Terry Pratchett and Existentialism: The story of how some very silly books made me an atheist 

“There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.” ― Terry Pratchett

It still hurts to talk about him in the past tense

I have a signed copy of 'Night Watch', and my son got a hold of it today. He's 2 and a half, so I had to take it off him pretty quickly. When I tried to explain to him on a kid-level way that, while he can usually look at any book he finds, why this one was not a toy and not to be played with, I found my getting very teary. Has it really been four years already? I still well up like I've only just heard the news. I think it's because the Discworld series spoke a truth to me unlike any other books have. About life, about the nature of fairness in an unjust world; about kindness when life is indifferently cruel; about the sheer bull-headedness humans need just to get up in the morning and continue being human in the face of all that. And they were funny. Sometimes you need to dress the truth up in the literary version of glasses and a fake nose, to see it undisguised.

I have all the Pratchet books (well most of them, certainly all of Discworld) and They talked to me in a similar way but for different reasons. Samual Vimes and Esmeralda Weatherwax both provide a very interesting look on life. They both have interesting lines but the one of Grannies that hit me was Lords and Ladies, where she told the priest that "SIN starts by treating people as objects." Once you make a distinction in your head that somebody isn't a person 'because' that is when you start being able to excuse anything you want. A basic explanation of a concept so many theologians argue and debate about. And contrasted by Vimes with his idea that - "Everyone is a criminal, all that matters is whether their crime is revelent, and how many people it hurts". An ideal that If you always expect people to be terrible then you can be pleasantly surprised when those precious few rise out of the muck and prove you wrong! These two characters summed up my childhood, and are what drew me to Pratchet. The fact that despite voicing these ideals to people - both of them still make close friends, and have people they love or who love them back means that no matter how dark life can be - there is hope in the world. You just have to be willing to Look for it. And if you get hurt. Still get up, go out and try again. Cause sooner or later.....

I love Discworld. I still get emotional discussing Pterry and the Discworld and his other work.

This reminds me of Neil Gaman's intro to "A Slip of the Keyboard" (really worth reading for anyone who's a fan of Pratchett, incidentally); "And that anger[which in the previous paragraph he explained drives pTerry], it seems to me, is about Terry's underlying sense of what it fair and what is not." I was raised in a pretty secular environment, so I didn't really realise how much of my own personal philosophy I cribbed from Discworld until I started realising I was trans and really started thinking about what the hell I was doing.

"I AM THE GREAT TORTOISE GOD" *noms cactus flowers* "THEY'RE THE QUENCHIEST"

I'm currently walking down that path from faith to being atheistic and it's so scary. This video made it feel less scary, so thanks.

Wonderful video :-) This articulates so much about how I feel about Sir Terry Pratchett's books. I feel I have learnt more about philosophy, religion and life from him than anything else I have ever read. Now when someone asks me why I love these books, I have a video I can share 🤗

I was listening to this as I was going to sleep and the way you said Nihilism jotted me awake lol

Fun fact: I quoted Small Gods in my D'var Torah (the little interpretation thing people who are doing their bar or bat mitzvah do after reading the Haftarah portion). I don't know what that says about me or about Small Gods

I don't think I ever picked up on the idea that Small Gods was meant to be chronologically older than many/most of the rest of the books. That's interesting. I've only ever read it once and it was back in college (which was a while ago for me).

I can't relate completely since I'm not atheist, but I was raised Christian and turned out to be Wiccan, so there's that! I also was unfortunate enough to never have read Terry Pratchett as a child, but I intend to correct that oversight soon.

Promised myself I wasn't going to cry! I cried!

Great post! Sometimes you have to experience something through another person's eyes to appreciate that thing in a new light. I love Discworld. While I understood The Hog Father when I read it years ago, revisiting it here reminded me of why I love it. Thank you!

