History Main / DevilButNoGod

-->'''Blue Fangs:''' "Your God's love is not unconditional. He does not love [[TheLegionsOfHell us]]. And He does not love [[NotSoDifferent you]]."

** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow'', Dracula (or rather, whoever holds Dracula's title as "Dark Lord") is outright said to be the opposite of God, which if true would make him the local equivalent of Satan. It's not entirely clear if this ''is'' true, however, as the only people who seem to be sure of it are a [[ReligionOfEvil cult with dubious motivations.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'': A rare Inverted example. God’s presence is made obvious and His church is benevolent 9 times out of 10, but the Devil is nowhere to be seen and is almost never mentioned. The closest we have is {{Dracula}}, who is described as the being opposite to God.

* ''Manga/ChronoCrusade''. Is there really anyone above the humans and the devils, except perhaps a CouncilOfAngels? Aion's entire life can be seen as a quest to find an answer to that, ([[spoiler:and his FamousLastWords don't exactly help]]. That's the anime version. In the manga, the demons are [[spoiler:actually aliens]], and Aion is fully aware of this (and subsequently believes that God and religion are just another cog in an "oppressive system") and the Apostles are stated to be "chosen by the Astraline", while God...well, not mentioned much. Either he's carefully manipulating things in the background, or just simply doesn't exist.

** The original ''Videogame/{{Doom}}'' games play this straight. It seems the only force of Good in the verse is our hero [[BadassNormal Doomguy]], the [[ComicBook/{{Doom}} Berserker Packin' man-and-a-half]] who takes on the hordes of Hell with his trusty shotgun (and {{chainsaw|Good}}). [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu That turns out]] [[MugglesDoItBetter to be enough]], but still. Interstingly enough, the novels' interpretation of the Doomguy is a devout Catholic regardless.
** ''VideoGame/{{Doom3}}'', also plays this straight, unless you count the Soul Cube used by the Martians as a holy weapon. Maybe even straighter than the original games, as it's stated multiple times in no uncertain terms that the demons are ''demons'', while the previous games left some reasonable doubt that they might just be weird-looking aliens from our dimension (which is what the novels went with). The ending of ''Resurrection of Evil'' at least implies that Heaven exists, but the whole thing is still vague.

* The voice of God has been heard in certain Creator/DCComics, usually talking to Comicbook/TheSpectre, who works as its Agent of Vengeance. However it has never been actually seen, and only seems to interfere on VERY rare occasions, even when Franchise/TheDCU is threatened with destruction.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', we're introduced to Lucifer Morningstar and several other powerful demons preside over Hell. While there are also angels and we're offered a glimpse of Heaven, God is only briefly mentioned in passing. There are many deities and spirits from various mythologies represented in the series, but the Abrahamic God never makes an appearance.
* The climax of ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'', a spinoff of ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' and therefore technically connected Franchise/TheDCU, ultimately did show God and what happened to him: [[spoiler: he ditched his creation millennia ago because he was unimpressed with how humanity was turning out. Lucifer ultimately has to convince God not to scrap the whole thing altogether.]]
* In Creator/MarvelComics, Satan was a recurring character in the Son of Satan series. God, Jesus or the Angels never appeared or interfered. Later, it was {{retcon}}ned that Satan was being impersonated by demons such as ComicBook/{{Mephisto}}, and that the true Devil had NEVER appeared in a Marvel story [[note]]It has since been revealed that there are several Netherrealms claiming to be Hell, and that its rulers ''inspired'' legends of the Devil rather than directly being him, and the only souls they lay claim to are those who made bargains with them.[[/note]]. In Comicbook/GhostRider, angels and Heaven have shown up. Well, Blaze had a guy helping him against Satan who was at some points implied to be Jesus.

