God Is Evil: Difference between revisions

* [[Harlan Ellison]] plays with this trope (again) in his short story "Hitler Painted Roses." Another of Ellison's short stories, "The Death Bird" portrays the "Satan" character as a misunderstood savior and "God" as a malevolent alien bent on control. The main character, a reincarnation of Adam, is revived and sent to defeat "God" in order to bring Earth to an end and achieve rest for himself and humanity.

* Lester Del Rey's short story ''For I am a Jealous People'' has [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|God's Chosen Aliens]] doing unto Earth what God's Chosen People used to do to other humans.

* The stageplay ''J.B.'', based on Job, takes it a little further: Satan's last attempt to corrupt Job is to paint the bit at the end -- where J.B. gets all his fortunes back -- as actually the cruelest torment of all; that God could ruin his life, and then just put it all back together again because the whole "Take away your fortunes, kill your children and cover you in boils" thing was just a bit of a lark. When J.B. points out that his children are ''dead'', Satan dismissively says, "You'll have better ones!", mocking the notion that everything could really be put right just like that.

* The [http://www.yiffstar.com/index.yiff?pid=8192 Bartleby Tales series] ([[NSFW]]) has this as its main trope: God is actually everything the most stereotypical religious zealots preach him to be, sending otherwise-good people to Hell for minor "sins" (like homosexuality) and even tossing his own Son in there for preaching the complete opposite of what he intended. Likewise, Satan's a lot more altruistic, using a loophole in his contract as Lord of Hell to change the first two circles into the closest he could come to what Heaven should be (though appropriately twisted; this ''is'' Hell, after all). Eventually, it starts its own [[Rage Against the Heavens]] subplot, though it's yet to actually delve into it.

** And Isha the god of fertility and love. Of course, she's kind of busy being [[Cold-Blooded Torture|held prisoner and tortured]] by the Chaos God Nurgle, who is otherwise a rather [[Affably Evil]] god.

** AND The Laughing God, the Eldar trickster god, patron of the Harlequins, and possibly the last hope for the universe. That is, unless Tzeench turns out to be on our side. You never know with him.

** Though the Fantasy version of [[Ax Crazy|Khaine]] has no [[Honor Before Reason|redeeming qualities]] at all.

** In WHFB, the gods are not necessarily outright evil as in WH40K; they are [[Jerkass God|much more subtle]]. Chaos deities, however, are completely immoral. Likewise, [[Good Is Not Nice|goodness does not equate niceness]] - [[The Empire]] professes all the decandent, fanatic, militaristic and intolerant ingredients of the historical Holy Roman Empire, while [[The Kingdom|Bretonnia]] is a [[The Dung Ages|feodalistic hellhole]]. Even so, the world of Warhammer is [[Crapsack World|a world half empty]], and its [[Jerkass God|deities reflect that]].