{"id":18318,"date":"2013-10-16T11:58:37","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T15:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=18318"},"modified":"2013-10-16T11:58:37","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T15:58:37","slug":"atheists-vs-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/10\/atheists-vs-angels.html","title":{"rendered":"Angels vs. Atheists"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2013\/10\/SHOOT-First.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-18321\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2013\/10\/SHOOT-First.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"831\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/2013\/10\/16\/today-marks-the-release-of-a-comic-book-series-featuring-atheist-superheroes-battling-supernatural-threats\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Hemant Mehta highlighted this fascinating new comic book<\/a>. In a manner that is typical of much supposedly secularist or atheistic science fiction, the story has people rebelling and fighting against \u201cgods\u201d and other such \u201coutside actors,\u201d but in the process, makes them literally exist as well. Here\u2019s an example:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/uZFIQya.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"557\" height=\"522\"><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a theme I\u2019ve explored before, especially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/04\/religion-in-star-trek-and-doctor-who-from-a-gallifreyan-god-to-the-enlightened-enterprise.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">in Star Trek and Doctor Who<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/2013\/10\/16\/today-marks-the-release-of-a-comic-book-series-featuring-atheist-superheroes-battling-supernatural-threats\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Mehta provides<\/a> some further details from Justin Aclin, one of the writers. Here is an excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I think the religious people who should take offense would never see themselves in the story, even though I based the villains off of them. In the world of S.H.O.O.T. First, anything that might be considered a supernatural creature is actually an Outside Actor, an extra-dimensional being which can self-evolve and that feeds off the faith of humanity. And many of the Outside Actors fear the degree to which science and reason are affecting humanity\u2019s faith, and they\u2019ve hatched a plan to bring about an Apocalypse and wipe that away. That\u2019s very much based on a certain type of Fundamentalist that\u2019s actively working to bring about the end times, which is a concept I just find abhorrent. I was raised Jewish, and when I realized that there was a group of Christians out there who were cheerleading Israel\u2019s worst tendencies because they think it\u2019s going to bring about the end of the world, and they\u2019d like that, I was horrified. And I took that horror and created monsters out of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Have any of you read the entire comic book? If so, what do you make of it?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hemant Mehta highlighted this fascinating new comic book. In a manner that is typical of much supposedly secularist or atheistic science fiction, the story has people rebelling and fighting against \u201cgods\u201d and other such \u201coutside actors,\u201d but in the process, makes them literally exist as well. Here\u2019s an example: It\u2019s a theme I\u2019ve explored before, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":18321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,133,80,86,90],"tags":[622,870,872,2040,2046,2756,2765,4029,10169],"class_list":["post-18318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism-religion","category-doctor-who-science-fiction","category-religion","category-science-fiction","category-star-trek-science-fiction","tag-angels","tag-atheism-religion","tag-atheists","tag-comic-book","tag-comics","tag-djinn","tag-doctor-who","tag-gods","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Angels vs. Atheists<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hemant Mehta highlighted this fascinating new comic book. 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