Hollywood Atheist - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Straw Atheist

Atheists in real life can be a rather diverse group - after all, the only thing confirmed by the label "atheist" is that the person does not believe in any god or gods. In fiction, on the other hand, while it is reasonably common to see a character who is never shown practicing or even mentioning religion, it's generally only characters with a fair degree of cynicism and bitterness who can state outright that they don't believe there is a god. Some of the more common character traits are:

A Dead Little Sister was the direct cause of their 'conversion' to atheism, as well as a paradoxical anger at a God who lets such things happen. Consequently, the Hollywood Atheist can easily be made to reverse or reexamine their lack-of-belief if something good happens, even if nothing explicitly supernatural is going on. Conversely, when something bad happens (especially their own death approaching) the atheist will suddenly become a believer and start praying for help. Apparently, there are no atheists in foxholes.
Atheists are somehow simply unaware of The Bible and Christianity, and will happily convert on the spot when informed of the rudiments of Christian dogma. Expect them in an Author Tract.
Atheists only seem to have arguments against their culture's predominant religion. There is never any evidence that they've looked into non-mainstream religions for something they can find more plausible.
Atheists are all materialist monists and probably technophiles/transhumanists/roboticists as well (and we all know how crazy those freaks are). Expect a Straw Vulcan in there somewhere too.
Atheists are depressed, lonely, antisocial and often Nietzsche Wannabes.
Atheists exist solely to belittle religious people.
Atheists are straight-out evil, having apparently rejected all concept of right and wrong when they rejected religion. Chick Tracts love these, too. Compare and contrast Faith Heel Turn.

A milder version which is becoming more common lately is that the atheist hasn't had a great life, is maybe a bit of a loser, and is just generally a bit bitter but not outright evil or into the realms of the Nietzsche Wannabe. Probably has funny yet depressing snarky comments about what a Jerkass God would be if he existed. See pretty much every character Steve Buscemi has ever played.

A possible reason for this trope being so common is that a lot of the entertainment we get comes from the USA, where religion is very prominent and atheists are less common. Alternatively, the writers who use these tropes may simply be extrapolating (or exaggerating) from common stereotypes about atheists or basing them on experiences with atheists they have known personally (let's be honest, we've ALL met or heard about an atheist who at least somewhat resembles one or more of these tropes, just like we've all met or heard about a fundamentalist Bible thumper who at least somewhat resembled a cheap stereotype).

See also Acceptable Targets. A major exception is science fiction which often goes so far as to state that humanity has Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions; for atheists living in fantasy settings where the existence of gods is irrefutable, see Flat Earth Atheist.

