Hollywood Atheist: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

* Atheists have been turned off by [[Corrupt Church|hypocrites and villains acting in the name of religion]] and only need to be shown a non-hypocritical believer to see the light.

* Atheists are somehow simply unaware of religion, and [[Easy Evangelism|will happily convert on the spot]] when informed of the rudiments of whatever dogma the work is endorsing. Expect them in an [[Author Tract]] (despite the name this shows up as early as the book Hayy ibn Yaqzan, making this trope [[Older Than Feudalism]]).

* Atheists only seem to have arguments against their culture's predominant religion. There is ''never'' any evidence that they've looked into non-mainstream religions for something they can find more plausible.

* Atheists exist solely to belittle religious people.

* Atheists have no moral code (and are uncharitable, unkind, and have no ethical boundaries).

* Atheists are smugly convinced of their own intellectual superiority and usually blinded to the "truth" by their own elitist pretensions and, usually, are [[Not So Different]] from their religious opponents.

 

Common to all portrayals of the Hollywood Atheist is the idea that faith is the natural state and [[Crisis of Faith|something must occur to drive the character away]] from the norm. Given that most humans worldwide are religious this is understandable, but still, it's always 'my reason for not believing is X.' One never hears 'I do not have a reason to believe', which is by far the most common reason given by atheists. It should come as no surprise that many atheists find the assumption that unbelief is unnatural ''deeply'' insulting.

 

 

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' gives us Edward Elric, a bitter young man who lost his faith in any kind of benevolent god when an attempt to resurrect his [[Dead Little Sister|dead mother]] goes [[Came Back Wrong|horribly awry]] and becomes very [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|grouchy and condescending]] when it comes to religion. While Ed actually ''does'' seem to believe in God (seeing how he basically got his arm and leg stolen by him), he [[Nay Theist|just doesn't like him]].

* Subverted by Roronoa Zoro in ''[[One Piece]]'' who was revealed to be an atheist during the Skipeia arc, but not due to his tragic past, and has no problem at all with faith in general. Furthermore, he also stated that if god did exist, he would like to meet him because he or she would be a [[Worthy Opponent]]. He's just that [[Badass]].

* Foh from B't X is a ''brutal'' subversion of this. Having given up on the ideals that gods exist due to witnessing war from a very early childhood, he eventually came to realize that does not mean he can be a jerk. {{spoiler|The fact he's responsible for one character getting a [[Dead Little Sister]], an issue he's willing to let himself get killed over in spite of the fate of the world hanging in the balance possibly is a driving factor.}} He strongly believes in mercy and compassion, vehemently hates fighting because it brings only tragedy to people, and runs an orphanage and raises kids ''right''. He even wears a religious memento from {{spoiler|his friend's [[Dead Little Sister]].}} It helps that Masami Kurumada, the series's author, is himself an atheist.

** A somewhat more reasonable atheist appears later, as a former Communist aiding a fundamentalist Muslim organization, despite not believing in a god, because he misses having a cause to fight for.

* Baran the Emperor of Light, a villain from the final chapters of the ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' manga, whose disbelief in God comes from the fact that his [[Dead Little Sister]] died from a curable disease because she refused to take the medicine he stole for her. His non-belief later drove him to start his own evil cult.

* ''[[Gundam Wing]]'' gives us a rather...odd example, in the form of Duo Maxwell. Duo wears a clerical collar and [[Creepy Cool Crosses]], but he states in Episode Zero that he doesn't actually believe in God because he "has never seen a miracle, but has sure seen lots of dead people!" He later appears to become a preacher, but {{spoiler|It's more of a front for his [[Bounty Hunter]] work than anything else.}}

 

* [[Batman]] is portrayed as an atheist by some authors, presumably as a side effect of having his parents killed and spending the last ten to fifteen years looking at the slimy underside of society. Of course, this being Batman, if he did believe in a God he probably has [[Crazy Prepared|a plan to take Him out, and could execute it, given enough prep time]].

** Given that Batman has seen demons, been teammates with angels, and in general encountered the mystic enough to know that ''some'' kind of supreme being exists, Batman's position is sometimes written not as "There is no God" but "When I finally meet God, He'd better have a ''really'' good explanation for all this crap."

