"I think I was in heaven": Joss Whedon's Atheist Faith David Lavery

"I think I was in heaven": Joss Whedon's Atheist Faith

David Lavery


“After Life” (BtVS 6.3)


Theology in Popular Culture


Thomas J. J.Altizer


“So our coming of age forces us to a true recognition of our situation vis-à-vis God. God is teaching us that we must live as men who can get along very well without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who makes us live in this world without using him as a working hypothesis is the God before whom we are ever standing. Before God and with him we live without God. God allows himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us.”--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter of July 16, 1944


“God is absent in the towns, in the fields, in the mountains and in the plains. He is absent in law, in science, in education and in morals. He is even absent in the lives of the religious for they, who still want to be his friends, have no need for His presence. God is absent as never before. . . . To be absent has become one of the qualities of God.”

Leon Bloy (1846-1917)


”Dead-beat Dad”(Supernatural, “The

Dark Side of the Moon”)

Dean and Sam Winchester with Joshua, god’s BFF.


God and the 20th Century(Supernatural, “Free to Be You and Me”)


Chuck





Death: You have an inflated sense of your importance. To a thing like me, a thing like you. . . . Think how you'd feel if a bacterium sat at your table and tried to get smart. This is one little planet in one tiny solar system in a galaxy that's barely out of its diapers. I'm old, Dean, very old. So I invite you to contemplate what if any significance I find in you. Eat!Dean: I got to ask, how old are you?Death: As old as God--maybe older. Neither of us can remember any more. Life, death, chicken, egg, regardless, at the end I'll reap him too.Dean: God? You will reap God?Death: Oh yes. God will die too, Dean.Dean: This is way above my pay-grade.


Thomas Disch (1940-2008)


L. Ron Hubbard


Philip K. Dick


Joss Whedon (1964- ), in a cameo appearance

on Veronica Mars

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Joss Whedon and His Mentor, Jeanine Basinger

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Joss and His Wife, Kai

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Jana Riess


WWBD?


Buffy Hereafter--Istanbul, Turkey, October 2007

Tuna Erdem (with the flowers)




“Can of kraut, pound of pastrami, bagels, bring home”--the sacred text in A Canticle for Leibowitz


“It's about the show, and I feel the same way about it. I get the same way. It's not like being a rock star. It doesn't feel like they're reacting to me. It's really sweet when people react like that, and I love the praise, but to me, what they're getting emotional about is the show. And that's the best feeling in the world. There's nothing creepy about it. I feel like there's a religion in narrative, and I feel the same way they do. I feel like we're both paying homage to something else; they're not paying homage to me.”--Joss Whedon, Onion AV Club Interview (2001; my italics)


Question: “Do you believe in God?”

Joss: “Not a jot.” --“Joss Whedon answers 100

Questions”


“I’m a very hard-line, angry atheist. . . . Yet I am fascinated by the concept of devotion.”--Joss Whedon (Felicity Nussbaum,

“Must See Metaphysics”)


“Who Are You?” (BtVS 4.16)

“It's hard to believe. I've been avoiding this place for so many years, and it's nothing. It's nice! It's got the pretty windows, the pillars . . . lots of folks to eat. Where's the thing I was so afraid of? You know, the Lord? He was supposed to be here. He gave us this address.”


“Conversations with Dead People,” BtVS 7.7


HOLDEN: Oh my god.BUFFY: Oh your god what?HOLDEN: Well, not MY god, 'cause I defy him and all his works -- does he exist, by the way? Is there word on that?BUFFY: Nothing solid.

--from “Conversations with Dead People”


Mal Reynolds (left) and Shepherd Book


Mal: Well, what about you, Shepherd? How come you're flyin' with us brigands? I mean, shouldn't you be off bringing religiosity to the fuzzy-wuzzies or some such?Book: Oh, I got heathens aplenty right here.Mal: If I'm your mission, Shepherd, best give it up. You're welcome on my boat—God ain't.


“After Life” (BtVS 6.3)


SPIKE: Buffy, if you're in-- if you're in pain. Or if you need anything... If I can help you...BUFFY: You can't.SPIKE: Well, I haven't been to a Hell dimension just of late, but I know a thing or two about tormentBUFFY: I was happy.SPIKE: I don't ...BUFFY: Wherever I ... was ... I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time didn't mean anything, nothing had form... but I was still me, you know? And I was warm and I wasloved... and I was finished. Complete. I don't understand about dimensions or theology or any of ... but I think I was in heaven.


Spike stares, takes it in. She looks at him.BUFFY: And now I'm not.SPIKE: Buffy--BUFFY: I was torn out of there. My friendspulled me out. And everything here is bright and hard and violent. . . . Everything I feel, everything I touch...this is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that ... knowing what I've lost ...She's said too much. He's speechless as she rises, starts out of the alley. She pauses, not even looking back.BUFFY: They can never know. Never.


“Once More with Feeling,” BtVS 6.7


There was no painNo fear, no doubt‘Til they pulled me out of heavenSo that’s my refrainI live in hell‘Cause I was expelled from HeavenI think I was in Heaven.

--Buffy in “Once More with Feeling”


“That's what I was raised with. As much as I learned Greek myths and as much as I read Marvel Comics and watched The Prisoner, I grew up around Christianity and Judaism and those are the prevalent myths and mythic structures of my brain.”

--Joss Whedon (Miller, “The Man Behind the Slayer”)


Joss Whedon’s Faith• In “chosen” families• In empowered women• In the power of story and the imagination


Faith in:

Chosen Families


Faith in: Empowered Women


Empowered Potentials in

“Chosen” (BtVS 7.22)

Faith in:

Empowered Women


“I am the fan that gets to have the most fun. I get to walk the set every day. I totally get to be there when the story's broken. I get to do all of the fun bits. Every day is fan day for me. That's who I am. I'm the fan that got the closest.”--Joss Whedon

Faith in:

The Power of Story and Imagination


“There’s a religion in narrative.”--Joss Whedon

Faith in:

The Power of Story and Imagination


Joss: A Creative Portrait of the Maker of the Whedonverses

--David Lavery

I. B. Tauris/St. Martin’s (2011) ««éz


“I've had more luck than any 10 guys I know. I've been able to tell my story more than a few times, and that's the greatest gift. If I'm never given that gift again, I still will have had it, and I'm grateful for that. My gratitude has finally exceeded my rage by a good, long margin, and when I wake up in the morning with my work and my family, gratitude is the thing that guides me, not rage.”--Joss Whedon

Amor fati: “Love your fate”--Nietzsche



Thanks to Hillary Robson

"I think I was in heaven": Joss Whedon's Atheist Faith David Lavery

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