This idea about god's gaining power and being born out of people's faith and ideas reminds me so much about any anime which ever portrayed Japanese gods ever. Noragami for example. It is like that in most animes which tackle gods as if it was a Japanese faith rule that gods exist for people and thanks to people who believe in them, so when nobody believes in them anymore, they disappear and die.

his books are so insightful. hogfather was the first book I read, and the concept of gods existing because of faith and not the other way around really struck me. that book has had a hand in how I think about religion my whole life since

Where are my 1000 videos on Good Omens? Me demands to be entertained :D But also that's some quality content and I'm glad I've found your channel. Keep being awesome

Funnily enough, la Peste (had to read it in highschool for the baccalauréat) and Small Gods are super important books to me because they helped me build myself in a way. Like, Camus helped me crystallize how I wanted to shape my future and Small Gods made me understand how I believed in people. What a coincidence that you'd cite both of them at the very beginning of your video ^^

Terrance McKenna once spoke about novelty vs habit. And I think people like Terrance McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, Rupert Sheldrak were people he used to read and listen to from the topics he brought up.

Terry Pratchett was one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. I will always cherish his books.

Adam Savage: tested - noface cosplay - scene in spirited away - scrolled down out of curiosity - this video. I honestly believe Terry Prachett can give any person on earth a new outlook on life, and indeed death. Altough i'm not an athiest, He changed my life

About Terry Pratchett: I think it started with me being a fan of Douglas Adams. Then my roommate in my first year of university said that if I like Adams, I would probably also like Pratchett. And he was right! At some point I then read "Good Omens" and after that, I became more curious about Neil Gaiman's other work as well. I have many times named Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, and Terry Pratchett as my top three favourite authors. About Existentialism: I have always felt that Existentialism makes perfect sense to me. But at the same time, Christianity keeps calling me back to it. At this point, I've basically got these two contradictory mindsets co-existing in my head. But I have learned to accept that. I have also recently learned that there is something called "Christian Existentialism". I guess I should look further into Søren Kierkegaard's writings.

I keep seeing things about Discworld and it sounds like something that would be right up my alley but I get so intimidated by long series, especially those you don't have to/encourage not to read chronologically.

This is a wonderful analysis. Thanks for sharing it.

Death’s argument is just an updated version of Leibniz’s argument for Idealism, it’s much older than existentialism. It’s a simple contradiction of materialism as a complete explanation of reality by showing that there exist in the world phenomena such as movement that cannot be explained by physical materials alone and thus require some form of non material entity/ies to set them in motion.

I love Terry Pratchett so much, thank you for this video

I just read Good Omens this year, and I'm really looking forward to the series. Going by just the trailer, it's going to be excellent. Great video. thank you!

im just stumbling onto sir terry works at a very uncertain point in my life, and thank you for this video

7:00 Listening to this now, in lockdown, feels strange.

While he himself might have been an atheist. He had a grasp of metaphysical theories like morphic resonance. He explored other conceptions of deity in his books, and I think he was clearly familiar with the idea of egregores and other esoteric things. He put a lot of magic into his books, dispite outwardly appearing to disbelieve it. I think if him as a magician that tells everyone magic is nonsense and it's all just a trick , as cover for what he knows exists. Brilliant author

I probably should get around to reading some Sir Terry- particularly as I’ve quoted his Boots Theory of Poverty too many times to count. I think I stayed away because I felt that fantasy is just not for me- I tend to prefer stores that are more grounded, like Urban fantasies, or if I do like High Fantasy, it tends to be grounded in heavy characterisation (like SoIaF). I tried reading other high fantasy as a kid, but just never got into it. I read LOTR and the Hobbit, but nothing really else. My big favourite series as a kid/young teen was the Tomorrow series, by John Marsden, which is a gritty (for YA) war story. Definitely very far away from high fantasy. But I think I’ll give these a go. I’ve heard so many good things and like I said, I’ve quotes the Boots theory so many times. Also, if people are looking for a good existential reading of a sorry, Passion of the Nerd does episode reviews of Buffy and Angel and now also Firefly, and it’s really clear now just how based on existentialism and absurdism they really are. I think the greatest quote regarding existentialism (though now I’ve heard the Death quote it’s got competition) is by Angel in his own show where he says “if nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do”. It’s just so damn beautiful, that quote. And it’s something I come back to often. Now that’s making some authentic meaning for yourself!

