Writing the atheist character

veinglory · Aug 3, 2008

I think it would be useful to discuss thoughts relating to the writing atheist characters.

My first point would be that an atheist character is not necessary 'lost' his or her faith. Atheist characters are as diverse as religious characters. Many people have been atheist life long and were never raised to be religious or in a religious tradition, others have lapsed or drifted away without some specific reason, or left a church for reasons of logic and preference. I seem to see a lot of characters that are atheist from some deep angst despair, rather than simply becuse of who they are and how they see the world.

Secondly, a character can be part of a culture without be a believer and this does not mean they are foolish or hypocirtical. For example a person may be cultural Jewish but religiously atheist.

Basically as with any character, a religious character is utterly idiosyncratic and it is worth considering whether you are really writing a character, or a stereotype (as with writing a character fo any religion, race, nationality, gender etc).

zornhau · Aug 4, 2008

Atheists usually have internally consistent world views that you can't break with the standard logic/rhetorical tricks that theists use to validate their own beliefs:

Theist: "Gosh, but the world is like... let me randomly pick an image... yes, a watch. Doesn't the complexity imply a... what's the word?...Yes... Watchmaker?"

Atheist: "But by that analogy, the Watchmaker would be more complex than the watch, rather implying an even more complex Watchmaker-Maker. I prefer the simpler explanation of just the watch."

This goes further:

Large Angelic-Looking Being: "Bow down before the Might of Jehova!"
Atheist With Large Handgun: (BOOM!) "Make my day, alien-imposter-punk!"

Marian Perera · Aug 4, 2008

veinglory said:
I seem to see a lot of characters that are atheist from some deep angst despair, rather than simply becuse of who they are and how they see the world.

I can't stand the character who's religious until a loved one dies, at which point they drop to their knees, scream "Noooooooo" at the sky and are an atheist from that moment on. I've met a few people who seem to take this seriously and believe that atheists have some deep trauma in the past that's caused the atheism.

Secondly, a character can be part of a culture without be a believer and this does not mean they are foolish or hypocirtical.

QFT.

I'm a atheist, but I was a Christian for years, and I enjoy singing Christmas carols (not to mention giving gifts, painting cards and putting up decorations). Heck, one of my favorite musicals is Jesus Christ Superstar.

Albedo · Aug 4, 2008

The worst atheist caricature I've ever read was the MC of a Dean Koontz short story, who is bitter and twisted and hates God because his son died. But eventually he realises his son is sending messages from beyond the grave and his faith is restored. I was always annoyed by the religious smugness burbling away under Koontz's writing, but that story just took the cake with its ludicrous strawman of an atheist. No more Koontz for me.

Here's an interesting page on Hollywood atheists.

Albedo · Aug 4, 2008

Queen of Swords said:
Jesus Christ Superstar.

...is essentially a secular depiction of the last days of Christ. I've heard that some Christians actually dislike it because it underplays Christ's divinity (and makes Judas the protagonist). My Mum was punished by her Anglican high school because she dared to write a report on it when it premiered back in the day.

Ruv Draba · Aug 4, 2008

Okay, there are no stereotypical atheist characters, but are there archetypes? Put another way, do atheists in stories hold symbolic mythic roles?

Higgins · Aug 4, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
Okay, there are no stereotypical atheist characters, but are there archetypes? Put another way, do atheists in stories hold symbolic mythic roles?

For some reason (like many things these days) this reminds me of
my inability to get what Ian Hacking is trying to say.

For example (and this is a kind of weird archtype) Ian thinks that it is possible that the earliest tale of which we have exact preserved verbatim knowledge (it is embedded in some giant, ancient Vedic cycle) is this:
A king is possessed by the god Kali and she forces him to gamble away his kingdom so that one of her faithful followers can have his way with the King's betrothed. The king becomes a begger and Kali releases him, but his vast experience with gambling enables him to win back his kingdom and his beloved.

A lot of archtypes here and the Hero who loses everthing and gets it back because the experience of losing is good training...seems to be a strange parallel to an atheist view of fate. Though what you could say is that an atheist character might not have to lose everything in order to think through a better way of gambling.

PS. The source is somewhere in Hacking's first book on probability.

veinglory · Aug 4, 2008

The atheist view of fate?

Atheism is not a uniform doctrine so I don't see how it could have a view of anything, really. That is probably my main point.

The atheist view of.... reads to me about as sensibly as the 'brunette's view of....' or the 'person who likes anchivies view of...' Unless the attached issue is, for example, hair color or anchovies it doesn't follow.

