…and this is a 
The limited representation of movie atheists
Category: Entertainment • Godlessness
Posted on: January 6, 2008 6:32 AM, by PZ Myers
I saw the new Will Smith movie, I Am Legend, last night. In short, it was far worse than I expected, with a drawn out and rather boring beginning (Smith is lonely, everyone is dead except for his dog. Got it), and the ending felt like a stapled-on feel-good absurdity that didn't follow from the premise—and is only a happy ending if your dream of paradise is an armed camp of Christians. The only virtue I'd heard about the story is that the hero is openly atheist … but that was a disappointment, too, because I discovered he was the wrong kind of atheist.
Atheists in the movies aren't that common. Most seem to be cast as amoral opportunists — the villains. They are rarely cast as the hero, and when they are there is only one atheist stereotype allowed in that role, and Will Smith filled it perfectly.
The acceptable atheist is the one who has faced so much tragedy, whose life has been damaged by cruel fate to such a degree that his declaration that there is no god is understandable. He is a failed Job; he's portrayed not as an actual contented atheist, but as someone who has broken under the burden a god has placed on him, and is therefore a sympathetic figure, and also is implicitly endorsing the audience's beliefs about god. Job without god, after all, is just a deluded loser.
That's the standard trope: the atheist is a broken man, a nihilist, a cynic, someone who has come to his disbelief as a consequence of a devastating emotional experience. This is the kind of atheist theists are comfortable with — but it's not the kind of atheists the New Atheistswann are, and especially not the scientific branch. We don't fit into their unthinking convention, which is probably why they stuck us with the label "new".
There are atheists who look on a tragedy and cry, "There is no god," in despair. But we are atheists who look on beauty and complexity and awesome immensity and shout out, "There is no god!" and we are glad.
That's the distinction we've got to get across. We are fulfilled, happy atheists who rejoice in the superfluity of the old myths. We generally don't have a tragic backstory — quite the contrary, we've come to our conclusions because we have found natural explanations satisfying and promising.
wann: who are not "new".
Comments
****SMALL SPOILER ALERT****
You missed the part where he converted to belief in the end. You know, "I'm listening".
Anyways, I did find it pretty funny that right after he converted, he suicide-bombed with the grenade.
Posted by: Gordon S | January 6, 2008 6:53 AM
Atheism in movies is like beards -- if the main character has one in the beginning of the movie, you can be sure he won't have it by the end.
I guess I have to see it (and it's post-apocolyptic -- my favorite!), but the problem of evil is a big motivating factor for my disbelief in the Christian God. And the bad stuff doesn't have to happen to me, it just has to happen, and I factor it in to my equation. I have all the wonder stuff, too, but the wonder isn't what makes me an atheist. The wonder is what makes me a happy atheist.
Posted by: inkadu | January 6, 2008 7:02 AM
See, this is why I object about calling us atheists. Although I also see your point (that you've made elsewhere, if I recall correctly) that we will be called that anyway, and we should just be proud of it. It's just that I see it better to state right at the start that "atheism" doesn't really mean anything substantial. I always point out when people ask or say I'm an atheist that "I'm also an unastrologer, and an a-numerologist, so?"
Posted by: andyo | January 6, 2008 7:14 AM
Andyo -- I think the reason most people want to call us "atheists" and pretend it means something significant is because being an atheist is considered being just darned rude. Whereas numerology and astrology and professional wrestling are widely accepted to be silly, religion is supposed to be serious, and you're supposed to play along with it. Some atheists are fortunate enough to be able to be so without being aware of crossing a big bright social line. There are others, like me, who realized after several years that the bright social line was all that was keeping me from being an atheist. I crossed it in celebration of reason and sense, and now I make a point to piss off the enforcers of conformity and mushy thinking. And it's probably because of people like me, combative, snarky, and 100% unapologetic, that atheism has a name of its very own and that people think it must mean that you're bitter or some such.
Posted by: inkadu | January 6, 2008 7:25 AM
Recall the movie "Contact". The heroine's atheism was favorably portrayed.
Posted by: Duane Tiemann | January 6, 2008 7:25 AM
I don't have much to add, except this link to movies tagged with the "atheist" keyword on IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/keyword/atheist/
Posted by: Mark S. | January 6, 2008 7:32 AM
Wasn't there an atheist as the main character in the movie 'The Reaping'?
On a more serious note this topic was discussed on either 'The Atheist Experience' or 'Non Prophets' podcasts a couple of weeks ago where they had difficulty coming up with a single movie that portrayed scientific skepticism in a good light when faced with supernaturalism.
