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What nonbelievers do you remember from TV growing up? The ones that stand out to me are Hawkeye Pierce and Dr. Gregory House.

azzow2 9 July 1
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2

We all have forgotten a big one Bill Maher

He thinks Ann Coulter is hot.

No points for him.

@BufftonBeotch She has not been on his show in a very long time...???? Maybe he's not as fond of her as he once was - or maybe the rating take a dip when she's on...????

@Lavergne I just can't imagine a reasonably intelligent man ever associating with that hate twig.

@BufftonBeotch I have to look it up.

3

Here is another good one Temperance Brennan

Love that show. This is one of the first scenes I saw and this alone got me hooked. It's also one of my favorite scenes.

@Freespirit64 Going to look for it on Netflix do the marathon has been some time since I had watched it.

@azzow2 I'm not real mushy. But that wedding episode...I cried several paper towels worth of tears....

@Freespirit64 I love that character she is so that.

4

When I was "growing up" NOBODY would have dared be a non-believer, or at least say it. That was the days of Romper Room, Mickey Mouse Club, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, I Love Lucy. They may not have talked about religion during the program but you "just knew" they were believers.

Oh my goodness - you are sooooo right about that. When I let it slip once at work I thought two of my coworkers were going to have a seizure right then and there.

Look how long it took television to admit that married people actually slept in the same bed.

@IAJO163 .....or that ANYONE used the bathroom!

3

Doctor Who as he was always annoyed with anyone with ridiculous religious delusions, most of the original Star Trek crew (I was deinitely disappointed in Ohura when she got all sappy at the end of the episode Bread and Circuses), Carl Kolchak the Nightstalker didn't seem to be a believer but did go in for the ritual superstition connecting religion and monsters. Rod Serling seemed to be beyond religion as host of The Twilight Zone.
My all time favourite Star Trek atheist would have to be 7 of 9, even though she did believe in the Borg collective.

Fuck the Borg..

Might as well be a Pentecostal,.

@BufftonBeotch Borg don't flop around on the floor making weird noises unless you hit them with a phaser with adapted frequency modulation. Pentecostal do it every Sunday, I've seen it when I dated a Pentecostal girl in my teens, scary shit.

@Surfpirate Still hive mentality, though.

There Are FOUR Lights!

1

Star Trek. The original series. All the civilizations evolved past all that.

Trying to think Next Generation think the Q might have been.

@azzow2 I think Roddenberry was an athiest, wasn't he?

@Freespirit64 [startrekdom.blogspot.com] This I did not know was refreshing to learn something new Thank You

1

superman

Don`t think I ever remember him being a nonbeliever. Searching my head vaguely remember George Reeves having said some deity condition.

@azzow2 by Superman’s very “existence” he was a non believer of the earthly god.

3

Michael and Gloria Stivic from All in the Family come to mind. I remember the show where Archie snuck the new Stivic baby into a church to secretly baptize him, and really pissed off atheist mom and dad.

I don't think he actually told them though.

And he crept into the church and did it himself.

@BufftonBeotch yeah, you're right, the fight over the baptism precipitated Archie's sneaky christening ceremony.

3

Addams Family? Munsters? Those are obvious. But that's what came to mind.

Seth McFarlane ( Brian Griffin ), Doc Martin.

4

George Carlin and penn and teller.

The best.

3

On this side of the pond it isn't quite the same issue but I suppose Dave Allen was obviously questioning/ridiculing the whole religious thing especially given his Catholic upbringing.

Yes, and Terry Wogan revealed he didn’t believe in god in a BBC interview. Another disillusioned Irish catholic!

4

Meathead AKA Michael Stivic on"All in the Family."

I forgot about him! lol

6

The first time I ever heard the word "agnostic" was from Mike Stivic on "All in The Family".

First time I heard many words said on TV was on "All in the Family."
And other Norman Lear shows.

My dad was very fluent in racist slurs though.

To be clear, Lear was obviously mocking small-minded, living room racism.

1

There was a very long running local variety/comedy show in AZ called the Wallace and Ladmo show. As far as I remember they never took any stance either for or against religion.

They were pretty irreverent. I well remember Pat McMahon dressed in drag as Aunt Maud in one of his many character roles hitting on the local cop doing PSAs for the show. It turned into a running joke with the cop horribly embarrassed every time he came on. Ha, ha.

RCC Edit: Since @LiterateHiker mentioned Fractured Fairy Tales. W&L also often featured a lot of cartoons aimed as much at adults as children. Fractured Fairy Tales, Roger Ramjet, Super Chicken, George of the Jungle and others were some of my favorites. Thanks for the reminder.

@RichCC
You're welcome.

1

I've seen several references here to the original Star Trek series, but it wasn't quite as atheistic or agnostic as people remember. In particular, in the episode "Who Mourns for Adonis," the crew meets Apollo (a powerful alien being, but the same entity from Greek antiquity) who captures them and wants their worship. This exchange takes place:

APOLLO: But you're of the same nature. I could sweep you out of existence with a wave of my hand and bring you back again. I can give life or death. What else does mankind demand of its gods?
KIRK: Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate. [emphasis mine]

I suspect Kirk's qualifier was tossed in to appease audiences, and the studio, as being too obvious about atheism in 1967 was probably bad for viewership. Today's sci-fi audience is pretty accepting, I think, but 50 years ago it was a different matter. For the most part, they just didn't reference religion or theistic views at all.

Nimoy was and Shatner is Jewish.

Not that that is really important.

Might win a bet though.

Yeah, plenty of god themed stuff on the original Star Trek.

4

Brian Griffin on Family Guy, even though he’s a cartoon dog!

Seth MacFalane does that in his natural voice.

4

Carl Sagan

4

Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly

3

Mulder on the X-Files when I was in High School, is the only one I can remember seeing.

4

Today? Brian Griffin. (The dog) Which Seth MacFarlane does in his own voice. So----Seth MacFarlane.

1

As a Brit, I can remember Terry Wogan on telly all the time when I was younger. I always thought he was an Irish Catholic, and nominally he was. However, in an interview on BBC a few years before he died he disclosed that he no longer believed there was a god. I always liked him anyway, but he rose several notches in my eyes then.

4

Good question, let's see. Kaine from Kung Fu my Buddhist Period, Spock I doubt he was, not sure about Captain Kirk?, Sean Leuc Picard, Carl Sagan, Einstein.Likewise Hawkeye Pierce. Mulder of course and that about takes me through to Uni years.

4

Probably George Carlin and Carl Sagan...as others have said. More recently though Ricky Gervais.

4

George Carlin in the only one I can think of. Maybe Carl Sagan.

3

Family Guy has a few, Sheldon from Big Bang is current but most of my tv didn’t talk religion so you only knew if a character WAS not if they were not.

2

Two of my favorites - watched all of their shows. Also Bill Maher.

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