(no subject)
One of the things that sucks about being an atheist is how we are depicted in fiction. In most cases, atheists are just completely shit upon and portrayed in a way that makes us look like idiots or terrible people.
Usually, a character who is atheist holds that belief because he is "mad at God." Think of Mel Gibson's character in Signs. His wife died and he loses faith, but really he is actually pissed off because he feels she shouldn't have been taken. The reality is, atheists aren't mad at any god because we don't believe in them.
The path that most atheists go down starts with a questioning of faith. Many devoutly religious people will begin investigating the tenets of their religion out of sheer curiosity or, ironically enough, because they want to defend their faith from attacks by atheists. There's a period that follows the questioning in which the atheist will strip away previous ways of thinking they once held. An example would be going from believing you didn't get that job because "it wasn't meant to be" to actually thinking about how you performed on the interview or whether or not you were qualified. The fact of the matter is, the atheist will cease to believe that his wife's passing *should* or *shouldn't* have happened; it just happened.
A lot of atheists in fiction are portrayed as being close minded because they've closed themselves off to the possibility that there *could* be something out there. This presupposes that atheism is an active process; that atheists must consciously force themselves not to see significance in every day events. In reality, atheists aren't closed off to the idea that there could be a higher power; we just don't give a shit if there is and don't spend any time thinking about it.
So many times, by the end of the story, the atheist has "seen the light" and begun to believe that there is something out there. This is usually based on a mindset that an atheist wouldn't actually have. Again, I point to Signs in which Gibson's character reignites his faith after a convenient interpretation of his wife's last words. This is because he's not actually an atheist - being mad at God doesn't make you an atheist because God is still in the equation. But people like this are shown as fictional examples of what atheists are actually like.
Atheists are also shown to be cold, logical people who get no joy out of life because we view everything as a math equation. Supposedly, we see no magic in the world. Look, my mother died on December 8 (12/8); my locker number in high school was 64 (64+64=128); the address of the building I currently work in is 82-01 (an anagram for 1208). I am fully capable of recognizing this as kind of weird, but I don't chalk it up to a higher power (and really, what would it even mean if it WAS the result of some deity?); I am in fact MORE impressed by the statistical improbability of these things happening than if it was some sort of secret message from the universe. I'm an atheist but I can still think with my gut and go on my feelings. I'm not like Dr. Brennan from Bones.
One of the reasons I stopped watching My Name is Earl was an episode in the first season that pissed me off. For those who don't know, the show is about a white trash ex-thief who, after winning $10,000 on a scratch off is promptly hit by a car. After misinterpreting a speech from Carson Daly, he forms a rudimentary understanding of karma and decides he must repent for all of the bad things he's done. I enjoyed the show until an episode aired in which Earl chose to abandon the list briefly to have fun - karma ended up attacking him with a series of ailments (bee stings, darts to the arm) until he took up his mission again. To me, they took a perfectly good show about a guy doing the right thing and had to add supernatural bullshit for no reason. I stopped watching after that.
Having faith is always rewarded in fiction and being skeptical is always punished. Every movie in which some magical entity will attack the world, or someone has been possessed by a demon always has someone who doesn't believe it's actually happening. This person is always portrayed as being a fool, but in reality that is the reasonable response to have! If someone bursts into a room and tells me that they saw a werewolf, I'm going to have some questions. Like: Are you under any influence right now? How dark was it? Could you possibly be hallucinating? And I think most people would be skeptical in a similar fashion. But in a movie I would be the bad guy for not believing the person with the outlandish claim.
Even in the recent Sherlock Holmes movie, Holmes ends up reenacting a religious ceremony and it's ONLY THEN that he is able to solve the mystery (even though THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE...but I forgive the movie because RDJ is so cool). Sherlock Fucking Holmes...the master of logic. Even he can not escape the negative stigma attached with atheism.
This has gone on much longer than I've intended and I don't think I've even scratched the surface of the point I wanted to make, but I'm tired. So talk amongst yourselves (all both of you who are reading this) and maybe you'll make a more coherent argument.
