Atheism in the DCU

In the comments to my JSA post, Phil posted something interesting:

I didn't like the Mister Terrific scene much. It read like dialogue written by a person who's never spoken to an intelligent atheist in his life. Johns' written him well before, so I'll be patient with this character arch, but I really hope it doesn't turn into Michael "filling that God-shaped hole in his heart".

Can't we have one pop culture atheist who's not either a self-centred misanthropic prick or a tragic soul who's "mad at God"?

This stuck with me over a few days so rather than replying in a comment, I thought I'd make a blogpost about it. Hope that doesn't offend you, Phil.

Anyway. On one hand I sympathize a lot. Atheist characters are already rare and it's difficult to see someone who shares your beliefs caricaturized. But there is an element to consider that makes the portrayal of atheist characters that aren't either self-centered pricks or tragic souls very difficult in the DCU...

Because in the DCU, there is clear evidence of God/Gods. Wonder Woman was created by the Greek Gods and interacts with them on a semi-regular basis. Sand is favored by Dream of the Endless, who even stirred off his ass to get the JSA to save his champion's life. Supergirl (Matrix-version) became a celestial being. Zauriel was an angel. Etrigan and Neron tend to imply the existance of a god/gods/heaven as their opposites. Ragman and the Spectre definitely imply the Judeo-Christian deity's in place...and I'm sure I'm missing other examples.

I myself am not atheist, but I do think that atheism in our world is perfectly rational and reasonable. Neither the existance of a God/gods nor his/her/their acts have anything more than circumstantial evidence. If you're a person who requires proof, well then, it's perfectly logical to not believe in that sort of thing.

But the DCU HAS a god/gods. Many of them even. And witnesses and evidence. People can communicate with celestial beings. Mr. Terrific himself had interaction with the Spectre, if I recall correctly. So to be an atheist as we define it is probably not very rational in that world and requires a certain measure of defiance of certain elements of (their) reality. There needs to be an element fuelling the defiance. Be it misanthropic anger or tragic angst.

Actually, thinking about it. I think there is a way to rationally be an atheist in the DCU, though I think it does blur the line a bit between atheism and agnosticism. But it might be logical for DCU-atheist to accept that there are "god" and "gods" but doubt that those figures are more than just extremely powerful human-types. After all, how do you define "God" anyway? I don't recall seeing this perspective pop up in any of the atheism/religion discussions in comics yet, but I could very well be misremembering. That would be a way to be an atheist character without the character needing some sort of anger/tragedy fuelling their disbelief.