# Hollywood +atheist=simply awfull **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 14, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289 "2005-04-14T14:53:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/41 "2005-04-14T20:56:05Z")
I am rereading the posts, and all I see is a comment from NoClueBoy that my posts could be a little clearer. I took no insult from what he said, and simply took it as constructive criticism. My reaction was meant as overblown drama, and a reference to the humorous flash cartoon I hotlinked to in the same comment. I don’t get it? What did I or he say that could be considerd a real insult? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/42 "2005-04-14T20:56:26Z")
Well, I honestly didn’t see either side of our little conversation as insults, but I apologise if offense was taken. 'Twern’t meant that way. FTR, I started whatever the hell it was that happened, so maybe **ScottyBoy** could be cut a little slack. ? ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/43 "2005-04-14T21:01:16Z")
In the few episodes I’ve seen of _Becker_ where the main character’s atheism is discussed, it’s never in the usual negative away. Nor does he have a spiritual awakening at the end of any episode. (Again, this applies only to the episodes I’ve seen.) It’s about as positive a portrayal of atheism I’ve seen on television. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/44 "2005-04-14T21:28:24Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > As for Bethany from **Dogma** , isn’t the point of her anxiety at the start that she still believes but has anger towards her beliefs? I wouldn’t class that as an atheist any more than I would the Mel Gibson Reverend of **Signs**. An atheist would require that there is no God, right? These characters are mad at God. That’s exactly what a number of us are saying. These characters are depicted in films as atheists and skeptics when they’re actually disgruntled theists. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/45 "2005-04-14T21:35:29Z")
Hmmm…In the comedy show Soap, there was a gay character. Later in the show, he began to act in ways indistinguishable from a bisexual man, then later, a transvestite, and still further on, a transsexual, then he really switched around. Should I take the real route, and say that the scriptwriters have no idea what a gay person means, or should I take the apologist route, and say that if he is gay, then he is gay, since the show said so, or should I put more thought into it then the writers did, and say he is experimenting. Hm… The **real** route, definitely! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/46 "2005-04-14T21:51:26Z")
> [@Scott\_plaid](#): > > Hmmm…In the comedy show Soap, there was a gay character. Later in the show, he began to act in ways indistinguishable from a bisexual man, then later, a transvestite, and still further on, a transsexual, then he really switched around. Should I take the real route, and say that the scriptwriters have no idea what a gay person means, or should I take the apologist route, and say that if he is gay, then he is gay, since the show said so, or should I put more thought into it then the writers did, and say he is experimenting. Hm… > The **real** route, definitely! Actually he started out as a gay-transvestite who wanted to be transexual to marry his boyfriend (an NFL player). Real TG people are still pissed. Then he had a one-time encounter with a woman and then became celibate and then ended up more-or-less straight. Irritating sideshow of an often brilliant sitcom. While the episode is missing, I believe it was mentioned that Mike Brady was a Fundamentalist Muslim, but later became an agnostic after Tiger was hit by a car. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/47 "2005-04-14T22:34:45Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Would Han Solo qualify as an atheist? At least a skeptic, I’d guess. Hell almost every character in Star Trek (DS9 excluded) seem to be an atheist/agonstic/secular humanist. ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/48 "2005-04-14T22:43:17Z")
**Scott\_plaid** and **NoClueBoy** I agree. I don’t see the conflict mentioned earlier FWIW. Lurking… ever lurking ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/49 "2005-04-14T22:50:56Z")
_Sooooooo_… Are we going to be in timeout forever, or will the fact we really didn’t do it never go on our permanent record, and we’ll have this mark on our record untill even the time we get to Middle School? ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/50 "2005-04-14T23:18:09Z")
Well, whether or not either of us complained about each other, _someone_ complained via “Report This Post” (most likely on mine), so our banter must have looked like flames. To be honest, I wouldn’t have spoke that way to someone else, but I took a guess that you somewhat like me in this regard. Turns out I was right about you, wrong about the board. Yes, if we ever become complete flame happy dickwads, this incident can be used as a witness for the prosecution. For that, you have my sincere apologies. Any further discussion of this would probably be best handled in the Pit, even if none of us are really all that angered. Who was that talking about Trek? **Alphaboi**. Yes, DS9 always struck me as out of place in the Trekkerverse because of all the religion in it. Technology Unchaind Utopia generally views religion as a weakness of the unsophisticated. So, about 7029 Trek characters may well be a representation of atheists in Hollywood. Their God is their warp coil. It is of Paramount concern to them. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/51 "2005-04-14T23:51:44Z")
Well, I just did a “report this post” to say that I didn’t see where you two had insulted each other. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/52 "2005-04-15T00:09:59Z")
Benjamin Franklin Pierce: “Crazy agnostic.” (according to Father Mulcahey) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/53 "2005-04-15T01:41:09Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Just for the record, just about everyone in **Inherit the Wind** seems to correlate with a real-life counterpartr, and E.K. Hornbeck’s is obviously journalist and critic H.L. Mencken. Yes . . . and in the 1920s (the period of the real-life Monkey Trial), the word “agnostic” as used in the U.S. actually meant the same thing as “atheist,” the latter being a word seldom used. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/54 "2005-04-15T03:29:24Z")
> [@h.sapiens](#): > > I seem to remember the father on the Waltons being either agnostic or atheist. At least, his wife always worried about him never going to church. But I’m pretty sure he professed at least once that he didn’t believe in god. And he was always portrayed as being a generally good, wise man. Interestingly, Ralph Waite, who played him, was some kind of minister IRL. There was one episode where the Waltons had a houseguest, an irritating knowitall teenage-genius intellectual, who evinced a certain discomfort when the family said grace over dinner and, when pressed, advanced some atheistic arguments. Mother Walton was nonplussed but was at least willing to engage in civil debate with him – “On the other hand, nobody’s every proven God doesn’t exist!” The guest riposted about the scientific difficulty of proving a negative, etc. (The boy achieved a certain redemption later in the episode when he acted in a local theatrical production and learned to be slightly less annoying, but there was no sign he changed his spiritual beliefs.) I wonder how such a scene would have gone in real life? (I’m a nonbeliever, but I always bow my head and pray when courtesy requires it. Why make a fuss?) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/55 "2005-04-15T03:37:00Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Yes, DS9 always struck me as out of place in the Trekkerverse because of all the religion in it. Technology Unchaind Utopia generally views religion as a weakness of the unsophisticated. Yes, but the premise of the series depended on that Bajorans’ worship of the “Prophets” residing in the extradimenional space inside the Wormhole (and their identification of Sisko as the Prophets’ Emmissary). There was one episode where Kira, as scientifically sophisticated as anyone, explained that she knew Starfleet considered the Prophets to be nothing but Wormhole aliens, but that her “faith” was enough for her. Which is topical enough, I guess. Lots of modern people accept the secular accounts of human history and the scientific description of the universe, while still holding to belief in some traditional religion which might seem to be logically incompatible with those things. In any case, note that the Bajorans appear to be the only religious people in DS9; IIRC, the humans, Trill, Ferengi and Cardassians on the show never discuss their religious beliefs, and we could safely assume they have none, or if they do it’s just a “Christmas and Easter thing.” The Bajorans, who sometimes allow religious concerns to influence their politics, are implicitly like fundie Christians in modern America – the others generally tolerate them but view them as rather odd and eccentric. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/56 "2005-04-15T03:47:08Z")
BTW, don’t forget the Klingons, who from TNG onward prove to be just as religious as the Bajorans – although the content of their religion is drastically different. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/57 "2005-04-15T04:16:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > BTW, don’t forget the Klingons, who from TNG onward prove to be just as religious as the Bajorans – although the content of their religion is drastically different. Never being that much into DS9 at all, I’ll need a few hints of what you’re talking about here. In that VOY ep of the Klingon underworld, was that supposed to be real or a dream of Belana’s? Even tho I play a Trekker on TV, I totally failed to keep up with those two series. I seeme to hit the extremes of good and bad eps, but none of the week to week average eps. Besides, BBEs and Klingon centric eps bored the snot out of me. Plus, Bergama was actively trying to ruin Trek via VOY at that time, imho. They finally got their wish, btw. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/58 "2005-04-15T04:33:05Z")
Marley23 writes: \> She’s just going through the motions. I don’t think she calls herself devout, and \> the “where was god?” stuff is certainly angry. Yes, she’s angry, but she’s hardly just going through the motions. Why, after all, does she continue to go to church? It’s not because she has to pretend to somebody that she’s religious, nor does she only go for social reasons. She believes and yet she’s angry at God for not making her life better nor telling why her life has to be so unhappy. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/59 "2005-04-15T04:42:13Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > Yes, she’s angry, but she’s hardly just going through the motions. Why, after all, does she continue to go to church? It’s not because she has to pretend to somebody that she’s religious, nor does she only go for social reasons. I didn’t say she was pretending or trying to impress someone. She does it because she’s always done it. That’s why it’s “going through the motions.” ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289/60 "2005-04-15T15:28:00Z")
Another typical representation is in **Spirit of St. Louis**. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but IIRC Lindbergh (Jimmy Stewart) expresses vague skeptical sentiments early in the movie. Then during a critical moment in his flight, he gets lost & confused, and in his anguish calls on God to help him. The fog lifts, crisis over. I don’t know much about Lindbergh’s real-life views, but if he’s depicted as mildly freethinking in a 1950’s movie, he must’ve been a fire-breathing atheist satan worshipper IRL. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-atheist-simply-awfull/299289.md?page=4)