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So bhere's a fun discussion folks. are the Chaos gods really gods? it seems a strange question, we're told they're called gods, so they must be gods. but what's the definmtion of a god? well dictionary.com offers two definitions. I'll post both, to get us started

1: (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.

2: (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.


I think we can safely say the gods of chaos do not fit definition 1. so the focus will be on part 2.

A super human being or spirit (the chaos god's certainly qualify) worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes. They are indeed worshipped as such so under the strictest reading of that definition they qualify. but assuming you're wanting to focus on weather or not they really have that power it's a little murkier. especially in a world where magic (psionics) exists. I mean, according to the STRICTEST reading of this definition, "a super human being capable of having power over nature or human fortunes" A space Marine Librarian is a god. Should we start refering to Tigerus and Mephestion as gods? no that's ludercris.

I belive the chaos gods don't fit the definition of gods. moving back to the first definition for a moment, it mentions creator. and yes just about every divine Pantheon has an aspect of creation to it. The gods, or someone related to the gods created aspects of the universe. Making them the universe's elders who watch oiver it yadda yadda ya. This does NOT apply to the chaos gods. they're not creators at all. they're our creations. effectively parasites. One does not worship a tubeworm. And as such I'd argue that calling the chaos gods, gods would be inaccurate, deamons? absolutely, they're our sins given physical form. Gods? no

I don't think we can rule out number one at all.

AFAIK, we do not know the origins of the 40K universe and we are only shown it through the Imperium's eyes, presupposing their morality is 'correct'. We're also explicitly told the Chaos gods have never existed and have always existed. So they pre-date humanity and life in the universe, necessarily.

Objective morality, IMO, does not exist, so what is the source of morality? The Chaos gods say, in effect, be true to yourself. Sartre said existence precedes essence.

Aren't they the same thing?

The Cambridge dictionary has a slightly different definition as follows;

A spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being:
the ancient Greek gods and goddesses

So I think they do count as Gods, although they are more like the Greek and Roman gods than God himself. They are worshipped for controlling particular aspects of life, in this case the warp which they use to empower their followers.

Space Marines are more like demi-gods as they are a union between the human and the divine. Indeed are revered as angels or divine harbringers of the Emperors will by the majority of the imperium.

God - Emperor.
Star - Gods.
Gork&Mork
Eldar Pantheon.

Maybe the Gods of the eldar started as typical deities. The C'tan are closer to powerful beeings, venerated as gods. Gork&Mork? not sure... The God Emperor is a deified ruler.

The Chaos Gods however, don't show up in the material realm. Ever. They are creatures of the empyrean, even called out in the history of the necrontyr as something of a result of the wars.
So yes, chaos gods aren't defintion 1 Gods, they are at best defintion 2 gods . And, they still get kicked by Gork & Mork or Mork & Gork without much of a chance to win...

Eldar Gods need a vessel ( avatar ), C'tan need one ( avatar ) , who knows the Ork twins? and the Gods of chaos use splinters of themselves ( demons ), but demons won't have the same "level of authority" the eldar gods or the c'tan had.
Chaos gods are rather changing existing things, they don't create. 2nd tier gods IMO. Maybe thats why the ork gods wipe the floor with them. 1st class vs 2nd class...

Something that I'd just like to put out there is that there was an actual deity that was worshipped in ancient Mesopotamia named Nergal. He was the god of war, plague, death/the underworld, and was associated with some of the yearly seasons. It might be interesting to have a story where Nurgle temporarily consumes Khorne and becomes Nergal, with the daemons of the various gods merging to have the characteristics of both, and the associated legions/warbands becoming completely confused and engaging in fierce internecine combat among those who support the new order, those who hate it, and those who want to simply go a whole different factional route.

The psychic races (humans, eldar, etc) are the gods to the warp.

These races are a huge, ever changing pantheon that create (and destroy) entire realms in the warp, giving life to a multitude of creatures in that realm.

The chaos 'gods' are deluded and full of hubris. They are not the gods; they are the creations.

