Religion in DW - favourite character?

[Penfold]

:clap: Oooooh! I REALLY BELIEVE in desserts - do we get to choose d'you think? I'd go for a nice big bowl of profiteroles with a serving of honeycomb Cornish Ice Cream

Knowing your luck, God's dyslexic and you'll end up with the Sahara.

[AgProv]

Religion in DW: you must have a place for the priesthood, who in a world with VERY tangible Gods do not have the same problems as their Earthly counterparts. A crisis of doubt or faith must take different lines on the DW - you can't easily enter a dark night of the soul brought on by growing doubt that the gods exists. not when the God is likely to turn up at the front door, chuck a thunderbolt through the letterbox and shout "YES I DO BLOODY WELL EXIST!"

Discworld priests must have a bit of Hughnon Ridcully about them - not so much devout visionaries as practical organisers, managers, financiers, administrators.... as Dios the High Priest said of Djelibeybi, there would be nothing so appalling as the Gods turning up to see what was being done in Their name, and that he saw part of his duty as High Priest was to keep them at arms' length.

[raptornx01]

In fairness, the gods didn't turn up all the time. Time and again people in various part of the disc were basically described as meh, in terms of religious belief. Take Lancre and environs for example. you get the impression only the witches ever met any gods (or knew for certain they existed), and that was only small gods and only because they were tuned to them and spent alot of time in the woods. If anyone else met any (wood cutters, hunter, etc it was only taken as folklore and legend more then a "god" in the traditional terms.

Another example would with Om's rise to power. his original believer was a simple shepard who just believed in general terms. and when Om helped him he built a small mound to honor whatever was there, nothing specific. Om just took advantage of that and used it gain power. the situation could have just as easily been coincidence, not godly influence.

[simmonds91]

Belief is a strong power on Discworld, it is belief that keeps the gods alive, but what about the belief they do not exist? I'm curious, while one priest believes in Om for example, what of the other gods? Would his belief that there is only Om have an effect on the other gods? This was probably mentioned in one of TPratchetts books I'm sure but I never really thought about it until now heheh. A war between gods would certainly prove this to be so which, if TPratchet adds to a story would make it oh so much more fun