Posted by: Sigmund | January 6, 2008 7:38 AM
Funnily enough, I just finished reading the book last night. From what I've heard about the film, the film has absolutely nothing in common with the book, to the extent I'm wondering why they bothered giving it the same name. I'd been thinking about seeing the film, but now I'm wondering if I'm just going to end up walking out half-way through.
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | January 6, 2008 7:45 AM
I liked some parts of the movie, and disliked some part of the movie. I'd watch it again even though they strayed from the vampire theme in the book, and they made it a feel good movie. I liked the ending in the book but thought the book needed some adjustments and thought the movies adjustments were pretty good. I agree on the atheist part, that is the atheist cliche, and you will even notice this cliche in those supposed paranormal stories on discovery and a&e. Some parts in the movie left me confused like the maniquen (sp?) part where he gets caught in the trap. I guess the evolutionistic type and atheistic views in the book are too controversial to use.
Posted by: Chris | January 6, 2008 7:46 AM
Contact?
I haven't read the book, but the movie was an annoyance-fest for me.
"Do you think your father loved you? Prove it!" Oh, snap!, take that, atheism! The blow was only slightly softened by the fact that Matthew Mcconaughey is totally hot.
Posted by: inkadu | January 6, 2008 7:48 AM
Does Han Solo count as an atheist?
Posted by: inkadu | January 6, 2008 8:03 AM
I am scratching my head trying to come up with an explicitly atheist character in a movie who is portrayed in a realistic light. I didn't see "Sunshine," but Cillian Murphy's character was purported to be an atheist (as is the actor.) I can't speak to how realistically he portrayed atheism.
I think the most realistic portrayals of atheism in movies are the ones in which religion plays absolutely no part. Ones in which the "A" word is never used, whilst the appeals to religion are also left on the cutting room floor.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | January 6, 2008 8:04 AM
This movie, and the censorship imposed on "The Golden Compass" in virtue of the fact that the author is an atheist, is exactly why I am working on a project to set up a short-story competition, where I will pay cash money for short stories in which (1) the hero is (the right type) of atheist, and (2) the story contains an explicit denial that there is a God, and (3) the resolution depends on understanding and applying knowledge of the real world rather than 'magical' solutions and coincidences engineered by the author.
Also, the stories will have to be written so as to be accessable to your average Jr. High School age reader. There is nothing wrong with stories that present atheism to young readers in a positive light.
I will be putting up $1000 of my own money to offer as prizes.
Posted by: Alonzo Fyfe | January 6, 2008 8:09 AM
I agree with this sentiment. It doesn't mean that these can't be interesting characters. One of my favorite characters on TV is Dr Gregory House from "House". And he is often portrayed as being this kind of atheist. However, there are enough times on the show were he just is portrayed as just 'complicated' that it makes up for it. Oh, and the fact that people tend to THINK he's unhappy, when he always denies this. Of course, they don't believe him. I tend to believe him. I also wonder if this is what is happening with even the 'New' Atheists from the perspective of the religious.. Do they THINK we are unhappy, so we appear to be so in thier eyes? If so, how do we convince them we are indeed happy? I think this might be a perception problem.
Posted by: Bart | January 6, 2008 8:17 AM
Mike Haubrich said
"I think the most realistic portrayals of atheism in movies are the ones in which religion plays absolutely no part. Ones in which the "A" word is never used, whilst the appeals to religion are also left on the cutting room floor."
You mean any science fiction movie set in a futuristic context. Removing currently recognized religion is the first thing you do to make a movie like the various Star Treks, 'Blade Runner', 'AI' or 'Minority Report' seem believable. I think even your average christian moviegoer would feel that shoehorning christianity into a futuristic setting would just feel fake (a bit like those space movies from the fifties where women were portrayed for the most part simply as housewives who wore silver foil dresses and had robots to help with the household chores).
Posted by: Sigmund | January 6, 2008 8:19 AM
Nick Angel in Hot Fuzz?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06la94s2uoA
Posted by: Don | January 6, 2008 8:20 AM
A big part of the problem is that big budget movies are intended to appeal to large audiences, and atheists are a minority. And not just any minority, but a despised and distrusted minority. Studios looking to invest to the tune of $200 million in a movie might be dissuaded if they fear that the movie will only appeal to 10% of the population, and that upwards of 50% will refuse to see it because it denies the existence of their invisible Sky Father.
I would bet that a successful campaign to raise the public profile of unbelievers in general (atheists, agnostics, humanists, etc) would make such an investment more enticing in the future.
Posted by: Wes | January 6, 2008 8:25 AM
I like the TV show Scrubs, but it does irritate me that the only openly atheist character is Dr Cox, who is exactly what you describe: a broken man, a nihilist, a cynic.
Every few episodes I find myself thinking "this is so American", by which I mean biased to the Judeo-Christian world-view.
Posted by: MH | January 6, 2008 8:32 AM
I remember being happily surprised when Simon Pegg's lead character in the cop-film parody Hot Fuzz made a short, simple statement of non-belief/skepticism, and a commitment to evidence, after getting to know his new neighbours. All it did was flesh out his character as a professional policeman/detective and get him some good-natured ribbing from the old-fashioned townspeople.
The plain way it was stated (again, it's set in Britain) felt natural and non-preachy, and that's basically how I think it's best handled: by simply confirming that characters distinguished by their incisiveness and skepticism, characters you'd immediately suspect were written as (and/or by) atheists, in fact are.
I really like the way House is written too, even though he naturally gets to be more aggressive about his atheism. The writers routinely try to separate his general grumpiness from his atheism by stressing the view that religious outlooks are impoverished compared to the beauties of science.
Posted by: Robert Maynard | January 6, 2008 8:33 AM
#16. It almost sounds like you're asking for an episode of MacGyver where he comes out as an atheist.
Posted by: Efrique | January 6, 2008 8:37 AM
Yes, K.N. Singh, atheists have been hated and despised and executed and oppressed and have had laws against them passed for all of human history because people knew that in the first years of the 21st century about 1 in a billion people would become famous, outspoken atheists and one of them would have a blog.
Dumbass.
Posted by: craig | January 6, 2008 8:54 AM
Oh, and I share the disappointment in the movie, but I knew early on that it was stupid considering the fact that in the first scenes it shows a Manhattan overgrown with plants coming up through the pavement, herds of deer, etc., because the city has been empty of humans for... three years.
Posted by: craig | January 6, 2008 8:57 AM
K.N. Singh: So I take it you are a part of the poor persecuted majority?
Posted by: Hank | January 6, 2008 8:57 AM
Agreed on atheists in movies. They are always the personal tragedy types. But I think that is reflective of our cultural milieu in some ways.
The "failed Job" phenomena is there in real life. My family has friends who lost their faiths after having to deal with a severely hydrocephallic son who had basically nothing but a brain stem. It was awful. He lived to be 15. They were understandably bitter at the potential that had been stolen from them and were mad at God only to decide that he must not exist.
If you peruse some online forums, some of the most vociferous atheists on them can also be loudly displaying metalheads who come across as more anti-theistic for rebellious reasons than for reasons of logic. I have no problem with metal (I'm 31 and in a metal band) or anti-theism per se but I find that those kids easily get lots of attention from adults and can become a kind angry focal point for their peers and thus their parents too thus creating Atheism = Satan. (Note: Peter Gilmore, head of the Church of Satan, is an atheist.)
I'm not saying that the failed Jobs are representative, that metalheads (horns raised) are, or us "New Atheists" are either. We are subsets of non-belief with really different interests. Someone looking for "the atheist" can find an example that isn't representative. In a way, we don't have a representative because people disbelieve for quite divergent reasons. Like all groups, we are nuanced and some have thought it out at least as much as we have felt it out.
---
The book Contact is excellent. It did more as a work of literature to solidify to me that there's good art in scientific realism. It single-handedly rejects the senseless claims of theists that their holy ideas are the seed of art. Blah.
The movie on the other hand made it into a diluted piece of attempted feel-good fluffery with the weighty issues of personal, interpersonal, intercultural, and scientific discourse bleached out of it. The direction and acting spoon-fed the standard easily digestible emotional fair, making it Budweiser when it should have been a carefully brewed IPA by insert your favorite local microbrew here.
Posted by: Peter | January 6, 2008 9:05 AM
I knew a woman who said she's an atheist because her grandmother died. Personally I don't think people who say they are atheists because they're mad at god are really atheists.
Posted by: craig | January 6, 2008 9:11 AM
Brian Sanderson's fantasy novel Elantris may qualify -- the fallen gods were magically empowered (and now magically afflicted) humans, and dealing with the disaster involves understanding the principles behind that magic.
Posted by: David Harmon | January 6, 2008 9:25 AM
Sadly, Mal Reynolds (of Firefly fame) is also the wrong kind of atheist (albeit a great character). Even though his creator, Joss Whedon, is an atheist himself.
Incidentally, I'm not so sure that this is the "wrong" kind of atheist as it is "one of many" kinds of atheist. I'd be fine with the characters who are atheists as a result of tragedy (sometimes it takes a big event to open one's eyes) if they were shown alongside folks who simply came to atheist along a less emotional/more intellectual path.
Posted by: alipkin@gmail.com | January 6, 2008 9:29 AM
Yeah, misfortune is such a bad reason for being an atheist. I haven't had much misfortune, just a bit higher than usual people close to me dying when I was younger. But that if anything just made me ask more questions, and for a while I did want to get religious. Although I was for about 2 or 3 years hanging out with religious catholics, brothers and laypeople alike, and most of them were very nice, I never brought myself to speak to others with confidence about "god" himself.
My atheism came later, but only because I found scientific explanations are indeed much better, much clearer, evidenced countless of times, and very much available for almost everything. Religious "explanations" are just so... trite, unimaginative, mundane (yes, this is what religious say about materialism, but what do they know about nature anyway) in comparison. Not to say that science is "imaginative" in the sense that it is imagined, but that it can and will exceed our imaginations, because it is just not bound to them.
Posted by: andyo | January 6, 2008 9:30 AM
I feel compelled to add Edward elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. (yeah, geek-meter is beeping, alright). While he is a bitter, cynical person, he is also a scientist, an eminently intelligent person, the main character, and has stated more than once that he does not believe in any god, going as far as to disparage the faithful openly.
Posted by: F.Jardim | January 6, 2008 9:30 AM
K. N. Singh's bitter hatred of atheists is undoubtedly due to some traumatic incidence in his past. It has driven him to sad, pseudonymous railings against his personal demons, whom he has personified as various famous atheists. He's a sympathetically broken character who will overcome his anti-atheism in the end.
Posted by: jpf | January 6, 2008 9:35 AM
K. N. Singh at 23: It sort of sucks when the people you've kept in oppression for all those ages start to talk back, doesn't it? It was much nicer when those atheists stayed at the back of the bus, wasn't it?
Posted by: Ric | January 6, 2008 9:39 AM
A minor character but a good showing was the librarian in The Day After Tomorrow. When he saves the Gutenburg bible during the evacuation someone says "For an atheist you're holding onto that bible awfully hard." He responds by explaining it's cultural importance as one of the first printed books, the response comes across as honest and perfectly well adapted in its atheism.
Posted by: Hypatia | January 6, 2008 9:42 AM
The dog was an atheist. All dogs are. And they're almost always portrayed favorably.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | January 6, 2008 9:45 AM
I just watched "Empire of the Sun" last night. This is a 1987 Steven Spielberg movie about a British boy in Shanghai at that beginning of WWII, who ends up in a Japanese prison camp.
Anyway, I was surprised to note toward the beginning of the movie that "Jamie" declares that he's decided to become an atheist.
I can't quite decide what this means in the movie. On the one hand he makes this announcement while he's being established as a very spoiled, privileged, sort of shallow twit.
But later in the movie he's revealed as having much more depth, which really shines in adversity.
So, is his atheism a foreshadowing of his potential, which is realized later in the movie? Or is it meant to symbolize his privileged beginnings? (As in the classic, having too much money means that you can waste your time waxing philosophical and decide that there's no God - but honest working folk don't dabble in such ridiculous speculation.)
I'm going to give the movie the benefit of the doubt and opt for the former interpretation. (I really enjoyed it - so I'm going to be intentionally biased. So there!)
So, here may be a different portrayal than any of those mentioned so far. (Even if it's not a very big factor in the movie.)
Chris
Posted by: Xopher | January 6, 2008 9:46 AM
#23 "Yes, atheists are despised and distrusted.
Perhaps because some of the most famous atheists con(s)tantly say that Christians are delusional, child abusers, belong in zoos, etc."
Nope, don't think that's it. You see, some of the most famous christians constantly say some of the most appalling things you could think of, things that make one shudder at their cruelty and ignorance, and yet christians aren't despised and distrusted the way atheists are. Try thinking along another set of lines, like how most theists can't deal with anyone messing with their delusions and therefore fear and hate atheists.
Posted by: Dehan | January 6, 2008 10:02 AM
Ralph Fiennes plays an atheist in The English Patient. His character utters this line:
Almásy: There is no God... but I hope someone looks after you.
Posted by: djt | January 6, 2008 10:09 AM
Marcus @37: Please! I am God incarnate to my dog. Cats aren't even atheists: they are their own gods.
Posted by: DBEllis | January 6, 2008 10:12 AM
Well, I wouldn't exactly say it's a bad reason. The Problem of Evil is actually a pretty interesting and important part of the canon in Philosophy. It's a clear and scathing criticism of religious belief, which is where (unfortunately) many of us atheists start in our lives due to upbringing and indoctrination attempts.
(And the only way out of it and still be religious is to embrace nihilism, as Job clearly did.)
But I'd say it's an important part of the process.
