is Joss an atheist?

[goldenboy]

Don't know if there's much to say about this but...

I just noticed this fascinating article about atheism. Saying that it's actually in decline worldwide:

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453432.91875.html

Basically describes new discoveries in science suggesting a "creator" and also a disillusionment with atheism in the wake of Stalin, other mass murderers. It concludes that people aren't returning to organized religion, but actually a kind of personalized neopaganism.

I thought I'd heard an interview at some point in which Joss described himself as, in effect, an atheist. Maybe more an agnostic. Not positive. Anyone?

I've always thought of the Buffyverse as kind of an odd mix of "isms". The vamps are terrified of crosses, holy water, etc. Is that psychosomatic? The vamps believe in these things, therefore they have an effect? By that logic, would a vamp who was Jewish in life be terrified of the Star of David? Or is there something to this Christianity thing, specifically? Really, of course, Joss is just using the legends and lore concerning vamps as fodder for his plots.

Ultimately, the Buffyverse seems to be a sort of polytheistic pagan universe. Actually, a very old-fashioned universe with many gods, powers, principalities. All these beings fighting amongst themselves, like the ancient Greek gods for instance.

I wonder how being atheist, agnostic, christian, pagan, etc, affects the writers and us, we fellow viewers in our reaction to these shows.

 

[Cookie Dough]

He's an atheist. I am too but I still view everything the same way I just don't spend time praying.

 

[nerd4hire]

I believe Joss is talking about Amends in the following quote:

Was it God? Well, I'm an atheist, but it's hard to ignore the idea of a "christmas miracle" here (though the PRAY on the marquee was an unintentional coincidence). The fact is, the Christian mythos has a powerful fascination to me, and it bleeds into my storytelling. Redemption, hope, purpose, santa, these all are important to me, whether I believe in an afterlife or some universal structure or not. I certainly don't mind a strictly Christian interpretation being placed on this episode by those who believe that -- I just hope it's not limited to that.

http://www.celebatheists.com/entries/atheist_38.html#1

 

[Anchovy]

Well, in the commentary for "The body" Joss is speaking of death and says something like that this is a time when many people turn to "what Tim Minear calls the "Sky Bully", but since I do not believe in the Sky Bully..."

 

[goldenboy]

OK, that's interesting. Joss is an atheist. Yet he's fascinated with Christian themes. I can see that. "The Gift" is like the summation of Christianity itself.

I can also see why he'd choose a primitive (no offense) pagan system in creating his 'verse. The ancient pagan systems were wide open, hundreds, thousands of gods competing for attention. Belief in one god wouldn't cancel out another. That opens a million supernatural sytems and potential beliefs and moralities. Limitless fodder for fiction.

I find Christianity fascinating, yet I can see how it could be limiting in terms of drama. It's a "closed system", excluding all other theologies. Seemingly every moral, ethical bit of minutia has been answered, from St. Thomas Aquinas on. And what isn't resolved just seems sometimes like interdenominational squabbling, almost political, boring. OK.

I'm what you might call a "cultural" Christian, a lapsed, non-practicing Catholic. There were times with Buffy/Angel when I'd become conscious of my roots and maybe a little put-off by what was happening in the 'verse. The priests and nuns in Sunnydale seemed generally oblivious to any battles going on. Clueless. Not much help to Buffy, though crosses, holy water were. There was that occasion when Angel sought the advice of a nun when they were trying to exorcise a demon from that boy (who turned out to be a sociopath).

One instance I found to be bordering on offensive is the one where Buffy, Riley are trapped in that endless sex thing, can't stop doing it. At some frathouse. Child ghosts everywhere. Turns out it was all the doing of this psychotic old lady, obsessed with sex and making sure kids aren't "dirty". She struck me as a Hollywood caricature of disturbed, sex-obsessed hypocritical Christians living in heartland America. Not saying those people don't exist. Just that it's a common theme coming from movies and TV.

I sense that Christianity is singled out for ridicule in Hollywood at times and creative types are often clueless about what it really is. They're hostile. Probably Christianity specifically because it's the dominant spiritual system in America still. Not saying it shouldn't be scrutinized, criticized like anything else. God knows the Catholics are having their issues lately...

Something Else. When Buffy, Faith switched bodies. Towards the end of the episode. At the church. Faith (or Buffy?) asked Riley what he was doing there. And he said he was just going to church! That was actually stunning to me! A buffyverse character actually acknowledging organized religion. First time I could recall it in these shows.

I think organized religion in America may have been at it's all time lowest ebb in the early 90's. But it's actually having an upsurge again. I believe Catholicism continues to decline but other strains, evangelical, fundamentalist strains, are exploding. I was always impressed at how "The Simpsons" acknowledged the continuing huge significance of organized religion in America.