Usually, a character who is atheist holds that belief because he is "mad at God." Think of Mel Gibson's character in Signs. His wife died and he loses faith, but really he is actually pissed off because he feels she shouldn't have been taken. The reality is, atheists aren't mad at any god because we don't believe in them.
The path that most atheists go down starts with a questioning of faith. Many devoutly religious people will begin investigating the tenets of their religion out of sheer curiosity or, ironically enough, because they want to defend their faith from attacks by atheists. There's a period that follows the questioning in which the atheist will strip away previous ways of thinking they once held. An example would be going from believing you didn't get that job because "it wasn't meant to be" to actually thinking about how you performed on the interview or whether or not you were qualified. The fact of the matter is, the atheist will cease to believe that his wife's passing *should* or *shouldn't* have happened; it just happened.
A lot of atheists in fiction are portrayed as being close minded because they've closed themselves off to the possibility that there *could* be something out there. This presupposes that atheism is an active process; that atheists must consciously force themselves not to see significance in every day events. In reality, atheists aren't closed off to the idea that there could be a higher power; we just don't give a shit if there is and don't spend any time thinking about it.
So many times, by the end of the story, the atheist has "seen the light" and begun to believe that there is something out there. This is usually based on a mindset that an atheist wouldn't actually have. Again, I point to Signs in which Gibson's character reignites his faith after a convenient interpretation of his wife's last words. This is because he's not actually an atheist - being mad at God doesn't make you an atheist because God is still in the equation. But people like this are shown as fictional examples of what atheists are actually like.
Atheists are also shown to be cold, logical people who get no joy out of life because we view everything as a math equation. Supposedly, we see no magic in the world. Look, my mother died on December 8 (12/8); my locker number in high school was 64 (64+64=128); the address of the building I currently work in is 82-01 (an anagram for 1208). I am fully capable of recognizing this as kind of weird, but I don't chalk it up to a higher power (and really, what would it even mean if it WAS the result of some deity?); I am in fact MORE impressed by the statistical improbability of these things happening than if it was some sort of secret message from the universe. I'm an atheist but I can still think with my gut and go on my feelings. I'm not like Dr. Brennan from Bones.
One of the reasons I stopped watching My Name is Earl was an episode in the first season that pissed me off. For those who don't know, the show is about a white trash ex-thief who, after winning $10,000 on a scratch off is promptly hit by a car. After misinterpreting a speech from Carson Daly, he forms a rudimentary understanding of karma and decides he must repent for all of the bad things he's done. I enjoyed the show until an episode aired in which Earl chose to abandon the list briefly to have fun - karma ended up attacking him with a series of ailments (bee stings, darts to the arm) until he took up his mission again. To me, they took a perfectly good show about a guy doing the right thing and had to add supernatural bullshit for no reason. I stopped watching after that.
Having faith is always rewarded in fiction and being skeptical is always punished. Every movie in which some magical entity will attack the world, or someone has been possessed by a demon always has someone who doesn't believe it's actually happening. This person is always portrayed as being a fool, but in reality that is the reasonable response to have! If someone bursts into a room and tells me that they saw a werewolf, I'm going to have some questions. Like: Are you under any influence right now? How dark was it? Could you possibly be hallucinating? And I think most people would be skeptical in a similar fashion. But in a movie I would be the bad guy for not believing the person with the outlandish claim.
Even in the recent Sherlock Holmes movie, Holmes ends up reenacting a religious ceremony and it's ONLY THEN that he is able to solve the mystery (even though THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE...but I forgive the movie because RDJ is so cool). Sherlock Fucking Holmes...the master of logic. Even he can not escape the negative stigma attached with atheism.
This has gone on much longer than I've intended and I don't think I've even scratched the surface of the point I wanted to make, but I'm tired. So talk amongst yourselves (all both of you who are reading this) and maybe you'll make a more coherent argument.