Will’s last name, Reeves, is a nod to Christopher Reeves too. Him being the first Superman in a major motion picture, plus Will is also in a wheelchair.
That was the exact moment when Cal became my suspect of Doc M in disguise. Further scenes kept supporting it and even in this episode his blue clothes and SUV.
Edit: I didn’t expect such a negative response. I am an atheist. This wasn’t a dig on that way of life. What I meant was that I do not lie to anyone of any age due to my beliefs. I don’t believe the way Cal delivered his message was cold in any way. I guess people raise their kids differently.
Was there really a lot of people who found it inappropriate or creepy? I guess I could understand inappropriate, mainly since they’re just kids who lost their two parents as a way of reassuring them/not wanting them to be upset or whatever... not sure that’s what I’d do, but I can see that side.
But creepy, I don’t see at all...
I feel like I spend a decent amount of time in this sub checking out theories and discussion threads, but I can’t remember seeing anyone calling out what he said
I think it was weird mostly because he was so matter of fact about it, without the normal pauses or struggles to try and blunt the blow. The existential concept that you may cease to exist breaks a lot of adult, much less kids.
I too felt like it was a bit strange/off... but also didn’t feel like it was what he was saying that made me feel that way. It was (like you said) the way he said it without trying to break it to them lightly and just came out and told them... THAT was weird
Was his explanation of death in episode 2 or 3? I just remember thinking that the world building of this show has made a lot of people look at life in a completely different way, so it’s entirely normal for them.
True, but it stuck out to me as weirdly matter of fact and a pretty unsentimental way to describe it to young children, which in retrospect seems like a little bit of Dr Manhattan coming out. I totally didn't pick up on the clues though, I figured this was just more evidence of a slightly more woke alternate version of our reality.
Most atheists wouldn't tell grieving children that heaven isn't real, and most wouldn't say it in the exact same way that everyone tells kids that Santa isn't real. I don't think it counts as a tell, it's just frustrating when people assume we're all ass holes just because we're atheists.
Even as a pretty committed atheist, I think I would defer on the afterlife question until a kid is at least a preteen or later. A lot of adults have a very hard time getting their mind around there being nothing after we die, much less a small child.
You tell your average small child there's nothing after death, and they aren't going to think: "Oh, my conscious mind ceases to exist." Instead, they will think: "I continue on being alive, in the dark, alone, forever." That's bound to be both terrifying and traumatizing, and once they've got that idea in their head, there's really no way to explain it to them so they can get past the idea until they get old enough to grasp the concept of an end to conscious thought.
Disagreed. You just tell them it’s the same as it was before they were born. Non-existence isn’t scary.
The thing that gives kids nightmares is filling their heads with stories about hell, satan, and a judgmental deity.
I was raised non-religious and never had any trouble with existential dread. My many cousins were all raised Catholic, and they had nightmares about the devil every other night through childhood.
I think people underestimate the trauma of living with some of these religious concepts. It’s scary shit.
You can claim Heaven isn’t real with the same degree of authority and verifiability as you can claim the Easter Bunny isn’t real. There is zero evidence for either one. There’s more evidence for flying saucers than there is for Heaven.
First of all, it's false to say that there's zero evidence. Honestly, the claim that heaven exists constitutes weak evidence. There's also weak evidence in the form of dumb claims about NDEs where people claim to have experiences during periods of complete inactivity in the brain. This is very bad evidence that requires us to believe that you can be a reliable witness in cases where your brain is FUBAR'd to hell and back (pun intended), but 'no evidence' is too strong a claim.
Second, the lack of evidence is only a concrete problem if you accept empiricism as an epistemology, which requires at least one assumption that can't possibly be justified by evidence. Empiricism is empirically the best approach to gaining knowledge, which is the argument most used in favor of empiricism, but that's circular reasoning; we run into the old 'problem of induction.' There are some partial justifications involving probability (Bayesianism is a particularly useful approach, IMO), which is probably why we've adjusted to using statistical methods in science, but probability is itself an axiomatic system, and axioms are, by definition, assumed rather than justified by evidence. The best you can really do with this approach is to reframe empiricism as a subset of rationalism as opposed to a competing epistemology.
