Hollywood Atheist: Difference between revisions

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* 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".}}

* Admiral Motti from [[Star Wars]] : [[A New Hope]] is pretty much the [[Recycled in Space]] equivalent of this, as far as expressed contempt for the [[Star Wars]] universe's equivalent of religious belief goes. Vader chokes him for his insolence.

{{quote|'''Vader''': [[You Have Failed Me|I find your lack of faith disturbing.]]}}

{{quote|'''Vader''': [[You Have Failed Me...|I find your lack of faith disturbing.]]}}

** 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.

{{quote|'''Han''': Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen ''anything'' to make me believe there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.}}

* 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.

* Ichabod Crane in ''[[Sleepy Hollow]]'' is an example of the first kind, as [[Sinister Minister|his father]] killed Crane's mother by shutting her in an iron maiden for exhibiting seemingly pagan practices.

* Ichabod Crane in ''[[Sleepy Hollow (Film)|Sleepy Hollow]]'' is an example of the first kind, as [[Sinister Minister|his father]] killed Crane's mother by shutting her in an iron maiden for exhibiting seemingly pagan practices.

* 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.

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* 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.

* Matt Albie from ''[[Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip]]''. As one character puts it, "No one delights in tweaking the religious community nearly as much as Matt does."

* Matt Albie from ''[[Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip]]''. As one character puts it, "No one delights in tweaking the religious community nearly as much as Matt does."

* [[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.

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== Tabletop Games ==

* [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] and [[Warhammer ~~40000~~]] have an... [[Mind Screw|interesting]] take on the atheism in a world where most of the gods are flat-out ''evil.'' Or, well, they used to. There used to be a fifth Chaos God, Malal, who was the God of Atheism. In a world where [[Gods Need Prayer Badly]]. So the more you prayed to him, the weaker he got, and the less you worshiped, the stronger he got. He would also try to destroy/wreck the other Chaos Gods' plans, and hoped to destroy all gods, including himself. Unfortunately, Games Workshop (the company that makes both games) lost the copyright to Malal, so he isn't technically part of their canon anymore. However, fans and GW employees/writers still like to throw in references to him from time to time. For example, the Sons of Malice [[Space Marine]] chapter is a Chaos Space Marine chapter that opposes pretty much everyone, including the other Chaos Gods and the Imperium of Mankind (itself ruled by the Church).

* [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] and [[Warhammer 40,000]] have an... [[Mind Screw|interesting]] take on the atheism in a world where most of the gods are flat-out ''evil.'' Or, well, they used to. There used to be a fifth Chaos God, Malal, who was the God of Atheism. In a world where [[Gods Need Prayer Badly]]. So the more you prayed to him, the weaker he got, and the less you worshiped, the stronger he got. He would also try to destroy/wreck the other Chaos Gods' plans, and hoped to destroy all gods, including himself. Unfortunately, Games Workshop (the company that makes both games) lost the copyright to Malal, so he isn't technically part of their canon anymore. However, fans and GW employees/writers still like to throw in references to him from time to time. For example, the Sons of Malice [[Space Marine]] chapter is a Chaos Space Marine chapter that opposes pretty much everyone, including the other Chaos Gods and the Imperium of Mankind (itself ruled by the Church).

** 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.

* ''[[Dungeons ~~and~~ Dragons]]'' 3.0 and 3.5 have the ur-Priest Prestige Class. An ur-Priest is a former devotee of a deity who has since turned away from religion and now undermines divine magic for selfish ends. The class's requirements? Must have had access to 3rd level Divine spells, since lost, and '''must be evil.'''

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' 3.0 and 3.5 have the ur-Priest Prestige Class. An ur-Priest is a former devotee of a deity who has since turned away from religion and now undermines divine magic for selfish ends. The class's requirements? Must have had access to 3rd level Divine spells, since lost, and '''must be evil.'''

** 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.

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[[Category:~~Hollywood Atheist~~]]

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