* Comicbook/IncredibleHulk:
** A good example is when an old flame allows Bruce Banner to see all his inner personalities (each a different Hulk), one of whom takes the form of a monstrous reptilian devil. Devil Hulk tells Bruce "There's a little bit of God and the Devil in everyone", but the comics have yet to get around to that God part. We do get to see that an incarnation of the Beast lives in Bruce's head as well.
** Another Hulk story offers a DoubleSubversion: Old Greenskin (who at the time had Bruce Banner's intellect) acted as best man at Rick Jones' wedding, and Mephisto crashed the party, claiming to have a lien on the bride's soul. He offered the Hulk a deal: His soul for hers. Banner thought it over, looked up at the sky, and sucker-punched the demon so completely that he flew right through the fire-circle wards he'd set up to keep the other superbeings in attendance from interfering. Sputtering, Mephisto screamed that what the Hulk had done was impossible (No mortal, however powerful, should be able to land a blow on a conceptual being without permission). Banner replied, (not an exact quote): "Weren't you listening to what the preacher said? ''We are gathered here in the sight of God!'' What, did you, of all beings, think that those were just words?" While Mephisto leaves the wedding seemingly defeated, his thoughts reveal that he took the beating on purpose to increase the Hulk's hubris. A few issues later, the Hulk's organisation, the Pantheon, went down in flames and Banner suffered a pretty bad nervous breakdown, ruining all of his work with Doc Samson.

** Bender did, in fact, visit Robot Heaven in a recent episode and met Robot God (and told him to shut up). He only visits briefly as a Robot Ghost, so it's not clear if It's a physical or metaphysical place. Robot Hell, on the other hand, is [[TakeThat in New Jersey.]]

* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', which has the "God Hand", a group of five powerful demons as the closest thing to gods. The only other set of deities, the Four Elemental Kings, are said to be loving and protective of humanity, but only seem to help out if consciously summoned. [[spoiler: The Idea of Evil]], who the Godhand answer to, seems to be the closest thing to a God in the ''Berserk'' universe, but it's only (so far) been seen in a semi-canon chapter that was cut for spoilering the plot. However, it's both {{God|OfEvil}} [[GodIsEvil AND the devil]]. [[spoiler:It stated it basically existed because humans want a supernatural explanation for why they live in a CrapsackWorld, and obliges by making the world an even shittier place.]] It, however is only God in the sense that it influences and controls people. It is not the creator of the universe itself and only seems to have a limited (if any) control over physical reality itself and it can only influence the physical through humanity (it can't summon storms or cause earthquakes).

** Another example is ''TabletopGame/Ravenloft'' and its spin-off ''TabletopGame/MasqueOfTheRedDeath''. The ''Ravenloft'' setting is ruled over by mysterious beings called the Dark Powers. While there are many religions in ''Ravenloft'', the Dark Powers are possibly the only divine entities that both actually exist and have any influence. It is unclear if the Dark Powers actually are evil or are neutral beings with a twisted sense of justice but they are the creators of the setting and thus are directly or indirectly behind much of the suffering that happens there, as they reward and punish evil at the same time. ''Masque of the Red Death'' takes place on a twisted version of earth that is under the influence of a rogue Dark Power called the Red Death who is much more actively malicious.

** Something similar also happened temporarily in ''Dragonlance'' when Takhisis managed to cut off all of the other gods including the other evil gods from the setting leaving herself as the only god with any influence until so heroes managed to bring the rest of the gods back.

*** The physical universe does have a divine creator, in a certain sense of the word. It was created by Azatoth, who's sometimes irreverently referred to as the "Blind Idiot God", because he is little more than a mindless formless mass of chaos residing in the center of reality. He is also the progenitor of all the Outer Gods.

** Averted in the ''Lords Of Shadow '' Trilogy, Satan is the BigBad and while God is never seen His presence is confirmed and very important to the plot.

** Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' and ''VideoGame/DoomEternal''. The Slayer Testaments of ''2016'' talk about how the Doom Slayer recieved his enchanced speed and strength from a "Seraphim", and there's a tablet depicting an angelic-looking hooded figure watching him beat up on some demons. However, ''Eternal'' reveals that the closest thing to angels in ''Doom'', the Maykrs of the realm of Urdak, are actually in cahoots with Hell [[spoiler:in order to sustain their own civilization, with the Seraphim himself being a rogue Maykr]]. That said, it's also revealed that [[spoiler:the Maykrs do have a progenitor they call "[[TopGod The Father]]", who is said to be the creator of all life in the universe, including Hell itself, but his time outside of the physical realm left the Maykrs to manipulate humans and many other species throughout the multiverse and lead to them developing their conceptions of heaven based on their manipulations]].