 

[Ilovefred]

This is a great discussion. (It may not be new as I am new to the boards, but it's new to me!) I am a Baptist by denomination. I know several people who might resemble some of the stereotypes of "evangelicals" on tv, but they are not the majority of us in South Carolina. My father is actually a Baptist minister, and he initially disapproved when I started watching Buffy back in high school. As I told him, I believe the Buffyverse is designed with themes Christians can relate to, but it does not intend to be contained by any one religious view. For those of us who do believe in literal evil, demons, higher powers (One God in the person of the Trinity- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and experience a daily struggle within humanity to do right or wrong- and acknowledge that our choices do have consequences, the themes of Buffy actually ring true a lot of the time. It is a nice fairytale to believe we can fight evil in the flesh and be victorious, thus establishing ourselves as being on the side of good. I suppose if the creators of the show worked strictly within the confines of Christianity, which Wonderboy accurately described as having all the answers within itself, the show would cease to be as interesting, and probably wouldn't appeal to nearly as many people.
I think it's fascinating that the show can be so appealing and have so many things to say to different people. There are so many places I could go with this, but i'm on lunch break. I'll drop by later!

 

[goldenboy]

Hey! "Wonderboy"? I think I like that! (heh heh). Anyways, I think there might be slightly different reactions to Buffy type fantasy shows among some Protestants and some Catholics. I notice most of the calls for banning, these shows being "the devil's work", are mainly shouts and complaints from fundamentalists. Catholics seem to have less of a problem. My mom is truly devout, goes to mass literally every day. Yet she loves, admires the Harry Potter stuff. Sees the Christian themes underneath the surface. Catholics have the elaborate iconography, symbolism, prayers to Mary, the saints etc. Protestants are often more austere, there's less imagery, symbolism. See it as blasphemous. Generalizing again...

 

[goldenboy]

Why exactly was Willow Jewish? Seemed like it was just a descriptor, an identifier. Willow's a girl, a redhead, has unusual, halting speech patterns and is also Jewish. Has zero impact on the show. I guess that reflects secular, modern America to a degree. Religious affiliation is just an "ethnicity", a descriptor, a cultural vestage. True, Judaism is ethnicity as well.

One fantasy show I thought did an interesting exploration of faith without being to specific or preachy was the X-Files. There were themes based on Jewish, Christian, Native American, Asian legends, lore. Scully encountered demons, angels, bi-locating saints. She was a practicing Catholic and was genuinely rattled by these things. It was an interesting dichotomy, she being the traditional skeptic, Mulder the believer"”reversed.

 

[nerd4hire]

I have read Joss interviews where he lists X-Files as among his influences (Oh yeah, and Lynch 🙂 ).

On Willow's Jewishness: what you said.

I love that Willow line "Not all of us worship Santa, you know".

Speaking of quotes...there is a kind of snarkiness towards religion that seeps out of the Whedonverse from time to time.

Firefly's Mal says to Reverend Book, "You're welcome on my boat. God ain't".

Buffy says, "Note to self: religion - freaky".

And there's that little interchange between Buffy and Holden in CWDP:

HOLDEN
(stops) Oh, my God!

BUFFY
Oh, your God what?

HOLDEN
Oh, well, you know, not my God, because I defy him and all of his works, but"”Does he exist? Is there word on that, by the way?

BUFFY
Nothing solid.

Angelus has that whole priest-hate thing going, and the future world of Fray might pay religion the ultimate insult by ignoring it.

 

[goldenboy]

Yeah, maybe Joss just truly can't relate on some level. Sees people who believe in a "real" spirituality, a "real" god, as just genuinely odd, alien to his personal experience.

I do find religion odd, terrifying on a certain level if these things are "true". It just seems so amazing to me, fascinating, like I said.

 

[Ilovefred]

Sorry "Goldenboy"! I have been listening to a lot of Tenacious D lately. Must have crept into the subconscious.

 

[goldenboy]

No prob 'Fred. Nice ta meet ya.

 

[Jill_Valentine]

Yeah, maybe Joss just truly can't relate on some level. Sees people who believe in a "real" spirituality, a "real" god, as just genuinely odd, alien to his personal experience.

I don't know about it being alien, I think he's all too familiar with religion. If his commentary for The Body is anything to go by, he's just a tiny bit jealous. People tend to lean on religion when they're confronted by sadness or fear (An important factor in the religious resurgence, IMO) but Whedon seems genuinely angry that he doesn't have that luxury. He's on the outside looking in.

There are two types of Athiests- the athiest who doesn't believe and doesn't really care, and the athiest who spend a little part of every single day hoping that they've got it wrong after all. Joss - and a lot of his fans - are the second type. He describes himself not just as an athiest: but as a bitter athiest. Marti Noxon, who I still haven't forgiven for St. Spike of Sunnydale, summed it up best with "[Joss Whedon's work] is full of yearning for belief. And the show speaks to people who also have that yearning."

