Me too. OTOH, making him an atheist was a pretty clear way of marking him as…a DIRTY COMMIE! 
Marley23 writes:
> . . . some need to go . . .
That’s not an answer. That’s an admission that you don’t have an answer. That’s fine with me, since it’s clear that the character doesn’t understand her own motivations either exactly. In my definition, this isn’t going though the motions. This is someone who forces herself to continue to go to church, despite her anger, despite the fact that she has no one to impress or socialize with.
I think that what Kevin Smith (who considers himself a good Catholic) is showing here is what C. S. Lewis says in The Screwtape Letters(chapter 8), "[Someone does the hardest part of keeping her faith when she], no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of [God] seems to have vanished, and asks why [she] have been forsaken, and still obeys.
I was really disappointed that Joss Whedon, an atheist himself, made Mal Reynolds an “angry at God” atheist. Although I find it interesting, considering the *Toy Story * analysis that Whedon was one of the writers.
On the upside, Woody Allen’s character in *Hannah and Her Sisters * ends up as at least an agnostic if not an outright atheist, and is happier for it. Sure, he struggles and has fears, but from my personal experience and conversations with atheist/agnostic friends, they are true to life, not stereotypical strawman garbage.
BrainG, that was TNG’s Rightful Heir , one of the forgettable (for me) episodes of an otherwise stellar last two seasons.
Thanks a whole heck of a lot for reminding me of it! 
But, yeah, it shows aliens having spiritual beliefs while the HooMahns don’t.
The depiction of the character of The Priest who has Lost His Faith in the movie Signs was about as complex as the depiction of the **Alien Creature ** in the same movie.
The Alien Creature, if you recall, wore a big green suit, had scary claws, and hissed alot.
As someone who has never shied away from telling others that I am an atheist, many times I’ve gotten the incredulous reaction, “Geez, I’m not religious or anything, but at least I believe in God!”
Just to be clear, you’re quoting yourself there. Not me.
What I found odd was that Ellie quoted Ockham’s Razor as a justification. I would think that Sagan, being an atheist himself (so I’m told) would have used something more concrete or believable - personally, I think Ockham’s Razor is one of the least credible justifications for not believing in God, and to me, it makes a better case for the believer than for the nonbeliever.
But at least she didn’t come across as the “scorned by God” type of atheist. I think most if not all of us, believers and nonbelievers, can agree that’s one of the weakest, most intellectually dishonest theological positions one can hold, and I know I’m not alone in finding it difficult to respect someone with said stance.
While it’s not clear whether he’s really an atheist or just trying to be shocking, last night Andrew on Desperate Housewives told a clergyman that he doesn’t believe in God. On almost any other show I’d raise an eyebrow at the conniving, vengeful, physically violent teenage hit-and-run driver becoming the token atheist, but I have to say, within the context of a show where no one’s a saint, his comment seemed quite in character.
The movie is much different than the series in this respect more than any other. Most characters are full-blown athiests and consider it the normal rational approach. Father Mulcahey and Frank Burns are looked down on as simplistic and stupid for being religious.
I recommend reading the book.
IIRC, the movie version of Contact had its ending changed to be more theologically-friendly than what Sagan had originally written.
The book was better for any number of reasons. Ellie was more interesting. Drummond was more interesting. Palmer Joss was not a love interest, and most importantly was not played by Matthew McConaughey and was therefore more interesting . . . 
I picked up the book knowing that Carl Sagan was an amazing non-fiction writer, but he really knocked my socks off as a science fiction writer.
Mostly it just boiled down to the fact that there was time in the book to explore all the characters and the ideas and make them more three-dimensional, and you just can’t do that in a movie format. You have to have easy-to-grasp characters, you have to have a love story, and the ideas have to be pre-digested–in other words everything got Hollywoodized, including the atheism. (See? See how I brought that around and made it not a hijack? )
Er, Drumlin, I mean, not Drummond, was Tom Skerrit’s character.
Hell, in the book, didn’t Ellie call herself a “Christian”? (Her words, but something like a “Secular Jesusist” would probably work better—as I remember, she thought highly of some of Jesus’ teachings, but she didn’t really believe that he was a Messiah who’d died for her sins.)
No, I’m pretty sure she was an agnostic in the book. Since she was a doubter, and bitter, in the movie, she was a HAA. (Hollywood Angry Atheist)
I didn’t think she was especially bitter. In the bedroom scene with Joss she seems mildly amused by his witnessing, but otherwise it’s not a big deal to her. She only gets quite understandably bitter when her lack of faith is used against her by others who have less-than-honest motives for doing so.
I also never got the sense she experienced any kind of “conversion” (as some have suggested above); and as for her conviction that her experience was a real one, there was corroborating evidence, namely of relativistic time dilation, as indicated by the duration of static on her recording device. I imagine, if she were confronted with equally concrete contradictory evidence, she would have been more willing to concede her experiences were delusions.
It’s odd to me that some consider the ending of the film more “religion friendly” than the end of the book. I actually found the ending of Sagan’s novel almost paradoxical, for the very reason it strongly suggested the universe had a designer. To me that was a far bigger cop to the audience, and I’m rather surprised Sagan would have found such a resolution interesting or desireable, given his other writings.
My calling her bitter has nothing to do with her actual attitude, even thouhg it has to do with the right use of the word, but from the Hollywood archtype of atheists, and the fact that she has los her father would qualify her in that regard.
::Ahem::
::Ahem::
Aw, Hell. Internet Explorer got all twitchy on that last one. Sorry for the double post. :smack: