History Main / EvilStoleMyFaith

Please note that this trope has some rather UnfortunateImplications; portraying atheism as a position one takes only after enduring truly horrendous hardships can give it a very vindictive and spiteful subtext. Making it slightly illegitimate as far as beliefs go–rather than something a person decides on, it's ''forced'' onto them after going through a DespairEventHorizon.

Sometimes this is the result of a game of ReligiousRussianRoulette. See also CrisisOfFaith. The direct opposite is, of course, ThereIsAGod Compare GodIsDead. Also compare AGodIAmNot, where a godlike being refuses to be called "God". May be related to GoodRunningEvil.

** The episode also has Kyle [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] the [[Literature/TheBible story of Job]] by asking how the God who would punish a decent man just to prove a point to Satan could possibly be considered benevolent. It doesn't help that his parents don't read the last part, where God rewards Job and gives Job more than what he had before he lost everything.[[note]]Job's original children stay dead. He just gets more of them. So... there is a god, but [[BrokenAesop he might abruptly kill you just to prove a point to someone else]].[[/note]]

* ''WebVideo/TheMusicVideoShow'' does this in episode 39. "Music/{{Michael Jackson}}. Dead. [[Creator/RobinWilliams Robin Williams.]] Dead. [[Music/{{Creed}} Scott Stapp]]. Still alive. There. Is. No. God!"

* In ''Film/{{Caddyshack}}'', one of the club members (who happens to be a bishop) has his perfect game of golf (in the middle of a raging storm) ruined by a single bad putt, turns to curse the heavens, and is struck by lightning immediately. The next day, he's shown as a drunken mess proclaiming that there is no God.
* In ''Film/TheCountOfMonteCristo2002'', the despairing title character gives up all hope in God, having been incarcerated in a harsh French prison for several years.

* In the film version of ''Literature/BornOnTheFourthOfJuly'', Ron Kovic (Creator/TomCruise) rants at his mother:
-->'''Ron Kovic:''' It's a lie! It's a fucking lie! There's no God. God is as dead as my legs! There's no God, there's no country! Nothing. Just me and this fucking wheelchair for the rest of my life."

* In ''Film/CubeZero'', at the end of the titular DeathTrap filled labyrinth any survivors are asked if they believe in God. If they say "no", the Cube's operators press a button marked "No" which causes the survivor to be incinerated. When the new operator asks what the button marked "Yes" does, the other, much older operator says ''he doesn't know'': ''no one'' has ever said "yes".
* ''Film/FaustLoveOfTheDamned'': After artist John Jaspers' girlfriend is murdered by a group of criminals, he becomes a suicidal nihilist. He is then approached by M, who remarks that [[DealWithTheDevil selling his soul]] shouldn't mean anything for someone who believes in nothing anyway.

* In ''Film/AprilShowers'', Sean questions what kind of God would let the school shootings [[spoiler:that killed his friends and the girl he loved]] happen.
* ''Film/TheReaping'': Katherine, currently trying to disprove God’s existence by debunking miracles, was once a preacher, until on an expedition, her husband and daughter were both killed by a religious cult. [[spoiler: By the end of the movie, however, Katherine has regained her faith. It helps that she has encountered an actual angel.]]
* In ''Film/IAmLegend'', when Anna speculates that her coming to New York to find Neville is some part of God's plan, Robert launches into a furious tirade that given everything he's seen and lost in the past three years (as the result of a [[ThePlague viral pandemic that killed almost 90% of the earth's population]] and mutated more than half of the survivors into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent predatory]] [[OurVampiresAreDifferent monsters]] hunting down any immune humans left), there can be no God.
-->'''Robert Neville''': God's plan?! All right, let me tell you about your God's plan. There were 6 billion people on Earth when the infection hit. KV had a 90 percent kill rate; that's 5.4 billion people dead. Crashed and bled out, ''dead''. Less than 1 percent immunity, that left 12 million healthy people like you, me, and Ethan. The other 588 million turned into your Darkseekers, and then they got hungry, and they killed and fed on everybody. ''Everybody!'' Every single person that you or I has ever known is '''''[[SuddenlyShouting DEAD]]!!!!''''' Dead! There is no God! There is no God.
* In ''Film/EndOfDays'', Jericho Cane stopped believing in God [[CynicismCatalyst after contract killers murdered both his wife and their daughter]].
* Apparently, this is what motivates Lex Luthor in ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice''. He confesses that his father has abused him (perhaps even sexually), and since God didn't intervene, Lex concluded that He either doesn't exist or is evil. Hence, he cannot stand the public adoration of Superman that borderlines on religious worship, and is bent on bringing him down, exposing him as a fraud that is a) morally corrupt and b) can be killed by mortals.