Compare with Holier Than Thou. See also Useful Notes on Atheism.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Fullmetal Alchemist gives us Edward Elric, a bitter young man who lost his faith in any kind of benevolent god when an attempt to resurrect his dead mother goes horribly awry and becomes a very grouchy and condescending atheist.
- Colonel Roy Mustang vacillates in the direction of atheism, and has a notably traumatic past. He's a little world-weary and something of a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold. He remains a heroic character through to the end, at one point defiantly shouting "There is no God!" at his would-be savior of a nemesis.
- Religion in general is dealt with a lot more subtly in the manga, with just about every character believing in some sort of deity and differing mainly on whether or not said deity hates them. Ed states that he is agnostic, while Mustang's beliefs haven't been referenced. So far, it seems that agnostic is the main belief, but religion as a whole is accepted.
Subverted by Roronoa Zoro in One Piecewho was revealed to be an atheist during the Skipeia arc, but not due to his tragic past, and has no problem at all with faith in general. Furthermore, he also stated that if god did exist, he would like to meet him because he or she would be a Worthy Opponent. he's just the Badass. Though there is some irony to this since most of his attacks derives their names from Buddhism. Hey, if you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. That's the man's words right there; he's itchin' for a fight too.
Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann plays this one to some degree during his Heroic BSOD: while still mourning Kamina's death, at one point he tells Rossiu something along the lines of, "Could your God prevent Bro's death? Oh, yeah, I forgot, it's just a fucking Gunmen!" Strangely at the end he does claim to believe in God and also apologized for being rude.
Setsuna F. Seiei the main character of Gundam 00 is a former Muslim who lost his faith when fighting as a terrorist insurgent and witnessing many horrors, this faith has been replaced with a faith in his Gundam(s). It helps that the first Gundam he saw after losing his faith had a definite angelic vibe to it.
Foh from B't X is a brutal subversion of this. Having given up on the ideals that gods exist due to witnessing war from a very early childhood, he eventually came to realize that does not mean he can be a jerk. The fact he's responsible for one character getting a Dead Little Sister, an issue he's willing to let himself get killed over in spite of the fate of the world hanging in the balance possibly is a driving factor. He strongly believes in mercy and compassion, vehemently hates fighting because it brings only tragedy to people, and runs an orphanage and raises kids right. He even wears a religious memento from his friend's Dead Little Sister. It helps that Masami Kurumada, the series's author, is himself an atheist.
Revy, Hansel and Gretel from Black Lagoon are all stated to be atheistic, of the 'lost their faith during their childhoods' type. In Revy's case it was replaced with a nihilistic materialism (in her own words: "Money and guns. As long as you have those, the world's a great place."), while Hansel and Gretel went utterly insane by the injustices done to them and became convinced the only purpose behind existence is to kill or be killed.
Minene Uryuu, the 9th diary holder in Mirai Nikki. Having lost her parents at a young age to religious fighting, she's become a terrorist that only targets religions and considers God to be evil. And then one day, God answers, and informs her that he wants her to participate in a game to decide his replacement...
Baran the Emperor of Light, a villain from the final chapters of the Fist Of The North Star manga, whose disbelief in God comes from the fact that she died from a curable disease because she refused to take stolen medicine due to religious reasons. His non-belief later drove him to use his limited knowledge of Hokuto Shinken he learned from watching Raoh to pose as God and start his own evil cult of fanatic followers.

