicated by the fact that you can take your physical form and go visit the spiritual realm. So on one hand your brother might "transcend" the mortal realm and become a deamon, but then you can still go and visit him (sort of) in your own flesh and bone body. That relation can also go the other way, where whole species can live in the warp (enslavers) and then come into the physical realm.

So as to wether the Chaos Gods are either gods er extra-dimensional beings? Both? But especially in regards to the last point, sort of neither.

Hellebore wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:
Its important to not that a chaos "god" cant easily manipulate things in this world. A "True" god would not have any difficulty enacting its will any where in the universe. Conversely it would not find it easier to manifest its desires in certain locations, like the Eye of Terror. The chaos gods and their servants are extra dimensional beings that cant operate well outside their home dimension. Just like humans cant survive at the bottom of the ocean without a lot of help.

That's your definition of a true God, based in monotheistic omnipotence.

But in the history of our world where the term God was invented, the overwhelming majority of gods are not omnipotent.

Semantics? By that rational Donald trump is the God King. By Pharonic might he can drop the bomb and wipe out the human race. Or in his benevolence, wave his hand and grace the hungry with mana from heaven. By mana from heaven I mean rations air lifted to the 3rd world and dropped by the US Airforce. A deity with limitations is just a really rich guy. Like Batman.

The Avatar of Khorne, the Blood God incarnate was defeated at the Eternity Gate in single combat by a mutant in shiny armor. Tre humiliant. The chaos "gods" are just space aliens with different rules.

 Red Marine wrote:

Hellebore wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:
Its important to not that a chaos "god" cant easily manipulate things in this world. A "True" god would not have any difficulty enacting its will any where in the universe. Conversely it would not find it easier to manifest its desires in certain locations, like the Eye of Terror. The chaos gods and their servants are extra dimensional beings that cant operate well outside their home dimension. Just like humans cant survive at the bottom of the ocean without a lot of help.

That's your definition of a true God, based in monotheistic omnipotence.

But in the history of our world where the term God was invented, the overwhelming majority of gods are not omnipotent.

Semantics? By that rational Donald trump is the God King. By Pharonic might he can drop the bomb and wipe out the human race. Or in his benevolence, wave his hand and grace the hungry with mana from heaven. By mana from heaven I mean rations air lifted to the 3rd world and dropped by the US Airforce. A deity with limitations is just a really rich guy. Like Batman.

The Avatar of Khorne, the Blood God incarnate was defeated at the Eternity Gate in single combat by a mutant in shiny armor. Tre humiliant. The chaos "gods" are just space aliens with different rules.

Your argument requires that the majority of our worlds gods are not gods, which their followers would disagree with.

That is the point I'm making.

Unless you've decided to make your own definition up, the term was created here to describe specific things.

Ergo, if an entity in a story is similar to that, they would be gods.

Your only option is to create your own definition and measure things by that

To be clear, YOUR definition is gods are just powerful people? Anyone who could order a pyramid be built or could die from the common cold? Because that doesn't seem deific. What boundaries do you set for a god?

 Psionara wrote:
When people refer to warp entities such as Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Khorne, Nurgle, Isha, Cergorach, Gork, Mork, etc., are they actually considered literal gods or just beings from another dimension that have powers that we cannot fathom?

Pure semantics. A god is a being with powers mortals cannot fathom, regardless of their extradimensionality.

 Red Marine wrote:
To be clear, YOUR definition is gods are just powerful people? Anyone who could order a pyramid be built or could die from the common cold? Because that doesn't seem deific. What boundaries do you set for a god?

We have definitions of what God is. I don't care what the definition is, only that the application is consistent across everything so labelled.

Anything else is An arbitrary opinion formed to circularly justify a preferred position.

Hellebore wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:
To be clear, YOUR definition is gods are just powerful people? Anyone who could order a pyramid be built or could die from the common cold? Because that doesn't seem deific. What boundaries do you set for a god?

We have definitions of what God is. I don't care what the definition is, only that the application is consistent across everything so labelled.

Anything else is An arbitrary opinion formed to circularly justify a preferred position.

We have multiple definitions for "God" varying wildly depending on who you ask. No such application will be consistent across everything so labeled, due to the aforementioned variance.

Even the difference between "God" and "god" vary wildly from person to person, even within a culture.

EDIT: This may come across as me disagreeing with you. I don't mean it that way, and I apologize in advance. I just want to clear the record for my own sake.

 Octopoid wrote:

Hellebore wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:
To be clear, YOUR definition is gods are just powerful people? Anyone who could order a pyramid be built or could die from the common cold? Because that doesn't seem deific. What boundaries do you set for a god?

We have definitions of what God is. I don't care what the definition is, only that the application is consistent across everything so labelled.

Anything else is An arbitrary opinion formed to circularly justify a preferred position.

