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What is the definition of a god in the 41st millennium?

I understand there a few chaos gods, gork and mork, and the eldar gods that are still alive (cegoraph).

However, can Khaine still be considered a god? Slannesh kinda almost destroyed him.

Can the emperor be considered a god? He is powerful, and has many, many worshipers, and a strong warp presence.

Whatever a society believes to be a god is. Some of them are real, sentient and incredibly powerful warp beings which is probably the definition you are looking for.

They are all gods to their own kinds.

- Eldar Pantheon
- Gork & Mork
- The Emprah
- C'tan
- Gods of Chaos

Only Tau and Tyranids lack gods. Tau worship their Ethereals though. Tyranids have the almost godlike Hive Mind.

Khaine was destroyed completely iirc and now exists simply as essences within Craftworls, made into Avatar form.
He does not exist in the Warp like the others.

The Emperor is an interesting one, one could argue he is simply a psychic presence in the warp, whereas other Gods are "real" - they have daemon form and abilities.

I dont count the Ctan as Gods per se, again more like super powerful corporeal beings.

 gummyofallbears wrote:
What is the definition of a god in the 41st millennium?

I understand there a few chaos gods, gork and mork, and the eldar gods that are still alive (cegoraph).

However, can Khaine still be considered a god? Slannesh kinda almost destroyed him.

Can the emperor be considered a god? He is powerful, and has many, many worshipers, and a strong warp presence.

It would depend on your definition of "god", and, in some cases, which edition of GW's fluff you are reading. Khaine has been broken and shattered, those Avatars are splinter pieces, so he wouldn't still be a "god" in the sense that say, Khorne is, but his "essence" (for lack of a better term) isn't gone either.

As for the Emperor, in older fluff he had a more direct role. In GW's original story about the creation of the Gargants and the formation of an Ork Waaagh, it takes about the Emperor sending out warnings through the Tarot of impending doom and shouting at Gork and Mork to cease in the weird warp ways that such gods do, but that fluff was also written in the late 80's and I don't recall him having anything near as much direct action since then.

In the Universe of Warhammer 40k, a God is an entity that gains powery/energy via worship. This is the one thing that is true for everything that's called a God in 40k, therefore it is the only qualifier.

so the emperor is a god?

 gummyofallbears wrote:
so the emperor is a god?

For all practical definitions within 40k, yes.

Ha, suck it chaos.

C'Tan are specifically not-gods as they exist only within physical space (the Warp is actually anathema to them, is probably why they needed the Necrontyr to fight the Old Ones). They're more Lovecraftian alien star-vampires than actual beings of worship and devotion.

I'd like to agree that it all comes down to interpretation. There are beings within the warp that could be described as gods in their own right, and they may not be devoted to the "truer" higher powers. I'd definitely consider the Emperor a god in some sense as well, but it all comes down to your interpretation of what a god is.

As for the C'Tan? They can do godly things but Psi sums them up pretty well. They're not-gods. They exist fully in the physical universe. They're god-like in endless ways... but not?

The same as now :"GOD is just DOG" spelled backwards.

This has got me thinking...do the Dark Eldar worship the Eldar pantheon? Or have they abandoned them for the pursuit of pleasure cults?

The thing with the DE is that they are mostly the descendents of the pleasure/hedonism cults that pervaded the last days of the prior Eldar empire.

Not the pious, god-bothering "nice" folk, not the simple "nice" folk.

Sure, there may have been some who worshipped the old pantheon, but once the nascent slaanesh became all real and nom-nom-nom, they were too busy covering their own arses and throwing their neighbours under the bus. Those left were caught on the ever descending spiral.

Some escape, but always, more get trapped (Remember, Eldar of ALL types (well, except maybe Harlequins) FEEL things far stronger than humans do. NOT giving in to their excesses is even harder for them, than it is for us.

 iLLiTHiD wrote:
This has got me thinking...do the Dark Eldar worship the Eldar pantheon? Or have they abandoned them for the pursuit of pleasure cults?

They do not. While there was a subset of Eldar mythological figures called the Dark Muses (granting inspiration for torture, decadence, and the like) that still enjoy cultural reverence within DE society, their gods have been discarded. Figurateively and literally.

At the "border" of Commorragh (one of the larger gates through the Webway) there is a place where the Dark Eldar discard religious trappings from their victims. This includes large idols they stole with them, aquila pendants, talismans to Gork and Mork, holy scrolls, or whatever religious paraphernalia their captives had on them or around them when they were taken. Over the millenia it's become a pile miles high, heaped with golden trinkets, ornate statues, and the like.

Beneath all of that junk, deep within the refuse heap they've made, are the statues of the original Eldar gods, discarded immediately after the fall. Despite all the Dark Eldar have done to erase them, and despite that they themselves have forgotten they're there, the idols remain. As Motley observes, it's a fitting metaphor for the race as a whole.

I know it doesnt answer much but this debate remids me of what lorgar said;
"if a man gathers ten thousand suns in his hands...if a man seeds a hunderd thousand worlds with his sons and daughters, granting them custody of the galaxy itself.. if aman guides a million vessels bteween the infinite stars with a mere thought...Then i pray you tell me, if you are able, how such a man is anything less than a god."-Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the word bearers legion