In what way can someone choose not to be an atheist?
Truthfully, the most inaccurate portrayals of Christians are the ones in those dreadful “Christian” movies, the kind that usually star people with the surname Cameron. The TBN channel isn’t realistic either; a local pastor self-published the story of his own faith journey, and he described watching TBN while high, and also while not high, and thought, “I was raised in the church, and I have never met anyone this weird.”
Here’s another place where one of the missionaries, and the Buddhist cameraman, met. This is a Voice of America podcast that aired in November; some people have pointed out that Dr. Sacra didn’t seem to be firing on all his cylinders in the first interviews after he was released from the hospital, and that seems to be the case here too. It’s still worth watching if you’re interested in this kind of thing.
BTW, his Christianity is never brought up, but the host asks Ashoka Mukpo about something that sounds like “voodooism”, and then I realized he was trying to say “Buddhism”.
The video doesn’t seem to be up any more (although it’s on You Tube, albeit in sections) but the audio is.
I’ve also heard the missionaries say that they’ve had people walk up to them and say things like “I’m an atheist, but I’ve been thinking good thoughts for you” or even “If more Christians were like you, I might consider becoming one myself.” They’ve said they appreciated the positive thoughts.
“Okay, I’m the leader. Milhouse is my loyal sidekick. Nelson’s the tough guy, Martin’s the smart guy, and Todd’s the quiet religious guy who ends up going nuts.”
It’s yet another strawman response from Shodan! “Unfair” does not equal “WAR!!”, but I can see why you would rather drop one of your thoughtless responses then actually addresses any of the points made on either side of the issue here.
Indeed, though as a believer, I prefer Book’s ultimate response:
Of course it could be read either way (Joss writes very well), but I have always taken it as how silly hyper rationalism can be, especially in engaging with religious texts.
Speaking of Firefly, it’s one of those nuanced portrayal. You have Mal, an atheist, and Book, a believer, and both are good people with their own flaws.
No one projects like Shodan, it’s his thing.
Book: “You don’t fix The Bible, River, The Bible fixes you.”
River is mentally unstable, I’m not sure that’s a mark in the ‘win’ column for Atheists.
Number one, the media aren’t the product, and they aren’t being sold to you. Viewers are the product, and they are being sold to advertisers.
Number two, if you can’t figure out why gullible and easily manipulated viewers are more valued by advertisers you need to start paying more attention.
About 84% of the worlds population choose not to be atheist. So you can try and ask one of them.
Every human being who has ever lived either is, or at one time was, an atheist.
Nah, he’s a Muslim! 
One more thing about the OP’s contention… I don’t necessarily think it’s a cabalistic scheme on the part of TV/movie writers and producers to actively portray atheists in a bad light. I think it’s a combination of them writing things for public consumption (and thereby more or less reflecting society’s views back at them) and using what I call “media writer shorthand” for their characters. By that I mean that writers use certain stereotypical stock characterizations to simplify and speed their writing in TV shows and movies; hooker with a heart of gold, bad corrupt cop, good cop, military martinet, tough but fair NCO, etc… The atheist portrayals I tend to see fall into some of those characterizations. Every now and then you get a Thomas Jane (“The Mentalist”) or someone else who turns out to be a good character with incidental atheism, but it’s only when they’re trying to make a point of things.
I wouldn’t consider atheism a choice either. I can’t make myself believe in god anymore than I can make myself believe that the glass of water I’m drinking is actually grape soda.
Atheists in movies and such usually seem to be portrayed as broken, damaged people that had a personal tragedy that made them doubt god’s existence such as in the movie Signs where the priest played by Mel Gibson loses his faith because of the awful way his wife was killed. The other portrayal that seems fairly common is the militant atheist with a chip on their shoulder that hates the god that they don’t believe in. :rolleyes:
In reality there are a subset of atheists that are very militant and vocal that I agree with sometimes and other times not so much. I don’t believe in things like having the Ten Commandments displayed on the courthouse property, but other things like buying advertising space on billboards to promote atheism is so dumb and it’s like they’re trying to make a religion out of atheism or something.
I think it’s especially dumb when atheists are treated as some organized megalithic entity by the media. If my next door neighbor turns out to be atheist too, we could still have completely opposing political beliefs and moral value systems.
When the hell did I say that in my OP?
I thought this would be a light topic for Café Society. Sheesh! I still stand by my contention that the media often depict atheists as grumpy, God-hating and incomplete humans who lack humour and empathy.
If you want to lighten up, go see the Center for Inquiry’s Atheist Cat mascot at:
Or my favourite atheist cat story which is actually an atheist dog story I guess. A Muslim asked me if I was a Muslim, and I replied “No, I am an atheist”. To which he replied,
“Then you are no better than a dog.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because dogs do not believe in God and atheists do not either.”
“Do you drink?”
“We Muslims do not drink alcohol.”
“So you are no better than my cat, because my cat does not drink alcohol either.”
This is a true story. Swear to (non-existent).
There was one highly-publicized case where a solid stone monument was removed from a courthouse lobby, and it vanished from the news when it was revealed that the real reason was because an architect discovered that the floor could not indefinitely support the load.
It’s very simple. You do what many theists do: pay lip service to the deity of your choice (best to choose one popular in your area) and then go about your life as usual.
And the on-topic portion of the post. Atheists are portrayed about as well or poorly as any other group in the media.
If it was highly-publicized, then you should easily be able to provide a link to it, right?
Tonight, on That Atheist Show: trapped in a snowed-in cabin, the gang reminisce about their triumphs over various proselytising religions throughout the show. Coming up at 8.30: How I Punched A Buddhist.
Britta on Community is an atheist, and while in some ways she’s a negative stereotype of a liberal she’s definitely not cold or robotic.
Kurt on Glee has already been mentioned, and again while he’s a stereotype in other ways (gay boy who loves fashion and showtunes) he doesn’t match the unemotional/uncreative atheist stereotype described in the OP.