Why do we portray atheists as broken believers?
Mickey won the $1,000 Paul J. Gaylor Memorial Student Activist Award, endowed by Annie Laurie Gaylor in memory of her father. Mickey, a student at NYUās School of Law, wrote a strong defense of nonbelievers for his student newspaper, Washington Square News on Sept. 19, 2018. It is republished with permission.
By Mickey Desruisseaux
One of this fallās new TV shows is CBSās dramedy āGod Friended Me,ā the premise of which is exactly what the title suggests. An aggressively atheistic
podcaster named Miles (Brandon Micheal Hall) accepts a friend request on Facebook from the big guy upstairs.
āGodā starts suggesting more friends for doubtful Miles to add, whom he starts running into almost immediately afterward in real life. Each of them has problems that Miles seems uniquely attuned to solving, and each, in turn, seems to possess a quality that can teach Miles something about the world around him. But while the schmaltzy premise is surprisingly well executed, the pilot episode ends up reinforcing a paradigm in which belief is viewed as the norm, disbelief as an aberration and atheists as errant members of the flock waiting for a shepherd to guide them home.
It turns out that, as the son of a pastor, Miles was a devout child until his mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. He prayed endlessly for God to cure her, only for her to die in a car accident after making a miraculous full recovery. The tragedy shattered Milesā faith and his relationship with his father, pushing him into becoming the oh-so-sour atheist he is today. I nearly chucked my laptop across the room, before remembering that in the real world, exaggerated displays of exasperation are pretty expensive.
In a vacuum, this wouldnāt be a bad storytelling decision; Iāve known a few people in my life whoāve lost their faith for similar reasons. But when you consume enough media, you start to pick up on some of the tropes that keep rearing their heads regarding vocal atheists. Atheists are usually smugly lording their supposed intellectual superiority over people of faith, or faux-Nietzschean nihilists hell-bent on world destruction. And while Milesā depiction as an ex-believer nursing his faith within a cocoon of cynicism is not quite as bad as that, it can be just as harmful, because these dynamics begin to bleed back into the real world and negatively affect peopleās perceptions of the nonreligious.
About 10 to 25 percent of Americans identify as atheist, agnostic or otherwise nonreligious. But studies show that the general populace distrusts nonbelieversā morality. Of the 535 current members of Congress, exactly one identifies as religiously āunaffiliated.ā No professed atheist has ever been appointed to the Supreme Court, nor has one ever been elected president. Donāt count on it happening anytime soon, either. Gallup polls have suggested an atheist candidate would enjoy less support than a candidate from any other religious group in the country, even in an age of resurgent neo-Nazis and judicially upheld travel bans that are Definitely Not Targeted Toward Muslims. Americans may not trust believers equally, but we distrust nonbelievers most of all.
But thereās no reason to. No oneās born with an innate knowledge of the catechisms and doctrines underpinning the worldās major religions; itās something weāre either taught as children or discover and embrace later on. Some people never experience either, and still, others decide later in life that the framework theyāre used to no longer suits them for reasons entirely unrelated to a personal tragedy. Either is perfectly fine, and neither is the equivalent of rejecting morality outright. Atheists are no more prone to good or evil behavior than anyone else of any other faith, and evidence suggests that Americaās pervasive anti-atheist attitudes make people less likely to express their doubt in the divine.
The marketing for āGod Friended Meā claims that it wants to spur conversations about faith without prescribing a concrete answer, and itās a very worthy goal. It wouldāve been better served with a prickly, but still a fundamentally good main character whose atheism was a result of a self-directed reflection on the big questions, and whose possible turn to faith was another step in that journey.
Choosing to root his disbelief in childhood trauma instead feels like a wasted opportunity to showcase that a life without belief in God can be every bit as moral and meaningful as a life with one. Itās very possible that some twists lie ahead for Miles, including whether or not heās actually been friended by God. But after its first episode, it feels very much like the show is already steering him, and the conversations it wants to foster, in a particular direction.
Iām pulling for āGod Friended Me,ā in no small part because it stars one of my favorite actors, Joe āMonologueā Morton, as Milesā estranged father. In an age of hyperpolarized animosity driven in no small part by social media, thereās something comforting about a show that wants to represent it as a force for good and speaks to our better angels. Iāll be back when it premieres to see how Milesā journey toward Personal Growthā¢ and quite possibly True Loveā¢ plays out.
Hereās hoping that viewers of all stripes understand that you can find both of those things without being a believer.