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Comic Books

Film

As mentioned, most characters Steve Buscemi gets Type Cast as. Notable examples include the character from The Island
'Lincoln Six-Echo:' What's 'God'?
'McCord:' Well, you know when you want something really really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God's the guy who ignores you.
The hero of Dracula Has Risen From The Grave just happens to be an atheist, with no tragic past. He converts by the end, after seeing Dracula repelled by a cross. Which is to say, within the universe of the film, God exists, and those who don't believe aren't evil or ignorant, they just happen to be incorrect, and are willing to revise their doubt if given strong evidence to the contrary. A refreshing sentiment.
- Although if "very easily converted" is seen as a type of Strawman Atheist this may still be one. There's no reason to think a cross repels vampires because it's divine—garlic is supposed to repel vampires too. In fact, in the Buffyverse crosses repel vampires and this specifically does not mean that Christianity is true.
Rather quietly inverted: The character Nick Angel in Hot Fuzz is agnostic, is the Only Sane Man, and kicks ass. Later during the climactic shootout when the village priest (one of the villains) says to Angel "You may not be a man of god but surely you're a man of peace." Angel replies with the following:
Nick Angel: I may not be a man of God, Reverend, but I know right and I know wrong and I have the good grace to know which is which.
- Cue the priest's CMOA. ("Oh, fuck off grasshopper!" (whips out a pair of revolvers from his sleeves and shoots Angel.))
Nicky from Parting Glances who is living with AIDS, although to the film's credit we're never actually told that his illness and his lack of religion are connected.
God, I hope you don't exist, but if you do, you've got me pissed!
Mel Gibson's character from Signs is the very embodiment of the first type. Best explained by this plot synopsis on Godless Geeks' Proofs of God's Existence:
1. Mel Gibson plays a reverend whose wife is horribly killed, and he loses his faith.
2. The Earth is suddenly attacked, his family is terrorized, he loses two pets, and many people across the globe presumably die.
3. An alien grabs and terrorizes his son, injecting him with a poison. But with the help of said son's asthma, and the last words of his dead wife, he gets lucky and the kid doesn't quite die.
4. Therefore, God exists.
Dogma. Bethany is nominally Catholic and goes to church, but works in an abortion clinic and admits she doesn't actually believe in God (or rather, she thinks God is dead). She says she lost her faith when, shortly after her husband divorced her for being infertile, her mother told her "God has a plan"; she instantly wondered what kind of plan an all-loving God would have that would necessitate her being so miserable.
- Of course, learning that she's the Last Scion (namely, a direct descendent of one of Jesus Christ's siblings) goes some way towards restoring her faith. As does the fact that, by the end of the movie, she reveals she's pregnant.
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder has a lot of fun with this theme. The fascistic Federation regards religion as potentially subversive. The heroine, Captain Lola Beck, reflects this view and cracks down hard on fellow soldier Holly Little's Christian prattle. She even questions the sanity of her superior, Sky Marshall Anoke, when he also claims to believe in God. Beck changes her mind when, after facing imminent death from a giant alien Vagina Dentata (the 'God' Anoke was really referring to), a host of 'fiery angels' (a team of space-dropped, Powered Armor-wearing ass-kicking Marauders) come to their aid in response to their prayers. Likewise the Federation is impressed at how Sky Marshall Anoke obeyed the alien god's orders without question, and decide there must be something to this religion stuff after all. So the Federation officially declares that God does exist. And naturally, He's a citizen of the Federation!
The main character of The Reaping is a college professor that travels the world debunking supposed miracles. However, it is eventually revealed she was a former minister who lost her faith when, while doing missionary work in Sudan, the locals blamed her preaching for the year long drought and sacrificed her husband and daughter to their deity. At the end of the movie, the day is apparently saved and she regains her faith...only to realize that earlier in the film she was drugged and raped by the BigBad and is now pregnant with the Antichrist.
Slade Craven, the main character of Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal and a Marilyn Manson Expy, is never stated to be a satanist, but has implied atheism. At the end of the film, having gone an incredible distance on nothing but his own competence, he has to convert to Christianity, in a "No Atheists In Foxholes" moment before he can resolve the plot.
John Koestler, the protagonist of Knowing, has lost his faith after his wife died in a hotel fire. He's made a believer again by the apocalypse... even though he saw the angel-boat leave without him.
Léon Morin, prêtre - The conversion story of a communist militant.

