Atheist Cartoon Characters

I'm shocked that no one has said Dexter from Dexter's Lab. Sure he never confirmed it but it's pretty clear that he's an atheist. Especially with a catch phrase like this: "Oh Einstein, sweet heavenly father of science!" Not to mention
 
It's always funny to read about characters in the comic book superhero universes who are atheists like Mr. Terrific or Shayera Hol. How can anyone be an atheist when their daily work involves interaction with gods, demons and angels? Shayera went to hell in "The Balance"; granted, it was technically Tartarus, but Greek gods and demons are still gods. Anybody who's on the same team as Wonder Woman or Thor has to be really stubborn to not believe in a higher power.

Unless the comic book superhero definition of atheism isn't disbelief in gods, but refusal to worship them.


It makes even less sense for Brain from Family Guy to be an atheist when he's actually met Jesus in one episode (but then, FG has never been big on continuity). Also, in "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven", Brian says to Meg that "what's really out there is something really special and spectacular" or something to that effect. But atheists don't believe that there's anything out there. So maybe he's just an agnostic.
 
If I recall correctly, Brian was talking about the physical Universe which in itself is pretty spectacular to just look at through a telescope and try to grasp the shear magnitude of existence. Besides Family Guy is played for comedy anyways, it's usually funny to place complete opposites with each other.
 
I wish I could find the thread, but there was an excellent discussion a while back as to what Bats' religious views were - the "lapsed Catholic" diagnosis was a pretty interesting one (I think one example cited was from The Dark Knight Returns, prior to him confronting Two-Face, where he's thinking to himself "If I had the time or the right, I'd offer a prayer"). I can't see him being portrayed as devout, but neither would I say he's gone through complete apostasy.

On the subject of comics, though, I think it had been said that Magneto lost his faith after what he went through in the Holocaust, but I'm not sure where he stands these days. I'd hardly be surprised.



Oh boy. Sociological conjecture on the Smurfs. Now you've done it. This path will lead us to suffering and woe and discussions on the tenets of communism. ;)
 
Anti-theist? Of course we don't have any real-world equivelant for this concept. The closest I can think of are certain schools of Buddhism which say that yes the the gods exist, but that they're too busy having constant orgies in heaven to pay attention to us mere mortals, so there's really no point in praying to them.



I agree, Batman should at most be agnostic. That story just seems like Dixon projecting his own beliefs on the character.
 
There's also evidence that Batman is a lapsed Episcopalian. Some people have even tried to explain it as Episcopal on his father's side and Catholic on his mother's side, although Frank Miller, who wrote the comic you mentioned, is a Batman as a lapsed Catholic guy. I think he's just projecting a little bit of Daredevil into the character, myself.

But most writers write Batman as so logical that even when presented with concrete proof of gods and God, he considers it another scientific, explainable phenomenon and not something spiritual to worship. Batman has proof, but he doesn't have faith.

There's no need to talk about the Smurfs' communism, they aren't atheist because they live in what seems close to a pure communist society. They're atheist because they seem to have no gods, not even any mythology from what I can tell.



Chuck tends to do that a lot, actually. He's a good writer and it leads to some interesting takes on the characters, but it's not something you can expect to stick when the next writer takes over.
 
That would explain the "lapsed" part of the theory, at least. Then again, I've always gathered that Batman's real religion is his mission.



Alas, I think my joke went over your head. :sweat: Do they lack gods, or is it simply not something the story concerns itself with at any given point? I never saw a scene in Doug, for example, where the titular character defended LBGT rights, but I'm not going to call him a homophobe just because he never talked about it. The show never made a point to address the topic, so I can't say one way or another.
 
What about "LABretto", which was basically Dexter's origin story told as a musical? While he was building his lab, he was singing the various scientific questions he could figure out, include whether or not humans had evolved, or if they were created. The only possible reason Dexter could seriously question this is if he at least believes that there could be a God out there, so I kind of doubt that Dexter's a full blown Atheist.
 
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