** Most of the religion in the ''Devil May Cry'' series revolves around worshiping demons, with Dante's father being a good demon messiah. Also, there are demons that appear to be angels. It seems as if in this universe, that instead of demons being fallen angels - [[AscendedDemon angels are demons who fell up.]]

---> "What about all that hoo-hah with the Devil a while ago, in that movie? Nobody had any trouble believing that the Devil was real and existed inside that little girl? All she had to do was throw up some pea soup, wet the rug and everybody believed. The ''Devil'' you could believe, but not God?"

[[folder:AnimatedFilm]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'' has it's BigBad make a [[DealWithTheDevil pact]] with the [[GreaterScopeVillain dark forces of hell]], but there's never any appearance or mention of any light forces of heaven. For all anyone knows, a typical animated princess musical, could be set in a [[CrapsackWorld really crappy]] even more [[DarkFantasy dark fantasy world]] than it looks.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' takes this to an extreme. The Chaos Gods are the [[TheHeartless sentient manifestations of the negative emotions]] of the galaxy (as well as the positive ones [[KnightTemplar warped ]] [[HotBlooded into the]] [[{{Yandere}} most extreme]] and [[LoveMakesYouCrazy twisted manner]] possible), but there is a [[BlackAndGrayMorality distinct lack]] of any positive alternatives. Even the surviving gods of the non-Chaos factions tend to be genocidal jerkasses, and the worst gods are C'Tan, who are trying to [[OmnicidalManiac exterminate every living thing in the universe]] then eat their souls afterward (and one of them is possibly the god of an Imperial faction, though they don't know it). Based on information from [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]], there may be two surviving non-evil gods... one is implied to be a C'tan (and therefore is one of the omnicidal gods out to ''eat'' souls [[spoiler: though in fairness, it may be due to their trickster natures, so it would be unsurprising that the two are separate entities that ''impersonate'' each other]]), and the other is the Eldar god of life, Isha, who is being [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] by Nurgle (who is, incidentally, [[AffablyEvil one of the more likeable deities]]).

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' takes this to an extreme. The Chaos Gods are the [[TheHeartless sentient manifestations of the negative emotions]] of the galaxy (as well as the positive ones [[KnightTemplar warped ]] [[HotBlooded into the]] [[{{Yandere}} most extreme]] and [[LoveMakesYouCrazy twisted manner]] possible), but there is a [[BlackAndGrayMorality distinct lack]] of any positive alternatives. Even the surviving gods of the non-Chaos factions tend to be genocidal jerkasses, and the worst gods are the Emperor of Mankind, who scoured the galaxy in his Great Crusade and killed countless trillions of innocent [[AbsoluteXenophone nonhumans]] (or humans who opposed his rule), and the C'Tan, who are trying to [[OmnicidalManiac exterminate every living thing in the universe]] then eat their souls afterward (and one of them is possibly the god of an Imperial faction, though they don't know it). Based on information from [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]], there may be two surviving non-evil gods... one is implied to be a C'tan (and therefore is one of the omnicidal gods out to ''eat'' souls [[spoiler: though in fairness, it may be due to their trickster natures, so it would be unsurprising that the two are separate entities that ''impersonate'' each other]]), and the other is the Eldar god of life, Isha, who is being [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] by Nurgle (who is, incidentally, [[AffablyEvil one of the more likeable deities]]).

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' takes this to an extreme. The Chaos Gods are the [[TheHeartless sentient manifestations of the negative emotions]] of the galaxy (as well as the positive ones [[KnightTemplar warped ]] [[HotBlooded into the]] [[{{Yandere}} most extreme]] and [[LoveMakesYouCrazy twisted manner]] possible), but there is a [[BlackAndGrayMorality distinct lack]] of any positive alternatives. Even the surviving gods of the non-chaos factions tend to be genocidal jerkasses, and the worst gods are the C'Tan, who are trying to [[OmnicidalManiac exterminate every living thing in the universe]] then eat their souls afterward (and one of them is possibly the god of an Imperial faction, though they don't know it). Based on information from [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]], there may be two surviving non-evil gods... one is implied to be a C'tan (and therefore is one of the omnicidal gods out to ''eat'' souls [[spoiler: though in fairness, it may be due to their trickster natures, so it would be unsurprising that the two are separate entities that ''impersonate'' each other]]), and the other is being [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] by Nurgle (who is, incidentally, [[AffablyEvil one of the more likeable deities]]).

* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', which has the "God Hand", a group of five powerful demons as the closest thing to gods. The only other set of deities, the Four Elemental Kings, are said to be loving and protective of humanity, but only seem to help out if consciously summoned. [[spoiler: The Idea of Evil]], who the Godhand answer to, seems to be the closest thing to a God in the ''Berserk'' universe, but it's only (so far) been seen in a semi-canon chapter that was cut for spoilering the plot . However, it's both {{God|OfEvil}} [[GodIsEvil AND the devil]] ([[spoiler:it stated it basically existed because humans want a supernatural explanation for why they live in a CrapsackWorld, and obliges by making the world an even shittier place]]). It, however is only God in the sense that it influences and controls people. It is not the creator of the universe itself and only seems to have a limited (if any) control over physical reality itself and it can only influence the physical through humanity (it can't summon storms or cause earthquakes).
* ''Manga/ChronoCrusade''. Is there really anyone above the humans and the devils, except perhaps a CouncilOfAngels? Aion's entire life can be seen as a quest to find an answer to that ([[spoiler:and his FamousLastWords don't exactly help]]). That's the anime version. In the manga, the demons are [[spoiler:actually aliens]], and Aion is fully aware of this (and subsequently believes that God and religion are just another cog in an "oppressive system") and the Apostles are stated to be "chosen by the Astraline", while God...well, not mentioned much. Either he's carefully manipulating things in the background, or just simply doesn't exist.

* Subverted in ''Franchise/{{Mistborn}}''. [[BigBad Ruin]] is the only actual deity acting in the setting (and actually refers to himself as {{God|IsEvil}} on occasion) and it gradually becomes apparent that Ruin's counterpart, Preservation, is dead. [[spoiler: Then it turns out that Preservation's [[ThePlan plan]] was still playing out, and at the climax the heroine is elevated to take His place]].
** ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' has [[spoiler: several shards (i.e. specialized gods) involved at some point, but by the end of the first book, it is quite clear that the one most definitely invested in saving Roshar from destruction is dead, while the most definitely evil shard who killed him is apparently returning to finish the job. Or something; it's hard to say. Still, Ouch]].
** [[spoiler: This ends up being subverted in the [[Literature/{{Oathbringer}} the third book]] where it's revealed that [[MotherNature Cultivation]] is still alive and while she seems to be taking a pretty hands off approach in general, her intervention was indirectly responsible for thwarting Odium's plans at the climax of the book.]]
** ''Literature/TheReckonersTrilogy'' has an interesting variant: Humans have started spontaneously developing comic-book-esque superpowers, but every single "Epic" is utterly evil.

** The original ''Videogame/{{Doom}}'' games play this straight. It seems the only force of Good in the verse is our hero [[BadassNormal Doomguy]], the [[ComicBook/{{Doom}} Berserker Packin' man-and-a-half]] who takes on the hordes of Hell with his trusty shotgun (and {{chainsaw|Good}}). [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu That turns out]] [[MugglesDoItBeter to be enough]], but still. Interstingly enough, the novels' interpretation of the Doomguy is a devout Catholic regardless.

* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': There's lots of demons in the afterlife, though no angels or other good counterpart beings so far. At best, some of the demons become good. The Judge is more neutral. That said, there ''is'' a [[TitleDrop good place]] to go along with the bad. It's unclear if God exists in this setting, though a Devil isn't mentioned either. Everything seems to be [[CelestialBureaucracy run by less powerful beings]].

** The original ''Videogame/{{Doom}}'' games play this straight. It seems the only force of Good in the verse is our hero Doomguy, the [[ComicBook/{{Doom}} Berserker Packin' man-and-a-half]] who takes on the hordes of Hell with his trusty shotgun (and {{chainsaw|Good}}), taking on the forces of Hell.
** ''VideoGame/{{Doom3}}'', also plays this straight, unless you count the Soul Cube used by the Martians as a holy weapon.