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Literature

Of the two major atheist characters in Dan Brown's Angels And Demons (a book dealing with the conflict between science and religion), one is a bitter, resentful scientist who became crippled as a result of his religious fanatic parents denying him treatment that could have prevented it, who has no sense of wonder regarding nature, the other is a brutal assassin. The former is itself a case of Did Not Do The Research because a sense of wonder regarding nature is one of the main reasons many if not most scientists choose the career. However, to balance things out the real Big Bad is the apparently progressive camerlengo who turns out to be a crazed Knight Templar who murdered the Pope when he discovered the Pope had fathered a child. He orchestrated the entire plot with the objective of discrediting science, restoring the world's faith in religion and setting himself up as the new Pope/Messiah. It partially works, too.
The Da Vinci Code inverts the above in that the Big Bad is really an atheist who is manipulating a Knight Templar, although The Movie removes the sympathetic aspect and makes the religious antagonists part of an Ancient Conspiracy.
- Sophie herself is an atheist as well.
In Dean Koontz's Frankenstein we are regularly informed that since Frankenstein doesn't believe in any god, this means he has no reason to follow any moral code. Dean Koontz also wrote a short story called "Twilight of the Dawn" which feature a stereotyped atheist.
The Misfit, from Flannery O'Conner's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," is practically the archetypal dangerous, nihilistic atheist. He decided at an early age that if Jesus never died on the cross, then there's no reason to do anything at all but enjoy himself the only way he knew how: killing. The story may have been a reaction to the rise of existentialism in literature.
- Another one of her stories, "The Lame Shall Enter First" features a more positive, humanistic atheist faced with a clove-footed character who claims to be a Satanist. The Satanist comes across as the wiser of the two: at least he knows how the battle lines are drawn.
Inverted in Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones, with the minor characters of Mr Thwackum (a devout puritanical christian) and Mr Square (a philosophical atheist). Both turn out to be part of a plan to ruin Tom, but while Thwackum only cares about the money he'll make from his involvement, Square is revealed to be wracked by guilt about his involvement and ends up revealing the conspiracy in a letter written from his deathbed (although he repents only after becoming a Christian).
Partly averted in Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima. Florence says that he doesn't believe in God because his parents died when he was very young and his sisters are prostitutes, and at one point explicitly hates God ("God has sinned against us!"), but there the similarity ends. He successfully defends his position against Antonio, one of the most intelligent and spiritual characters in the novel, and he is one of the nicest and most well-behaved of Antonio's friends.
The novel The Last Templar features a character who vowed to destroy Christianity after taking the advice of a priest to not abort his wife's high risk pregnancy, resulting in his wife and unborn child's death. Just to really show he means business, he sets fire to the church with the priest still inside shortly afterwards.
The one-act play "Deus X" plays around with this trope. It concerns a neuroscientist who wonders why he grew up to be an atheist while his brother grew up to be a televangelist. He eventually discovers that religious faith is caused by a gland in people's brains, and develops a drug that eliminates said gland. Although this turns the devout into wanton sex maniacs and the kind of conscienceless people that atheists are often stereotyped as, it is portrayed as unequivocably a good thing, and the play ends with the doctor character encouraging the audience to take a handful of the pills when they leave.
Charles And Emma exists partly to explore this trope.
Adam Hauptman of the Mercy Thompson series became an atheist after witnessing the horrors of the Vietnam War and simultaneously surviving a werewolf attack. He's bitter about his memories of dying in the jungle, waiting for God to save him and his comrades. Though it seems his bitterness is more towards his own naivete, he also mocks Mercy for her belief. Mercy herself is shocked that anyone could remain atheist after witnessing the power of Christian symbols to repel vampires and other evil beings.
Used and averted in Is That You, Miss Blue?. Cardmaker, who founds the school atheist club, temporarily gives up on religion because she's disgusted a the the way sincerely religious people- like her father- are treated by those in charge, though other members of the club remain atheists for other reasons.