His universe is full of hell-gods and monsters and demons, but there's no opposite number, no "good" gods and saints and angels. The only thing that keeps evil from winning is a few people, the only answer to the overwhelming darkness is a few social rejects with various levels of mental or physical ineptitude. The characters consistently triump because, in the absence of a higher force intervening on their behalf, they rise the occasion. The show - in so far as it preached anything - preached a type of godless ethical code. Sort of "Spiritual Morality- For Athiests!" The characters suffer but aren't ever delivered, no matter how good they are. They know that they have to save themselves and each other, without any promise of reward. And they do so. To me, the show feels a little like a response to the continous accusations that people without religions are devoid of morals. Buffy and her friends do what they do just... because. It's the right thing to do, and they don't need a religion to tell them so.

The impression I always got from the show was that Buffy herself isn't hostile to religion. She's just learned the hard way that she needs to depend on herself first, because if there is a higher deity, they might not want to step in to help her. She would have found Jesus by now, but she was too busy fighting evil and all... Also, her only previous encounter with a god resulted in having to mash her up with an enormous troll hammer, and who's to say the others don't take that stuff personal?

 

[goldenboy]

Hmm. I'd argue the shows took, in effect, an agnostic, not an atheistic stance. The characters couldn't decide if there was an ultimate higher power or not. It didn't really matter either way, ultimately. They used their own logic, reason, combined with something like "faith" in a morality. Whether it was a morality derived from a higher power or an "invented" morality. An artificial construct.

Maybe I'm just confused over definitions.

I can't get into people's heads, but...Joss feels incapable of belief. Yet isn't non-belief, atheism, an act of will, like belief? It's a decision, either way. Maybe he feels incapable of belief yet also incapable of utter non-belief, something like an agnostic. He's frustrated and feels stuck in the middle. Isn't that like the postmodern dilemma itself?

 

[goldenboy]

OK, so, Joss feels anger and resentment towards "believers". He sees the comfort faith gives people and wishes he had it for himself. He's utterly convinced, based on the evidence, or lack of evidence, that God can't exist. He wishes otherwise. (but that's coming to a conclusion, a judgement, an act of free will, right?)

He feels an anger. Is it like being mad at a tornado for blowing your house down? Utterly irrational anger, 'cause he knows intellectually the tornado had no ill will towards him. He's mad at something because it doesn't exist.

That seems to be his position.

Maybe there's no such thing as a "pure" atheist or a "pure" believer. Each position has a degree of doubt in it. In effect, everyone lands somewhere on the "agnostic continuum". Some lean more towards belief, others more towards skepticism.

 

[Jill_Valentine]

Hmm. I'd argue the shows took, in effect, an agnostic, not an atheistic stance. The characters couldn't decide if there was an ultimate higher power or not. It didn't really matter either way, ultimately. They used their own logic, reason, combined with something like "faith" in a morality. Whether it was a morality derived from a higher power or an "invented" morality. An artificial construct.

Maybe I'm just confused over definitions.

I can't get into people's heads, but...Joss feels incapable of belief. Yet isn't non-belief, atheism, an act of will, like belief? It's a decision, either way. Maybe he feels incapable of belief yet also incapable of utter non-belief, something like an agnostic. He's frustrated and feels stuck in the middle. Isn't that like the postmodern dilemma itself?

Athiesm is a belief in absence - there is absolutely no wiggle room. It's the belief that there most definitely is no higher power. Agnosticism is more an absence of belief. If Joss is, as you niftily said, incapable of belief then it's not really a choice. It's like being unable to curl your tongue or wiggle your ears. I don't think belief really is an act of will. I mean, you either believe in something or you don't. I can't make myself believe in the Easter Bunny. Enough alcohol can, but that's beside the point...

He feels an anger. Is it like being mad at a tornado for blowing your house down? Utterly irrational anger, 'cause he knows intellectually the tornado had no ill will towards him. He's mad at something because it doesn't exist.

Yes! That's sort of it! I mean, it makes us sound stupid when you put it like that ("Damn you Tornado!!!") but yeah. The Athiests' Void. Dogma has a scene where Bartleby cries out about how much it hurts to feel the absence of God, and I get a slightly less angsty hint of that from Whedon. What I mean is that it doesn't feel like he never believed. It feels like he did, once upon a time, and when he parted ways with religion, it was a messy break up. Religion took all his CDs, got custody of the dog and made drunken phone calls at 4am on a Saturday, that sort of thing.

But then, maybe I'm doing what I've whinged about others doing - coming away with what I'm looking for, rather than what I'm being shown.

Take that scene you mentioned in Who Are You? for example. The vampires take the Church, aaaaand:

It's hard to believe. I've been avoiding this place for so
many years, and it's nothing. It's nice! It's got the pretty windows, the pillars... lots of folks to eat. Where's the thing I was so afraid of? You know, the Lord? He was supposed to be here. He gave us this address! (sighs) Well, we'll just have to start killing off His people. See if He shows up.

