Man, those slayage.tv pieces are always epic, gigantic.
Only read a tiny fraction so far, looks good. I think this Erickson guy's onto something with the "Atheology".
I think "Buffy" resonates with people for a lot of reasons. Yes, there were universal adolescent themes, brilliant writing, characterization, etc. But also, it fit Western Civ's mood very well at the time. That is, cynicism, skepticism, doubt. "Religion: creepy!" Yes, that's a common thought in huge parts of Western Culture. More common to Europe than the US. But historically, that's a really, really weird and anomalous attitude, isn't it? For so many people to be so ambiguous, doubtful about the nature of their existence? The vast majority always believed in a specific god or gods...something, yes? Technology, science, massive amounts of (sometimes conflicting) information about everything has made people very skeptical, cynical about what they see. Overwhelmed. They have near instant access to information about every religion, culture, odd tribal custom. It all starts to become this weird, superficial "nothing". Science might seem to point towards a creator, then away, then towards...
The "atheology" in Buffy makes sense because the morality, message contained in traditional religion is still attractive to many people, yet they can't bring themselves to take the leap"”so much conflicting information in the culture.
A lot of what I got from Buffyverse characters was doubt, skepticism about religion and technology and the social order in general. Just being overwhelmed, and a onging for something "real".