* A horrific series of famines drove a nation to this in ''Literature/TheReynardCycle''.

* In ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', Screwtape's nephew, the lesser devil Wormwood, must have proposed trying this tactic to wrench humans away from God with the looming horrors of the Second World War, but Screwtape counters that while the horrors may affect some humans so, others wind up coming through the trial with renewed faith and many more are made to confront death - which forces them to confront those questions, thus enabling them to perceive and accept God's grace.

* Des Esseintes in ''Literature/ARebours'' draws from the German pessimist Schopenhauer and cites that the misery of the world is why he rejects belief in God. Huysmans, who was also an atheist when he wrote ''A Rebours'', would eventually become a Catholic and retract this conclusion in a preface reflecting on the book twenty years after its publication.

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'': Mal was apparently a Catholic in his earlier years, but lost his faith at the Independents' crushing defeat at the Battle of Serenity Valley. His change is often described as deciding "God disagreed with him politically."
* On ''Series/{{Carnivale}}'' Brother Justin's faith is shaken when the church he built is burnt down. As he tells reporter Tommy Dolan at a hobo fire, "I lost my God." When he regains his faith it will be as a full-on DarkMessiah.
* In ''Series/{{Deadwood}}'', Reverend Smith is suffering from some kind of brain disease but doesn't do himself any favors by continuing working and thinking it's God's will that he got sick. Doc Cochran says "If this is God's plan, Reverend, He is a son of a bitch." He later [[RageAgainstTheHeavens yells at God]] for allowing people like the reverend and the dying soldiers he met in the Civil War to suffer so badly.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' uses an extremely dark take on this in the backstory of [[spoiler: Miyo Takano, making this trope the root cause of both her megalomania and as a result the Endless June]].

* [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/eons-of-darwinian-evolution-somehow-produce-mitch,17635/ One article]] in ''Website/TheOnion'' had a StrawLoser whose very existence was an affront to both the theory of evolution (what evolutionary purpose can this guy possibly serve?!) ''and'' the existence of a kind and loving god (if we're made in God's image, well...), with each side parading him around as the ultimate argument against the other.

* The podcast ''[[Podcast/TheScathingAtheist God Awful Movies]]'' reviews bad religious movies, almost always Christian. They've started to joke about how apparently every atheist's mother has cancer since this is used to invoke the trope in so many of these movies.

* The {{Creepypasta}} "Why I Became an Atheist" is about a man recounting how he was involved with a cult called the Followers of the Way and converted to atheism because the cultists killed his dog and carved [[NumberOfTheBeast 666]] into his arm for refusing to show his devotion to God by doing so. The bad experience causes him to conclude that there cannot possibly be a God.

* ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'': Gabe joins the priesthood in one strip after the "twin blessings" of ''VideoGame/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'' and ''VideoGame/FullSpectrumWarrior'' convinces him of God's love. This lasts until Tycho points out that Microsoft cancelled the anticipated MMORPG ''True Fantasy Live'' right on the threshold of completion, and Gabe sadly concludes that there is no God and humanity is nothing but soulless sacks of meat and water doomed to toil in misery.
* ''Webcomic/DumbingOfAge'': By the time the second semester begins, Joyce has lost her faith, as she comes to the conclusion that no god would let her suffer all she did in the first (a near-rape attempt, Becky getting kidnapped by her own father for being a lesbian, Joyce's own mother ''supporting'' Becky's father, Joyce herself getting kidnapped by Amber's father in a plot to make Amber drop out of school, and her parents getting divorced). She ends up avoiding telling her childhood friend Becky about her newfound atheism, however, because (if anything) Becky's faith grew ''[[TurnToReligion stronger]]'' as a result of all those traumatic events. [[spoiler:Becky finds out when she comes across Joyce mocking Christianity with Sarah's sister Liz, and predictably doesn't take it well, especially since Joyce is acting like a condescending HollywoodAtheist.]]

* The infamous ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" has Brian using Meg's [[InformedDeformity unattractiveness]] and her abusive family as evidence of God's nonexistence.

* ''WesternAnimation/EekTheCat'': A ChristmasEpisode features a gift destined for an orphan falling from Santa's sleigh and Eek has an ImagineSpot where said orphan, as a result of not receiving said present, starts doubting there's a savior.

* Apparently, this is what motivates Lex Luthor in ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice''. He confesses that his father has abused him (perhaps even sexually), and since God didn't intervene, Lex concluded that He either doesn't exist or is evil. Hencewhy he cannot stand the public adoration of Superman that borderlines on religious worship, and is bent on bringing him down, exposing him as a fraud that is a) morally corrupt and b) can be killed by mortals.

