# Openly Atheist Characters on TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 17, 2004, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416 "2004-12-17T21:05:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tyrrell_mcallister/32/16772_2.png) [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/1 "2004-12-17T21:05:43Z")
In the GD thread [Study Says TV Disses Religion; Bricker Says Huh?]([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=) 5621239#post 5621239), **Eve** asked > [@Eve](#): > > Are there even any openly atheist characters on TV series? Admittedly, I don’t watch much TV anymore (I’m not being a cultural snob, I just don’t have the _time!_), but the only one I can remember is Maddie Hayes from _Moonlighting_, and that was nearly 20 years ago. I thought this was interesting question. The only other show I can think of is Babylon 5, in which the security chief Garibaldi was an atheist. Any other examples? ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/2 "2004-12-17T21:15:02Z")
I’ve often wondered this, but couldn’t think of any good examples. Youd think there’d be more in British TV than American, but still no memorable examples for me. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/3 "2004-12-17T21:15:54Z")
Claire Kincaid on _Law & Order_ admitted to being an agnostic, a position mistaken by most people as some sort of “middle ground” between theism and atheism (“I don’t think God exists, but I admit I could be wrong”) when it actually isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/4 "2004-12-17T21:17:03Z")
I’m not talking about just “not religious,” but she actually said, “No, I _don’t_ believe in . . .” and David Addison cut her off before she could even _say_ it. “You’ll piss him off!” I was so stunned by a leading character on a major TV show openly (about to) say “I don’t believe in God” that I remember it 15 years later! But I don’t watch as much TV, so no doubt there’s been other hardline atheists on TV since then? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/5 "2004-12-17T21:18:15Z")
Oh, wait a minute—I think the marvelous Diana Trent on (the ironically titled) Britcom _Waiting for God_ has repeatedly denied his existence. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/6 "2004-12-17T21:35:03Z")
I did a search for “television character” and “atheist” and checked out the most likely results from the 61 listings it brought up. Don’t think you’re gonna get a long list here. Maddie, Cybill Shephard’s character on Moonlighting Jeff Fineman, a minor character on the Rob Lowe vehicle, “The Lyon’s Den” I found a web page that describes Fox Mulder of the X-Files as a atheist, but I don’t know on what grounds that’s based. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/7 "2004-12-17T21:39:34Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Oh, wait a minute—I think the marvelous Diana Trent on (the ironically titled) Britcom _Waiting for God_ has repeatedly denied his existence. I got the feeling from her that she was only denying his existence out of spite. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/8 "2004-12-17T21:46:11Z")
George Costanza said he didn’t belive in God, but still thought God was out to get him. A very nuanced position if you ask me. I think there were a couple of X-files episodes where Mulder was skeptical of Scully’s faith, in a reversal of thier normal positions of skepticism. I’m not sure if Mulder ever explicitly said he was an athiest or not, though. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/9 "2004-12-17T21:54:24Z")
Showing my ignorance, is Lisa Simpson an atheist? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/10 "2004-12-17T21:59:49Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Showing my ignorance, is Lisa Simpson an atheist? > Daniel She’s only 9, so she’s still experimenting with faiths. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/11 "2004-12-17T22:02:24Z")
Ted Danson’s character _Becker_ was an atheist (is that show still on?). ---
**Author:** ![Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tyrrell_mcallister/32/16772_2.png) [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/12 "2004-12-17T22:02:34Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Showing my ignorance, is Lisa Simpson an atheist? > Daniel I came across a thread addressing this in my pre-post board-search: [Is Lisa Simpson an atheist?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=140852) ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/13 "2004-12-17T22:02:52Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Showing my ignorance, is Lisa Simpson an atheist? She was also described once as “Springfield’s Youngest Buddhist”. ---
**Author:** ![Gilligan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Gilligan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gilligan)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/14 "2004-12-17T22:04:43Z")
If you include agnostics, both Mike Stivic on _All in the Family_ and Amy Gray on _Judging Amy_ have called themselves agnostic. I wonder what religion Mr. Spock was. ---
**Author:** ![JerH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@JerH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerH)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/15 "2004-12-17T22:07:50Z")
I think Dr. Gregory House on _House_ is an atheist - seems to me I remember him saying something to that effect in this week’s episode. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/16 "2004-12-17T22:12:20Z")
Yeah, this is why I want to write a sitcom… Mulder would be hard to classify. For the first five or so years of the show, Scully was at least an agnostic, I’m sure, but got back into her Catholic upbringing following her cancer. I remember that I had trouble buying that from her. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/17 "2004-12-17T22:27:43Z")
I saw this awhile ago, so the details are sketchy, but this i There was an episode of Coupling (British version) where Jane went to a bible study in order to impress a guy. One of the people asked her a question about God (or the bible, can’t remember), and she said that he/it was make believe. She was shocked when she found out that the rest of the group really did believe. I saw this episode about a month ago, so the details are sketchy, but that was the basic gist of the conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/18 "2004-12-17T22:42:09Z")
Meathead on _All in the Family_ was an atheist - it’s hardly “current”, but there is a beautiful Christmas episode where Edith is mad at God because her drag queen friend was murdered, and Mike talks her into going back to church even though he dosen’t personally believe. I’ll admit, it makes me cry every time. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/19 "2004-12-17T22:44:22Z")
This goes back about 25 years, but Detective Dietrich (Steve Landesberg) on **Barney Miller** was an open atheist. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2004, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416/20 "2004-12-17T22:46:59Z")
Captain “Mal” Reynolds from the late, lamented science fiction series _Firefly_ was an atheist (albeit of the “former believer whose ideals were destroyed and is now ‘mad at God’” variety). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/openly-atheist-characters-on-tv/280416.md?page=2)