Great video. Thanx.

I`m late to the party but I`ve just discovered your channel (it`s lovely by the way) and I`m interested what do you think about other Discworld adaptations. Have you ever considered this as a theme for a video?

Walter Sobchak : No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of. Donny : Are they gonna hurt us, Walter? Walter Sobchak : No, Donny. These men are cowards. From another work of fiction rooted in existential philosophy. The Discworld books helped to fully solidify my pre-existent atheism. Great video, with a lot of parallels to my own journey to learning about and accepting existentialism.

Wich books of the Diwscworld do you recomend to me to start the series?

I've not read the Camu piece you referenced but it sounds similar in tone to On the Beach, a 1959 film ( based on a novel of the same name)

I've never heard that explanation of existentialism before, even when i briefly studied it in high school (or maybe i just don't remember since that was 12 years ago). But even back then i felt drawn to it as a philosophy. I really want to read discworld, now i just need to get myself into the mindset of being able to read anything longer than two pages. The tortoises were very cute. Do turtles and tortoises come up a lot in pratchett's books?

The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as "Things just happen. What the hell". Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Another great video! GNU Pterry ❤️

I want to get into these books and have seen a dozen lists on Tumblr but keep losing them. So, what would you recommend as an entry point for someone generally into fantasy as a whole but leans more YA in their reading typically?

This channel is very different from my own channel but it's nice.

What are your suggestions for reading order?

Thanks

"Shit doesn't just happen, shit takes time" 😉

Where I realize I might be an Essentialist

sdfsdjsds every time a cute tortoise came on screen i stopped reading the subtitles how could you do this to me

Have you read Nation? There's some interesting philosophy, probably also existentialist, in that one.

Pratchett was a genius. A kindly snarky uncle-figure telling you to figure things out for yourself. The problems I have with the modern types of atheism, social justice and feminism is that they cannot allow others to think differently without jeering, name-calling and a form of judgementalism rarely focused inward. I believe Terry would have agreed with this simple statement. Your beliefs or lack thereof do not allow you any special powers of discernment. Believe as you will and leave others to do likewise. Unless someone is directly advocating the mistreatment of others, you have no say in how they chose to believe.

8:49 it’s been a long time since I’ve read small gods, but I remember nothing islamic about Omnia. Can anyone refer me to a part/page in which Muslim practices are emulated?

18:25 That's the one about an Antichrist who turned out as not being Antichrist or something?

Ok. I have an Idea : A movie adaptation of The Plague, by Roy Andersson

17:02 When it comes, specifically, to the _stories_ of a religion - what makes one feel true and what makes one feel like "Percy Jackson or Lord of the Rings"? As you said vaguely Methodist, and as I have some experience of Porvoo Communion myself (was Lutheran before I went Catholic), I am pretty sure your parents didn't teach you that genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and world wide Flood are real history?

The way you put it existentialism-a subject I've always found opaque-looks a lot like atheism. It just takes a philosophical claim and says "I don't buy it". Now that I think about it, the reason I didn't get it was that the thing existentialism rejects never made sense to me (despite being raised deeper in religion than you were).

Hey has anyone explored non theism. It's more about what you consider the not question. And is there , or isn't there a god , isn't the big question. I believe gods exist because I have seen miracles things, and I am an empiricist and do not deny what I have seen and experienced. That being said, I don't think the existence of his or god answers serious questions like "what is the meaning of existence " " how vast is everything " "what is existence and how done coup with it". Also atheists have the comfortable thought of a finite existence. Imagine an eternity ahead and behind, you may start to feel like sisophus. I enjoy his refrences to mythology.

