Needs a split: Hollywood Atheist

This article needs to be split. It's linked too an absurd amount, and as far as I can see it, examples fall into three very different categories.

1. Strawman Atheists - basically atheists who are strawmen. No more really needs to be said; atheists who use watered-down versions of real arguements, and who bow before the mighty author's arguments for whatever ideology the author follows.

2. Rule of Drama'd Atheist/Atheist as a Failed Job. The classic origin story of an atheist. This is a separate trope, and not a strawman for two reasons: I. It actually happens. Strawmen, by definition, can't exist in reality. II. It is not always/usually used to openly prosylatize. It makes fair and compelling drama.

3. Snobby Apostate. This does not need to be exclusive to atheists - there is no reason to single them out. This is also a separate trope - these people (in media) do not usually argue from a weakened perspective. They are usually shown to be highly intelligent, if unpleasant, people, and they actually exist, so they certainly aren't strawmen.

Obviously, these aren't all mutually exclusive, but I think this split would clear up a lot of confusion, and chill the Complaining about Depictions of Ideologies you Follow and Bashing Ideologies you Don't out a bit.

1. You're right there, but we're trying to stray away from the strawman tropes, since its hard to decide if it applies without Word of God. This trope is about the character; how the audience is supposed to react to that (a strawman is designed to be knocked down) is irrelevant.

2. Yes it actually happens, but according to Hollywood these are the only atheists. Hence the trope.

3. I don't see what you mean here. So like Insufferable Genius, but with atheists? "Ha, I know God isn't real therefore I'm better than you." Is that what you mean?

1) support and recommend a curator or two right off the bat to keep from becoming angry rants. Rants go on blogs, not TV Tropes.

2) support and recommend "Losing Faith Plot" both to broaden it and to keep it from being used as a character/line of dialogue. Also, recommend description links from Hollywood Atheist and Straw Atheist pointing out that this is what happens. Should also be compared to Easy Evangelicalism.

3) I'm with Discar, elaborate please?

edited 16th Jun '11 3:50:04 PM by Deboss

2) Hence the trope indeed. But it's still not really a strawman, and shouldn't be on a page "Straw Atheist" links to.

3) Snobby Apostate, as I propose, would be anyone who doesn't follow the majority/state/official religon in his area, and acts like a snob about it. Someone who expects Easy Evangelism to apply in the face of his evident superiority, or who thinks he's a Type III Only Sane Man when it comes to religion.

It's not a subtrope, it's a common way to use it though, so it deserves a mention.

A mention where? They are not all strawmen, so they can't go in Straw Atheist, and they aren't all geniuses, so they can't go in insufferable genius.

2 is a way to invoke Straw Athiest (I asked god for a pony, since I don't have a pony, god must not exist), so it deserves a mention in the "related to" paragraph.

I disagree. These people exist; therefore they are not strawmen. These people aren't nearly as prevalent IRL as they are in fiction, but neither are handsome bounty hunters with mommy issues.

I think that this claim can be made about a lot of tropes in the War On Straw, though - you can find vocal extremists in any group who conform to the description of their particular strawman trope: take, for instance, Straw Fan and certain types of Fan Dumb. This is a lingering problem with the index that I've been considering making a Special Efforts thread for - is a strawman a strawman if their behavior is Truth in Television - but the point here is that "it happens in Real Life", at least so far, is not viewed as disqualifying a character from being a strawman.

I'd let that slide, but these characters aren't strawmen if the author isn't consciously weakening an atheist's position for the purpose of arguing against them. Sometimes they just provide good drama; strawmen by definition are a rhetorical tool. I'm not saying that these people are never strawmen; just not necessarily.

The related to section isn't just for things that are always used, but things that can be used.

I don't know about some of these types, I mean, Richard Dawkins is a high-profile example of the "belittling religion type atheist", does that make him a Hollywood Atheist? Or is that a true fact for most others like him, so, thus, it needs to be off the list?

I disagree with the idea that just because they're sometimes not used as a rhetorical hammer, they're not strawmen. War On Straw tropes are often not really being used to make a point — people throw in Strawman villains as generic villain-of-the-week enemies in shows that have no real larger message. The point is that these characters resemble strawmen, not that they're always actually being used as them.

Bomb-Throwing Anarchists, Straw Feminists, your typical Animal Wrongs Group, and so on are often used as villains by shows that may have an Author on Board or may not — it's hard to really tell — but in situations where whatever chip the author may or may not have on their shoulder isn't really the focus.

And even then, it could be a sort of Creator Provincialism (the author has never been exposed to the real thing and only knows them through strawman versions they were exposed to) or just lazy writing (when many people believe in the straw versions of these things, they become acceptable targets.)

The point is that the overall character is a strawman, even if the author isn't specifically using them as one in that particular work (and may even have totally innocent intentions, throwing them in solely because the strawman version is handy for their plot.)

edited 14th Oct '11 5:34:13 PM by Aquillion

As a matter of clarification: the straw man fallacy does not have to be purposeful, and often isn't. Most people (sophists excluded!) don't argue fallaciously on purpose. I also concur with those who point out that people who are themselves straw men for their own view exist, and various false flag operations work by creating real life straw men. So the fact that there are real examples doesn't really matter, either. The question is how they function.

edited 19th Oct '11 9:06:08 AM by Bebop

Poe's Law. If you use the definition that it can apply to any group, there will be members of [Group X] who actually say, do, and believe the things maliciously attributed to Straw [Group X]. So that people matching a particular characterization actually exist, is not proof that characterization isn't straw.

In fact, one form of a straw man argument is refuting weak arguments your opponent has actually made, but ignoring their strong arguments. This extrapolates well to judging a group by its most despicable members.

(If you use the interpretation that Poe's Law only applies to Christian fundamentalists, then naturally, atheists are immune to Poe's Law. If *any* vice or flaw—imperialism, intolerance, dogmatism, whatever—were truly unique to Christian fundamentalists or religious people in general, then that flaw would truly not be found among atheists, by definition.)

PS This is a problem with Poe's Law—it is the old bigot's argument "But those people are really like that!"—only applied to an Acceptable Target.

The fact that a character type is sometimes found in reality does not obviate that the author has added it to a story for strawman purposes. For example, there are bible thumping serial killers who hate women. An author might use a woman hating serial killer to represent bible thumpers in general in the story.

edited 15th Nov '11 1:21:41 PM by FastEddie