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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 have been Tainted By The Fanbase, so to speak, and only need to be shown a non-hypocritical believer to see the light.
- 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. PZ Myers described this character as a "failed Job; [the character is] portrayed not as an actual contented atheist, but as someone who has broken under the burden a god has placed on him, and is therefore a sympathetic figure, and also is implicitly endorsing the audience's beliefs about god."
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).
A second possible reason for this trope's existence is that religion is sometimes a non-issue in fiction. It is simply not relevant to the plot to know the character's religious views. Like Informed Judaism, many atheists may simply be hiding in plain sight, only to be outed as atheist when the plot demands, if ever. This may be more prevalent in Eastern works, where some indigenous religions are sometimes seen today as simply tradition, and not played as theologically literally as Islam in the Middle East or Christianity in the West.
Ironically, the parties most likely to play up the notion of the Hollywood Atheist outside of fiction are those who accuse Hollywood of being run by atheists.
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 (due to his rationalism, he may have been an atheist/agnostic already, just not an angry one).
- Colonel Roy Mustang vacillates in the direction of atheism in the first anime, 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.
- Subverted by Roronoa Zoro in One Piece who 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 that 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.
- To be fair, many Buddhists don't consider Buddha a god. Buddhism has often been referred to as the "religion for atheists." In other words, it's not terribly ironic since there are plenty of people who identify as both.
- Further subverted by the fact that at the time he professes his atheism, the current Big Bad is a fellow who calls himself God. So he's not just defying religion, he's verbally sticking it to his enemy. Hardcore.
- 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 former First Church Of Mecha member Rossiu something along the lines of, "Could your God prevent Bro's death? Oh, yeah, I forgot, it's just a fucking Ganmen!" He eventually recants, stating that he does believe in God and apologizing 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.
- A somewhat more reasonable atheist appears later, as a former Communist aiding a fundamentalist Muslim organization, despite not believing in a god, because he misses having a cause to fight for.
- 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 his Dead Little Sister died from a curable disease because she refused to take the medicine he stole for her. His non-belief later drove him to start his own evil cult.
- Kuroshitsuji gives us Ciel Phantomhive. He used to be such a sweet, happy boy, before his tenth birthday, in which people came into his home, murdered his parents and most of the staff, including attempting to kill the house steward in front of him, sets his home on fire, presumably to dispose of any evidence Scotland Yard might find, kidnap him, where he is kept literally in a cage with other children his age, implied to have been gangraped on a near-nightly basis, and then ultimately denounced his faith during a ceremony in which he was to be the sacrifice. This is how he came to get Sebastian...who is one hell of a butler. Ciel, three years later, still has an avid disbelief in God, and in fact, if he is not a Hollywood Atheist, might just be a borderline Satanist thanks to his complete trust in Sebastian.
Comics
- Batman is portrayed as an atheist by some authors, presumably as a side effect of having his parents killed and spending the last ten to fifteen years looking at the slimy underside of society. Of course, this being Batman, if he did believe in a God he probably has a plan to take Him out, and could execute it, given enough prep time.
- Given that Batman has seen demons, been teammates with angels, and in general encountered the mystic enough to know that some kind of supreme being exists, Batman's position is sometimes written not as "There is no God" but "When I finally meet God, He'd better have a really good explanation for all this crap."
- Even if he doesn't believe in God, he probably has such a plan.
- After much scrutiny, the folks at the Adherents website have concluded that Batman is a lapsed Episcopalian or Catholic.
- Freddie Kruger-esque Mister Rictus from the comic book miniseries Wanted. He was the most pious of Christians until he died on the table after an accident. After seeing what lay beyond, i.e. nothing, he went completely crazy and started doing whatever the hell he felt like with no restrictions or morality whatsoever. Of course the fact that the accident scarred him to a ridiculous degree may have contributed.
- Exception: Michael Holt, aka Mister Terrific, from the Justice Society Of America. He's a compassionate and heroic man who just happens to be an atheist, and good friends with Doctor Mid-Nite, a devout Catholic. Complicated by the presence of several divine beings in the The DCU, several of whom he has worked with, but there are various justifications given for that.
- Recent developments with Mr. Terrific (especially meeting his Earth-2 mk II counterpart) have pretty much established that he was indifferently religious until his wife died, at which point he got pissed off at God; had she survived, he would have found a profound faith from that miracle, so he's playing this trope straight now.
- In Runaways, Nico appears to have fallen atheist before finding out that her parents (and her teamates') were all taking orders from Biblical giants which got her wondering if the rest of the Bible was true also. Gertrude, though raised Jewish, is agnostic.
- Madcap in recent Ghost Rider comics doesn't believe in Zadkiel (the evil angel who took control of heaven) even though he is directly working for him. And note that this takes place in the Marvel universe, where, decades ago, the Gorgon mathematically proved the existance of God. To be fair, Madcap is genuinely insane for unrelated reasons, but still.
Films
- 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.
- An amazing subversion, and one of the most realistic examples to date. The hero of Dracula Has Risen from the Grave just happens to be an atheist, with no tragic past. He eventually converts by the end, not because he has a sudden "moment", but because he sees Dracula getting repelled by a cross and it gives him reason to believe in God. We should pause and consider how stunning this actually is; within the universe of the film, God exists, but rather than treating everyone who doesn't believe in him as 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, and one closer to real life than almost any other trope.
- 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.
- However, this is further subverted by the Reverend saying, "Piss off, Grasshopper" and firing at him. (Word Of God has it that Nick Angel was originally supposed to be a Buddhist.)
