The Religious Affiliation of
The Atheist
Antoine Sharpe

From: "Godless Sunday" forum discussion, started 19 March 2006 on the Pharyngula: Evolution, development, and random biological... from a godless liberal website (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/03/godless_sunday.php; viewed 26 April 2006):

[Reader comments:]

Posted by: Orac | March 19, 2006 08:19 PM

I've actually read The Atheist. Sadly, it's just OK. Also, unless I missed something in the first issue, it never really says explicitly whether Antoine Sharp is an atheist or not; that's just his nickname.

Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | March 20, 2006 01:11 AM

[Quoting the blog post] "There aren't many atheists, I'm afraid, but there is actually a hero called The Atheist, whose super-power is 'a voracious and uncompromising logic that lets him cut through any problem like a scalpel'."

Since when does being an atheist implies possessing "a voracious and uncompromising logic etc"?

Posted by: windy | March 20, 2006 04:21 AM

Does wearing blue tights imply that you can fly, or do all wolverines have retractable adamantium claws? Lighten up, this superhero stuff isn't logical :)

Plus, that scalpel stuff sounds like it was inspired by Occam's razor, and as we all know he was a monk... So I'm sure nobody's claiming the principle is limited to atheists.

From: "Question about Magneto" forum discussion, started 12 May 2006 on the Giant in the Playground website (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-15296.html; viewed 17 July 2007):

The Vorpal Tribble
05-12-2006, 11:31 PM

What's funny is there's a site somewhere that lists the majority of comic book characters by religion, because apparently they each had one.

Just found it:
http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/comic_book_religion.html

Dhavaer
05-12-2006, 11:44 PM

Incredulousness aside, why is there a question mark beside Mr Atheist's religion? Surely a man who calls himself 'Mr Atheist' is pretty unarguably an atheist.

From: "The Church of Superman" forum discussion, started 19 June 2006 on the James Randi Educational Foundation website (http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showthread.php?t=58627; viewed 15 May 2007):

19th June 2006, 06:03 AM
headscratcher4

The Church of Superman
http://adherents.com/lit/comics/comic_book_religion.html

Hmmmm... the "religious" affiliations of comic book characters. Huh?

19th June 2006, 08:32 AM
c4ts

There is this guy called "The Atheist," who is listed as an agnostic!
http://adherents.com/lit/comics/Atheist.html

...One more thing:
http://adherents.com/lit/comics/MrChristian.html [URL for a profile of a superhero named "Mr. Christian."]

So does this mean The Atheist is his archenemy?

From: Abby Scott, "Complete with Utility Belt Carrying a Calculator and Ennui", posted 22 June 2006 on the Abby Scott does tend to go on blog website (http://abbyscott.blogspot.com/2006/06/complete-with-utility-belt-carrying.html; viewed 22 June 2006):

I grew up in a strong athiestic [sic] tradition...

The above is a link to a list of the religions of many of our comic book heroes. Quite cool, actually...

But where are the athiests [sic]? I'll tell you. Banished to the world of villains.

In the athiest [sic] pile we have Lex Luthor, The Joker, Two-Face, Kingpin, Green Goblin, Sabertooth. Sabertooth?? Yeah, I love that issue where he tears apart intelligent design before ripping the president's arm off.

I guess anyone that murders is assumed to be athiest [sic]...

There was a comic book that premiered a year ago called The Athiest [sic], about a skeptic that works in a government think tank. But according to the creator, The Athiest [sic] is not actually an athiest [sic]. Bah.

So I've created my own superhero.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... Atheialady!

...Coming soon to a comic shop near you! Or not.

[Note: This blogger seems to have looked at this website with some haste. The page she refers to lists many atheist superheroes, while the overwhelming majority of super-villains listed on the site are not atheists. Furthermore, characters are not presumed to be atheists purely because they are murderers. It is certainly true that most murderous villains depicted in comics are not portrayed as having any traditional religious affiliation or belief, and they frequently espouse philosophies which identify them as atheists. But there are many exceptions to this trend, as noted on our website.

Another observation: It is not uncommon for people, including self-described atheists, to misspell the word atheist as "athiest." Normally we correct this misspelling before posting excerpts on this website. In this case, we left the spelling as we found it, because it seems ironic for a person who "grew up in a strong athiest tradition" to misspell the tradition she so strongly identifies with. Not excerpted here are a few paragraphs in which this blogger recounts experiences growing up in a strongly atheistic family, including her feelings of resentment towards non-atheists - feelings which festered further when she attended a Catholic high school. Once again, none of this has been copied here for purposes of ridiculing this blogger. The irony is entertaining, but not unique. Many atheists misspell the word "atheist," but they probably do this no more so than people from other faith traditions, such as the many Episcopalians who misspell "Episcopalian." It is clear that neither spelling errors nor super-villainy are confined to any single religious group - atheist or otherwise.]