The sacrificial atheist?

Spoiler warning: This post contains discussion about the season finale of True Blood and the movie The Ledge.
Atheists are popping up more and more in the television and movies. And like any minority group engaging in a civil rights movement – which, admit it or not, is what we’re doing – portrayals of atheists are becoming less and less stereotypical. We’re no longer nothing more than communist villains.

There are certainly stereotypical tropes about us being overly rational, cynical, heartless, selfish hedonists. Dexter, anyone? As much as I love House, he’s not exactly the poster child of atheism. But even within that show, you see another atheist (Cameron) who is un-House-like in every way. And the number of human-like atheist characters is rising – Ellie in Contact, Kurt in Glee, Malcolm in Firefly, Bones.

But I’ve been noticing something recently. I hesitate to call it a trend, since I only have two data points so far. But this came up during a panel discussion I was on at the Midwest Humanist and Freethought Conference after we had watched The Ledge. The Ledge is a thriller revolving around the romance between an atheist, Gavin, and a woman, Shana, who is married to an emotional abusive religious zealot, Joe.

I really enjoyed the movie and highly recommend it. So if you haven’t seen it, read forward at your own risk – because I’m about to give away the ending.

Joe eventually discovers the affair and puts Gavin in a situation were either he can die, or Shana dies. And surprisingly, the film doesn’t have a predictable happy ending. The police don’t find Shana at just the right time. Gavin doesn’t have some quirky trick that makes it looks like he jumped from a 30 story building. Nope, he sacrifices himself for this woman.

And during this Sunday’s season finale of True Blood, we see the same sacrificial atheist. Tara, who apparently everyone hates except me, is asked by her best friend Sookie if she thinks Gran is in heaven. Tara replies that she’s always considered herself an atheist, but if there is a heaven, Gran would be president of it. Sookie then says that she wants to grow old together with her best friend, which let me know that Tara was almost certainly dying by the end of the episode.

And would you know it, in the last minute of the show, Tara jumps in front of Sookie to save her from a point blank range shotgun blast from a crazed werewolf lady. (You know, I never realized how dumb this show sounds until I have to type out what happened). People are discussing how she’s probably going to be saved in the first 30 seconds of the new season, or turned into a vampire, or be a ghost for Lafayette to channel, or whatever…but you can’t deny she sacrificed herself for her friend when half of her head was blown clean off.

When we were discussing the Ledge, we couldn’t agree if portrayals like this were heroic or tragic. Is this showing atheists in a good light – that even though we don’t believe in heavenly rewards or the afterlife, we’re willing to give up the thing most dear to us for people we love? Or is it showing atheists as these tragic individuals who never have a happy ending?

I lean toward the former. As much as I don’t want all of my atheist characters meeting untimely fates, I think it means something to give up your life when you’re certain no afterlife is soon to follow. It shows that we do care about other people and have greater value and purpose in our lives, even if it’s not handed down from a supernatural being. And I think it’s the first step to portraying atheists as real people – and soon enough we won’t have to keep dying to prove that point.

But again, not everyone agreed. What do you think? Do you know of any other atheist characters that fit or fight this trend?

Well, this was an odd day

Today was the last day of my parent’s visit to Seattle. We were walking down to grab some Piroshky Piroshky for lunch, when a young man came up to me.
Guy: Excuse me, but… were you the one who did Boobquake?
Me: …Yes.

He sheepishly waved hi and then ran away. And then tweeted at me that he was a blog reader and was sorry for being creepy. My parents thought it was fantastic, and wouldn’t stop talking about how famous their daughter was.

I wondered what the odds were. I’m used to people recognizing me at godless or nerdy events, but randomly on the street seems way less likely. It had only happened once before, when I was on a terrible OkCupid date at the College Inn pub, and a random guy came up and asked if I had ever been on the Savage Lovecast. A potentially confusing question if the answer was “No,” but he ended up being a fan of the blog.

Of course, Seattle is pretty godless and nerdy in general, so maybe I should just expect it.

After lunch, my dad and I wandered off to the Underground Tour and left my mom to spend an hour taking photos of the stupid fish throwing. Our tour guide was really funny, and I thought the tour was super interesting. About half way through as we were walking through some of the underground tunnels, she turned to me:

Guide: Have you been on the tour before? You look really familiar.
Me: …No, but I live in Seattle.
Dad: (to me) I bet she reads your blog too!

Sure enough, at the end of the tour she very excitedly said she figured it out, she reads my blog, and omfgwtfbbq could she have my autograph!?! My dad couldn’t stop talking about it – he thought it was the coolest thing ever. I assured him I wasn’t paying these people off to make me look good while they were visiting.

Anyway, these little things totally make my day. Don’t be shy if you ever see me roaming around. I’m happy to say hello!

