ghosterl: It nowhere does state that any god or gods never existed. All the Engwithans found out was that if there had been any creator god or gods they left a long time ago and that the Wheel turns without any divine intervention. So, following Voltaire ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.") they apparently sacrificed themselves - by the looks of it their entire civilization which also explains why they suddenly disappeared but had enough prior knowledge to ask the Glanfathans to guard their ruins - to create powerful beings that essentially simply *posed* as gods.
The remainder of them, led by Thaos, then started the Inquisition bringing the new gods to every corner of the world so that all kith would feel beholden to try and live as decent a life as possible in order to not garner any divine disfavor that would ruin their next life before it began. Obviously that worked, the new gods of course were ultimately extremely powerful beings, powerful enough to make no difference between real and abstract divinity.
Except for one minor detail, of course. The new gods have no divine mandate at all, which is the *truth* that Iovara was spreading, the truth she was tortured and killed for. They just are what they are, either constructs or severely empowered mortals. I'm inclined to believe that the Engwithans just used a lot of essence (souls) to empower several probably already powerful beings.
Why? Because, well... Abydon was said to have been killed and his soul then bound to some animat (golem). That this is possible is seen on several occasions in the game (e.g. Keeper of Caed Nua). Waidwen was said to be Eothas personified and both Woedica and Magran intervened with his direct meddling in mortal affairs by having Durance and eleven others create the Godhammer weapon, something so powerful it doesn't just kill you, but obliterates your soul.
This is evidenced by Durance's personal quest and the fact that the Watcher sees his soul as damaged, which the Godhammer did. Magren tried to hide her involvement by making sure that everyone who knew about it wasn't just killed but utterly annihilated (I wonder if that pissed off Rymrgand).
That souls or essence can be used to empower beings can be seen during the Sacrificial Bloodlines quest or when doing the Dozen's quest related to ancient Engwithan weaponry that needs to be infused with essence to work. So that ties in quite nicely. Eothas is dead because the Godhammer killed his soul, Abydon still lives because he had his bound to his golem representation. Galawain asks the player to use the gathered souls to strenghen the Dyrwood as a whole, Thaos wanted to give Woedica more power so she can rank among all other gods.
Thaos, over the course of time, then attempted to keep other civilizations from finding out that their gods are simply very powerful, but ultimately not divine, beings. By any means necessary (as he quite directly puts in his final dialogue).
So how does this tie into real world atheism, or atheism in Eora? It doesn't, really. For true faith no proof is necessary, as evidenced by our own reality. See, WE have no proof that God(s) exists either, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from having faith and believing. Iovara just had her own counter-crusade that stated only that these new Engwithan deities were not divine (also, because that's important - she never said the gods do NOT EXIST, just that they aren't REAL - as in REAL divine beings), and she's right about that. They're not. They're really just empored mortals or massively powerful essence-infused constructs.
The true question you as character have to decide then is how, if at all, that matters. You may find it doesn't matter that the deieties of Eora are kith-made and continue on as before. You can tell Aloth how he should lead the Leaden Key in the future. Heck, you can empower Woedica to make sure none of the truth ever becomes public knowledge and finish what Thaos started if you happen to agree with him.
If there's anything that bothered me about the ending is that I had no option to infuse myself with all that power Thaos wanted to give to Woedica. That would have been fun. But nah... *sigh*
Not OP, but this makes sense, thanks. Honestly I feel like the plot was maybe not communicated all that well. The way What's-Her-Face just comes right out and says "The secret is this: The gods aren't real" was, to me, a little silly. I was wishing there was an option to say "What the hell are you talking about? I just met them! Literally the only reason I'm standing here is because they got me down the pit!"" She goes on to qualify that by saying "Okay, they're real in some ways, but not others," but I still think it could have been done better. Especially the way your party reacts. They're all like "Oh, you must be right. I can see clearly now, the rain is gone!" (Though I'm hesitant to make that last comment, as I'm learning that how your party reacts to different things can change radically depending on how you do their questline and how you interact with them, so maybe that was just my playthrough).
What I think the problem is, however, is that unless I missed it, we're never really given much insight into the theology of Eora. I mean, what she described the gods as being were kind of what I assumed the gods were all along. She's all going on about this big, earth-shattering secret that the gods aren't actually infinite, omnipotent beings but instead are just highly powerful creatures that have some influence over souls and that may or may not be the product of mortals
and all I can think of is "Oh, so like the gods in basically every other fantasy setting, then."
Personally I think it would have been a lot better if the writers had made the lie perpetuated by the Engwithans more common and something that the player was completely immersed in, where like the eternal nature of the gods or the notion that the gods are above mortal whims are major plot points and big sources of hope and inspiration for people. Then it would've been more "Holy crap this knowledge could overturn society." Instead to me it just felt like a big, fat "Meh."
