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Forums - General - Portrayal of Athesits and Theists in Movies/TV?

sapphi_snake on 10 August 2010
Kasz216 said:
sapphi_snake said:

Oh the poor athist that's blind to the "truth". This annoys me.

Were those even real angels/gods whatever?

No, they were aliens... like I said.   In fact, their largest rivals suggest that they are seen that way because of the genetic manipulation done to the "younger" races via gentic modification.

It wasn't that he was blind to seeing something freakin awesome that had everyone else speachless.

The guy is an atheist until the day he dies.  He just missed out on something awesome and was an interesting wrinkle to what the vorlons did.



Both the "Angel" race and their rival race are generally show to be just as bad as each other and kicked out of the universe by young races.

Well, considering that those alians were frauds and manipulated people he should've been happy to not be manipulated by them.



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Mummelmann on 10 August 2010
Armads said:
rocketpig said:

I don't buy into this at all. I think there are plenty of characters who may be atheists in the writer's head but just don't bother delving into that portion of the character because, well, atheism is BORING. It doesn't make for a good story.

Religious undertones are fun because there's so much meat there to wrangle around into a fully-developed character. After all, most religious stories are interwoven with strong morality tales, quests for knowledge, and all the juicy stuff that makes a story interesting.

Atheism just doesn't provide that kind of material.


Atheists usually follow some form of philosophy since atheism itself is a singular belief, belief that there is no god.  It must be accompanied by other beliefs.  This actually allows atheist characters to have much more depth in their beliefs than christian characters.  So no it has nothing to do with how interesting atheism is. 

 

Consider this, there is an atheist sect of Judaism and christianity, there are buddhist atheists, there are atheists who simply follow rational explanations and don't attempt to guess beyond that and more belief systems that fit well with atheism.


There is no such thing as a Jewish atheist, Christian atheist, Muslim atheist etc. Atheism is atheism, the lack of belief in a God or other divine entity and it is not a homogenous group with the same ideology and conviction and neither does it matter which stem of belief (or even several systems) their peers belong to. I honestly don't know where people get these ideas, atheists are viewed as a religious group or as a belief system, both are wrong. Besides the shared belief that there is no God or divine entity, atheists come in all shapes and forms and with all kinds of belief, conviction and ideologies.



Soleron on 10 August 2010
Mummelmann said:

There is no such thing as a Jewish atheist, Christian atheist, Muslim atheist etc. Atheism is atheism, the lack of belief in a God or other divine entity and it is not a homogenous group with the same ideology and conviction and neither does it matter which stem of belief (or even several systems) their peers belong to. I honestly don't know where people get these ideas, atheists are viewed as a religious group or as a belief system, both are wrong. Besides the shared belief that there is no God or divine entity, atheists come in all shapes and forms and with all kinds of belief, conviction and ideologies.

While I agree in principle - atheism is the singular belief that no supernatural God exists - people can call their personal religion whatever they want. If they think they can combine Christianity with atheism sincerely, then I don't think we can say they can't.

I'm not sure I like the atheist label (of course it's not so bad to have in the UK compared to the US) because it suggests a homogenous group that doesn't exist and also defines us in opposition to theism, as if we think about how-much-we-don't-believe all of the time, whereas I think most atheists don't actually think about religion much. We're more free to do other things and follow any personal philosophy.



alekth on 10 August 2010

Well, not quite sure on how combining Christianity with atheism would work. Combining some of the christian values (personal/social) with atheism is doable and quite common, but the rest.. not quite.

Totally agree on the second part. I only think about atheism at all when I'm confronted with religion or a more or less direct question about religion (either about the religion itself, or something social that gets evaluated based on a religion). To some extent I do think that even the more vocal atheists are basically acting on reaction, just being more socially involved (of course there are also always people set on enlightening you about stuff, wether religious or not). Otherwise as far as religious beliefs go, atheism is simply a state of not being of any religion/theist belief, it doesn't have any guidelines of behaviour.



Soleron on 10 August 2010
alekth said:

Well, not quite sure on how combining Christianity with atheism would work. Combining some of the christian values (personal/social) with atheism is doable and quite common, but the rest.. not quite.

Totally agree on the second part. I only think about atheism at all when I'm confronted with religion or a more or less direct question about religion (either about the religion itself, or something social that gets evaluated based on a religion). To some extent I do think that even the more vocal atheists are basically acting on reaction, just being more socially involved (of course there are also always people set on enlightening you about stuff, wether religious or not). Otherwise as far as religious beliefs go, atheism is simply a state of not being of any religion/theist belief, it doesn't have any guidelines of behaviour.


Well, it doesn't have to make sense to everyone. Just the person who calls themselves that.

The only place where 'atheism' as a whole should be behind something is in being against creationism taught in schools as a serious alternative to evolution, with evidence.



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rocketpig on 10 August 2010
Armads said:
rocketpig said:

I don't buy into this at all. I think there are plenty of characters who may be atheists in the writer's head but just don't bother delving into that portion of the character because, well, atheism is BORING. It doesn't make for a good story.

Religious undertones are fun because there's so much meat there to wrangle around into a fully-developed character. After all, most religious stories are interwoven with strong morality tales, quests for knowledge, and all the juicy stuff that makes a story interesting.