On the flip side, they make me feel extra guilty when I realize I just spent another weekend not updating. Whoops. I’ve been having a life lately, which is a bit unusual. I’m sure I’ll go back to my boring internet-fueled existence soon enough.

Non-religious arguments for being pro-choice?

A friend of mine who’s in med school is looking for some good, credible resources on non-religious arguments for being pro-choice. Obviously the logical move was to ask a feminist atheist blogger, but I’ve failed him since I 1) Live in Blog Land, where good, credible resources are elusive creatures, and 2) Have a horrible memory and suck at recalling good things I have read.
But I know non-religious, humanist arguments for being pro-choice are out there. I could spend a couple hours writing a huge post myself on my own humanist arguments for being pro-choice. Oooooorrrrr I can be lazy since I know I have an intelligent well-read readership who likes to help me out (especially when I suck up to them by saying how intelligent and well-read they are). So what do you recommend? What are some good articles or books that address this subject? And I suppose blog posts are fine if they’re from a more reputable individual.

And if you just want to throw in your own godless 2 cents on the abortion issue, consider this an open thread. I’ll be hiding in the corner behind some bullet proof glass.

Suspect arrested in Mabus case

Says a tweet from the Montreal Police. Who knew an internet petition could actually do something.

I’m going to assume it’s Mabus, since he’s been particularly quiet lately. Unless there’s a surprise twist, and Mabus’s mom was the one sending all of the threats. Or if the internet was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Mabus is PZ Myers.

I hope this man gets the help he needs.

Fighting religion in public schools

Jessica Ahlquist‘s talk from the Secular Student Alliance annual conference is online. I can confidently say it was my favorite talk of the whole conference – and that’s competing with excellent talks by Greta Christina, PZ Myers, Jamila Bey, and David Silverman.

In other words, I order you to watch the whole thing right now. You won’t be disappointed.

I wish I had been as strong as Jessica when I was a sophomore in high school.

I think he takes landLORD a little too literally

It’s no secret that I hate my apartment. tl;dr I have no privacy, I’m getting ripped off on my electric bills (which he once refused to pay), I don’t have control over the heat or internet, and the place is infested with spiders. Seriously, I’ve killed about one a day since I moved in. Last night a hairy one CRAWLED ACROSS MY CHEST WHILE I WAS LAYING IN BED.

Sorry, my terror deserves all caps.

The upside to all of this is that I’m finally moving in two weeks. Hurray! I found a wonderful new place in Capitol Hill (not Washington DC, the Seattle neighborhood that’s filled with gays and hipsters and awesome food and bars). But that also means other people are checking out my apartment. I missed most of the viewings this weekend since I was in Omaha, but today one couple from out of state called me to ask how it was.

Thanks for giving my phone number out to random strangers, landlord.

Anyway, they were really nice, and I told them the truth about the place. I was in the same situation last year – moving from out of state and unable to find anything – and I wish I would have had someone to ask about the place (the current tenant had already moved out). When they asked if I felt comfortable here, I relayed the story about the time my landlord found out I was an evolutionary biologist and proceeded to debate me for twenty five minutes about how creationism was correct.

She paused. She said it wasn’t surprising, since he had made some anti-Catholic remarks at the end of their phone call, and that her husband was Catholic. And he had also asked them if they were church goers – they weren’t (like many Catholics?).

I shouldn’t be surprised that he was dumb enough to say anti-Catholic stuff on the phone, since he’s had no problem ranting to me about creationism or how horrible unions are. But the latter makes me wonder. Is it because of me? Is my landlord running around fretting that he has a Dirty Atheist living in his basement? It’s obvious if you look at my bookshelf or glance at my mail that arrives in our shared mailbox – lots of letters from the Secular Student Alliance, Secular Coalition for America, and Planned Parenthood.

I better not see a fee for exorcisms or blessings come out of my security deposit.

It’s not just one person sending death threats to atheists

Edit: Well, apparently it wasn’t 8,000 death threats – just many death threats in 8,000 comments. The correction comes from Blair himself. Shocking, can’t trust the media to report things accurately…

Fox News’ Facebook page was flooded with threats calling for the rape, crucifixion, and murder of atheists. The cause? Blair Scott, Communications Director of American Atheists, appeared on Fox News to defend their lawsuit against the Ground Zero cross. Just look at some of the examples one blog collected:

Frankly, however you feel about the cross lawsuit* it irrelevant – no one deserves to be treated like this. I can’t get over how despicable these messages are. I may disagree strongly – very strongly – with some religious people, but I never wish them dead. I know this doesn’t represent all Christians, but it certainly debunks the notion that religion automatically makes you a good person.

*And if you want to know how I feel about it… go read the incredibly well written article by James Croft. No point rehashing what he already said so eloquently.