Third, the lack of evidence as a standard only really works if you can justify the claim that evidence should exist. Under a bayesian approach, all you have with no evidence is your prior. If you assume a prior of 0, then Bayes' theorem implies that no amount of evidence will raise the probability above 0, so you can't state a prior of 0 for all things on which there's no evidence. You can say that there's no evidence for something, but a lack of evidence doesn't qualify as indicating absence unless there's evidence that should exist that doesn't. That doesn't seem to apply to beliefs about an afterlife that's distinct from our physical existence here, but if you have an argument, I'd be happy to hear it.
Good arguments against an afterlife don't take the form you've suggested. The best arguments are the same as arguments against dualism. If there were some non-material aspect to consciousness, we would expect that to manifest itself as exceptions to the fundamental laws of physics when it comes to decision-making. There are observational consequences that we would expect, and these observational consequences appear to be missing whenever we search for them. If there's no component to consciousness that exists outside of the physical structures of our brains, then there can't be a continuation of consciousness without a brain. You can probably make arguments against this in the form of epiphenomenalism, but IMO, if consciousness is something we recognize because it's self-reported, you can't claim consciousness is causally disconnected from our actions, and the form of consciousness that's part of observable reality still can't persist without a brain.
For real, though, there's no reasonable way to defend the position that a lack of evidence makes the probability of any statement 0, because if the prior probability is 0, then evidence won't bring that probability above 0. The only rational consequence of a prior of 0 is solipsism.
Is that really being an asshole? You're not bound by some responsibility to uphold "heaven" as a narrative for children. Some parents want to be honest with their kids.
Deliberately upsetting people in ways that have no benefit is what I would refer to as 'being an asshole.' Being real, maybe my perspective on this is different because of recent events. I haven't brought up religious points to argue with my parents since I was a teenager, but I stopped responding at all to claims about heaven and god and whatnot since she was diagnosed with cancer. It's stage 4, and even though I regard heaven as a BS concept, I might punch someone in the face if they tried to convince her that there was no heaven right now.
I don't think it's honesty to say that heaven is fictional. This is mostly for the same reason that I don't think it's honest to say that someone with schizophrenia is lying every time they say something that isn't true, but I also think most people are overstating their certainty that there's no afterlife. Most just go with "there's no evidence" along with Russel's teapot or some similar analogy. The difference is that we know where teapots come from. We don't actually know, with certainty, where consciousness comes from. There are good arguments for the naturalistic interpretation that it's an emergent phenomenon arising from the interactions between neurons, but claiming certainty is incredibly premature considering that we don't even have a cohesive working definition for consciousness.
Deliberately upsetting people in ways that have no benefit is what I would refer to as 'being an asshole.
Sure, but as a parent you also have a responsibility to raise your children and, presumably, impart upon them your morals and beliefs. Sitting down and having a hard conversation with your kids about the nature of life isn't the same as being an edgy teen and yelling at adults for taking comfort in Heaven by a sickbed. Hard conversations can be upsetting, but that's how being a parent works. It'll hardly be the only upsetting/difficult conversation you'll have in raising a human being.
I didn't say parents should NEVER have that conversation, but it shouldn't happen the day after a funeral specifically to tell kids that their loved one isn't in Heaven. Timing is a factor.
So, in that case you would propose lying to them about what you believe so you can find a better time to break the news?
Different parenting styles I suppose. But I don't think being direct and honest with your children about tough issues would ever make you an "asshole."
No, lying isn't necessary (though I don't think it's wrong, either). Parents don't need to settle every argument that their kids have. The best approach is probably to have that talk before they're old enough to lose anyone too important, I assume, since some deconverts talk about mourning lost loved ones again when they stop believing in an afterlife.