Posted by: Bob | January 6, 2008 10:12 AM
Xopher @38: A common interpretation of the end of the movie (search for "heaven"), however, is that he sees the light from the atomic bomb and interprets it as his friends soul departing for heaven. In the end, as has been noted is typical, he comes back into belief.
Posted by: MLE | January 6, 2008 10:12 AM
I'm calling "K. N. Singh" out for sock-puppetry.
Posted by: Wes | January 6, 2008 10:13 AM
I think Mal Reynolds evolves — no pun intended — into the "right" kind of atheist by the end of Serenity.
On the general topic of the thread:
— Vladimir Nabokov, "On a Book Entitled Lolita"
Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 6, 2008 10:15 AM
One of the most notable atheist characters is Hugh Laurie's House. He is certainly the broken type and fits perfectly into the "bitter and cynical" mold.
Posted by: Ryan | January 6, 2008 10:17 AM
K. N. Singh, you're repeating yourself after only two posts. How pathetic is that? Want a discussion? Respond to my post at #39. Want to blab on like an idiot? Go somewhere else.
Posted by: Dahan | January 6, 2008 10:18 AM
"We are fulfilled, happy atheists who rejoice in the superfluity of the old myths. We generally don't have a tragic backstory -- quite the contrary, we've come to our conclusions because we have found natural explanations satisfying and promising."
Very nice post! I completely agree. Being an atheist doesn't mean you consider life and the universe as meaningless. All is full of meaning thanks to yourself, the people around you and the marvels of science and nature.
Posted by: Kris Verburgh | January 6, 2008 10:19 AM
djt "Ralph Fiennes plays an atheist in The English Patient. His character utters this line:
Almásy: There is no God... but I hope someone looks after you."
Most boring movie, ever. Painful.
Posted by: Dahan | January 6, 2008 10:22 AM
Exactly right. Media texts come into being through a very complex process, and profitability is at the center of it. There's an excellent book out now, Gay TV and Straight America that looks at changing representations of gay folks on television in the 1990s, and places the change in appeals to certain types of straight audiences due to their desirability as a market. Acceptance of gay people played a role, but primarily in the audience sense, not in the production sense. In other words, political action to change opinion had a secondary effect in changing the texts. It wasn't action about the texts, but action that shifted opinion in economically desirable segments of the population that created the space for more gay-positive images.
Same thing here. Atheists aren't going to be portrayed very well, particularly as atheists until it's profitable for us to be portrayed that way.
Posted by: MAJeff | January 6, 2008 10:23 AM
Bladerunner is an atheist movie, even if it doesn't include any explicit atheists. The core question of the movie is, "What does it mean to be alive?" And the answer is complex, and (doves aside) does not include "a soul."
Posted by: inkadu | January 6, 2008 10:24 AM
I thought that Nevile was supposed to have lost his faith in mankind, not god. His belief, err, Belief has nothing to do with what is shown in the movie except, perhaps, that he is a scientist. I think the god thing, if present, was a crutch for the religiously touched.
Posted by: Mike Fox | January 6, 2008 10:27 AM
"But I'd say it's an important part of the process."
See, this I just don't get. If the universe and life were the creation of an intelligence with supernatural powers, why would that rule out the possibility that that intelligence might seem like a prick from our standpoint?
Just because you can build an ant farm doesn't mean you wouldn't get bored with it and leave the ants to starve or take a magnifying glass to them.
Posted by: craig | January 6, 2008 10:33 AM
Wes, good call on the sock-puppetry.
Posted by: Dahan | January 6, 2008 10:34 AM
MLE @ #43
Good point. But even with that I think that one could interpret things a bit more generously. Jim sees an extraordinary phenomenon (the A-bomb explosion) that occurs simultaneously to Mrs. Victor's death. So, we can forgive him if he misunderstands what's going on and thinks that he's seeing something "supernatural".
But when later he hears a radio broadcast that gives the real explanation for what he sees, he quickly drops his earlier interpretation.
True, this doesn't show that he is re-rejecting theism. But it also doesn't show that he isn't. So, maybe he was a "foxhole convert" who later regained his senses?
I'm probably making way too much of it. I don't think his religious outlook is an integral part of the movie.
Still...
Chris
Posted by: Xopher | January 6, 2008 10:37 AM
Singh et al. aren't just sockpuppets -- that's the Kansas troll(s). They must be on Xmas break, and bored.
Posted by: PZ Myers | January 6, 2008 10:39 AM
As PG Wodehouse said, cats have never got over the fact that they were worshipped as Gods in ancient Egypt.
I don't know whether my late dog was an atheist but every time the parish priest came to visit, Sherpa would give his leg a tremendous humping. No one else, just the preist. Sacerdophilia. Oh let's not get started on that...
