After seeing the strip below, I wondered whether Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, was an atheist. It turns out that he was, or at least a “secular humanist.” This is a surprisingly strident cartoon for a family-oriented comic, but was it was actually published—on August 9, 1976.

From an interview with Schulz (link above):

Though his philosophical views evolved over the years–“The term that best describes me now is ‘secular humanist,'” he explained–his characters continued to quote biblical passages, occasionally musing about the darker inconsistencies of religion. These thoughtful reflections were never heavy-handed; rather, Schulz had become the reigning master of the lighter-than-air, spiritually resonant comic-strip koan. “I despise those shallow religious comics,” he said. “Dennis the Menace, for instance, is the most shallow. When they show him praying–I just can’t stand that sort of thing, talking to God about some cutesy thing that he’d done during the day. I don’t think Hank Ketcham [Dennis‘ creator] has any deep knowledge of things like that.”

h/t: Grania



