Sickeningly biased against the nonreligious . . .

I recently found myself re-watching this show for the first time since it first aired, and I can't help but be shocked by the blatant prejudice against those of us who are nonreligious. I'm not sure how it escaped me the first time, but I guess my perspective is quite different now than it was seven years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed the first season, but now I find myself halfway through the second season and the show has gotten so sanctimonious that I don't even really care to continue watching. Oh where to begin . . .

OK so the Jeri Ryan character lost me right off the bat. Not 5 minutes into the classroom, she starts asking highly inappropriate (and illegal!) questions about her students faiths. And as if that isn't bad enough, she is advocating creationism as a viable alternative to evolution. Evolution is backed by 150 years of empirical evidence from all scientific fields including biology, chemistry, anthropology, paleontology, geology, and genetics. It has been thoroughly scrutinized by the smartest minds on the planet for the past 150 years, and has withstood the scrutiny admirably. Evolution is reality. Creationism is Bronze-Age folklore. It is the product of a bunch of scientifically ignorant goat-herders struggling to make sense of the world. Anyone with more than a 9th grade education who considers them to be equally viable theories ought to be ashamed of themselves.

A great deal is made of Harvey Lipschultz's bigotry, but there is never one mention of Marla Hendricks's. Every time she says the word "atheist" she does it the way most other people would say the word "pedophile". On at least 3 occasions she has gone on rants where atheists took the brunt of the blame for the state of the world. She has absolutely no qualms about breaking the law as decided by Dover v. Kitzmiller in regards to separation of church and state, and in fact is painted as a crusader righteously fighting against those evil liberal judges in their ivory towers. Of course if that school started passing out carpets and encouraging the students to pray towards Mecca 5 times a day she would pitch a fit. People like her don't realize that the law they have so little respect for is exactly what is keeping that from happening.

Every respectable character on this show is a Christian. Every single one. Lipschultz is a Jew, but remember, I was talking about respectable characters. Danny Hansen is more moderate about the issue, but when he was accused (there really is no other word for it) of being an atheist by Marla Hendricks, he denied it as if it was some terrible thing to live one's life guided by logic and evidence. Oh and the one time they do bring an openly atheist character on the show, guess who it is? That's right a convicted rapist and murderer on death row. People who self-identify as atheist, agnostic, or nonreligious count for about 15% of society at large (ARIS, 2001). Guess what percentage of the prison population they occupy? 0.2%(Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1997). Statistically, they are the least criminal group in America. Christians on the other hand, are vastly overrepresented in the prison population. Atheists do not have Crusades. We do not have jihads. We do not burn witches, bomb abortion clinics, or harass homosexuals. What we do tend to do however, is get higher educations. The further up the academic ladder you go, the more likely you are to be a nonbeliever.

I know there are plenty of people out there who know what their Bible says and that is all they need to know. As far as they are concerned, they're right, I'm wrong, and they can treat me anyway they want to because I am going to hell. However, there are also some people out there who probably didn't notice the blatant bigotry this show has towards people who don't share the popular superstitions. I didn't notice it the first time. Atheists are pretty much the only group out there that it is still PC to be bigoted against, and sometimes it really gets to me. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll get off my soap box . . .