Atheists on TV?
Posted on: November 3, 2007 - 1:49am
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Atheists on TV?
The only atheists on TV that immediately come to mind are Dr. House (from House) and Dr. Cox (from Scrubs). What are some other TV atheists?
On a related note, the new episode of South Park called Jesus and God "imaginary" and compared them to characters like Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter.
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How do they know Luke Skywalker is imaginary? The story is from a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. There are 6 movies and umpteen books that prove his existence!
They are gonna be dropped into that living pit and digested for a 1000 years for that comment!
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That's probably about it, sadly. There's Penn and Teller. There's a list of celebrity atheists here but other than Dr. House I can't think of any atheist characters. Apparently there's a few atheists on Firefly but I've never seen it. Fortunately, Dr. House's atheism and skepticism is quite prominent on his show, especially now that one of his potential new hires is a Mormon.
Yeah, but is that position the one being endorsed or the one being mocked? There was a South Park episode where a bunch of atheists try to get God out of the pledge and they start spewing shit from their mouths as an allegory.
Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.
They were in Imagination land. They weren't mocking the Jesus wasn't real position, but the Jesus is real position. He sat at a table of the most important imaginary creations of all time with characters like:
AslanGandalf
Glinda, The Good Witch
Jesus
Luke Skywalker
Morpheus
Popeye
Wonder Woman
Zeus
Andy Millman from "Extras." Of course, that's HBO, so it hardly counts.
Have patience folks. We've had a great increase in media awearness and I dont see that slowing down.
Reggie, "Infidel Guy" was the first atheist to take up an entire hour on prime time network(ABC) for a full hour on the subject of atheist family. Brian "Sapient" and Brian Flemming were the subject of Nightline. Penn Gillete is at the top of the list of Vegas shows and has national and worldwide attention.
Not to mention the explosion of print media mentioning the "a" word from print media such as magizines and newspapers, pluss authors and activists being interviewed on local and national tv and radio.
But as far as a "character" on tv we'll take the same path that many minorities did in tv and movie history. For the longest time blacks could only get rolls as slaves or criminals. Native Americans in old western movies were played by itialians and were portrayed as savages.
It is no suprise that the most "prominate" character "House" is portrayed as crass and obnoxious in his skepticism. But with enough exposure in a decade or so we can have our atheist cop or lawyer characters or atheist comedians with prime time network sitcoms.
So take heart, there are alot of us already out there increasing our voices.
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House was revealed as a know-it-all sourpuss long before his skepticism was ever mentioned on the show. His skepticism is also consistently portrayed as correct. Every time it looks like the series is going to dip its toe into supernaturalism, there turns out to be a rational (albeit sometimes exceptionally coincidental) explanation. In the first season episode House vs. God, a teenaged faith healer comes into the hospital, talks with a cancer patient, and her cancer goes into remission. A miracle? Everyone thinks it is. Until House determines that the faith healer has herpes, which can cause temporary remissions of cancer (and is pretty embarassing for the faith healer's family). House is an ass but I think we can still tally him in the "positive portrayal" column. He's the main character, and the one we're supposed to be rooting for.
Edit: It occurs to me now that House isn't the only atheist on House. Dr. Cameron is also an atheist, and she's much nicer than he is. To a fault, actually.
Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.
Stargate SG-1 has many atheist undertones. I've only watched up to season 7/8 but I *heard* in season 9 these undertones become much more prevalent and Teal'c really lays into Jesus.
Not necessarily, since they're supposed to be omnipresent.
Is Seth Green still on TV? He's an atheist. I don't really know of many others, though.
Ah, right... Stargate seasons 9 and 10 i believe were the Ori arc. Atheist undertones would be an understatement in my opinion, though I don't recall anything specifically between Teal'c and Jesus.
I was watching an episode of Torchwood (the Dr. Who spinoff) on BBC America last night and there was a great scene with a character who was killed off in the series premier, and then brought back from the dead in this episode. She gets asked what happened when she died, and she goes on about how there was absolutely nothing - no afterlife of any kind. It was a great scene. I'll have to see if it's on YouTube or somewhere else.
[Edit: added link]
Yup, the bulk of the scene is here, interspersed with some commentary, starting at the 7:45 mark...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w36U2FI5d9g
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on Fox there is a show called Bones and the Girl who plays the character of the same name is an Atheist. Last week during the Halloween episode she made a few Atheist's statements. I can't remember them exactly but I know that she came off very Atheist-esque if that is even a word
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That's cool. What's weird is that House and Bones are all on the Fox network, along with Family Guy and The Simpsons, which poke fun at religion frequently, yet Fox's associated news network is full of idiots like Bill O'Reilly. I've never understood how the Fox corporation can go around going "War on Christmas! LIBERALS" on one hand and "Logical arguments don't work on religious people, if they did there would be no religious people." on the other.
Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.
Fox TV and Fox News are operated as two completely seperate companies. While they are owned by the same corporation the content is left to the discretion of the individual branches. The executives of each branch probably don't communicate with each other outside of the occasional high level meeting which is probably more of a social gathering a few times each year. I think it is pretty obvious that the content managers at Fox Tv like to poke fun at Fox News and no one is going to stop them.
The bottom line is Rupert Murdoch doesn't really care what is on his stations as long as his pocket is lined with cash and diamonds so you have Fox Tv which I would argue tends to push more boundaries than other channels and Fox News which has a lock on everyone who is slightly to the political right. I think it is actually quite a genious way to get as many viewers as possible.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Im pretty sure Bill Nye the Science guy is an athiest... Not sure though.
I've never got round to watching it, but he does Robot Chicken if it's still going, and lends his voice to Family Guy.
There's David Cross, comedian I expect most of you are familiar with who was Tobias on Arrested Development and did Mr. Show.
Also UK comedian Ross Noble might be, he often mentions not believing in god ("Yeah, but who would win in a fight, Jesus or Spider-man? That's right, Spider-man... Because Jesus isn't real."
and responds to being asked about his religious beliefs "It's all bollocks isn't it?" though I have never heard him to identify himself as an athiest. He sort of counts, he appears on chat shows and quizes in the UK and Australia mostly, and his acts are televised from time to time.
And Hayley Smith from American Dad is listed as being an athiest on her wiki, though I don't recall the episode that came up in.
Oh! And Ricky Gervais, the star and creator of the original Office. And both Penn and Teller are, and apparently J Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5 and comic author) and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy, Firefly and also sometime comic author)
Not on TV really, but I just learned Ian McKellen, Gene Wilder and Lemmy are too. Nice to know.
I heard Alton Brown from "Good Eats" is, but that's just hearsay.
I know Adam from the Mythbusters is. I'm thinking Jamie is too.
Henry Rollins is definately an Atheist.
George Carlin no longer believes.
Morgan Spurlock is, he had a show called "30 days" on TV, that even had an Atheist/Christian theme for one episode.
Then there's Billy Graham and Benny Hinn who pretend to be religious so they can sucker people out of their money!
Pretty sure they must be Atheists though. In reality I wouldn't claim them if they were... maybe I should shut up. LOL!
I know I'm forgetting some that haven't been mentioned.
"They always say the same thing; 'But evolution is only a theory!!' Which is true, I guess, and it's good they say that I think, it gives you hope that they feel the same about the theory of Gravity and they might just float the f**k away."
American Dad had a recent episode about Stan learning his new best friend, although just like him in every other way, was an atheist and so he spends the entire episode on an absurd quest to convert him.
Lisa Simpson who I remember reading Skeptic Magazine in an earlier season and has since stood up against a supposed angel siting and Intelligent Design.
Gaius Balter from Galactica was an atheist, at least in the pilot miniseries. Hard to say where he stands now though.
Though off the air for a number of years, Becker was an atheist.
Someone already mention Dr. Cox from Scrubs.
The only episode of Nip/Tuck that addressed religion ended w/ Sean's faith being lost.
Dr House
Dr Cox
Dr Becker
Anyone notice a pattern here? No not that. All three are self centered, and kind of assholes. If negative sterrotypes were portrayed in almost all of the prominent characters representing any other minority, people would have a shit-fit! Nice!
At least all three are smart.
"They always say the same thing; 'But evolution is only a theory!!' Which is true, I guess, and it's good they say that I think, it gives you hope that they feel the same about the theory of Gravity and they might just float the f**k away."
I don't know about TV characters, but you can check for famous atheists in the entertainment and other industries here: http://celebatheists.com
Well, right there with show creators, Gene Roddenberry was an atheist...
And I think Alan Shore from Boston Legal is one too. As for Stargate, it's not that it's pro-atheist as it is anti-religious; consider the whole ascention theme...
http://youtube.com/phillipetrindade - Reasonable dialogue about atheism. Please visit, rate it and comment. Thanks!
As an aside, Hugh Laurie is an atheist off camera also. (House)
If someone already posted this tidbit, prey, forgive me.
..also dr. brenan on "bones"
I love house and I hope they never try and make him a xtian of some sort. What did everyone think of the episode with the knife and electrical outlet? I won`t give away any more details because I don`t want to spoil it for anyone.
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