An alternate approach you can take is to look for fantasy movies where there are gods, but they’re treated more like Sufficiently Advanced Wizards, because they actually, demonstrably exist. There’s not a whole lot of difference between that sort of setting and a completely non-theistic one.
I’m having some trouble thinking of movies like that, though. I can think of books, like the Discworld series or most books set in a Dungeons and Dragons setting. I can think of webcomics, like Errant Story. I can think of a fair amount of anime and manga. The Stargate franchise definitely counts, and has a few movies (albeit mostly direct-to-DVD). I’m drawing a blank on movies, though.
(Come to think of it, Stargate SG-1 might count as straight-up atheistic; the “gods” are all godlike aliens on a megalomaniacal power-trip, and in one of the later seasons, the main villains are the gods of a religion that looks remarkably similar to Christianity in one of its violent old-school variants.)
SG-1 usually had a very anti-theist message, as long as you group all gods together, but the writers went out of their way at least once to exempt the Christian God when the earthborn characters wondered if God might be a goa’uld: “Teal’c: I know of no Goa’uld capable of showing the necessary compassion or benevolence that I’ve read of in your bible.”
However, the overall thrust of the show was pretty anti-diety, and the big bads of the last few seasons were very, very medieval-priestish.
SG-1 usually had a very anti-theist message, as long as you group all gods together, but the writers went out of their way at least once to exempt the Christian God when the earthborn characters wondered if God might be a goa’uld: “Teal’c: I know of no Goa’uld capable of showing the necessary compassion or benevolence that I’ve read of in your bible.”
The Christian God being a Goa’uld would break the theme anyway. They tended to divide up pantheons by species.
An alternate approach you can take is to look for fantasy movies where there are gods, but they’re treated more like Sufficiently Advanced Wizards, because they actually, demonstrably exist. There’s not a whole lot of difference between that sort of setting and a completely non-theistic one.
I’m having some trouble thinking of movies like that, though. I can think of books, like the Discworld series or most books set in a Dungeons and Dragons setting. I can think of webcomics, like Errant Story. I can think of a fair amount of anime and manga. The Stargate franchise definitely counts, and has a few movies (albeit mostly direct-to-DVD). I’m drawing a blank on movies, though.
(Come to think of it, Stargate SG-1 might count as straight-up atheistic; the “gods” are all godlike aliens on a megalomaniacal power-trip, and in one of the later seasons, the main villains are the gods of a religion that looks remarkably similar to Christianity in one of its violent old-school variants.)
SG-1 usually had a very anti-theist message, as long as you group all gods together, but the writers went out of their way at least once to exempt the Christian God when the earthborn characters wondered if God might be a goa’uld: “Teal’c: I know of no Goa’uld capable of showing the necessary compassion or benevolence that I’ve read of in your bible.”
However, the overall thrust of the show was pretty anti-diety, and the big bads of the last few seasons were very, very medieval-priestish.
The Christian God being a Goa’uld would break the theme anyway. They tended to divide up pantheons by species.
Not exactly. The Norse gods are different aliens, but the Goa’uld cover Egyptian gods, Shinto gods, etc.
Parts of it, but some characters are definitely Christian, especially the replacement for O’Neill.