We have multiple definitions for "God" varying wildly depending on who you ask. No such application will be consistent across everything so labeled, due to the aforementioned variance.

Even the difference between "God" and "god" vary wildly from person to person, even within a culture.

EDIT: This may come across as me disagreeing with you. I don't mean it that way, and I apologize in advance. I just want to clear the record for my own sake.

I agree, but this is partially because of the axiomatic nature of monotheistic god. The chaos gods can't be yaweh, because yawehs existence precludes the existence of any other god.

Hence why on the first page I said

Hellebore wrote:
You will have to provide the definition you're using for 'god' before it can be answered.

The abrahamic god is a singular being, axiomatically singular.

The pantheons of gods, like the Greeks and Vikings are not as singular.

Most gods of antiquity have some control over the weather as part of their domains.

By comparison to gods of antiquity, the chaos gods seem fairly compatible

So, if anyone here pondering this question thinks that the greek, Roman, Nordic, indian etc gods are gods, then the chaos gods are too.


The chaos gods aren't yaweh or Ahura Mazda or Aten, because they are all singular entities of singular cosmologies.

Hellebore wrote:
The chaos gods aren't yaweh or Zoroaster or Aten, because they are all singular entities of singular cosmologies

Well said.

 solkan wrote:
Yeah, wouldn't that be the cake of the setting: The warp, as a psycho-reactive medium, in the presence of undisciplined/untrained minds manifests things in a manner that causes a feedback reaction.

A shape starts forming, the mind witnessing it jumps to a conclusion and the form solidifies.

A bunch of marines on board a ship get delayed in a warp storm, and a confluence of fears results in a warp manifested disease spreading through the crew. And then once it's happening, the crew falls to despair and their conviction resulting from making a pact with "Nurgle" changes the warp manifested disease into something else.

It's exactly the sort of thing that blind fanatical belief in "The Emperor will protect you" would protect you from, or the complete absence of superstition would protect you from. But they've got a universe filled with people who aren't either of those things. Is "The entire crew of the ship was killed by a disease created by a nightmare one of the crew had" better or worse than blaming Nurgle for the plague that wipes out a ship? Or you get someone with a normal disease, latent psychic abilities, and spot where the separation between the warp is thin, and they manifest some twisted form of their hopes and fears. (And it makes the idea of Chaos a contagious problem, doesn't it? -If- you could eliminate all of the witnesses to a demon incursion, you'd prevent the idea spreading, right?)

It sure is a coincidence, all of those beaks and feathers on the Tzeentch demons, compared to all of that eagle iconography that the Imperium has.

This has been the impromptu "A Defense of Skeptiscism and Atheism in the 40k Universe". We now permit you to return to trying to decide what four named entities no one has been encountered in a well documented or corroborated circumstance are.

That's exactly how it is described in Josh Reynold's Fabius Bile series.

...he (Bile) prodded the swollen suppurating wound gently. He snapped his fingers and the vat-born held up a specimen flask.
"There is so much to learn from even the smallest elements. For instance, this venom is mostly hypothetical... it exists, in part, because of it's victim's belief. Circular logic of course..."

Of course this is the scientific analysis of a daemonic secretion by a staunch atheist who thinks (and rightly so, much of the time) he is the smartest man in the room, but an interesting theory posited nonetheless.

Hellebore wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:

Hellebore wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:
To be clear, YOUR definition is gods are just powerful people? Anyone who could order a pyramid be built or could die from the common cold? Because that doesn't seem deific. What boundaries do you set for a god?

We have definitions of what God is. I don't care what the definition is, only that the application is consistent across everything so labelled.

Anything else is An arbitrary opinion formed to circularly justify a preferred position.

We have multiple definitions for "God" varying wildly depending on who you ask. No such application will be consistent across everything so labeled, due to the aforementioned variance.

Even the difference between "God" and "god" vary wildly from person to person, even within a culture.

EDIT: This may come across as me disagreeing with you. I don't mean it that way, and I apologize in advance. I just want to clear the record for my own sake.

I agree, but this is partially because of the axiomatic nature of monotheistic god. The chaos gods can't be yaweh, because yawehs existence precludes the existence of any other god.

Hence why on the first page I said

Hellebore wrote:
You will have to provide the definition you're using for 'god' before it can be answered.

The abrahamic god is a singular being, axiomatically singular.

The pantheons of gods, like the Greeks and Vikings are not as singular.

Most gods of antiquity have some control over the weather as part of their domains.

By comparison to gods of antiquity, the chaos gods seem fairly compatible

So, if anyone here pondering this question thinks that the greek, Roman, Nordic, indian etc gods are gods, then the chaos gods are too.


The chaos gods aren't yaweh or Ahura Mazda or Aten, because they are all singular entities of singular cosmologies.