Posted by: Peter McGrath | January 6, 2008 10:56 AM
The main character on the TV show, "Bones", is an atheist, Temperance Brennan. About every other episode, she talks about it with her partner, Booth, who is Catholic.
Posted by: WayBeyondSoccerMom | January 6, 2008 11:08 AM
I should add to my earlier comment about atheists being a political minority, that in addition there's probably also a more mundane explanation at work: Stereotypes are easier to write. The "I'm mad at God" atheist is easy to write, and comes with built-in motives that you don't have to flesh out. So another part of the problem, in addition to the distrusted minority status of atheists making them unappealing from an investment point of view, might just be a lack of creativity and effort on the part of screenwriters. Why bother exploring atheism seriously when you've got stock atheism which you can throw in with little effort?
The same would apply to homosexuals, too. Lot's of writers employ the stereotypical flaming drag queen as a comic foil because it comes with built in cheap gags that don't require any effort of making you think (on the part of the writer or the audience).
Posted by: Wes | January 6, 2008 11:24 AM
Re comment #22: A section of the book, The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, discusses Manhattan without humans. Manhattan covered in plants in three years with no humans inhabiting Manhattan? Yes. Plants all over Manhattan. In the streets and sidewalks, growing out the windows. Rooftop gardens growing exuberantly and distributing their seeds. Every neighborhood park's plants doing the same. The book made me appreciate what we humans do everyday to maintain our habitats.
Posted by: dieselrain | January 6, 2008 11:25 AM
No. 45 Dahan wrote "Most boring movie, ever. Painful."
Dahan:
I just watched this for the first time last week as I was highly influenced by Elaine Benes of Seinfeld when she said she'd rather watch "Sack Lunch". I finally had the opportunity to watch the movie last week - I did enjoy the story. I can see though why some would find it boring and painful - it was a tad too long (as Elaine said..."just die already!") ;-)
Anyway - it was an example of a movie that had an atheist character.
Posted by: djt | January 6, 2008 11:26 AM
Not only are atheist all too often portrayed as 'failed Jobs'. It's also a 100 percent projection. In real life I have heard the story 'Never believed, couldn't be bothered - but then tragedy/crisis hit and I found God' much more often than the other way around.
Posted by: kamenin | January 6, 2008 11:30 AM
Re comment #22: A section of the book, The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, discusses Manhattan without humans. Manhattan covered in plants in three years with no humans inhabiting Manhattan? Yes. Plants all over Manhattan. In the streets and sidewalks, growing out the windows. Rooftop gardens growing exuberantly and distributing their seeds. Every neighborhood park's plants doing the same. The book made me appreciate what we humans do everyday to maintain our habitats.
Posted by: dieselrain | January 6, 2008 11:30 AM
What about Homer in The Simpsons Movie? His character is a bit **ahem** two-dimensional and too broadly written, but really he is the perfect "every man" and apparently a non-believer even if he isn't outspoken about it.
Posted by: Kurt | January 6, 2008 11:34 AM
For me, someone saying "God exists" is the true cause for despair.
It means that human beings are all too willing to delude themselves about the nature of reality.
That's fucking depressing.
Posted by: CalGeorge | January 6, 2008 11:37 AM
My favorite insulting portrayal of a fictional atheist is Mr. Terrific, a DC superhero. The man is an atheist despite the fact that he lives in a universe where people regularly come back from the dead, ghosts haunt people regularly, several of his teammates have powers granted by the gods, who occasionally check in with them, many of his former teammates spent years battling gods in Limbo, the Spirit of (Gods) Vengeance is a regular character as are mystical personifications of Dreams, Destiny, etc., Satan has attacked their team and stolen people's souls, and so on an so on.
Putting a character that is a resolute atheist in such a situation honestly seems sincere on the part of the writers to introduce an atheist character, but it couldn't be more silly. Mr. Terrific is supposed to be one of the smartest people in the DC universe, but his atheism is simply unbelievable in his situation.
Posted by: Bad | January 6, 2008 11:42 AM
I thought the movie of Contact was much too equivocal at the end. She waffled entirely under the heavy questioning, and left it open, and it turned into a stupid "spiritual" ending. Contact would be a positive portrayal of an atheist if you skip the last 10 minutes of the movie.
Posted by: Carlie | January 6, 2008 11:53 AM
What about those of us who are bitter and cynical atheists because we were raised in a fundamentalist household? It really bothers me when people dismiss my arguments against religion because I'm "bitter because that's how I was raised".
Don't you think people like me would know better than anybody just how stifling religion is?
Posted by: katie | January 6, 2008 11:55 AM
"(Note: Peter Gilmore, head of the Church of Satan, is an atheist.)"
How can you be an atheist and be the head of the Church of Satan?