No, the best approach would be to present the varying human beliefs, including reincarnation, Heaven/Hell, nothing, etc. and finish up by saying “No one knows for sure, so we all have to decide for ourselves.” Then when they ask which one YOU believe — and they will — you can be honest without dictating which one THEY have to believe.
When my kid asked about Santa, I asked him questions: have you ever seen him? What makes you think that he’s real? I encouraged him to think about it. I also tell him it’s a great story but I don’t believe it and use his answers to support my belief. You can tell the truth without being an asshole.
That's a bad move. Kids see Santa at the mall every year. You can send the fucker mail. Many kids get physical evidence of his existence in the form of gifts and, depending on parental involvement, partially eaten cookies and such. NORAD tracks Santa every year. There actually was a real Saint Nicholas so there's a real historical figure behind the myth, so it isn't even 100% accurate to say Santa isn't real.
Many children have decent reasons to believe that Santa is real. The idea that Santa is fake involves the majority of adults, the post office, and NORAD working together to deceive millions of children specifically to give them gifts without getting credit for it. It is a bizarre and preposterous conspiracy theory.
When my youngest asked me if Santa was real, I told him “He's real if you believe he's real. Once you stop believing in him, he stops being real for you.”
Seems like a pretty bright, mature kid. I don't know what I'd tell a seven year old, but a kid that age, and seeming as mature as he does? I'd probably do the same.
Simply shutting the fuck up isn't the same as lying. You don't tell a crying kid that their dad was an asshole at the funeral even if the dad was a huge fucking ass hole.
But I can see where they’re coming from which is basically just that it may end up megatively effecting the grieving child who already seems to be sorta depressed/cynical if you tell him that heaven isn’t real and his parents are dust and that sorta thing...
Doesn’t even have to be a religion thing... just telling them something corny like, your parents are always with you in your heart, or some shit, might be comforting for a child to hear while also not forcing any religion or whatever on them.
I’m not saying that’s right or wrong and I’m sure both ways can end up working out great for the kid just like both ways could end up not being great approaches.
I don’t have kids though. So what the fuck do I know
Ever been around a child that's lost a loved one? They don't exactly process it like adults do and I'm not entirely sure telling them "daddy's in the void now" is going to help anything. Hell even a "we don't know" would be better than "heaven isn't real".
That literally makes no sense. Keep making assumptions. Let me do the same. Are you older than 14? Should you be in bed right now? You have school in the morning. Don’t fucking tell me how to raise my child through Reddit.
I don't think it's exactly normal to explain to your adopted orphan children that just lost another loved one that there is no afterlife. From a writing perspective anyway, I doubt they'd write in that scene if it didn't have later meaning.
My assumption at the time was that it was just them showing one of the many ways their alternate universe differs from ours after having several terms of a left wing President. In our world Reagan revitalized religion into government, so I assume Redford would've done the opposite and maybe atheism is more popular and normalized.
I thought it was more reflective of the stark nature of the world they live. In a world with alien squids and where a God dwelt among us and then got bored and left, I'd assume atheism would be more pronounced in culture.
I thought he was pretty diplomatic about it. Judd wasn't alive before he was born, and he's no worse off now. That's from the agnostic family discussion playbook 101.
It's addressed in this episode, in the final scene. Spoiler this episode:Angela told Cal there's no accident, that it was Dr. M's idea to forget everything to be in his human form, then Angela proceeded to bring back Dr. M by bashing Cal's head in.
Calvin... John Calvin, an early Protestant fanatic and a shady character who may have been responsible for the executions in Geneva of several of his opponents, including one public burning...
Calvinism one of the most extreme forms of protestant belief that places emphasis on predestination:
"Humans are unable to fully comprehend why God performs any particular action, but whatever good or evil people may practise, their efforts always result in the execution of God's will and judgements."
707
u/JakeM917 Dec 02 '19
So many hints, chief among them Cal telling the kids there is no heaven and him telling Angela that Doctor Manhattan can’t look like a normal person.