Speaking of House…

10 Responses to Speaking of House…

1. 1

   Ampersand says:

   February 25, 2009 at 4:07 pm

   Some of us laugh and are silly and enjoy being social.

   Not me! HELL nos!
2. 2

   Ruchama says:

   February 25, 2009 at 4:07 pm

   Well, Cameron is also atheist.
3. 3

   Doorslam says:

   February 25, 2009 at 4:38 pm

   At least they don’t present the theists super well, either? House might be unhappy but most of the time he’s the one being logical, and the one we’re supposed to end up agreeing with.

   But yeah, if someone is openly atheist, they’re usually deeply unhappy and it’s so annoying.
4. 4

   FilthyGrandeur says:

   February 25, 2009 at 4:48 pm

   i enjoy laughing at others. does that count?
5. 5

   Jake Squid says:

   February 25, 2009 at 7:49 pm

   Some of us laugh and are silly and enjoy being social.

   Yeah, but that’s just a cover for our joylessness, grouchiness, lack of human connection, and disdain for other people’s happiness.
6. 6

   marmalade says:

   February 25, 2009 at 9:45 pm

   . . . and some of us atheists are introverts, who are doublely characterized as “joyless, grouchy people whose lives are characterized by a lack of human connection, and a disdain for other people’s happiness” as well as being characterized as the people who go on shooting sprees in schoolyards.

   I say there’s nothing wrong with being an introverted atheist (although no one will believe me).
7. 7

   Mandolin says:

   February 25, 2009 at 11:43 pm

   Um, how are you establishing an equation between “introverted” and “joyless, grochy, and disdaining other people?” That’s a really unfair thing to accuse me of having said.
8. 8

   Doug S. says:

   February 26, 2009 at 7:37 am

   As usual, the TV Tropes Wiki says it all.
9. 9

   Ali says:

   February 26, 2009 at 9:21 am

   Mandolin, I think that was more in respone to Jake Squid’s comment directly above marmalade’s
10. 10

    grendelkhan says:

    February 27, 2009 at 8:52 am

    Doug S. beat me to it, but I’d like to add that the list does have a few exceptions to the trope.

    The true root of the problem, I believe, is that stories have a profound and immutable difference from the real world. In the real world, things are not always fair, and nobody is making sure that the whole mess makes sense. In stories, there is an indisputably involved god watching over the characters, the universe is suffused with intention and purpose–it’s called “The Plot”, and it’s simply the instrument through which the Author-God interacts with their reality. Because of this, characters in the story are fools to doubt, and belief in such a higher power is something only someone driven mad with grief could fail to find.

    The real problem, of course, is that the Hollywood Atheists are somehow seen as representatives of the rest of us out here in meatspace.

    See Chris Mooney’s musings on the “skeptic conversion” narrative; in short, when you combine the nature of the world that skeptics in stories inhabit with a culture that doesn’t like them or care to understand them, you get the same stupid conversion meme, played out ad nauseum.

    Hell, if you fiddle with the setting enough, you can justify anything. Warhammer 40K is a setting where the best hope for the survival of humanity is a theocratic dictatorship which will punish any deviation from orthodoxy with measures ranging from torture and execution up to sterilizing the whole planet. (It also has chainswords. Chainswords!) As Belle Waring put it, “if you let me put my thumb on the utilitarian scales, I can get you to agree that you have an affirmative moral duty to torture a three-year-old child to death.”