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Scrooge’s Atheism & Certain Problems of Writing “Imaginative” Fiction

lyWas Scrooge an atheist? Was Dickens? I suspect that the small heads (evangelicals and some others) would argue that the character in the story was “at least” agnostic, pointing to old Ebenezer’s miserliness and his apparent blasphemy in turning “Merry Christmas” into “Bah! Humbug!” They might even argue that turning Christmas into a secular holiday is Scrooge-like, a joke considering most evangelicals are totally ignorant of the fact that “His” birthday once was that of Father Mithras, the religion Constantine sold out when, in 323 c.e., he convened his council of bishops (minus those he had slaughtered for their embrace of Arianism) and declared Christianity as the Official Religion of Rome. Gibbon showed how Christianity’s conquest of paganism played a prominent role in the decline and fall of the empire.

If anyone posited that Scrooge is the alter ego of the author, I would argue to the contrary, that Dickens was a devout fellow who only wished to use his protagonist as an exemplary, typical miserly blasphemer. Besides, there is absolutely nothing about Dickens to suggest that he would have resorted to hypocrisy to tell his tale. It would be hypocritical of an atheist (if not an agnostic) to employ supernatural means to bring about Scrooge’s transformation into the Christmas-loving benefactor of the Cratchit family for the last of his days. Anyone who has heard The Great Randi on supernatural phenomena knows how firmly convicted atheists are to the notion that ghosts, spirit travel, and such amount to nothing so much as pure bunk. Hokum.

This creates a problem for writers who would like to try imaginative fiction. I have such inclinations rather frequently, but each time some supernatural agent suggests itself, or some story line that depends upon supernatural means (as did the “Carol”), I immediately suppress my urge. Perhaps I am caught in the vestiges of a former lifetime (that is, the one I once lived as a believer), a period when I accepted not only ghosts but all manner of psychic phenomena. Perhaps I feel guilty about using supernatural elements because I no longer believe in that sort of thing. In any case, having such misgivings doesn’t help combat writer’s block. I stop before I can start.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Grace Fitzpatrick on September 1, 2011 at 11:57am

I read a lot of books by Tor, however, if you do not wish to deal with traditional publishers. you can always publish your book on Amazon and retain complete control.

You were talking about using elements of things of a supernatural nature in your writing. During my teen years, I worked cleaning a church and it was the scariest place I ever worked including the military. Empty churches are very creepy to me. The other day, I was watching Doctor Who episode where people where being killed by cement angels. Even though those stupid cement angels were just statues, that is about the most scary show I have ever seen. I have always found empty churches and those statues in churches really scary. At any rate, there is an example in popular art of using the supernatural without going into the woo woo of ghosts.

Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on September 1, 2011 at 6:25pm

I don't find them creepy at all, cause I do not go into them. I go into Cathedrals in Mexico because the art fascinates me; in fact, I am going up to Tepotzotlan in the State of Mexico north of the City this October to see their world famous museum of Viceroy Era art. All that gold paint and iconography. They break their own rules when they erect all those statuettes and put bleed Jesuses in glass coffins the better to enslave the congregation to the silliest tomfoolery in the history of the species. Fascinating. The churches are little museums of human foolishness.