MovieChat Forums > Time After Time (1979) Discussion > Anti-God scene

Anti-God scene

posted 12 years ago by chris109
16 replies | jump to latest

Forgot all about this scene when I first saw it in 1979, but watched it again a few days ago. Wells goes into the church at the end of his first day he sits down and looks up, " I don't believe you exist. But, if you do I need your help. Just let me stay the night. And I'll be on my way in the morning and never trouble you again."
At this point a priest comes up and says, "I'm sorry. We're closing now."

I really do not believe that any religious person, of any worth, would just tell someone to leave without asking if they have a place to stay and not help them out by possibly setting that person up somewhere.

[–] sisterdebmac 12 years ago

You're reading way too much into it. The scene was meant to convey that the modern world is so dangerous that churches lock their doors at night, which they do. In Wells' time, church doors would've been open all the time so wandering into one and expecting to just sleep there all night was not that weird. Wells was not anti-God ---either in this FICTIONAL version, or in real life. And neither is Nick Meyer.
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there will be snark

[–] turtletommy 12 years ago

Bingo- that's what the scene implied.

[–] chris109 12 years ago

Later, when Wells came across a weekly atheist magazine pretentiously called The Free Thinker, his ‘worst suspicions’ about Christianity were confirmed, and he became a committed atheist.

From H.G. Wells: Darwin’s Disciple and Eugenicist Extraordinaire by
by Jerry Bergman, 2004

As for the church closing, how did Wells know that it was not open all night if churches were during his own time period?

[–] turtletommy 12 years ago

"As for the church closing, how did Wells know that it was not open all night if churches were during his own time period?"

He didn't know, obviously. The doors were open (unlocked) when he entered it just before he was told that it was closing for the night, and because he assumed it was open all the time as churches were back in his time he must not have noticed any posted hours.

[–] ironskeletor 12 years ago

"Later, when Wells came across a weekly atheist magazine pretentiously called The Free Thinker, his ‘worst suspicions’ about Christianity were confirmed, and he became a committed atheist.

From H.G. Wells: Darwin’s Disciple and Eugenicist Extraordinaire by
by Jerry Bergman, 2004 "

I would very much suspect someone who chooses such loaded language. In Wells's own work, God the Invisible King, he describes himself as explicitly not atheist.

[–] muzilon 12 years ago

Wells was going through a deistic phase when he wrote "God The Invisible King". He later disowned the book and ended up an agnostic if not an atheist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_the_Invisible_King

[–] myeck 12 years ago

That book title tells you all you need to know - about the book. It's just one of the many, many shrieking hatchet jobs done by creationists to fling poo on anyone and anything associated with evolution. An episode of Spongebob Squarepants will have more connection to reality than a book with that title will.
(edited to insert a missing word in the last sentence)

[–] PhrenicGermal 9 years ago

While Wells may or may not have been atheist, I looked up that essay and it's publication history doesn't bode well to it's credibility.
I've been a wells admirer since youth so I've hoped he fell somewhere on the atheist/deist spectrum. I also have read God the Invisible King. In this book he rejects Christianity and a 'creator god.' He seems to think of god as being a metaphor for the human spirit. It's unclear as to whether he attributes any supernatural ability to this god. I suspect that he intellectually rejected any concept of a god known to most persons, but couldn't divorce himself completely from various emotional manifestations.
His textbook 'An Outline of History' was pretty hostile to religion.

[–] valvis 12 years ago

You clearly know nothing about Wells. He was extremely hostile to religion and God. Think of the minister in The War of the Worlds. And then in The Shape of Things to come he gasses the Pope. This doesn't even begin to talk about his support for eugenics, which is by its nature racist and against Christianity.

[–] cinefyl 11 years ago

Well said and I agree with you 100%...another example the script used to show Wells coping with all the changes he was witnessing in the so-called Utopia.

[–] ArthurDental 11 years ago

Come to midtown Manhattan and I'll show you a church that built a fence so the homeless can't sleep on their steps. Google and you'll find newspaper stories about atheists being turned away from soup kitchens and Habitats for Humanity when they volunteer to help.

The Christian victim mentality's baseless and it's horrifying for others to see people like you finding anti-God messages everywhere, when the real problem is people like you trying to force laws down other people's throats.

[–] TVholic 10 years ago

Come to midtown Manhattan and I'll show you a church that built a fence so the homeless can't sleep on their steps.

That proves nothing. St. Barts, also in Midtown, doesn't mind if homeless sleep on pews during the day. Fifth Avenue Presbyterian won a celebrated lawsuit against the city to get NYPD to stop harassing homeless sleeping on church property outside.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] paramitch 10 years ago

Churches, no matter how sympathetic, do not tend to let the homeless live there. I don't necessarily see it as being anti-God but factual.

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I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not.

[–] ofumalow 10 years ago

In its lightweight, fantasy way the film nonetheless tries to convey some of the complexities of real-life Wells' personality as a leading popular thinker of his day, and one of the things he was most passionate and public about was a vehemently pro-science, anti-superstition stance. So in that context, the scene in the church is a VERY gentle depiction of his critical attitude toward organized religion.

[–] ChristianeK 10 years ago

"I really do not believe that any religious person, of any worth, would just tell someone to leave without asking if they have a place to stay and not help them out by possibly setting that person up somewhere."
Sadly, not true.
"Saint Mary’s Cathedral, the principal church of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, has installed a watering system to keep the homeless from sleeping in the cathedral’s doorways."

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/03/18/homeless-saint-marys-cathedral-archdiocese-san-francisco-intentionally-drenched-water-sleeping/

“Look, you don’t really think that I could be in love with a rotten little tramp like you, do you?”