Pantheistic does not mean polytheistic. While a polytheistic religion contains different gods, a pantheistic belief claims that existence is a god. Not a “man with a beard in the sky” as terry called, but an identity between all of reality and divinity. Discworld is most certainly not pantheistic as the gods can fail in their attempts to affect reality, instead of just acting as reality since they are reality without being separate entities from it.

Not to come to the party late, but I only recently learned about Terry Pratchett; from my few interactions with people who mentioned him and his work, I thought he had written a handful of books which were a well-written, if silly, take on pretty standard post-modernist ideas. To be fair, the quotes they used weren't the best, probably, given he has a much more expansive list of works than what I had assumed. Having said that, while I haven't read his books, I now intend to, though given purely the content of this video, I wondered if you were up for having your beliefs challenged a few years after the fact? If not, feel free to stop reading the comment here. Close to the beginning, on Existentialism, I have to wonder what you mean by "blinded by inauthentic forms of meaning"? In a godless world of individual, self-constructed meaning, what could possibly constitute in-authenticity? It seems as though you- or Pratchett, or Existentialists- want to frame religion to be so, but religion is simply a collectively formed, individually subscribed form of meaning, in that context. A meaning which is given truth by its belief, I think? The definition provided also doesn't say anything about rejection of divine aspects in Existentialism, merely the emphasis of the individual as a free (free will?) and responsible agent. Additionally, Existentialism as described here- and many places that do so the same way- has quite the fatal flaw. There is no inherent value, no meaning, no purpose. The distillation of these statements is that there is no truth- or no objective truth- but rather that truth is something constructed by people to make things so, a subjective "truth" (we'll get back to this with Pratchett as presented here). The issue is that the statement, "There is no such thing as inherent truth" MUST be a true statement for Existentialism to hold, but if it is a true statement, then there is one inherent truth in the universe, undoing the whole philosophy like a shoelace. There either is inherent truth in the universe, or there isn't, but that last must be true, defeating itself. So now that there can be established objective truth in the universe, thereby we can derive meaning, purpose, value, and so on. Now onto the books. In regard to the nature of gods like Om, it fundamentally misunderstands the idea of "Godhood" that even the ancients understood. If gods were created- by the belief of people- they wouldn't be gods at all, they would be idols, "created gods". Godhood has in its nature being beyond creation, part of the quality of immortality. Gods are not created, but creators, which is a part of many traditions, but you may be most familiar with the Christian one: of man being made in God's image; having the ability to create and- in the beginning, ostensibly- immortality; not godhood itself, but an "image" or a reflection of God in creation. Still, that nitpick aside, the book sounds intriguing all the same, and it sounds like it truly outlines the very real power of belief. Moving to Hogfather, an even more interesting sounding book, and yet also the source of some of those yawn-inducing post-modern quotes, one of which was included from the- movie?- though it was likely in the book, too. Particularly the fourteen minute mark, about little lies and big lies. Again, Existentialism, if there is no truth, that itself is a truth, and we can derive meaning from not being able to deny truth in the end, yadayada; however, the tiresome bit is the materialist spiel after: grind the universe to the finest powder, sieve it through the finest sieve, and show one atom of Justice, one molecule of Mercy. I could just as well say to show me one atom of light, one molecule of shadow, one pound of Death, one bushel of gravity, or even an ounce of imagination. I suppose I just don't have it in me to believe in the- big, little?- lie that is death since I cannot seem to find any atoms of it in the whole universe. Death must not be truly real, an in-authentic conjuring of those Existential believers. It is not coincidental that this sequence leads right into a quite insidious part of the nature of this whole philosophy; the idea that there is no fundamental truth to the Universe- we already looked at the flaw in that itself- leading to Truth having to be created through belief. Our belief makes it true? Really? Are you prepared to accept that notion, in its entirety, in all of its implication? Because if you are, then you must be prepared to cede the ground of those who believe that which you find repulsive, disgusting, reprehensible, and evil. If they believe it is true, good, wholesome, and beneficial, it must be so, even if it contradicts "your truth", the two- and every other- opposing truths must somehow coexist in the world. Of course we realize here that no amount of belief by no amount of people on its own could make a lie true. Truth is not a matter of a vote, whether of one person or many. You ought not ever labor under the delusion that you are believing in an untruth to make it true; I can think of nothing so demoralizing to the heart as that. If Evil is real, it isn't dependent on our opinion on whether it is evil or not, and evil is evil at any time, place, and culture. If Evil is not real... well, that just doesn't seem to compute, does it? Even the paragons of the old and new atheist thought were more than prepared to excoriate at least the Christians (Hitchens)- if not also the Muslims (Harris)- for all the Evils they have committed over the centuries. Yet where do you get the idea of Evil from? It comes from somewhere, yes? Because if its just you, then what ground have you against the counterclaim that they were doing Justice, and it is your own view that is Evil? None, except I suppose your faith in yourself; which is admirable, of course. Justification of belief is important. Because if you believe that- in the end- we construct our own meaning, and truth, and that Justice and Good are what we make of them, you must be prepared to accept that your definitions are no better than Adolf Hitler's, Genghis Khan's, or Alexander the Great's. I suppose to hit a little closer to our time, Donald Trump's truth is not lesser than yours, or whoever. Without inherent truth, we still have two other sources of non-religious structure which you can base you moral sense on though; I'm not trying to say you NEED God, yet. If the universe has no truth or meaning, than the forms of truth we conjure don't become truth itself, but they do become useful: social values, and codified law. The former can be divided into norms and taboos, and a highly useful for development of group coherence, social bonds, continuity, and stability. The latter is useful for clarity and consistency, concentration of social groups, and fortification against ills that would wipe out lesser organized groups. Social Values and Codified Law does not provide truth and meaning or morality- or at least I don't think you would want to go down that road- but they are useful. Now if you're about to criticize me and explain how wrong I am, I would point out that you're the one who has already gave the concession that "my belief makes it so", and that applies as much to me as you, right? Now I'm not saying that you explained Existentialism poorly, just that it's philosophically inconsistent and half-baked from the start, so that isn't on you; though perhaps I simply haven't read enough Camus or Kierkegaard? You've also made the books of Terry Pratchett sound far more interesting than anyone else, and now that I know how many there are to sink my teeth into, I'm raring to start. Now is the part where I admit that "my truth" is that, if you want to believe in Objective Truth- regardless of its source of creation- you already believe in God. God is whatever the source of that truth is. In this context, I guess we are all little gods, not images of God, which is a height of arrogant pride that exceeds even the most self-righteous zealot; because even if they act with impunity in line with their perceptions, not even they have the temerity to presume that the truth they envision itself flows directly from themselves; they are the arbiters of an Objective Truth beyond themselves, at most, not the source itself. This is why those who are Christian must believe Christ actually is God in mortal flesh; he claims to be so, after all, the Truth and the Way. If you made it through this, after being three years late and a thesis to boot, I hope it gave you something to chew on, if not entertain yourself with mentally for a while. To leave you with some book recommendation since this video served that purpose for me. I would suggest a trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength, all by C.S. Lewis. If you want something more whimsical but (possibly) more similar to the discworld books- as I haven't read them- then perhaps the Redwall series by Brian Jacques would fit the bill, if you haven't read them already.

Omg can we PLEASE start a book club together?!? ❤️ I'll buy you the plane ticket... or facetime! IDC ^^

something something rikenmorti

While I am not an atheist, I don't think these books are silly. What comes across to me, more than anything in these books, is that Pratchett believed in people. It seems to me he really wanted us to look at ourselves without cynicism and just laugh.

There IS structure in the universe but it’s not what religion says it is. Neither is it entirely what science says it is!

But if sole belief justify existence of the ideas such as justice isn't then all kind of bigotry justify? If justice is true just because I believe it is isn't racism true because there are people who believe it is? I find such idea very disturbing.

GNU pterry

Ты русская?

I love your channel, but girl, it's nai-uh-lism