After decades of pretty intense study, no one has ever satisfying defined 'god' (or religion, or even worship) in a cross-culturally applicable way so trying to fit a specific entity into a given definition doesn't mean anything more than 'a god according to these limited criteria'.

Are they gods like the majority modern perceptions of the Abrahamic god? No, but they are active supernatural forces, have a special interest in a specific community, dwell in a distinct reality, rule over a certain place, have transactional relationships with worshippers and so on, all of which characterise many other deities (including the Abrahamic god at some points in its history!).

It's quite interesting from a theological standpoint. There's an element of "chicken and the egg" because while it's easy to point to the birth of Slaanesh as evidence that mortals created Gods and not the other way around, the warp seems to have been a thing since the beginning of the universe, that changes as it reflects the material world

?? Both those point to the same thing: mortal influence makes gods.

But then, so does 'chicken and egg' - its a simple question with a definitive answer, only confusing to small children unfamiliar with evolution.

----

The only real confusion is the idea that being made by mortals makes them.less powerful. It certainly doesn't seem to in 40k.

No, there are no actual gods in 40k just insanely powerful beings.

Emperor: Mortal psyker of immense power
Chaos "gods": Extradimential beings made up of emotion and concepts, no omnipotant or omnipresent etc. and can die.
Eldar Pantheon: Dead, so not gods
Gork and Mork: the most god like of the lot but still not gods
C'Tan: can die, not omnipresent/omnipotent.

 Formosa wrote:
No, there are no actual gods in 40k just insanely powerful beings.

Emperor: Mortal psyker of immense power
Chaos "gods": Extradimential beings made up of emotion and concepts, no omnipotant or omnipresent etc. and can die.
Eldar Pantheon: Dead, so not gods
Gork and Mork: the most god like of the lot but still not gods
C'Tan: can die, not omnipresent/omnipotent.

Your using a very narrow Abrahamic definition of what a god is. Many cultures and religions have "gods" that are neither immortal/omnipresent/omnipotent.

They are as much "gods" as my cat is a "god". They are just weird space aliens.

HoundsofDemos wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
No, there are no actual gods in 40k just insanely powerful beings.

Emperor: Mortal psyker of immense power
Chaos "gods": Extradimential beings made up of emotion and concepts, no omnipotant or omnipresent etc. and can die.
Eldar Pantheon: Dead, so not gods
Gork and Mork: the most god like of the lot but still not gods
C'Tan: can die, not omnipresent/omnipotent.

Your using a very narrow Abrahamic definition of what a god is. Many cultures and religions have "gods" that are neither immortal/omnipresent/omnipotent.

I can worship a duck but that does not objectively make it a god, get enough people to worship that duck though and an aspect of it will appear in the warp, but its still not a god because its been artificially made and if everyone dies the god dies too, so its mortal but extremely long lived, that is one possibility of the chaos gods as portrayed in 40k, another is that they are eternal and were not created by the 40k universe but were just attracted to it, something phill kelly (iirc) mentioned once too.

Well, in codex csm khorne was so impressed by dark eldar fighting his champions he brought the dead of both sides back to life, i'd have to say that if you can literally raise the (given the nature of the combat i'd say very extremely) dead back to life that is a working definition of a god...

 Cryptek Keeper wrote:
Well, in codex csm khorne was so impressed by dark eldar fighting his champions he brought the dead of both sides back to life, i'd have to say that if you can literally raise the (given the nature of the combat i'd say very extremely) dead back to life that is a working definition of a god...

TIL paramedics are gods.

Raising the "dead" is not godlike. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Uh, no. Paramedics might resuscitate a guy who just died and wasn't too badly injured, like a heart attack victim, but given we're talking about khorne cultists vs dark eldar imagine we're talking about corpses hacked to pieces and the pieces then shredded. And laid dead for a few days.

Also we didn't hear that khorne used nanotech or anything like that, he apparently just decided to send a rain of blood to the area and the dead were restored to life. Being able to simply do something thru willing it might be considered godlike.