Knowing a character is atheist doesn't, in itself, tell you anything about the character other than their lack of theism. For active beliefs you would need to know what doctrines and philsophies they do believe in.

Higgins · Aug 4, 2008

veinglory said:
The atheist view of fate?

Atheism is not a uniform doctrine so I don't see how it could have a view of anything, really. That is probably my main point.

The atheist view of.... reads to me about as sensibly as the 'brunette's view of....'

Well...I said an Atheist view of fate. Frankly, a tall brunette view of fate sounds far more interesting.

Anyway, suppose we approached archtypical (note that notion of "archtypical" was part of the basis of my post) atheism from a view where the gods are more like personified aspects of the real world.

The hero ends up being possessed by the goddess of destruction (kali), but this very experience itself enables him to win in the end.

In a less polytheistic/proto-atheistic view the story is a play on the perfectly ordinary thought process that suggests it might be wiser to think things over rather than be forced to learn everything the hard way at the hands of petty dieties.

veinglory · Aug 4, 2008

I guess I just don't follow a thought process that a story in which gods literally exist could be an atheist archetypes. I am an theist, and a mythology enthusiast (especially archetypes as used in psychoanalysis), but it didn't occur to me at all that you were using a context where the gods were reifications of parts of the real world.

...Or that there is an atheist view of fate that could be referred to. i.e. 'Which view of fate?' 'An atheist view of fate' 'Oh, yes, that one'. Ergo, I still don't see how that is an atheist view of fate. I am not being awkward, I genuinely did not make any of the key assumptions you seemed to be assuming (i.e. didn't specify) in giving your example, so it didn't make very much sense to me at all.

I think there is a lot of overgeneralising with atheist characters. Not just that they are lapsed religious types but also that there are shared assumptions between, for example, the secular humanist, the radical materialist, the hyper-agnostic etc etc just because they don't have a literal belief in deity.

For example I am an atheist and a determinist, but most atheists are not determinists. My beliefs come from what I do believe in, not what I don't believe in. So I apprach characterisation the same way. Ergo I do not think there is an atheist archetype either in the literal (current recognised arhetypes) or potential sense. I could not even easily align atheism with specific existing archetypes.

zornhau · Aug 4, 2008

veinglory said:
The atheist view of fate?

The atheist view of.... reads to me about as sensibly as the 'brunette's view of....' or the 'person who likes anchivies view of...' Unless the attached issue is, for example, hair color or anchovies it doesn't follow.

Ah, this is another one for the original topic:

An atheist is usually some other kind of "-ist" whose "-ism" implies a worldview without a deity in it.

So, for example, I am a Materialist Rationalist, therefore I am an Atheist. As a Materialist Rationalist, I do have a view on Fate (the summary of which is unprintable), but it comes from my rationalism rather than my atheism.

Ageless Stranger · Aug 4, 2008

Writing about atheist characters is just like writing about anyone else really.
Atheism isn't really a defining trait, it's just title denoting that you don't believe in a certain idea. That's always weirded me out. We don't have a word for people who don't believe in Father Christmas or Astrology.

Higgins · Aug 4, 2008

veinglory said:
I guess I just don't follow a thought process that a story in which gods literally exist could be an atheist archetypes.

If you are an atheist (and I guess I am nominally: I definitely think there are no godlike entities, but it is as trivial as saying there are no french fries in paradise -- in fact -- "No french fries in Paradise" probably has a more earnest and genuine content than many religious propositions, so calling me an atheist is like calling an oil refinery a place of refinement)
then a story where gods literally exist must be purely figurative and therefore potentially archetypical in terms of one's orientation toward fate, loss, recovery, reason and experience, not to mention sex and gambling.

veinglory · Aug 4, 2008

But that would be how it would be archetypal to an atheist, not how it would be archetypally representative of an atheist--which was the issue raised.

Higgins · Aug 4, 2008

Ageless Stranger said:
Writing about atheist characters is just like writing about anyone else really.
Atheism isn't really a defining trait, it's just title denoting that you don't believe in a certain idea. That's always weirded me out. We don't have a word for people who don't believe in Father Christmas or Astrology.

Hmmm...I don't know. Suppose I wrote a story about two Archbishops. Both are up to be Cardinals and one of them is an atheist. To resolve the who-gets to be Cardinal dispute, the two archbishops agree to play dangerous games involving physical violence and large machines involved in cultivating a golf course reserved for prelates as a tremendous hurricane closes in.
If I do the interior monologues of the Archbishoprical contestants, will it matter which is an atheist?