** Even if he doesn't believe in God, he probably has such a plan.

** At least in the [[The Bronze Age of Comic Books|Bronze Age]], he is definitely not a religions practitioner. When asked by Dr. Leslie Thompkins if he ever prayed, he replied "No. Not since ''that night''."

* Freddie Kruger-esque [[Eviler Than Thou|Mister Rictus]] from the comic book miniseries ''[[Wanted]]''. He was the most pious of Christians until he died on the table after an accident. After seeing what lay beyond, i.e. ''[[The Nothing After Death|nothing]]'', he went completely crazy and started doing whatever the hell he felt like with no restrictions or morality whatsoever. Of course the fact that the accident scarred him to a ridiculous degree may have contributed.

* Warren Ellis has used a similar approach a couple of times. In Stormwatch, there's a character called The Eidolon, who's died and returned to let everyone know that there's nothing beyond this life. Then there's an early issue of Planetary with a Hong Kong ghost cop (possibly cop ghost) who's come back with a similar message. ("There's just us." "Did he say justice?" "No. 'Just us.'")

* Exception: Michael Holt, aka Mister Terrific, from the [[Justice Society of America]]. He's a compassionate and heroic man who just happens to be an atheist, and good friends with Doctor Mid-Nite, a devout Catholic. Complicated by the presence of [[Crossover Cosmology|several divine beings]] in the [[The DCU]], several of whom he has worked with, but there are [[Flat Earth Atheist|various justifications given]] for that.

** Recent developments with Mr. Terrific (especially meeting his [[All the Myriad Ways|Earth-2 mk II counterpart]]) have pretty much established that he was indifferently religious until his wife died, at which point he got [[Rage Against the Heavens|pissed off at God]]; had she survived, he would have found a profound faith from that miracle, so he's playing this trope straight now.

* [[Chick Tracts]] feature Hollywood atheists, specifically Hollywood from the 1950's. On a good day. No wimpy [[Dead Little Sister]] excuses in the Chick-y-verse, and any atheists who isn't hearing about this Jesus fellow for the first time in their lives and [[Easy Evangelism|converted on the spot]] is a [[Card-Carrying Villain]]. Oh, and this is all supposed to be a realistic portrayal of the world. At least atheists can rest assured that just about every other belief system except the author's gets the same treatment.

* Subverted in the one-shot comic ''A Momentary Lapse of Unreason''. A main character begins to question God [[Dead Little Sister|because his parents died in a car crash]], but through questioning he begins to base his atheism on logic and theological arguments rather than misery.

 

== Films ==

* The protagonist of ''[[Contact (film)|Contact]]'', makes a decent example of the [[Dead Little Sister]] variety. With several [[Strawman Political|Fundie Strawmen]] on the other side, this movie goes for the [[Golden Mean Fallacy]].

* As mentioned, most characters [[Steve Buscemi]] gets [[Typecasting|typecast]] as. Notable examples include the character from ''[[The Island]]'':

'''McCord:''' Well, you know when you want something really really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God's the guy who ignores you. }}

* The hero of ''[[Hammer Horror|Dracula Has Risen from the Grave]]'' just happens to be an atheist, with no [[Dead Little Sister|tragic past]]. He eventually converts by the end because he sees Dracula getting repelled by a cross and it gives him reason to believe in God

* Nicky from ''Parting Glances'' who is living with AIDS, although to the film's credit we're never actually told that his illness and his lack of religion are connected.

* [[Mel Gibson]]'s character from ''[[Signs]]'' is the very embodiment of the first type. It's unusually sensible in his case since his faith seems to come from his belief in predestination. He's unable to reconcile his wife's particularly horrible death with his belief everything happens for a reason.

* ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]] 3: Marauder'' has a lot of fun with this theme. The fascistic Federation regards religion as potentially subversive. The heroine, Captain Lola Beck, reflects this view and cracks down hard on fellow soldier Holly Little's Christian prattle. She even questions the sanity of her superior, Sky Marshall Anoke, when he also claims to believe in God. Beck changes her mind when, after facing imminent death from a giant alien [[Vagina Dentata]] (the "God" Anoke was ''really'' referring to), a host of "fiery angels" (a team of [[Death From Above|space-dropped]], [[Powered Armor]]-wearing [[Badass|ass-kicking]] Marauders) [[Big Damn Heroes|come to their aid]] in response to their prayers. Likewise the Federation is impressed at how Sky Marshall Anoke obeyed the alien god's orders without question, and decide there must be something to this religion stuff after all. So the Federation officially declares that God does exist. And naturally, He's a citizen of the Federation!