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Live Action TV

The 2000s' Battlestar Galactica features two prominent atheist characters, both of them wildly different; Admiral Adama, a humanist who views mankind as flawed but inherently good, and ultimately accountable to nobody but themselves for their mistakes in life, and Gaius Baltar, an egocentrist who ultimately comes to consider himself a god (or at least, a prophet).
- Not to mention the Cylon Brother Cavil/Number One Model, the only model to reject both the Cylon god and the Lords of Kobol, and the most sadistic and genocidal Cylon model to boot. While Cavil doesn't believe in God, he has no problem with using "God's will" and the "divine plan" to justify a grand agenda which turns out to be based on little more than petty vengeance.
Consider Temperance Brennan from Bones, who argues with Seeley Booth (a strong Catholic) all the time about his faith and her lack of it. This is strong because they both make good points, and neither is instantly converted to the other's viewpoint.
While a highly intelligent and a skilled doctor, the title character from House is an utterly cynical, Nietzsche Wannabe atheist.
- His subordinate Doctor Cameron, however, is very idealistic despite being at least nominally an agnostic (she thinks God might or might not exist, but either way she doesn't believe He takes an interest in humanity). Of course, since she is also pro-life and (at least initially) anti-euthanasia, it seems that you can be an atheist without being a misanthrope only if you nevertheless hold to the popular conception of religious morals.
- House also holds contests between himself and God, and blames God for the problems of religious patients (something along the lines of "Looks like someone screwed up, wonder who that could have been" when referring to a patient having an extra ventricle). He even added another tally on God's side of the whiteboard scorecard and said "Looks like you win this time" when alone in a room when the solution had a logical though contrived reason that worked almost divinely. Although Hollywood has a tendency to divide people into "atheist" and "Christian," it's tempting to say House is a Deist. Either that, or he does in fact recognize one pantheon: the writers. Or he could be doing it ironically, turning God into a Strawman Political of sorts. Or he could just be mocking popular conceptions of God. Or he's just being House.
- A recent episode featured a priest who called himself atheist but really had a textbook example of "God did me wrong" Hollywood atheism. By the end of the episode, he had found faith again because the wrong was made right and he hallucinated Jesus...
- House's ex-girlfriend Stacy is also an atheist, although she wears a cross she inherited from her mother (atheists can do things for sentimental reasons, after all). It's subtly implied that her husband Mark is religious to some degree; at least, while House is trying to anger Mark, he inquires about their wedding day and gets in a jab about "the atheistical bride".
Mal Reynolds of Firefly lost his faith in God after the events of Serenity Valley. He will allow a preacher on board his ship, but he prefers that he keep his religion to himself: "You're welcome aboard my ship. God ain't." This is called back in The Movie. While Book never tries to get Mal to believe in God, he tries try to get him to believe in something. "I don't care what you believe in, just believe."
- There is an Alternate Character Interpretation that has Mal believing in God, and just really not liking God at all. This view is shared by Nathan Fillion, the actor who played Mal.
- Interestingly Mal believed in God prior to and even during The Battle of Serenity Valley.
Jack McCoy of Law And Order is an admitted lapsed Catholic. His disdain for religion (or for what he sees as religious hypocrisies) puts him squarely in the "exists to belittle the religious" category, often to the point where he's jeopardized a case just to get his shots in. In the show's defense, he's almost always called out on it.
Sam Tyler, the lead character of the US version of Life On Mars, is a lapsed Catholic of the Dead Little Sister variety: he left the church after his prayers failed to stop his father from walking out on his family. (The original UK version never mentioned Sam's religious beliefs.)
- Although he does seem to take the faith back up for at least one episode after meeting/having a vision of someone that might be an angel/God who lets him see the funeral of his surrogate father and takes a dead little girl to heaven. It's that kind of show.
Perry Cox from Scrubs. In one episode it is revealed that his lack of religion has driven a wedge between him and his fundamentalist Christian sister. It is also revealed in that episode the reason for his atheism is that they were both abused by his father. This was contrasted to his sister's way of dealing, converting to Christianity. It was however later revealed that it was not religion that drove a wedge between him and his sister, but the fact that Cox didn't want to deal with anything from his childhood, and religion was just an excuse.
Matt Albie from Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. As one character puts it, "No one delights in tweaking the religious community nearly as much as Matt does."
Fox Mulder of The X Files is perhaps the very embodiment of this trope. When Scully finally calls him on the hypocrisy of his believing in all sorts of supernatural phenomena while dismissing religion out of hand, he angrily tells her that he refuses to believe in a God who wouldn't save his sister. But then it turns out his sister was actually saved at the last moment by angels, or something like that...
- The angels mercy killed her so the aliens wouldn't. Really.
Cropped up temporarily in The West Wing at a point which is impossible to miss. Despite the fact that President Bartlett never really lost faith and was essentially just having a row with god, the ensuing rant ("feckless thug!") is still a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Also averted very nicely in the later seasons, with Republican Senator Vinnick being an intelligent, well-reasoned, honest, moral atheist who is generally presented as being at least equal, and quite possibly superior, to the various Democrats competing to be his opponent.
Subverted in Moonlighting. The snarky, somewhat dark, cynic David is a devout believer in God, while his life-affirming, successful partner from a good, loving family, Maddie, is an atheist.
An episode of Red Dwarf features the eponymous Inquisitor, a droid which, after concluding there was no God, appointed himself judge over mortals, killing people to free up lives he feels could be better allocated to those who weren't born.
- Averted with the main characters: in the fourth episode both Rimmer and Lister are shown to be atheists, but this is if anything portrayed positively. (Lister is later in passing said to now be a pantheist, but that still doesn't count as belief in a supernatural deity.) The Cat could also be said to be an atheist, given his skepticism about the Cat religion. Also, the second episode of the fifth season indicates that Kryten has lost his faith in the android religion as a stage of breaking his programming and becoming independent.
  - In the episode "Better Than Life", the crew are told that they've been playing an Artificial Reality game for years: the role of the Lister character was to jump-start the Second Big Bang ("Lister, the ultimate athiest, is in fact God").