Zoombie · Aug 4, 2008

What Ageless said: I don't go around thinking "Grrr, gar, I hate god."

Well, sometimes I have long and one sided debates with God, that mostly consist of a very bored me laying in bed, having a long winded talk with something that probably doesn't exist.

Hmm...<thinks> "The Atheist who Talks To God" is a nice title...for what though...

Anywho, uh...mostly, I spend my day thinking about food, girls, my family, what I'm writing and so on.

Though there is a five second period when I do think "grr, I hate god."

Its when my extended family gets together for meals, right...well, most of my extended family is Christian, so we have to say Grace. And I, who don't eat a lot before dinner because it tastes amazing and I want to EAT IT, are like...grr, I want food. But nope, Grace first.

<sigh>

You never know how annoying that is till it comes back. But, because I always think, "Why aren't they thanking, you know, the people who actually cooked the food...", I make sure to thank the people actually responsible quite often.

Though I do have to edit "Goddamn" out of my language when I visit my extended family.

Uh, this is getting off topic.

So, yes, atheists are as diverse and bizarre as, well, anyone is.

Higgins · Aug 4, 2008

veinglory said:
But that would be how it would be archetypal to an atheist, not how it would be archetypally representative of an atheist--which was the issue raised.

Surely, if we can present the internal archetypical dynamics of a character, we have produced a potentially archetypical representation of a character.

veinglory · Aug 4, 2008

I think archetypes are meant to capture a broadly based and shared symbolism in a culture, and the identoty should be emergent, not assigned.

I don't think the character you mention would be broadly recognised as archetypally atheist by and culture that I am aware of. Not least because I am not sure acrhetypal atheism exists.

I think the first, and oft repeated, theme of this thread is that archetypal athiesm is a fallacy.

Higgins · Aug 4, 2008

veinglory said:
I think archetypes are meant to capture a broadly based and shared symbolism in a culture, and the identoty should be emergent, not assigned.

I don't think the character you mention would be broadly recognised as archetypally atheist by and culture that I am aware of. Not least because I am not sure acrhetypal atheism exists.

I think the first, and oft repeated, theme of this thread is that archetypal athiesm is a fallacy.

It would seem by your definition of an archetype (culturally broadly based and shared, but not assigned) all archetypes are fallacies when viewed by people who supposedly can be potentially assigned to be instances of that potential archtype.

Suppose I say "X is a typical femme fatale"...but we have a femme fatale subforum where it is widely believed that "Femme fatale" is just a momentary role in somebody else's life. All femmes fatales are actually different and there is no one single femme fatale attitude about anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme_fatale

zornhau · Aug 4, 2008

Higgins said:
It would seem by your definition of an archetype (culturally broadly based and shared, but not assigned) all archetypes are fallacies when viewed by people who supposedly can be potentially assigned to be instances of that potential archtype.

Suppose I say "X is a typical femme fatale"...but we have a femme fatale subforum where it is widely believed that "Femme fatale" is just a momentary role in somebody else's life. All femmes fatales are actually different and there is no one single femme fatale attitude about anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme_fatale

Well put, but...

"Femme fatale", like "Soldier" and "Cowboy", as a literary character implies a particular role.

"Atheist" is a bit different because it implies a particular philosophical position, rather than a role.

veinglory · Aug 4, 2008

I view archetypes from a psychological point of view, as temperment and life-goal types. thus they are not fallacies if they are a general type in the world. For example the wise man, the teacher, the mother, the lover, the prince.

Again, words should be used in the way most people use them. I would argue the core meaning of archetypes is 'person' types (specifically a psychoanalytical these). These types are used in writing because character types should echo person types.

Personality is not fixed, but neither is it transitory. Something doesn't have to be perminant to avoid being a fallacy. But it does have to both be known to a culture and capture something about reality --to be a real archetype as opposed to the myth or collective delusion (e.g. a stereotype versus pure bigotry).

Thus I would say the wise old man/crone is an archetype, old men/women are often wise. The athiest is a fallacy in that I cannot complete the sentence 'atheists often' with anything other than 'don't beleive in god'. I do not feel they are, even probabilistically, a 'type'.

Ruv Draba · Aug 5, 2008

veinglory said:
I think the first, and oft repeated, theme of this thread is that archetypal athiesm is a fallacy.

