Joss Whedon e le religioni

http://www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Joss_Whedon

On December 15, 1998 the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" official posting board,
series creator Joss Whedon provided some background on an episode of the
show which featured some religious themes:

[...] Was it God? Well, I'm an atheist, but it's hard to ignore the idea of
a "christmas miracle" here (though the PRAY on the marquee was an
unintentional coincidence). The fact is, the Christian mythos has a
powerful fascination to me, and it bleeds into my storytelling. Redemption,
hope, purpose, santa, these all are important to me, whether I believe in
an afterlife or some universal structure or not. I certainly don't mind a
strictly Christian interpretation being placed on this episode by those who
believe that -- I just hope it's not limited to that.

From an 09-Oct-2002 Onion AV Club article titled Is There A God? [1]:

Joss Whedon is the creator/producer of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and
Firefly.

The Onion: Is there a God?

Joss Whedon: No.

O: That's it, end of story, no?

JW: Absolutely not. That's a very important and necessary thing to learn.

In the writer/director commentary track to Episode 16 of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer Season 5 (The Body), Joss makes the following remarks concerning his
characters' responses to death and mourning in general: "...at this time a
lot of people turn to, as Tim Minear would call him, The Sky Bully, but
since I don't believe in The Sky Bully, and don't really have that to fall
back on, I haven't really found any lessons in death other than I wish it
wouldn't."

In the commentary track to the Firefly episode, "Objects in Space," Whedon
mentions that he came to the realization that he had no faith. He then goes
on to describe how the themes of the episode, the physicality of things
(and people) and their relationships to each other, how this materialism
relates to human action and interaction. He also quotes from an Angel
episode that if nothing we do in this world matters, then the only thing
that matters is what we do.

Perhaps someone can flesh this description out? I wrote this from memory
while at work...

The whole episode seems to be a nod to existentialism and phenomenalism,
particuarly the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Joss makes a couple of
references to one of Sartre's works, Nausea, and - to quote the episode -
how people "...miss out on what's solid, the substance of things... objects
in space." He talks about how objects are so vividly real, referring to the
bouts of nausea suffered by the main character in Sartre's work, and that
this realness is what Sartre meant with his idea of "existence precedes
essence". Objects are real, existing in and of themselves, with no higher
order giving essence to them. This leaves open the idea that the essence of
an object is what we bring to it - in a larger sense, that the essence of
life is what we bring to it, not something predetermined or higher order.
Joss displayed this (damn cleverly, I didn't notice half of the things in
this episode until I watched the commentary...) with River picking up
Jayne's gun and seeing a branch, something harmless. In her hands, around
her friends, that's what the gun is, that's what she brings to it, in that
situation that is its essence. Morally, this is where the Angel quote comes
in, our acts exist, not driven or judged by a moral law or a divine order,
and so they are what we bring to them. In short, what people do matters.
And it matters because it really doesn't. "If there's no great glorious end
to all this, if nothing we do matters� then all that matters is what we
do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today." I think the
message is that we almost have to make our acts mean something, because
otherwise we're left with the gaping abyss of nothingness, which is - as
Sartre would put it - anguish. Can't speak for Joss, but Sartre was arguing
against determinism, of all kinds, anything that would place a constraint
on human spirit and consciousness. It's possible that God or religion could
be conceived of as such - religion is almost always deterministic. We use
it as an escape route from the horrifying nothingness that we'd have to
face in place of it. Sartre coined the term "bad faith" to describe this,
suggesting that it was a fallacy - through our immense freedom, we choose
to perceive that we are bound by some objective moral code, or to a God,
when really we are just doomed to freedom.

I also realise I just went off on one a bit. I'm very sorry.

In a Q&A-session while promoting his movie Serenity, Whedon was asked:
"What do you have against being a Christian?" He answered:

I don't actually have anything against anybody, unless their belief
precludes everybody elses. I am an atheist and an absurdist and have been
for many, many years. I've actually taken a huge amount of flak for that.
People who have faith tend to think that people who don't don't have a
belief system and they don't care if they make fun of them. It's actually
very difficult: Atheists are as a group not really recognised by the
American public as people to be taken seriously. This does not mean that I
rail against religion, however the meaning of life and the meaning of what
we do with our lifes is something that is extremely important to me. I have
included characters from many different religions particularly in
[Firefly], but also in the other shows as well, because I'm interested in
the concept. I think faith is an extraordinary thing. I'd like to have
some, but I don't and that's just how that works. [...] There's one other
thing I would mention, which is from Angel actually: One of the few times I
really got to sort of say exactly what I think about the world was in the
second season of Angel, episode 16 ["Epiphany"] when he'd gone all dark,
because he does that, and hat he was getting better, and he basicly decided
-- he'd been told: "The world is meaningless, nothing matters." And he
said: "Well then, this is my statement: Nothing matters, so only thing that
matters is what we do." Which is what I believe: I believe the only reality
is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absense of any
grander scheme, not from the presense of any grander scheme. [...] So the
answer is: "Nothing, unless you've got something against me." 
-- 
Jolan Tru
Filippo "Hytok" Simone
http://perestroika.iobloggo.com/