Wouldn't Satan be your god?
That's like saying you don't believe in Charlie Brown but you do believe in Lucy. Still part of the same comic strip.
Last I heard Satan was a card carrying member of several religions so why chose to believe just a portion of those religions and not discard the whole shit pile?
Posted by: Rick T. | January 6, 2008 11:57 AM
If you've come to atheism because of personal hardship, you don't really qualify as an atheist. You can't be mad at God while disbelieving in him.
I've always found the "failed Job" Atheist a really lame stereotype. So, you were aware of the Holocaust but still believed in God, but when your spouse died, that was what convinced you there was no God? Doofus.
Posted by: Ipecac | January 6, 2008 12:04 PM
Katie,
Yours is a valid story. I presume you're bitter about how you were treated by human beings, not that your angry at god. Your cynicism and bitterness were hard-earned and no one should dismiss your atheism because of that.
Posted by: Ipecac | January 6, 2008 12:07 PM
OK, so here's the book:
Ordinary, but fairly bright kid gets interested in all kind of mysticism. (normal for the age) Discovers that meditation and hypnosis are just self-delusion, mysticism in general is a crock and a network of wishful thinking. He examines all of the mystical claims he can get his hands on- shroud of Turin, Lourdes, whatever popular "miracles" you want- and finds that there is no reliable evidence. Fortune tellers are liars, etc.
Weave that into an interesting coming-of-age story and get a good Bright manifesto. Inexplicably, it becomes a popular book. Hollywood makes a movie.
Now the bad part. In the movie version, every time the protagonist demolishes some popular myth, there is the hint that he's just ignoring "spiritual evidence" whatever that is. The movie ends with the "There is no God" statement, followed by the implied "Or is there?"
And speaking of Contact, I was disappointed by the circle-in-pi image at the end. Sagan seemed to be saying that he doesn't believe there is a personal god, but that maybe he's wrong. He points out, correctly, that it is possible for some experience to be true, but for there to be no evidence. But he asks the very reasonable question, if there is a creator who wants us to know about her, why isn't there some incontrovertible evidence? Then he provides it. Boo!
Posted by: BaldApe | January 6, 2008 12:14 PM
I've never heard of "Mr. Terrific" but it would be possible to be an atheist in a polytheistic universe. That is, you could believe in superbeing, just not in a supreme being.
Also, anyone remember Rorschach from "The Watchmen"? Yeah, it's not a movie, either, but he's got some good atheist lines. Also, he's crazy. And likes beans. And sugar cubes. And brave men like his father.
I'm also remembering that Futurama episode where Bender drifts in space only to have a small inhabited asteroid collide with his body. He gets to play god. Everything goes horribly. He eventually meets god, but god speaks in binary, to which Bender hypothesizes, "It's like you were God that collided with a deep space probe." To which god replies, "Quite possibly." The show ends with a lame god works in myserious ways thing... but Bender's difficulty playing god is definitely one of my favorite commentaries on theism. [Commandment I: God needs beer.]
Posted by: inkadu | January 6, 2008 12:15 PM
While not a movie, Battlestar Galactica has a good portrayal of atheists. There's no judgment, they're just people, including the heroes like William Adama. Only one atheist turns religious, and it's coupled with him becoming increasingly delusional/insane, rather than being some great reform.
And it's just generally great.
Posted by: Grand Fromage | January 6, 2008 12:16 PM
"We don't fit into their unthinking convention, which is probably why they stuck us with the label "new"."
Red herring. Whether you agree with the arguments or not (and I am talking here about the principle of the thing, not how good they are or not), there are arguments put out by philosophical theologians about necessary and contingent existence, anthropic coincidences, implications of modal realist arguments, etc., which support the idea of an uncaused being responsible for the existence of this universe. Well, why *does* this possible world exist and not others or even all the others? (Above all, don't throw out empty, play-groung utterances like "why not" which have no substantive value whatsoever.) Unless you have a better handle on that, you have no basis for complacency about atheism (and i didn't imply that such arguments should give "complacency" to philosophical theists, they're just something to mull over like any anti- argument. We don't have a real handle on it one way or the other.)
Those of us, who (like Paul Davies) use philosophical arguments to make an argument for a first cause and a contingent universe are tired of being fallaciously lumped in with "religious believers" who proceed from tradition/revelatory messages. That is a matter of principle, even if such arguments don't hold up well as such. It's like talking politics and pretending that libertarians don't exist, only Democrats and Republicans.
Posted by: Neil B. | January 6, 2008 12:17 PM
Contact was a religious movie all the way through. Mysterious revelations from above; a totally benevolent and wise heavenly host; "resurrecting" the dead; magical passage to heaven. Contact is formulating a religious/prophetic experience in (very strained) "scientific" terms.
