There seem to be a lot of books that suppose a God’s power is a function of the ammount of belief/number of believers in said God (“Small Gods,” “American Gods,” “The Land Between the Rivers”) Where did this idea come from? I saw it first in “Small Gods” but I don’t know if Terry Prattchett ripped it off someone else.
Hal
GQ or Cafe Society… decisions decisions…
First time I remember seeing it was in a trilogy by Dragonlance authors Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman. Can’t remember the name of it, but it featured two opposed Gods who had spent so much time fighting each other that almost all of their worshippers were dead, and the two gods were so reduced in power that they could only incarnate themselves as goldfish.
I have encountered it myself, as stated in American Gods and another novel which I recall as being about Bast and her sister (can’t remember her name… the lion-headed war Goddess). Essentially they were falling asleep as they lost believers.
To me it makes a kind of sense, the Gods/esses may have created us originally but by our very believing in them, that gives them power over us. Much like letting other humans have power over ourselves, they only have as much power as we think they have. Therefore the less a God/dess is believed in, the less power they have over us and the less power overall they may have.
I was made aware of the concept in Terry Pratchett’s ‘Hogfather’
New ‘gods’ kept appearing whenever someone guessed that there might be one. such as ‘Is there a god of lost socks’ and suddenly there was
This is also the main device used in the game Black and White. You gain power by spreading belief. It doesn’t go very much into the the metaphysics of it all though.
The first thing I thought of when I read the Op was Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.
In which Pan is greatly deminished by not being believed in…
…but…
The book make reference to the cry supposedly heard over the Mediterianian…“The great god Pan is dead”…somewhere around the advent of Christianity.
So the idea that the god dies with his belivers is not some invention of SF writers.
I would think that it would follow as a logical outcome from the premise that reality is a consensual hallucination rather than an objective, empirical world. Since numerous philosophers have pondered this, It would probably be hard pressed to find a first person.
I always figured it’s a way of both having old Gods actually exsist while explaining why they aren’t particularly active anymore.
There’s a book by (I think) Michael Moorcock (Elric saga author) which goes on this basic belief.
It was also in the TV mini-series Merlin where Mab’s power was drained by people turning their back on her and disbelieving it.
The books of Swords (Fred Saberhagen) also had a passage in which a god lost power because people didn’t believe (a) it was him and (b) in him. They were pretty much able to kick his butt as a result.
Overall, it’s a pretty common concept. In fact, I have incorporated this concept into (nerd alert!) my D & D multi-verse.
After all, it only takes one true believer to make a thing real.
If you’re asking about works of fiction, you probably need to go back a lot further, to Dostoevsky (1821-1881).
In support of that, I remember reading waaaaay back in Junior High when I read all the Greek mythology I could get my hands on stories of the final fall of Olympus and what happened to the gods as they stopped losing their temples and followers. IIRC Zeus and Hermes travelled about a bit much like Wednesday does in American Gods.
Well, even Christians believe this, to some extent. If you read the Gospels, you’ll find that, before performing a miracle, Jesus usually needed someone to show a sign of faith.
That’s not to say that God’s power depends on his worshippers. But it DOES appear that the earthly powers of Jesus were at least partially dependent on the faith of the people asking for miracles.
Mark Chapter 6:
1Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.
3"Where did this man get these things?" they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
4Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” 5He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6And he was amazed at their lack of faith.
My view of this is that if you don’t want God working in your life, He won’t. You’ll get what you want, because He’s not likely to force these things on you.
I was taught in Catholic school that faith was needed to get a miracle out of Jesus.
I suspect that it is an out for the tribal shaman.
“You didn’t believe enough so the crop failed/ The cogregation didn’t pray hard enough or sacrifice enough goats or cash so God didn’t protect us/ The lesbians, homesexual, atheists, are to blame for 9/11”