* Slade Craven, the main character of ''Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal'' and a Marilyn Manson [[Expy]], is never stated to be a satanist, but has implied atheism. At the end of the film, having gone an incredible distance on nothing but his own competence, he has to convert to Christianity, in a "No Atheists in Foxholes" moment before he can resolve the plot.

* John Koestler, the protagonist of ''[[Knowing]]'', has lost his faith after his wife died in a hotel fire. {{spoiler|He's made a believer again by the apocalypse... even though he saw the angel-boat leave without him.}}

* ''Saints and Soldiers'' is a perfect example of this trope. The medic, an atheist, is portrayed as bitter, selfish, and eager to kill Nazis under any circumstances. In contrast, the sniper, a Christian of an unspecified sect (but probably a Mormon) is compassionate, even to [[Acceptable Targets]] like soldiers of the Third Reich. Naturally, the bitter atheist is converted in the span of an hour and a half, and the saintly Christian {{spoiler|gives his life for his comrades}}.

** The movie was actually a subversion, once you go through it a couple of times. The atheist is bitter and angry, but a major theme of the movie is that [[War Is Hell]]. The Christian served a mission in Germany, so he knows that the Germans can be good people. (A major plot point was that a German soldier was also one of the Christian's personal friends from before the war.) All that happened was that the atheist picked up the little book offered to him by the Christian from the Christian's dead body, and it had a picture of the Christian's wife. The other characters aren't shown having a strong sense of religious faith, but are still portrayed as basically good, if flawed people. The Christian isn't exempt from this, as he has PTSD from [[War Is Hell|accidentally killing a room full of little of children and nuns]] and is falling apart at the seams. Considering the fact that Christian just died trying to save the group, wouldn't it make sense that the atheist (as one of two surviving characters, and the only surviving American) try to get the little book back to the Christian's wife so that she would have a little something more than a flag and letter? Or keep it as a reminder of someone who saved him when he wasn't obligated to? Especially since this sort of thing happened all the time during WWII?

* In ''[[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]]'', although Tyler Durden's religious beliefs are not deeply explored, he at one point remarks that ''Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed on us, what does that tell you about God?'' It's possible this was from the book, but he also posits that if there is a God, it's better to be hated by him than ignored. Note that, here, "God" is a metaphor for absentee fathers. Durden's actual theological opinion is wide open.

* Fairly stereotypical example with [[Jack Nicholson]]'s character in ''[[The Bucket List]]''. He's bitter, cynical, extremely unpleasant to most people he interacts with, and claims to envy people with faith even if he doesn't understand what it's about.

* The "what sort of God allows this to happen" trope is used in ''[[Cube|Cube Zero]]'': {{spoiler|at the end of the titular [[Death Trap]] filled labyrinth, any survivors are asked if they believe in God. If they say "no", the Cube's operators press a button marked "No" which causes the survivor to be incinerated. When the new operator asks what the button marked "Yes" does, the other says ''he doesn't know'': ''no one'' has ever said "Yes".}}

** Han Solo is a good example, as he ridicules the Force at first and later comes to believe in it or at least respect it.

* In the movie ''[[The Rite]]'', the main character is a priest who doesn't actually believe in God (he joined the seminary to get a free college degree). Even after he sees a girl possessed by demons who speaks in tongues, contorts her body into impossible positions, and her voice changes completely, along with her ''vomiting up the nails used to crucify Jesus'', he still claims it was just a hoax to cover up her being molested.

* Bethany, in the film ''[[Dogma]]'' is pretty much the first kind due to being infertile and the resulting divorce. By the end, she gets a bit more concrete evidence than most Hollywood atheists.

* In ''Second glance'' a Christian teenager is dissatisfied with his life and wishes he wasn't a believer. [[It's a Wonderful Plot|Then an angel shows up to walk him through a day in his life if he hadn't been a believer.]] From the ensuing day, we learn that atheists would never bother to stop classmates from beating each other in the hospital, don't mind if their classmates commit suicide, are sloppy housekeepers, cheat on their dream girl, [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|and don't pray for their parents marriage, causing them to divorce]] (though frankly, the parents didn't look particularly happy when they were still together) .