Atheism just doesn't provide that kind of material.


Atheists usually follow some form of philosophy since atheism itself is a singular belief, belief that there is no god.  It must be accompanied by other beliefs.  This actually allows atheist characters to have much more depth in their beliefs than christian characters.  So no it has nothing to do with how interesting atheism is. 

Consider this, there is an atheist sect of Judaism and christianity, there are buddhist atheists, there are atheists who simply follow rational explanations and don't attempt to guess beyond that and more belief systems that fit well with atheism.

I don't see how an Atheist character can have more depth, especially because your average Atheist's belief system usually doesn't revolve around their Atheism at all. In place of Atheism, their belief structure could revolve around politics, government, personal morality, etc... just like any religious person, minus the religion. There's a key element missing there and as I said earlier, there are probably several Atheist characters that just don't talk about it. Someone could know me for months and never realize that I'm Agnostic, bordering on Atheist (as in I refuse to believe there is any kind of benevolent God but accept that there may be a higher deity).

I'm not saying that it's impossible to make an interesting Atheist character, just that most of the interesting parts of the character probably won't revolve around their Atheism (Bones is a good example).




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richardhutnik on 10 August 2010
Porcupine_I said:
Kasz216 said:

Are atheists actually underrepresented?

I mean, how would you know?

How many shows ACTUALLY deal with religion.

To have an atheist in a show you would need.

A) A show about religion or that deals with religion a lot.

B) A show who also needs a counterpoint to that.  Aka not a show SOLEY about religion.


I think you'll generally find on the shows where they talk about religion but it isn't the main theme, there are plenty of Atheists.

I just got done watching Babylon 5 again through netflix.  There are a number of atheists on that show.

Or heck, Look at Star Trek.  Every single person on Star Trek I think is an atheist.  Outside of Worf anyway and maybe Riker.  The thing is, nobody knows that... because atheism is kinda useless as a storytelling device.

I mean, if Chandler from friends was an atheist.  Or George Costanza or the fat guy from king of queens... how would you know?   And why would you care?

There is nothing you can do with an "hey i'm an atheist" angle that would work in a comedy or super drama.  Basically you'd need to have it in a dramadey... and even then it's likely to be a plot point that lasts all of 1 episode because there isn't anything you can do with it.

Unlike say, religions where you can have a crisis of faith or there are things you can go to.

The only thing atheism is really "functional" for from a writing perspective is to show a pessimism to a greater force pulling you out of trouble.  Like during  a big war.

So is the "Lord of the Rings" universe, i am still fascinated how Tolkien was able to create a Fantasy universe without Religion, Priests or Gods.

The Lord of the Rings storny is sited by some Christians as one that tells a Christian message.  You have magic, and Sauron.  You have good battling evil.  God is remote in it.



rocketpig on 10 August 2010

Tolkien vehemently denied the LotR story being any kind of allegory to anything. I don't give a damn what some Christian has to say about it, that just isn't the case and that's coming directly from Tolkien himself, as he despised allegory (which is kind of funny considering one of his best friends was CS Lewis).




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Soleron on 10 August 2010
richardhutnik said:
...

The Lord of the Rings storny is sited by some Christians as one that tells a Christian message.  You have magic, and Sauron.  You have good battling evil.  God is remote in it.

The author's intention was for no allegory. But I suppose you can take it how you want.



Porcupine_I on 10 August 2010
richardhutnik said:
Porcupine_I said:
Kasz216 said:

Are atheists actually underrepresented?

I mean, how would you know?

How many shows ACTUALLY deal with religion.

To have an atheist in a show you would need.

A) A show about religion or that deals with religion a lot.

B) A show who also needs a counterpoint to that.  Aka not a show SOLEY about religion.


I think you'll generally find on the shows where they talk about religion but it isn't the main theme, there are plenty of Atheists.

I just got done watching Babylon 5 again through netflix.  There are a number of atheists on that show.

Or heck, Look at Star Trek.  Every single person on Star Trek I think is an atheist.  Outside of Worf anyway and maybe Riker.  The thing is, nobody knows that... because atheism is kinda useless as a storytelling device.

I mean, if Chandler from friends was an atheist.  Or George Costanza or the fat guy from king of queens... how would you know?   And why would you care?

There is nothing you can do with an "hey i'm an atheist" angle that would work in a comedy or super drama.  Basically you'd need to have it in a dramadey... and even then it's likely to be a plot point that lasts all of 1 episode because there isn't anything you can do with it.

Unlike say, religions where you can have a crisis of faith or there are things you can go to.

The only thing atheism is really "functional" for from a writing perspective is to show a pessimism to a greater force pulling you out of trouble.  Like during  a big war.

So is the "Lord of the Rings" universe, i am still fascinated how Tolkien was able to create a Fantasy universe without Religion, Priests or Gods.

The Lord of the Rings storny is sited by some Christians as one that tells a Christian message.  You have magic, and Sauron.  You have good battling evil.  God is remote in it.

the way you put it sounds like the message is: "even without a god there can be good and evil"

anyway, it is not new, that any text can be interpreted in different ways. but that doesn't change the fact, that there is no kind of organized religion in the Lord of the rings universe.



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