History YMMV / UndergroundZealot

* RootingForTheEmpire: While pretty much everyone agrees that the persecution of religious folks in the series is pretty terrible, the Christian protagonists can also come across as sanctimonious asses to at least some readers. Furthermore, the technological and medical advancements of the "Atheistopia" world government are undeniably ''awesome'', giving them some sympathy in spite of their villainy.

* IdiotPlot: Paul is a ''terrible'' secret agent, yet nobody is ever suspicious of him.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: After WorldWarIII, the UN decided that enough was enough and outlawed the biggest instigator of conflict in the world, religion, and ''it worked.'' Meanwhile, the Real True Christians claim that they weren't responsible for WorldWarIII and that they're just peaceful people who want a free exchange of ideas, but over and over they demonstrate that they have absolutely no qualms with torturing and killing anyone who believes differently than they do. [[WhatAnIdiot And they wonder why atheists keep blaming religion for conflict!]]

* WhatAnIdiot: Of special note is the character Andy Pass, who has earned himself the FanNickname "the Dork Too Stupid."

* MoralEventHorizon: The [[DesignatedHero "heroes"]] pray to God to dry up the city of Los Angeles, and it works. As addressed under ValuesDissonance, this is confirmed as killing ''thousands of people''. The death toll is probably much higher than that; LA is a city of almost four million people, although WorldWarIII may have cut down on this, and every last one has two or three days at most to leave the city ''on foot'' before they die. The death toll would probably be on par with UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, and most of it would be not those actually responsible for the oppression of Christians but the old, sick, injured and young. Everyone in a hospital would be doomed. Oh, and everyone they killed is [[AndIMustScream going to hell to burn for all eternity]]. Really, the only question is who crossed the horizon: the faithful, who only prayed that LA's water supply be cut off for seven days, or God, Who went ''far'' past anything requested or even helpful.

* MoralEventHorizon: The [[DesignatedHero "heroes"]] pray to God to dry up the city of Los Angeles, and it works. As addressed under ValuesDissonance, this is confirmed as killing ''thousands of people''. The death toll is probably much higher than that; LA is a city of almost four million people, although WorldWarIII may have cut down on this, and every last one has two or three days at most to leave the city ''on foot'' before they die. The death toll would probably be on par with UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, and most of it would be not those actually responsible for the oppression of Christians but the old, sick, injured and young. Everyone in a hospital would be doomed. Oh, and everyone they killed is [[AndIMustScream going to hell to burn for all eternity]].

%%* DesignatedHero: Paul, big time.

* MoralEventHorizon: The [[DesignatedHero "heroes"]] pray to God to dry up the city of Los Angeles, and it works. As addressed ValuesDissonance, this is confirmed as killing ''thousands of people''. The death toll is probably much higher than that; LA is a city of almost four million people, although WorldWarIII may have cut down on this, and every last one has two or three days at most to leave the city ''on foot'' before they die. The death toll would probably be on par with UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, and most of it would be not those actually responsible for the oppression of Christians but the old, sick, injured and young. Everyone in a hospital would be doomed. Oh, and everyone they killed is [[AndIMustScream going to hell to burn for all eternity]].

* RootingForTheEmpire: While pretty much everyone agrees that the persecution of religious folks in the series is pretty terrible, the Real True Christians™ are quite often sanctimonious asses, and the technological and medical advancements of the "Atheistopia" are undeniably ''awesome.''

* [[DesignatedVillain Designated Villains]]: The atheists and the government, by and large. While they do seem to want or condone (it's never really made clear which) the large scale murder of followers of any religion, the book points out that every religion except the author's was indeed the cause of World War 3, and since the book demonstrates that the zealots are willing and capable of destroying an entire city if there are enough of them to pray for it, their persecution becomes pretty much justified.

* ValuesDissonance: To anyone who has anything resembling a shred of human decency. For example:

* DesignatedHero: Paul, big time.

* SnarkBait

* MoralEventHorizon: The [[DesignatedHero "heroes"]] pray to God to dry up the city of Los Angeles, and it works. As addressed ValuesDissonance, this is confirmed as killing ''thousands of people''. The death toll is probably much higher than that; LA is a city of almost four million people, although WorldWarIII may have cut down on this, and every last one has two or three days at most to leave the city ''on foot'' before they die. The death toll would probably be on par with the AmericanCivilWar, and most of it would be not those actually responsible for the oppression of Christians but the old, sick, injured and young. Everyone in a hospital would be doomed. Oh, and everyone they killed is [[AndIMustScream going to hell to burn for all eternity]].

* CompleteMonster: The secret Christians ''actively pray for'' and receive various disasters that would indiscriminately slay innocents for having the temerity to be born under an atheist regime. In the first book they pray for God to desiccate the city of Los Angeles, and God removes everything remotely liquid - people have to walk out of the city, and who knows how many died from doing that in the heat, or losing their medicines, or intravenous nutrition in a hospital... And in the second they pray for a repeat of the slaughter of the firstborn sons in Egypt from the Old Testament, patting themselves on the back as moral for hoping it stays "only" restricted to the children of government agents instead of the whole world. Because, y'know, [[SarcasmMode the firstborn sons have lots of control over their parents' choice of employer]].
** It gets even worse when you realize that they're murdering hundreds of thousands of people in an attempt to create a world that they know full well will be objectively worse for pretty much everyone [[note]] for one thing, the world peace the UN brought about will be gone until the Rapture [[/note]].

* MoralEventHorizon: The [[DesignatedHero "heroes"]] pray to God to dry up the city of Los Angeles, and it works. As addressed under CompleteMonster and ValuesDissonance, this is confirmed as killing ''thousands of people''. The death toll is probably much higher than that; LA is a city of almost four million people, although WorldWarIII may have cut down on this, and every last one has two or three days at most to leave the city ''on foot'' before they die. The death toll would probably be on par with the AmericanCivilWar, and most of it would be not those actually responsible for the oppression of Christians but the old, sick, injured and young. Everyone in a hospital would be doomed. Oh, and everyone they killed is [[AndIMustScream going to hell to burn for all eternity]].

* ValuesDissonance: To pretty much anyone who has anything resembling a shred of human decency. For example:

* MoralEventHorizon: The [[DesignatedHero "heroes"]] pray to God to dry up the city of Los Angeles, and it works. As addressed under CompleteMonster and ValuesDissonance, this is confirmed as killing ''thousands of people''. The death toll is probably much higher than that; LA is a city of almost four million people, although WorldWarIII may have cut down on this, and every last one has two or three days at most to leave the city ''on foot'' before they die. The death toll would probably be on par with the AmericanCivilWar, and most of it would be not the actual villains but the old, sick, injured and young. Everyone in a hospital would be doomed. To make it even worse, this atrocity is committed essentially because the world is run ''too well'' (the persecution of religious people notwithstanding), and the "heroes" want a "Christian" state/world where world peace ''explicitly does not exist'' [[note]] apparently it would violate their beliefs if it did; see ValuesDissonance [[/note]], the opinions and lives of those in their [[CrapsackWorld supposed utopia]] be damned.

* [[DesignatedVillain Designated Villains]]: The atheists and the government, by and large.
** To be fair, they do seem to want or condone (it's never really made clear which) the large scale murder of followers of any religion. To be unfair, the book points out that every religion except the author's was indeed the cause of World War 3. And since the book demonstrates that the zealots are willing and capable of destroying an entire city if there are enough of them to pray for it, their persecution becomes pretty much justified.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: After WorldWarIII, the UN decided that enough was enough and outlawed the biggest instigator of conflict in the world, religion, and ''it worked.'' Meanwhile, the Real True Christians claim that they weren't responsible for WorldWarIII and that they're just peaceful people who want a free exchange of ideas, but over and over they demonstrate that they have absolutely no qualms with torturing and killing anyone who believes differently than they do. [[TooDumbToLive And they wonder why atheists keep blaming religion for conflict!]]

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Aside from the occasional Christian getting toasted or sent off a cliff, nobody can deny that "[[FanNickname Atheistopia]]" actually ''rocks.'' Its technology is ''awesome'' and the world is extremely peaceful.

** Jenkins seems to think that peace on Earth is a bad thing. This mostly has to do with the common dispensationalist conceit that God is ''irrevocably'' the only one ''capable'' of bringing about peace without [[BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil having to offset the strife somewhere else]]. In this case, Atheistopia's peace is displacing conflict into persecution of RTCs. In other words, unless the Tribulation has just passed, "world peace" is self-contradictory.

** Jenkins seems to think that peace on Earth is a bad thing.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Paul is a jerkass (or does that even count as "alternate"?), Straight has the hots for Paul and is in the closet, and Ranold secretly knows Paul is up to something but is just stringing him along.

* WhatAnIdiot: Of special note is the character Andy Pass, who has earned himself the FanNickname "the Dork Too Stupid."