- 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.
- 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.
- Saints and Soldiers is a perfect example of this trope. The medic, an atheist, is portrayed as bitter, selfish, and eager to kill Nazis under any circumstances. In contrast, the sniper, an Christian of an unspecified sect (but probably a Mormon) is compassionate, even to Acceptable Targets like soldiers of the Third Reich. Naturally, the bitter atheist is converted in the span of an hour and a half, and the saintly Christian gives his life for his comrades.
- In Fight Club, although Tyler Durden's religious beliefs are not deeply explored, he at one point remarks that Our father were our models for God. If our fathers bailed on us, what does that tell you about God?
Literature
- Of the two major atheist characters in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons (a book exploring the concept of 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 a borderline case of Did Not Do The Research because a sense of wonder regarding nature is one reason 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.
- Another (kind of) positive portrayal of an atheist (sort of) is the title character from Parker's Back, although he's more of agnostic - being vaguely spiritual but not believing in gods and basically treating tattoos as his religion. He's married to a shrewish hateful Christian woman who hates things that aren't Christian and if she hates something it isn't Christian.
- 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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The villain of an SVU episode, a European psychologist who tried to instill gender roles in a young sex-reassignment surgery patient through... questionable techniques, claimed the religious backwardness of the protagonists' American culture was why they were disgusted by his "scientific progress".
- 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.
- He still does not particularly like religion, stating that prayer gives patients false hope.
- 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.
- In the last scene of show's finale, Mulder and Scully have the following exchange:
Scully: You've always said that you want to believe. But believe in what Mulder? If this is the truth that you've been looking for then what is left to believe in?
Mulder: I want to believe that the dead are not lost to us. That they speak to us as part of something greater than us - greater than any alien force. And if you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that if we listen to what's speaking, it can give us the power to save ourselves.
Scully: Then we believe the same thing.
- 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 "Back To Reality", 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 atheist, is in fact God.").
- Father Dougal is shown in a number of episodes to have no belief in God or any aspect of the Catholic church. At one point he discusses the matter with a bishop, who ends up resigning and becoming a hippie.
Tabletop Games
Theatre
- Sam Kaplan in Elmer Rice's play Street Scene tells his girlfriend that happiness is an illusion just like God is. "Then what's the use of living?" she asks him, and he can't think of any reason why they shouldn't kill themselves. She rightfully calls him out for this.
Video Games
- Averted in the prologue to Dead Space: the atheists are perfectly fine with their beliefs, and indeed, are the only ones with half a clue.
- Happened quite a bit in Tales Of The Abyss, in which religious fanaticism has more or less wronged several of the primary antagonists in several ways.
- Sync was one of two surviving clones of the original Fon Master.
- Largo perhaps goes the most in-depth, since his Dead Little Sister is actually his dead wife while his daughter was taken away from him to replace the still-born princess Natalia. They were more or less instructed to have a child because the Score predicted that the real Natalia would be stillborn, but Meryl, who is the adoptive daughter of the king, was taken from her mother who committed suicide out of Grief.
- Van meanwhile was More or less the typical "Why should this happen? Why should we let the bloody island fall into the qliphoth?! The score is a DRUG.
- Legretta's motivation isn't exactly outright explained, but Her brother's death was predicted in the score and she felt like nobody had free will since everyone was more or less living to fulfill the Score.
Web Comics
- Notably averted in Thunderstuck, where the two leads are atheist and Christian sisters. Due to the story's heavy emphasis on how well they complement each other, it's actually necessary for the author to balance their views. Even the religious "good" guys in the series are treated as just as flawed as their secular counterparts.
- Lexx in Alien Dice refuses to believe that a caring and just god would allow anyone to have his crappy life (orphaned, forced to play a game where losing means death or enslavement). Which is a problem for Chel, who's a Baptist.
- Danny of Other Peoples Business fills up the criterias of cynical disposition and crappy life, and even equates atheism to a disillusioned christian.
- Joel in Concession is an open athiest, who hates religion, going so far as to say it "Suppresses free will and punishes scientific progress" amongst other things. Whether Immelmann shares Joel's views on religion or not or if it's simply a part of the story is best kept hidden to prevent Flame Bait.
Western Animation
- In the "Cartmanland" episode of South Park, Cartman inherits a million dollars and buys a theme park, while Kyle is laid up in bed with a hemorrhoid. Kyle, in a subversion of the Biblical story of Job, wonders how God could let good things happen to bad people (and vice versa) and renounces Judaism. In the end, the hemorrhoid has spread to Kyle's lungs and he seems to be dying, but he regains his will to live when Stan shows him how Cartman's empire is falling down around him.
- Brian of Family Guy has stated himself to be an atheist, though he subverts this trope for the most part. While certainly cynical and suffering periods of bitterness, overall he tends to be quite cheerful and relaxed about life. The only occasion where he wasn't willing to live and let live when it came to a Christian was when it was Meg, who was taking her new found faith to the extreme.
- Bizarrely he converts Meg to atheism by using exactly the arguements listed at the top of the page; how can Meg believe in God when she's an ugly loser with an uncaring family?
- X-Men: The Animated Series turned Wolverine, of all mutants, into one of these. Nightcrawler's debut episode has several moments where Nightcrawler is the "patient Christian" and Wolverine is the "angry Atheist", including a comment from Wolverine that God has given up on mutants, but the episode ends with the X-men in Paris, where Rogue spots Wolverine in an empty church reading to himself from a bible and sounding at peace, a rare moment in the series.
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