Granted, but so what? An archetypal knight, pirate or ballerina is a fallacy too... because profession does not connote personality.

The topic is literature and not life, and literary symbols tend to cluster into archetypes.

Are atheists excluded for some reason? Or is perhaps atheism used as garnish on other archetypes?

zornhau · Aug 5, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
Granted, but so what? An archetypal knight, pirate or ballerina is a fallacy too... because profession does not connote personality.

The topic is literature and not life, and literary symbols tend to cluster into archetypes.

Are atheists excluded for some reason? Or is perhaps atheism used as garnish on other archetypes?

But knights, pirates and ballerinas are defined by their vocations. Even though their personalities will be diverse, certain sorts of people will be better at these than others, and the vocations and their socioeconomic contexts themselves shape and filter the personalities.*

*E.g. you can have an archetypal knight (his name was Sir William the Marshal) because active knights have to train from an early age, practically live on their horses, must be brave and tough, move around at least for the early stages of their career, and if successful settle down as landowners.

A typical atheist (1) doesn't believe in god, and (2) is a rationalist of some sort. Unlike, e.g. "knight", this doesn't imply a personality or a lifestyle.

Since atheism is neither a lifestyle nor a vocation, it's an attribute rather than an identity - as Ruv put it: "[a]....garnish on other archetypes" .

So, for the benefit of those trying to characterise atheists, could we agree with the following?

Q: What is the archetypal atheist?
A: There is no archetypal atheist, because atheism describes a world view that can be held by all sorts of different kinds of people for all sorts of reasons. It is an attribute rather than an identity.

zornhau · Aug 5, 2008

Eeek said:
I think that atheism can sometimes be an important part of a character's identity. It depends on how they came to be an atheist and how their atheism is viewed by the people around them.

Someone who was brought up in a strict religious household and community, and who with a tremendous effort rebelled against that, might see atheism as being at the core of how they define themselves. If they continue to live in an area where atheists are feared or hated, then their atheism will cause conflicts that have a big effect on their daily lives. A writer would have to pay attention to such a character's atheism, because it will be a major motivator of the character's actions, and also will greatly affect how other people treat the character.

But a character who grew up in an atheistic or tepidly religious household, and who lives in a place like England or some parts of the US where atheism is no big deal, may not have any conflicts, internal or external, due to their atheism. No conflicts, no drama, nothing much to write about. Maybe the writer could just mention it in passing, or maybe wouldn't need to mention it at all.

So how about:

Q: What kind of atheists would have a combative attitude to religion?
A: Typically, ones who have recently "broken out" of a religious background, or feel persecuted, pestered or simply overridden by religious people - for example, even an apathetic atheist might become angry at attempts to "save" his or her children, or if public policy were determined by a religious agenda, or influenced by unelected religious figures. Also, if social institutions are bound up with religion, then an atheist can feel unustly excluded, and become combative.

Remember, to an atheist, God isn't real, so knowledge or relationship to God is not a source of any sort of mandate or moral justification. To empathise with this, substitute "consulting the Tarot" and "New Age Astrologist" in the following sentence and see how you feel: "The President spent the morning praying in the company of his Pastor."

Higgins · Aug 5, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
Granted, but so what? An archetypal knight, pirate or ballerina is a fallacy too... because profession does not connote personality.

The topic is literature and not life, and literary symbols tend to cluster into archetypes.

Are atheists excluded for some reason? Or is perhaps atheism used as garnish on other archetypes?

To me, "atheist" seems to be more of an ascribed role -- just like Femme fatale -- because we don't need to know (in literary terms) what the inner motivation is or what the particular atheistic or femme fatalistic mental structure is and in that way...as a literary object...an atheist is far more like a femme fatale than she is like a cowboy. With a cowboy you get all kinds of assumptions, even as to costume and demeanor (look at the "cowboy" narrator in The Big Lebowski!). Now if the film were narrated by a femme fatale or an atheist...we would be very puzzled if they wore a cowboy costume. In fact it might seem more like the surreal world of Repo Man than a pretty astute Coen brothers reading of the world of the early 1990s.

http://www.coenbrothers.net/interviewlebow.html

Writing the atheist character

volitare nequeo

Swordsman

starting over

Alex

Alex

volitare nequeo

volitare nequeo

Swordsman

Dave Brubeck kicks your ass.

volitare nequeo

Dragon of the Multiverse

volitare nequeo

Swordsman

volitare nequeo

Swordsman

Swordsman