I took nothing at face. Everywhere I turned religion popped up, and that’s a game of masks and deceit and… — Glen Cook

We Loghyr have never found proof of the existence of any gods. Neither have we disproved their existence, although logic militates against it. They are not necessary to explain anything. Nature does not provide that which is not needed.

Hano may not fulfill your prescription for such a being. So call him Prime Mover or just the force that set time and matter in motion.

He must be because we need him to be. And he must be what we need him to be. It is a philosophical argument difficult to grasp for we who live among obdurately hard surfaces and sharp edges that ignore our wishes, but the observer invariably affects the phenomenon. In this context, God—by whatever name—is, and is constrained to be, whatever we believe him to be.

Really? It made a crazy sense. Maybe perfect sense to somebody in the religion business.