Salon: ‘Horrifying’ AtheistTV Offers Only Mockery and Nihilism
“Leaving aside even the question of winning over believers, how can it even keep atheists watching if it’s just a perpetual drumbeat of calling Jesus ‘the zombie Jew’?”
It took Salon’s Daniel D’Addario about four hours of watching the recently-launched AtheistTV to come to the conclusion that the atheists running the “close to unwatchable” programming had only “unattractive nihilism” consisting of “mocking and hassling the beliefs of others” to offer its viewers.
Though AtheistTV, available online through the Roku streaming device, presents itself as somewhat of an “outreach project,” D’Addario argues that he can’t imagine anyone turning on the channel and being converted from their faith. The reason: the channel “adheres to nasty stereotypes about atheism—smugness, gleeful disregard for others’ beliefs” and provides no positive alternative to the faith it so aggressively attempts to destroy.
... after watching four hours of its programming and even despite my own lack of religious belief, I find it hard to imagine that even a casual nonbeliever would tune in, let alone someone on the fence about the existence of a higher power. AtheistTV adheres to nasty stereotypes about atheism — smugness, gleeful disregard for others’ beliefs — to a degree that’s close to unwatchable.
D’Addario describes one call in show, The Atheist Experience—co-hosted by a guy wearing a Hawaiian-style shirt covered with flames and infinity symbols (below)—whose first move was to mock the Biblical story of God calling Abraham to sacrifice his son. After reading the story, the host Dillahunty says, "This is just absolutely horrible. And it's the type of thing we get when we begin with the idea that the Bible is true and good, and you run into absurdities."
Apart from further disparagement, D'Addario points out, the host provides no real follow up or rational explanation for his anti-biblical position:
What absurdities these were the viewer would have to fill in for himself; there was no extrapolation from this story in terms of what social ills have happened in the name of God, no sense that Dillahunty was bothered by people following the Bible for any reason other than that he thinks it’s nuts to rely on a book for wisdom and guidance. “I don’t worship any being,” he said, “though I respect a lot of people and a lot of fictional characters.”
“If you know why your God is so stupid,” he said, “feel free and call us.”
Another example of the woeful channel’s programming was its rerunning of a 2012 atheist rally in D.C. which D’Addario calls not “reasoned debate,” but “unattractive nihilism” that not only features mean-spirited and vile mockery, but also homophobic and misogynistic hate speech, including a song about giving Jesus oral sex:
AtheistTV frames atheism as a perpetual reaction against a conquering force. And that reaction isn’t reasoned debate. It’s unattractive nihilism. After the second broadcast of a single “Atheist Experience” episode, the channel showed a 2012 rally in Washington, D.C.; speakers consistently described a future in which all Americans would join the movement, a future that they’d get to by mocking and hassling the beliefs of others. One hardly needs to be religious to see the rhetorical flaws in Andy Shernoff, the frontman of punk band The Dictators, describing himself as “a little like Martin Luther King” before asking the audience “Ready for some sarcasm? Ridiculous ideas need to be mocked.” That Shernoff’s performance indulges straight-up homophobia and misogyny in a frankly mean-spirited song about giving Jesus oral sex is just a fringe benefit of being a radical truth-teller who doesn’t care whom one offends.
D’Addario ultimately asks what AtheistTV has to offer its viewers beyond “the catharsis of mockery”:
What alternative does it provide? Leaving aside even the question of winning over believers, how can it even keep atheists watching if it’s just a perpetual drumbeat of calling Jesus “the zombie Jew”?
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