* [[BigBad Rika's]] DLC in ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'' reveals that this happened to her as a child; after she was adopted by an oppressively diehard Christian family when she was young who constantly told her that she was going to hell, and [[RapeAsBackstory being repeatedly sexually abused by their church's pastor,]] she decided that there's no such thing as a benevolent god, which contributed to her burgeoning compulsion to help people she felt had been abused and neglected just like her. In short, she decided to herself, "There is no loving savior, so I will become them."

* Apparently, this is what motivates Lex Luthor in ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice''. He confesses that his father has abused him (perhaps even sexually), and since God didn't intervene, Lex concluded that He either doesn't exist or is evil. Hencewhy he cannot stand the public adoration of Superman that borderlines on religious worship, and is hell-bent on bringing him down, exposing him as a fraud that is a) morally corrupt and b) can be killed by mortals.

* A horrific series of famines drove an entire nation to this in ''Literature/TheReynardCycle''.
* This is invoked through a bet in [[Literature/TheBible The Book Of Job]]. In it, Satan asks God if Job would lose his faith in him if he would lose everything. God offers Satan to do some dirty work to find out. It gets {{subverted}} though, as Job retains his faith in God and he is rewarded with ''more'' of what he had before.

* In the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' book ''Sunset'', Mothwing is a medicine cat that doesn't believe in [=StarClan=] - basically the equivalent of an atheist priest. She explains to Leafpool that the reason she stopped believing is that her brother revealed that he'd faked the omen that made the medicine cat choose her as apprentice, and that if [=StarClan=] really existed they wouldn't let him threaten/blackmail her and do evil deeds to gain power. (They ''do'' exist in the series, they're just TheWatcher and don't/can't interfere.)

* ''Webcomic/DumbingOfAge'': By the time the second semester begins, Joyce has lost her faith, as she comes to the conclusion that no god would let her suffer all she did in the first (a near-rape attempt, Becky getting kidnapped by her own father for being a lesbian, Joyce's own mother ''supporting'' Becky's father, Joyce herself getting kidnapped by Amber's father in a plot to make Amber drop out of school, and her parents getting divorced). She ends up avoiding telling her childhood friend Becky about her newfound atheism, however, because (if anything) Becky's faith grew ''[[TurnToReligion stronger]]'' as a result of all those traumatic events. [[spoiler:Becky finds out when she comes across Joyce mocking Christianity with Sarah's sister Liz, and predictably doesn't take it well, especially since Joyce has been acting like a condescending HollywoodAthetist.]]

* ''Webcomic/DumbingOfAge'': By the time the second semester begins, Joyce has lost her faith, as she comes to the conclusion that no god would let her suffer all she did in the first (a near-rape attempt, Becky getting kidnapped by her own father for being a lesbian, Joyce's own mother ''supporting'' Becky's father, Joyce herself getting kidnapped by Amber's father in a plot to make Amber drop out of school, and her parents getting divorced). The worst part for her is she can't even tell Becky she's an atheist now, because Becky ''hasn't'' lost her faith (that she got through all those traumatic events relatively unscathed she interprets as a sign that God does indeed love her). [[spoiler:Becky finds out when she comes across Joyce mocking Christianity with Sarah's sister Liz, and predictably doesn't take it well.]]

* [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP]]-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1983 1983]]-2 are [[LivingShadow living,]] [[AndShowItToYou heart-stealing]] [[LivingShadow Shadows]] that can only be killed by silver bullets fired accompanied by prayer. Doesn't matter who you're praying to while you shoot, just as long as you mean it. When the Foundation sends a team into their EldritchLocation, they get picked off one at a time, and the last one to die makes it as far as their nest. After seeing how 1983-2 are born, he can't pray anymore. Not pray and mean it.

* In ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' the BigBad of the game was a former Cardinal in the Catholic Church who became a warlock. Between witnessing first-hand the corruption of the Catholic Church and (as revealed in the sequel ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant'') a pupil of his who turns evil he loses his faith in both Christianity and basic humanity. At that point summoning down God to demo the entire planet with the Apocalypse and start fresh seems like the best play.

** ''True Faith'' has a main character [[RageAgainstTheHeavens swear to God that he’s going to kill him]] after his pregnant wife dies giving birth to a child that only lives for a minute.

* The podcast ''God Awful Movies'' reviews bad religious movies, almost always Christian. They've started to joke about how apparently every atheist's mother has cancer since this is used to invoke the trope in so many of these movies.

* A character or person facing this problem is confronting [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil The Problem of Evil]], as discussed on Wiki/TheOtherWiki. Proposing a solution to the problem of evil is called a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy Theodicy.]]