No bolts of lightening, no thundering Divine voice or well-dressed Morgan Freeman. Not even a convenient indoor burning bush. He doesn't show up.

Faith does. A social maladjust with a brutal streak and a taste for close-quarter weapons shows up, forfeiting her last chance to be free of the law in the process.

I would say "Well, there you go. In the end, people come through. No God required."

On the other hand, a certain ChrIslam holy man would say "There is my God, Mister Riddick."

 

[goldenboy]

OK, so in your conception, belief, or non-belief isn't an act of will, it's something like an emotion, an involuntary reaction, almost a reflex, like pulling a hand from a hot stove. I guess that leads to the problem of whether or not human beings have free will. Is there such a thing? Just an illusion?

Were conscious, sentient. "I think, therefore I am". In addition to involuntary emotions and instinct, we can use reason, logic to make decisions (theoretically).

I still like my "agnostic continuum" idea. People never reach absolute atheism or theism, but fall somehwere in between. New information that presents itself to humans through science and other things can shift a person, move them one way or the other along the continuum. That's people using their reason, not just instinct, their gut. Maybe that's just more theoretical nonsense though. One more artificial human construct.

Im skeptical, I'm agnostic on the idea of "Joss the 'pure' angry atheist".

 

[goldenboy]

Alright. Feel free to ignore my obsessive ramblings. Just trying to work out the nature of atheism, agnosticism, theism.

Are these states an act of will? An involuntary "emotional" reaction? A logical, inescapable conclusion? A subjective reaction to "the evidence" that seems like an inescapable conclusion? Also, are these states of being static, fixed points? Or something more fluid, like shifting points along a continuum?

Perhaps ultimately, one's state of being is a combination of will and involuntary reaction. Your personal investigation is the act of will. The conclusion reached is involuntary, or perceived as inescapable logic.

I think to fully understand Joss's position, I'd need to know what his personal criteria are in determining the existence of a deity, a creative force. Perhaps no amount of circumstantial, indirect evidence can sway him, or "tip the glass", spill the glass of skepticism all over the kitchen table. Maybe only direct contact with a creator would do it. Even then, might he just suspect it's some hallucination? Perhaps he needs to cross a logical and emotional threshold that's unique to him.

So, to analogize, maybe Joss sees it as something like a formula. He's looking at the "god formula" and it reads 2+2=5. No matter how many times he tries to work it out, 2+2=5. Another person sees 2+2=4. To them, an inescapable conclusion as well.

Is it something like a pre-Copernican European? Sees the sun rise and set in the sky. The only possible logical conclusion is that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Doesn't have the tools, knowledge to reach any other conclusion. The truth may be something other than his conclusion, but he can't "feel", conclude, anything else. Or he's not in a physical position to perceive anything else. So he accepts what he perceives as "truth".

I guess I say that I'm skeptical of "pure" belief (atheism or theism) because the "god formula" seems more complex, more fluid than 2+2=5 or 2+2=4. Scientific knowledge keeps evolving.

 

[goldenboy]

Dropped this message in the Fred thread, but I think it applies here too...


Alright, just watched "A Hole in the World" again. Was dreading it because Fred was one of my favorites. And, personally, I'll agree: it's the worst death ever in the Buffyverse.

It strikes me as being the first "real" death in the Buffyverse. Or, the first presentation of a death from the atheistic perspective, Joss's perspective. Once you're dead, that's it. Everything, mind, body, soul, psyche (maybe?): all gone.

Angel and Spike have that theoretical discussion about cavemen and astronauts. Later, as Fred's dying, "the cavemen win", she says. No technology, medicine can provide immortality.

It seemed a little like one of the more depressing "er" episodes. The patient is resigned to her fate. The docs struggle for awhile, rage against fate, then give up themselves. All fantasy, dreams removed.

That's how I perceive Joss's "angry atheism". Yelling at a god that would let this happen, an indifferent god. Or just screaming at the void. There's something obscene about death from the atheistic point of view. Like a sick joke. Which seems more horrifying, burning in hellfire or ceasing to exist?

Interestingly, this is the first episode in the 'verse I can recall where a character (Lorne) says he's going to pray. And not to some hellgod. Just pray, for Fred. Is that Joss speaking?

 

[nerd4hire]

Not sure if this applies, or not, but as I read this I can't help remembering this story I heard one time about WC Fields.

Fields was in his death bed. He was a vocal lifelong atheist.

His girlfriend at the time, Carlotta Monti, walked in on him laying in bed, reading the bible.

"Aha" said Carlotta (a devout catholic). No atheists in the foxholes, she was thinking.

Fields replied, "Just looking for loopholes."

I love the inscription on WC's headstone, "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia".