Swamp Thing, Justice League Dark (Really?.. Really?), Animal Man, Demon Knights, Frankenstein : Agent of Shade, Resurrection Man (Holy Hell!), Voodoo (I’m guessing the Wildstorm gal, imported?) and I, Vampire.
It could mean something like “I may believe in your existence, but your divinity is in question, and I choose not to worship you or any other form of deity.”
Pretty much my figuring. “It’s not that I don’t believe your’re powerful, but I don’t believe that there is one true God who created the universe. You’re just another super-powered being to me.”
Or to put it another way, being a skeptic doesn’t mean you don’t believe that extraordinary powers could exist. You just want to see some kind of objective proof.
Mr. Terrific is a great character, and one I’d like to see more of.
Yes, by all means, we can redefine the word so that the “third smartest person in the world” doesn’t come off as dense and petulant, but that just makes all the other characters “atheists” as well, doesn’t it? They meet supernatural entities all the time, and the only options under consideration seem to be “team-up” or “fight”. “Worship” never comes into it. There was an actual Angel of the Lord on the Justice League, and everyone more or less treated him as a substitute Hawkman.
If you’re talking about the angel guy Morrisson came up with, he was a substitute Hawkman. Morrisson had planned to use Hawkman to finish his arc, editor had other uses for Hawkman (namely the nth relaunch of the character, with a new continuity I guess, in the legendary effort by DC to completely screw up the character for the last thirty years), so he came up on the spot with the angel guy, as replacement.
You know that. I know that. Ambush Bug knows that (but nobody listens to him). Kyle Rayner, Wally West and Clark Kent don’t know that (the Atlantean, the Amazon and the Martian can reasonably be excused from being overly impressed by an earthly manifestation of Abrahamic religion, I suppose).
Yet, when a straight-up messenger of God turns up, pursued by the King-Angel of the army of Heaven and all his heavenly hosts, initiating what appears to be Judgement Day, everyone’s first instinct is to kick the shit out of them, and then pat themselves on the back when they’ve won. And then offer Zauriel a place on the team, because they can always use “a big fella with wings”.
My point is that none of this is in any way unusual in DC comics – so in what way is Mr Terrific different in being an atheist?
Terrific’s teammate, Doctor Mid-Nite, likewise knows that self-described angels exist and get their asses kicked – he’s seen it happen, first-hand – but Doc simply goes a step further by believing that said angels really do work for a wise and omnipotent deity who created the universe, which is why Doc attends church and prays to God and so on.
Christians don’t worship angels. What were you expecting them to do? The Leaguers at the time DID express appropriate incredulity as to the apparently angelic nature of the beings they were fighting.
Just because Superman’s a Christian and believes in Hell and the Devil doesn’t mean he won’t kick Etrigan’s ass if he tries to start some shit.