 Cryptek Keeper wrote:
Uh, no. Paramedics might resuscitate a guy who just died and wasn't too badly injured, like a heart attack victim, but given we're talking about khorne cultists vs dark eldar imagine we're talking about corpses hacked to pieces and the pieces then shredded. And laid dead for a few days.

Also we didn't hear that khorne used nanotech or anything like that, he apparently just decided to send a rain of blood to the area and the dead were restored to life. Being able to simply do something thru willing it might be considered godlike.

Godlike. The chaos gods are not omnipotent, they are simply powerful daemons, which in turn are simply the physical manifestation of psychic energies (which in the 40kverse is scientifically measurable).

Perhaps the Hive Mind is a god? Immensely powerful, neigh omnipresent as long as there's a nid it can sense through.

If the chaos gods and gork/mork who are all energy created and affected by the minds of sentient beings count then surely the Hive Mind should. Hell even big E functions in a similar way, being the conglomeration of many powerful shamans in humanity's infancy.

I doubt we'd ever be able to decide on a standard criteria of what a god is, since as far as things go we've never had any contact with any gods.

God does not refer to omnipotence and never has. God just refers to any being with sufficient power to set aside as a god which includes everything from the Emperor to the Chaos Gods to the C'tan.

Again I find the above definition very narrow and somewhat insensitive to a huge swath of religions. By many cultural standards the various gods of the setting meet real world definitions of godhood.

More importantly whats the key thing any religion needs? Active worshipers which pretty much every one of the above listed have.

To quote myself from another thread:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
My understanding is that generally "gods" in the sense that we understand from Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia and possibly Hinduism may or may not have created the universe, but they were at least here before humans, and had something to do with our creation. From that point of view, the Chaos powers aren't "gods", as we (well, Old ones and Necrontyr) were here first.

Humans from different religious groups and even within religious grouos have disagreed over who or what is a god. In multireligious temples in rime acknowledged the existence of gods from many cultures and allowed their worship in a common space. Practically the chaos gods are 'gods', by a number of human definitions and fulfil the role of gods culturally.

They are a supernatural force outside the physical world as the warp is a supernatural place.

Powerful non human/ superhuman entities that can be appealed to for blessings.

A pantheon with warring ideas and interests that acts directly or indirectly on mortals.

They communicate to mortals through supernatural messengers or visions.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
To quote myself from another thread:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
My understanding is that generally "gods" in the sense that we understand from Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia and possibly Hinduism may or may not have created the universe, but they were at least here before humans, and had something to do with our creation. From that point of view, the Chaos powers aren't "gods", as we (well, Old ones and Necrontyr) were here first.

Which doesn't always work. Even in Greece, there were several demi-gods that were born post-human creation that achieved apotheosis and ascended to true godhood. To claim they weren't God's because they weren't here first doesn't really work.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Again I find the above definition very narrow and somewhat insensitive to a huge swath of religions. By many cultural standards the various gods of the setting meet real world definitions of godhood.

More importantly whats the key thing any religion needs? Active worshipers which pretty much every one of the above listed have.

Well as an atheist (not anti theist, thats different) I do not really care if I am being insensitive to any religion really, they are all equally made up to me, but I have to understand that I was raised in a culture HEAVILY influenced and in some cases directly taken from Christianity.

So any "god" is taken through that lense usually but lets define our terms I suppose

"a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being"

Ok so going by the Cambridge Dictionary we can say that none of the C'Tan are actual Gods are they are not beings or spirits, they are non sentient energy that gain a kind of self awareness after being encased in the Necrodermis, this just makes them very very powerful technology and the necrons are worshipping ducks.

Next the Chaos Gods, Gork and Mork, Eldar Pantheon, all are spirits .... ah, but they are not, because none of them have souls, this is stated many many times in the fluff, the neverborn are soulless, they also do not control any part of the universe they are representations of those universal aspects, war, life, time, entropy etc. they are also not "beings" because they are not "people".

Lastly we have the Emperor, well he is just a man, a very powerful man but a man none the less

In fantasy a god is just a term used for very powerfull entities that are normally worshiped by weaker beings.
Thats why you have things like humans worshiping dragonns even in universes were dragons arent gods.
Or the goblins of moria worshiping the balrog.

So, by popular culture definition and understanding of what gods are, all ctan, eldar gods, gork and mork, the emperor (human nature divine spirit died for our sins and will reincarnate) and the chaos gods both mayor and minor are gods.
By whats called a god in fantasy, yeah they absolutely are.

Just like Pharaohs were Gods to the egyptians.

Depends on what definition you're using, I guess. The Greek/Roman/Norse Gods are all pretty similar to the various Gods in 40k. I think, in the terms of the lore of 40k, they are absolutely Gods. Or, as close to Gods as you can get.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
To quote myself from another thread:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
My understanding is that generally "gods" in the sense that we understand from Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia and possibly Hinduism may or may not have created the universe, but they were at least here before humans, and had something to do with our creation. From that point of view, the Chaos powers aren't "gods", as we (well, Old ones and Necrontyr) were here first.

The Chaos Gods however predate or at least existed at the same time period of the Old Ones.

Slaanesh and the elder gods all seem to have claim in some way to elder souls.
And the word spirits and beings tends to be stretch for any deity.
But would the chaos gods not have control over there parts of reality as any god would, if they are not gods. Then what are they, and at what point are they different.

As is some gods in the real world no more than minor powers that has a small allmost insignificant domain.
Even now, in real religions not every god would have come before humans. And not every god would have that much power in the end.

The issue with trying to define a god is that it can only really be defined by someone who is unbiased, and as such does not believe in gods, and so will only every be defined in a sceptical manner.

Anyone who believes in a god or gods, believes that their god or gods is the truth and that others religions are wrong, inaccurate or misguided, depending on their level of fanaticism. (some people have their beliefs but do not look down on others. Others have their beliefs and everyone else is an idiot).

As such, any definition of a god as anything other than what that person believes is going to be a sceptical definition at best.

The closest thing I can think of is that a God is a legendary/mythical entity whose abilities far exceed our own. Depending on what you believe, a God may not have a physical manifestation, as they require faith to exist. In this vein, the Chaos Gods and Gork & Mork are Gods, as without faith & belief, they don't exist.

The Emperor would not, as, to paraphrase "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy", proof denies faith, and without faith god is nothing, so having proof of the (god) emperors existence proves that he doesn't exist, and he will disappear in a puff of logic.

 Formosa wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Again I find the above definition very narrow and somewhat insensitive to a huge swath of religions. By many cultural standards the various gods of the setting meet real world definitions of godhood.

More importantly whats the key thing any religion needs? Active worshipers which pretty much every one of the above listed have.

Well as an atheist (not anti theist, thats different) I do not really care if I am being insensitive to any religion really, they are all equally made up to me, but I have to understand that I was raised in a culture HEAVILY influenced and in some cases directly taken from Christianity.

So any "god" is taken through that lense usually but lets define our terms I suppose

"a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being"

Ok so going by the Cambridge Dictionary we can say that none of the C'Tan are actual Gods are they are not beings or spirits, they are non sentient energy that gain a kind of self awareness after being encased in the Necrodermis, this just makes them very very powerful technology and the necrons are worshipping ducks.

Next the Chaos Gods, Gork and Mork, Eldar Pantheon, all are spirits .... ah, but they are not, because none of them have souls, this is stated many many times in the fluff, the neverborn are soulless, they also do not control any part of the universe they are representations of those universal aspects, war, life, time, entropy etc. they are also not "beings" because they are not "people".

Lastly we have the Emperor, well he is just a man, a very powerful man but a man none the less

You've got very... odd twists to 'beings,' 'spirits' and 'soul.' And possibly 'people,' since you're throwing that in quotes as well.

If the C'tan have self-awareness, by definition they aren't non-sentient. They aren't even non-sapient at that point.

Angel wrote:Humans from different religious groups and even within religious grouos have disagreed over who or what is a god.

Eh. Mostly just to invalidate a different religion for purposes of persecution or conversion.
Much like this thread, it seems more an exercise in hair-splitting than real discussion.