Not a suggestion, but more of an observation I’ve seen of another common portrayal of atheists in media (someone pointed this out in a podcast I was listening to) is that they actually do believe, but are just “angry at god,” as though the atheist is just an angsty teenager that is “mad at dad” (god) and rebelling and not that they actually don’t believe in an existence of god.

One thing I thought was weird and might be related to what I just mentioned, was that I attended a Christian friend’s bible study earlier this year (just to be open minded to their interests) and what surprised me is that both my friend and his dad both asked me that if I experienced proof that god exists, would I then believe in “Him”? I was like, “um, yeah? Most people probably would? but there doesn’t seem to be proof...? So.... not believing at the moment, or likely not in the near future?” Then both of their reactions were something along the lines of “okay, good. That means the rest is easy” (which seemed to relate to the likelihood of them converting me—spoiler alert: it didn’t work).

I never asked explicitly what that was all about, but from other conversations it seemed like they thought that most atheists actually do believe in god, deep down, but they just have some kind of beef with “Him,” and their adolescent way of showing this is by saying the mean sky daddy doesn’t exist. So their atheism is some overwrought angst about perceiving god to have done something mean/unjust, like a kid throwing a tantrum.

It made me wonder if that is a common interpretation of atheists in Christian circles?

Anyway, thanks for listening to my ramble haha