As Arthur C. Clark wrote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
The super-science of a speculative alien species provides a loophole for the existence of "real" magic for rationalist atheists. Which makes me wonder what psychological yearnings are really underlying the SETI project.
I'm an atheist, and I don't dream of angelic aliens heralding a millennial transformation of the world through magical super-science.
Posted by: Colugo | January 6, 2008 12:21 PM
Satanism != worship of / belief in Satan.
Posted by: Token | January 6, 2008 12:23 PM
Dbellis writes:
Marcus @37: Please! I am God incarnate to my dog.
Mine follow me around mostly going, "What the heck is he gonna do next? This is so fun! Daddy is such a tard..." Maybe yours just looks like he's worshipping you -- you know, like 80% of those people in churches thinking "when this is over I gotta mow the lawn..."
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | January 6, 2008 12:24 PM
It can be difficult to comment on House's atheism out in The World.
I once answered a forum post on Television Without Pity with House isn't an asshole because he's an atheist; he's an asshole because he's House.
I followed up with I prefer my doctors to be members of the reality-based community.
That got me a nastygram from one of the moderators accusing me of insulting the faithful. Pfft.
Posted by: Woof | January 6, 2008 12:25 PM
BSG represents atheism and kooky theists pretty well; alas that there really do seem to be gods who provide prophecy.
And I might just be a bastard, but I was happy when the priestess died. She was annoying. And why do black people have to be spiritual? The priestess was black, and so was the conspiring-with-Roslyn religious prison guard. Talk about stereotypes.
Neil B. -- I'm not sure what you're reacting to, but here's my thoughts: I'm not a philosopher, and will admit to a certain intellectual laziness when it comes to the Big Unanswerables. Since we have no idea what started the Universe, if it can be said to have started, I see no reason to spend a lot of mental effort on postulating what could have started it. We just have no idea. If you want to believe in something, go right ahead, but it has as much validity, no matter how hard you think about it, as anything anyone else could say about the beginning of the universe. We just don't know.
Secondly, I think you're getting angry at the wrong audience. I'm quite happy to leave you in whatever quasi-Deistic cloud of probability you want to wander in. It is the theist who take your abstract arguments and conclude, "Therefore MY God exists." In fact, I hear more of (what I assume) are your type of arguments from Catholic theologians, who, due to their being Catholic, seem to imply that their "proof" of this Deistic God is concomittantly proof of Jesus, ressurection, Virgin Birth, etc.
Your comparison to Republcans / Democrats / Libertarians, I think, is brilliant, because libertarians, strictly speaking, don't matter politically, and when you hear libertarian arguments, they're s most likely coming from a Republican who wants to build a massive standing army on a deficit and make sure the government protects the power of coprorate monopolies. You are a small minority, and your arguments are most popular in their misapplication.
Posted by: inkadu | January 6, 2008 12:33 PM
I'm calling "K. N. Singh" out for sock-puppetry.
KHAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!!
Posted by: sciencemc | January 6, 2008 12:36 PM
Exactly. There's a Futurama quote for every occassion, apparently. Dr. Zoidberg, an alien of the crustaceous kind, gets stranded in 1947 America. The airforce interrogates him with questions like, "What are you doing on Earth?" And Dr. Zoidberg responds with his classic Yiddish deadpan, "Like I haven't asked myself the very same question."
If aliens ever do get to Earth, I imagine that psychology is more likely. ("Why didn't I get a towing rider with my saucer insurance...")
Posted by: inkadu | January 6, 2008 12:37 PM
#56, I dunno about that.
One of my hobbies has been urban exploration, and I've been through buildings and paved lots that have been abandoned for many years, and there aren't loads of plants. A few here and there, yes, but not like this movie showed.
There's an abandoned bit of road not far from here that I take whenever I go fossil hunting. It runs through a wooded area (lots of plants). It has been abandoned for at least 40 years.
Crumbling at the shoulders, sure, but no plants growing up through the middle. Not a little one, let alone big swaths. Wall Street starting to look like the beginnings of a prairie after three years? I don't buy it.
Posted by: craig | January 6, 2008 12:39 PM
The official Church of Satan of Anton LaVey has as its core belief, that the supernatural doesn't exist. They don't worship Satan because their belief is that the devil is as real as the god(s), not at all.
FWIW, it looks like LaVey wrote the Satanic bible and founded his organization more for some extra money and something to do. Whenever you hear fundies railing about the Church of Satan, you can be sure you are dealing with someone who is ignorant. It's all in wikipedia.
Posted by: raven | January 6, 2008 12:39 PM