* Similar to the above, the Christian film ''The Atheist'' is about an atheist man taken on a trip by Jesus to examine the issue of faith. Apparently all atheists are rampant sinners who do just about everything a Christian would think of as wrong.

* Averted in ''[[Pitch Black (film)|Pitch Black]]''. The imam thinks that Riddick is one of these. Riddick is in fact a [[wikipedia:Misotheist|misotheist]], one who believes in God, and hates Him.

 

== Literature ==

* Subverted in ''[[The Stormlight Archive|The Way of Kings]]''. POV character Shallan expects Jasnah, a famous atheist scholar she's seeking out an apprenticeship under, will be this, but while Jasnah's a bit of an [[Insufferable Genius]], she turns out to be overall a likable, charismatic person and one of the smartest people in the novel. {{spoiler|At the end of the book, it's revealed that the setting ''does'', in fact, have a god... but [[God Is Dead|he's dead]].}}

* ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]'' inverts the above in that {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]] is really an atheist who is manipulating a [[Knight Templar]], although [[The Movie]] removes the sympathetic aspect and makes the religious antagonists part of an [[Ancient Conspiracy]]}}.

** Victor's lack of morals are also based after his own arrogance and belief that he is the pinacle of human potential.

** Interestingly Dean Koontz himself was at one point in his life an atheist and wrote a few sci-fi stories dealing with characters attempting to find and kill a God, who is [[God Is Evil|evil]].

** Another one of her stories, "The Lame Shall Enter First" features a more positive, humanistic atheist faced with a clove-footed character who claims to be a Satanist. The Satanist comes across as the wiser of the two: at least he knows how the battle lines are drawn.

* The novel ''The Last Templar'' features a character who vowed to destroy Christianity after taking the advice of a priest to not abort his wife's high risk pregnancy, resulting in his wife and unborn child's death. Just to ''really'' show he means business, he ''sets fire to the church'' with the priest still inside shortly afterwards.

* The one-act play "Deus X" plays around with this trope. It concerns a neuroscientist who wonders why he grew up to be an atheist while his brother grew up to be a televangelist. He eventually discovers that religious faith is caused by a gland in people's brains, and develops a drug that eliminates said gland. Although this turns the devout into wanton sex maniacs and the kind of conscienceless people that atheists are often stereotyped as, it is portrayed as unequivocably a good thing, and the play ends with the doctor character encouraging the audience to take a handful of the pills when they leave.

* The dwarfs in [[The Chronicles of Narnia]] by [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]] stand in for atheists (and possibly Communists). Trumpkin, one of the "good" red dwarfs, helps the good guys in ''Prince Caspian'' but denies the existence of Aslan, even when Aslan is standing in front of him (which is how some Christians view atheists) until Aslan roars in his face. The "bad" black dwarfs in ''The Last Battle'', meanwhile, reject Aslan and are doomed to wallow in their own mortality. Real subtle.

** Lewis's fiction for adults is actually a bit more subtle than that; there are quite a few examples of this type, but then there's at least one of the [[True Companions]] who remains a defiant atheist to the end.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Lindsey Weir from ''[[Freaks and Geeks]]'' is an atheist simply because in her view there is no rational reason to believe in god(s).

** Lindsey's atheism is explained in the first episode as a reaction to seeing her grandmother die and hearing her say how there was no light and she was alone.

* Jane Christie from the Britcom ''[[Coupling]]''. In one episode she goes to a Christian group and says, "Andrew, lovely! Well, Andrew, there's something I probably better explain. God is just a made up person. You can't expect Him to be answering your prayers if He's not real, can you? That's a bit like writing to the characters of a soap opera and expecting a reply, Mr. Silly Sausage."

* The 2000s' ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' features prominent atheist characters, all different.

** Admiral Adama, a humanist who views mankind as flawed but inherently good, and ultimately accountable to nobody but themselves for their mistakes in life.

** The arguments usually aren't "over Brennan's atheism", though... they're usually started because she'll occasionally come close to ''picking a fight'' with him over some aspect of his belief. This stands in contrast to how she's shown to not only be knowledgeable but openly respectful of pretty much every religion but the Jesus-as-savior ones. She tones it down later as she seems to realize she's antagonizing Booth for no particular reason, and it's [[Wild Mass Guessing|entirely possible]] there's a [[Freudian Excuse]] for why she has issues with Catholicism.

** Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Voodoo, Candomble, etc... are all minority religions with eccentricities that intrigue her as an anthropologist - and draws her sympathy as a social pariah. Catholicism, on the other hand, shapes every facet of the society she grew up in - y'know, ''the one that repeatedly treats her as an unlovable freak even when it's trying to be nice to her.''

* Dexter Morgan from the Showtime series ''[[Dexter]]'', a vigilante serial killer traumatized as a child by witnessing the murder of his mother. In ''Darkly Dreaming Dexter'', the novel on which the show is based, his brother Brian is also an atheist for the same reason.

* Patrick Jane from ''[[The Mentalist]]'' fits the description to a tee. His wife and daughter were in fact murdered and he will mock religious beliefs or any belief in the supernatural. Although he may have been an atheist before since he was a secretly fake psychic before the murders. In fact, this is what got his family killed, so it explains his hostility to such beliefs.

** One episode featured a priest who called himself atheist but really had a textbook example of "God did me wrong" Hollywood atheism. Seeing Jesus floating in front of him does nothing but make him check himself into the hospital for hallucinations. {{spoiler|By the end of the episode, he had found faith again because the wrong was made right and he made peace with the person who had hurt him.}}

** House's ex-girlfriend Stacy is also an atheist, although she wears a cross she inherited from her mother (atheists can do things for sentimental reasons, after all). It's subtly implied that her husband Mark is religious to some degree; at least, while House is trying to anger Mark, he inquires about their wedding day and gets in a jab about "the atheistical bride".

** River is also known to lampoon religion on several occasions (albeit unintentionally, she's not looking to cause trouble), most notably when she begins revising the shepherd's Bible to match reality.

** River appears to be a subversion of the stereotypical Hollywood atheist, as her atheistic stance is scientific. She's influenced by the noted inconsistencies she found in Shepherd Book's explanations and the lack of any evidence for religion.

* Jack McCoy of ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' is an admitted lapsed Catholic. His disdain for religion (or for what he sees as religious hypocrisies) puts him squarely in the "exists to belittle the religious" category, often to the point where he's jeopardized a case just to get his shots in. In the show's defense, he's almost always [[What the Hell, Hero?|called out on it]].

* Perry Cox from ''[[Scrubs]]''. In one episode it is revealed that his lack of religion has driven a wedge between him and his fundamentalist Christian sister. It is also revealed in that episode the reason for his atheism is that they were both abused by his father. This was contrasted to his sister's way of dealing, converting to Christianity. It was however later revealed that it was not religion that drove a wedge between him and his sister, but the fact that Cox didn't want to deal with anything from his childhood, and religion was just an excuse.

** He still does not particularly like religion, stating that prayer gives patients false hope.

* [[Agent Mulder|Fox Mulder]] of ''[[The X-Files]]'' is perhaps the very embodiment of this trope, which is funny as David Duchovny has stated that unless told otherwise he saw Mulder as Jewish. When [[Agent Scully|Scully]] finally [[If Jesus, Then Aliens|calls him on the hypocrisy of his believing in all sorts of supernatural phenomena while dismissing religion out of hand]], he angrily tells her that he refuses to believe in a God who wouldn't [[Dead Little Sister|save his sister]]. But then it turns out his sister was actually saved at the last moment by angels, or [[The Chris Carter Effect|something like that...]]

** The angels [[Mercy Kill|mercy killed]] her so the aliens wouldn't. Really.

** In the last scene of the show's finale, Mulder and Scully have the following exchange:

'''Scully:''' Then we believe the same thing. }}

* An episode of ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' features the eponymous Inquisitor, a droid which, after concluding there was no God, appointed himself judge over mortals, killing people to free up lives he feels could be better allocated to those who weren't born.

** Except, here's the funny part about that song, it's not really about losing your faith, it's about sitting in the party, getting hammered, and losing your manners.

** Well, this is [[Too Dumb to Live|Finn]] we're talking about. Expecting him to understand that words can have non-literal meanings is asking a bit much!

** As the series has progressed, however, Britta has gotten a bit more in-your-face about her atheism, especially when mixing it up with [[The Fundamentalist|Shirley]].