First let me say I'm not trying to insult people, im just trying to enjoy a theological discussion. I know people get all hot 'n bothered about Theology, but calm down.

Yaweh had Angel's. Not a pantheon but not a singular, unsupported entity. Theres also the serpent and the Satans. Theres ALWAYS a supporting cast.

So if were saying a god is just a powerful being that means The Emperor of Man is definitely a god. With his Golden Throne hes able to limit the chaos gods, and if it hadn't been for Magnus's interference he would have defeated them. Which would have raised him above those gods.

Singular because all things descended from them.

The chaos gods are a pantheon like the Greeks or nords.

Yaweh created angels, they are not part of a pantheon. They are servants of a singular entity.

I never said gods were defined as powerful beings.

What i said was, if the greek gods are gods then the chaos gods are too.

Its very much best NOT to bring real world religions into this.
The gods in 40k are knowable and have measurable impacts on the setting, slapping people down and giving them gifts that can only come from divine intervention. They're far more provably real (within the setting) than any comparable entity in the real world.
They don't need to be understood to know they exist, when an unsatisfactory sacrifice spontaneously turns you into a dog-faced mass of tentacles, or a correct sacrifice opens an extra dimensional gate and daemons march through to kill things at your command in the god's name.

If you can grind a world underfoot solely by blood and sacrifices and slaughter every living thing on it, being confused about gods is simple-minded. Reality is far more complex.

I do think it is a very good comparison as it allows reader to better understand the universe. After all, Warhammer universe is heavily inspired by our world, Christianity and rest of our western culture.

In lore, Gods are these unknowable entities. Nobody really had met those Gods face to face and most of the time they are dealing with lesser manifestation of said God for example Great Unclean one. Gods in W40k are like God in our world, except in W40k it is a lot more undeniable. When someone talks about how God had granted him a miracle in our world, imagine it being the same in W40k, except outside of receiving things which could be logically denied, you are now you had grown a pair of wings and feathers and can fire lighting from your fingers. Like in our world we have Jesus like intermediant figure between God and us, in a very similar fashion we have Keeper of Secrets, Great unclean one, Bloodthirster, Changer of Fates being as an intermediate God figure which helps mortals to worship forms which we can comprehend with our minds. Others, more pure worshippers worship an idea of God. Like Kharn does not have to offer his skulls to specific demon. Khorne does not talk with him. He worships Khorne like an idea, an idea which can bestow favor upon him, protect him and change world around him. Like I had said, even Lorgar did not ever met Gods directly. I doubt that Emperor ever did either. None of the Primarchs had met Gods directly either of which I'm aware of. It is always lower ranking figures which can behave like an individuals more or less.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 solkan wrote:
If you're going to try to bring real world religions into the discussion, for sanity's sake you better be bringing in polytheistic religions or religions that are further along the religion<->philosophy scale.

The four Chaos powers may as well be myths reflecting the mass hysterias and similar situations that happen when human beings are exposed to too many warp storms. Because:
1. These beings are described as living places where no one can actually go.
2. They communicate through individuals who can uncharitably described as raving mad men.
3. Or those being communicate through warp entities that can uncharitably described as liars.

I mean, really. Someone's supposed to take the word of a twenty foot tall two headed bird looking thing for granted about whether Tzeentch is real?

Disclaimer: This is a setting in which extra-dimensional creatures called "daemons" are real. Yet people casually dismiss the claims of Tech Priests saying that vehicles and complex machinery have 'machine spirits' which animate them. In spite of the fact that those same Tech Priests have enough knowledge to hook up living or dead people to machines and force the person to pilot that machine. Because it's an Imperial cult, all that human sacrifice is harmless and okay. *shrug*

All these things apply to a real world just the same. This is a nature of religion that it always get more impure the more players are between you and God. This is why Kharn doesn't serve anyone, but Khorne. In W40k Gods are used to explain why certain things had happened. For example, Birth of Slaanesh and absorption of Eldar souls together with creation of Eye of Terror can might as well be a natural event. Yet, Eldars being deeply religious race had attached an explanation of why this had happened. Nobody had directly seen Slaanesh, only its lower manifestations like demons. Eldar were smart enough to put one and one together and understand that these demons are born out of their emotions, but outside of that, they can prove anything undeniably. Slaanesh then becomes more of an abstract idea which you fear or worship as it had became in Eldar culture. To allow yourself to live naturally is worshipping Slaanesh. In this sense it is an idea of feeding warp more of same emotions which would further increase strength of Slaanesh.

In the lore, I think Magnus went into warp and their best description of a God was a continental land masses existing within an ocean which are best described as Gods. Yet, one of the biggest creatures are warp levathians which can crush gellar field and entire ship with a single bite. There is pretty massive difference between these two sizes.