Editing Misotheism (section)

==In art and literature==
Misotheistic and/or dystheistic expression has a long history in the arts and in literature. [[Bernard Schweizer]]'s book ''Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism'' is devoted to this topic. He traces the [[history of ideas]] behind misotheism from the [[Book of Job]], via [[Epicureanism]] and the twilight of Roman [[paganism]], to [[deism]], [[anarchism]], [[Nietzsche]]an philosophy, [[feminism]], and radical [[humanism]]. The main literary figures in his study are [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]], [[Algernon Swinburne]], [[Zora Neale Hurston]], [[Rebecca West]], [[Elie Wiesel]], [[Peter Shaffer]], and [[Philip Pullman]]. Schweizer argues that literature is the preferred medium for the expression of God-hatred because the creative possibilities of literature allow writers to simultaneously unburden themselves of their misotheism while ingeniously veiling their blasphemy.<ref>Bernard Schweizer, ''Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism'' (2010).</ref>

Other examples include:

* [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]'s ''[[Prometheus (Goethe)|Prometheus]]''{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}
* the work of the [[Marquis de Sade]]<ref>Iwan Bloch, ''Marquis De Sade: His Life and Works'' (2002), p. 216.</ref>
* [[Emily Dickinson]]'s poem "Apparently With No Surprise" depicts God as approving of suffering in the world, relating the tale of a flower "beheaded" by a late frost as the sun "measure[s] off another day for an approving God".{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}
* [[Mark Twain]] (himself a Deist) argued against what he saw as the petty God many followed in a posthumously published book, ''The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven, Eden, and the Flood''. He talks, in part, about the African "sleeping sickness", [[malaria]].{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}
* [[Ivan Karamazov#Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov|Ivan Karamazov]] in [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]]'s 1879 ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'' articulates what might be termed a dystheistic rejection of God. Koons covered this argument in the [https://web.archive.org/web/20071203201814/http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/356/lec20.html lecture immediately following] the one [https://web.archive.org/web/20071203180444/http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/356/lec19.html referenced above]. It was also discussed by [[Peter S. Fosl]] in his essay titled "[https://web.archive.org/web/20041031200636/http://www.philosophers.co.uk/portal_article.php?id=23 The Moral Imperative to Rebel Against God]".
* Konrad, the protagonist of [[Adam Mickiewicz]]'s ''[[Dziady (poem)|Forefathers' Eve]]'', is close to calling the God a [[tsar]], an ultimate evil (since when Mickiewicz wrote his work, Poland was under Russian occupation). He wants to do that, because God didn't respond to his pleas about giving him the power to rule over people's emotion. He loses his strength, and Satan does it for him.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

In more recent times, the sentiment is present in a variety of media:

===Poetry and drama===
The characters in several of [[Tennessee Williams]]' plays express dystheistic attitudes, including the Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon in ''[[The Night of the Iguana]]''.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

[[Robert Frost]]'s poem "Design" questions how God could have created death if he were benevolent.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

[[Peter Shaffer]]'s play ''[[Amadeus (play)|Amadeus]]'' (1979) has the character [[Antonio Salieri|Salieri]] rebel against a God he feels neglected and humiliated by.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

In Jewish author [[Elie Wiesel]]'s play ''[[The Trial of God]]'' (1979), the survivors of a [[pogrom]], in which most of the inhabitants of a 17th-century Jewish village were massacred, put God on trial for his cruelty and indifference to their misery. The play is based on an actual trial Wiesel participated in that was conducted by inmates of the [[Auschwitz]] [[concentration camp]] during the [[Nazism|Nazi]] [[holocaust]], but it also references a number of other incidents in Jewish history including a similar trial conducted by the [[Hasidic]] [[Rabbi]] [[Levi Yosef Yitzhak of Berdichev]]:{{blockquote|Men and women are being beaten, tortured and killed. True, they are victims of men. But the killers kill in God's name. Not all? True, but let one killer kill for God's glory, and God is guilty. Every person who suffers or causes suffering, every woman who is raped, every child who is tormented implicates Him. What, you need more? A hundred or a thousand? Listen, either he is responsible or he is not. If he is, let's judge him. If he is not, let him stop judging us.{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}}}}

In Alan Parker's Oscar-winning 1980 feature film ''[[Fame (1980 film)|Fame]]'', one of the main characters (played by Barry Miller) makes an explicit statement against God. Playing an aspiring stand-up comedian who is asked in an acting class to talk about an experience that has affected him deeply in order to sharpen his skills as a performer, he delivers an extended uncut monologue (rare for a mainstream Hollywood film at that time) that heavily criticizes both modern capitalism and religion, concluding with the line "and then we can all go pray to the asshole God who fucked everything up in the first place".{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

===Modern literature===
Several non-Jewish authors share Wiesel's concerns about God's nature, including [[Salman Rushdie]] (''[[The Satanic Verses]]'', ''[[Shalimar the Clown]]''){{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} and [[Anne Provoost]] (''In the Shadow of the Ark''):
{{blockquote|Why would you trust a God that doesn't give us the right book? Throughout history, he's given the Jewish people a book, he's given the Christians a book, and he's given the Muslims books, and there are big similarities between these books, but there are also contradictions. ... He needs to come back and create clarity and not ... let us fight over who's right. He should make it clear. So, my personal answer to your question, "Should we trust [a God who can't get things right]", I wouldn't.<ref>Transcript of [https://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/faithandreason104_print.html interview] with Anne Provoost by [[Bill Moyers]] for his "Faith and Reason" PBS TV series</ref>}}

The writing of [[Sir Kingsley Amis]] contains some misotheistic themes; e.g. in ''[[The Green Man (Kingsley Amis novel)|The Green Man]]'' (God's appearance as the young man), and in ''[[The Anti-Death League]]'' (the anonymous poem received by the chaplain).{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

===Speculative fiction===
{{Unreferenced section|date=September 2018}}

A number of [[speculative fiction]] works present a dystheistic perspective, at least as far back as the works of [[Lovecraft Mythos|H. P. Lovecraft]] and [[Olaf Stapledon]]'s influential philosophical [[short novel]] ''[[Star Maker]]''.

By the 1970s, [[Harlan Ellison]] even described dystheism as a bit of a [[science fiction]] cliché. Ellison himself has dealt with the theme in his "[[The Deathbird]]", the title story of ''[[Deathbird Stories]]'', a [[short story collection|collection]] based on the theme of (for the most part) malevolent modern-day gods. [[Lester del Rey]]'s "[[Evensong (short story)|Evensong]]" (the first story in Harlan Ellison's much-acclaimed ''[[Dangerous Visions]]'' anthology), tells the story of a fugitive God hunted down across the universe by a vengeful humanity which seeks to "put him in his place". "[[Faith of Our Fathers (short story)|Faith of Our Fathers]]" by [[Philip K. Dick]], also from the same anthology, features a horrifying vision of a being, possibly God, who is all-devouring and amoral. [[Philip Pullman]]'s previously mentioned trilogy, ''[[His Dark Materials]]'', presented the theme of a negligent or evil God to a wider audience, as depicted in the 2007 film ''[[The Golden Compass (film)|The Golden Compass]]'' based on the first book of this trilogy.

The original series of [[Star Trek: The Original Series|''Star Trek'']] featured episodes with dystheistic themes, amongst them "[[The Squire of Gothos]]", "[[Who Mourns for Adonais?]]", "[[For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky]]", and "[[The Return of the Archons]]". In "[[Encounter at Farpoint]]", the pilot episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', Captain [[Jean-Luc Picard]] informs [[Q (Star Trek)|Q]], a [[trickster]] with god-like powers similar to the antagonist in the aforementioned "Squire of Gothos" episode, that 24th-century humans no longer had any need to depend upon or worship god figures. This is an amplification of the tempered anti-theistic sentiment from "Who Mourns for Adonais?", in which Captain [[James T. Kirk]] tells [[Apollo]] that "Mankind has no need for gods, we find the one quite adequate." A later episode, "[[Who Watches the Watchers]]", depicts accidentally reviving theistic belief in a more primitive species as a negative thing which must be stopped. In ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' it is revealed that the Klingon creation myth involves the first Klingons killing the gods that created them because, "They were more trouble than they were worth."

In the film ''[[Pitch Black (film)|Pitch Black]]'', anti-hero protagonist Richard B. Riddick stated his own belief, after an [[imam]] accuses him of [[atheism]]: "Think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God... and I absolutely hate the fucker."

[[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s book ''[[Job: A Comedy of Justice]]'', which is mostly about religious institutions, ends with an appearance by Yahweh which is far from complimentary.

The Athar, a fictional organization from the [[Faction (Planescape)|D&D's Planescape Campaign Setting]] denies the divinity of the setting's deities. They do, however, tend to worship "[[Deism|The Great Unknown]]" in their place. In the ''[[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|Pathfinder]]'' universe, the nation of Rahadoum bans the worship of the setting's deities. They do not deny the deities' power or divinity, but instead believe that worshiping a deity is akin to enslaving ones' self and that mortals' problems are best solved without the interference of higher powers.

In the 2013 film ''[[Prisoners (2013 film)|Prisoners]]'', Holly Jones and her husband Isaac lost their faith in God after their son died of cancer. Since then, they have been kidnapping and murdering children in order to make other parents lose faith in God and turning them into revenge-driven hollow shells of their former selves, i.e. spreading their misotheism to other people. As Holly Jones states to Keller Dover near the end of the film: "Making children disappear is the war we wage with God. Makes people lose their faith, turns them into demons like you."

In the [[DC Extended Universe]] film ''[[Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice]]'', [[Lex Luthor]] has a misotheistic view of God, believing that if God was omnipotent, then he logically could not be omnibenevolent and vice versa (the theological [[problem of evil]]), thereby solidifying his belief that power cannot be innocent. He has a penchant for constantly implementing allusions to major figures of both pagan and biblical theology, with him notably comparing himself to Prometheus, [[General Zod]] to [[Icarus]], and [[Superman]] to [[Zeus (DC Comics)|Zeus]], [[Horus]], [[Apollo]], [[Presence (DC Comics)|Jehovah]] and [[Lucifer (DC Comics)|Satan]]. He even compares himself to the biblical God in one way, claiming to hate "the sin, not the sinner", and plays God by creating the monster [[Doomsday (DC Comics)|Doomsday]].

In the [[Luke Cage season 1|season 1]] of ''[[Luke Cage (TV series)|Luke Cage]]'', [[Diamondback (Willis Stryker)|Willis Stryker]]'s misotheism seemed to enforce his revenge mission against his half-brother [[Luke Cage]], quoting several Bible verses that directly link to Lukes's supposed betrayal against Stryker. The Judas Bullet was designed to symbolize this act of treachery; stating "one Judas to another" before shooting Luke in the abdomen and vowing to repeat the same words that [[Cain]] said to his [[Adam|father]] after killing [[Abel]] when he finally did kill Cage.

===Popular music===
''Misotheism'' is a 2008 [[album]] by Belgian [[black metal]] band ''Gorath''.

Dystheistic sentiment has also made its way into popular music, evincing itself in controversial songs like "[[Dear God (XTC song)|Dear God]]"<ref>[http://www.xtcidearecords.co.uk/lyrics/lyrics_details.php?trackid=125 "Dear God"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081211102657/http://www.xtcidearecords.co.uk/lyrics/lyrics_details.php?trackid=125 |date=2008-12-11 }}, performed by [http://www.xtcidearecords.com XTC] (written by [[Andy Partridge]])</ref> by the band [[XTC]] (later covered by [[Sarah McLachlan]]) and "[[Blasphemous Rumours]]"<ref>[http://archives.depechemode.com/lyrics/blasphemousrumours.html "Blasphemous Rumours"], performed by [http://www.depechemode.com Depeche Mode] (written by Martin L. Gore)</ref> by [[Depeche Mode]], which tells the story of a teenage girl who attempted suicide, survived, and turned her life over to God, only to be hit by a car, wind up on life support, and eventually die. A good deal of [[Gary Numan]]'s work, specifically the album ''Exile'', is laden with misotheistic themes.

The output of Oscar-winning songwriter/composer [[Randy Newman]] also includes several songs expressing dystheistic sentiment, including the ironic "[[He Gives Us All His Love]]" and the more overtly maltheistic "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)",<ref>[http://www.randynewman.com/tocdiscography/disc_sail_away/tocdiscography/disc_sail_away/lyricssailaway#godssong "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061113234311/http://www.randynewman.com/tocdiscography/disc_sail_away/tocdiscography/disc_sail_away/lyricssailaway |date=2006-11-13 }}, performed by [http://www.randynewman.com/ Randy Newman] (written by Randy Newman)</ref> both from his acclaimed 1972 album ''[[Sail Away (Randy Newman album)|Sail Away]]''. In the latter song, Newman bemoans the futility of dealing with God whose attitude towards humanity he sees as one of contempt and cruelty.

The song "God Made" by [[Andrew Jackson Jihad]] proposes dystheism and has an implied hatred for God. More specifically, their song "Be Afraid of Jesus" is about a vengeful Christ although this could be a critique of fundamentalist hate speech.

"God Am" by [[Alice in Chains]] from their [[Alice in Chains (album)|self-titled album]] has many misotheistic themes about the perceived apathy of God towards the evil in this world.

"Godwhacker" by [[Steely Dan]] from their ''[[Everything Must Go (Steely Dan album)|Everything Must Go]]'' album developed from a lyric frontman [[Donald Fagen]] wrote a few days after his mother died of Alzheimer's. "It's about an elite squad of assassins whose sole assignment is to find a way into heaven and take out God", he later explained. "If the Deity actually existed, what sane person wouldn't consider this to be justifiable homicide?"<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3jNqO2KB6EC&q=%22Godwhacker%22&pg=PT69|title=Eminent Hipsters|first=Donald|last=Fagen|date=22 October 2013|publisher=Penguin|via=Google Books|isbn=978-1-101-63809-5}}</ref>

In the song "Terrible Lie" by Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor expresses anger, confusion, and sadness towards God and the world he created.

"Judith" by A Perfect Circle is a satirical song that places blame on God for the illness of the lead singer's mother, Judith. Despite her deteriorating condition, Judith never questions why she has been placed in her predicament but instead continues to praise and worship God. Her son angrily mocks god and presents arguments as to why she shouldn't have to suffer.

Marilyn Manson's "Fight Song," "Say 10," and others have direct and indirect misotheistic themes.

American [[death metal]] bands [[Deicide (band)|Deicide]] and [[Morbid Angel]] base much of their lyrics around misotheism in name and in concept. Many bands in the [[black metal]] genre, such as [[Mayhem (band)|Mayhem]], [[Emperor (Norwegian band)|Emperor]], [[Gorgoroth (band)|Gorgoroth]] and [[Darkthrone]] express extreme misotheism in their lyrics.

===Modern art===
In 2006, Australian artist Archie Moore created a paper sculpture called "Maltheism", which was considered for a [[Telstra]] Art Award in 2006. The piece was intended as a representation of a church made from pages of the [[Book of Deuteronomy]]: {{blockquote|...and within its text is the endorsement from God to [[Moses]] for invasion of other nations. It says that you have the right to invade, take all their resources, kill all the men (non-believers) and make no treaty with them.<ref>From the educational resource pamphlet accompanying the presentation of the [http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/museums/magnt/education/pdf/natsiaa_education_resource.pdf 23rd Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060916122845/http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/museums/magnt/education/pdf/natsiaa_education_resource.pdf |date=2006-09-16 }}</ref>}}