* On ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', Dean used to be an atheist, at least until he met Castiel and other angels. Now his believing in god is rather pragmatic, not really motivated by faith.

** Supernatural is interesting in the regard that atheism seemed only to apply to the Christian god. A couple of [[Monsters of the Week]] were, in fact, pagan gods.

* In ''[[Star Trek]]'', the Klingons USED to believe gods existed. [[Rage Against the Heavens|Ancient Klingon warriors slew them in battle centuries ago.]] [[Deadpan Snarker|They were more trouble than they were worth.]]

** "The Popular Kids" presents the killer as a Nietzsche-quoting teenager who murdered jocks in fake Satanic rituals, blaming the deeply religious town. In particular, he framed a local "Satanic" (read, "atheistic, heavy-metal-listening, and bitter, but not really Satanic or a killer") youth.

* Gil Grissom in [[Crime Scene Investigation]], apparently. When he talks with a Catholic priest he claims that all the suffering caused by religious wars and extremists turned him off to religion. Meeting kind and faithful religious people doesn't seem to alter his opinion.

== Tabletop Games ==

 

** Interestingly, the single group that would seem most like they would be atheists- but aren't- are the [[Machine Worship|Tech Priests.]] They believe that the greatest show of their love is to cut off bits of their bodies and replace them with machinery. However, they do this because they worship a being they call "The Machine God," or "The Omnissiah." {{spoiler|He's actually a [[Killer Robot|Necron]] leader called the Void Dragon.}}

** The Tau are atheists, but believe in something they call, "The Greater Good." They do believe in their own intellectual superiority, but they are also cut off from a realm of existence called "The Warp," which is where and how the various gods of the 40K-verse work their power.

** In a twist of supreme irony, the man who would become the ''[[God-Emperor|God]]''-[[God-Emperor|Emperor]] of Mankind was very much an atheist. As demonstrated in "The Last Church", where he argues with the last priest left on Earth about the merits of faith, using only examples like [[The Crusades]] and other religious massacres to make his point. One of his sons betrayed precisely because he and his [[Space Marines]] worshipped him as a god, when he thought rational thought should replace faith. The Emperor was aware of the [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] nature of his universe, and wanted to make everyone atheists in order to weaken the gods.

** The Planescape campaign setting also had the Athar faction, who's big thing was that they believed the gods weren't really gods, just really, really powerful mortals with huge egos, as evidenced by the fact that the gods could be killed. Like the ur-Priest Prestige Class, they had the ability to muck up divine magic but lacked the "must be evil" restriction on their alignment. They were frequently portrayed as being [[Jerkass]] characters, however.

 

* ''[[Conservapedia]]'' claims [http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_Mental_and_Physical_Health several] of these traits are somewhat [http://conservapedia.com/Causes_of_atheism true]. Even, it claims some others, like [http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_obesity obesity].

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFCtkZBvgTk This youtube video] portrays an atheist as simply liking to belittle the religious right wing and not knowing much about non-mainstream religions.

* ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbfFAYn8bgc The Secret Lives of Atheists]'' lampoons every negative stereotype about atheists under the sun.

 

** Given the outspoken views of the show's creator, it's almost certain that he didn't try to make Brian this way (especially given the negative portrayal of religion), but instead tried to make the atheist character the most sane, logical and rational one on the series... that his condescending views toward religion were picked up as jerkish was likely unintentional.

** It doesn't help that [[Flat Earth Atheist|not believing in God in a world where you've met Jesus and Death makes one illogical,]] unless he thinks they're robots or something. Sane people don't hold people hostage and rational people don't condemn others for simply believing in a higher power.

* ''[[South Park]]'' has poked fun at atheists in two different stories ("Red Hot Catholic Love" and the "Go God Go" two-parter, respectively), but that just means that Trey Parker and Matt Stone treat atheism [[Equal Opportunity Offender|like all the other belief systems they've ever mentioned on their show]].

'''''[Doctors look at each other disapprovingly]''''' }}

* In the [[Metalocalypse]] episode ''Religionklok'', one of the religions that Murderface tries is atheism. Their church is promptly picketed by agnostics who protest for their right to believe in something that may or may not exist. The protest quickly turns into a [[Bloody Hilarious|bloody riot between both religions.]]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Religion Tropes]]

[[Category:The Only Righteous Index of Fanatics]]

[[Category:The War On Straw]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]