Basic Trope: A religious character will believe in anything supernatural, while an atheist, an agnostic, or a skeptic refuses to believe in anything supernatural.
- Straight:
- Alice is religious, and generally believes in supernatural phenomena like aliens and UFOs.
- Bob is non-religious, and refuses to believe in anything supernatural.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice believes in absolutely everything that she is told, even if it is obviously a lie.
- Bob is an über-skeptic and refuses to believe absolutely anything without a mountain of proof.
- Every character in the work is on one side or the other; there is no one in between.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is religious, and is somewhat open to the possibility of supernatural phenomena.
- Bob is non-religious and believes various paranormal stories, but refuses to take a side on whether it's supernatural or mundane without more proof.
- Justified: Both types boil down to, "If God exists (or doesn't exist), then what else must (or must not) exist?"
- Inverted:
- Alice believes in a higher power, but steadfastly refuses to believe in supernatural phenomena.
- Bob is willing to believe in anything except the existence of a higher power.
- Charles believes in magic and dragons but not unicorns.
- Subverted:
- When someone approaches Alice with a ghost story, she brushes them off with "that's a bunch of bunk".
- When someone approaches Bob with a ghost story, he listens in and offers his own story.
- Double Subverted:
- ...But she was in front of her church friends and was putting on airs. When she's approached in private, she actively listens and offers her own story.
- At the end of his ghost story, Bob laughs and says, "You didn't think I was being serious, did you?"
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: One character switches from first-type instance to second-type and back in different scenes.
- Averted:
- Every character in the work believes in some supernatural or paranormal entities, but not others. For example, Alice is religious but doesn't believe in aliens or UFOs.
- The characters' beliefs are never dealt with anywhere in the work.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded:
- "Look, Alice. Just because there's a God doesn't mean that every conceivable supernatural or paranormal phenomenon must exist out there. You have to stop believing in fairy tales."
- "There can't be aliens, because there's no God." "That's ridiculous, Bob. There is a God, and there are aliens."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "So Alice believes in Jesus and aliens, and Bob doesn't believe in either one? Maybe opposites really do attract!"
- Played For Laughs: God appears and tells Alice and Bob, "Just so we're clear, there are no aliens. Earth is the only planet with life on it." Neither of the two believes Him: Alice believes that aliens must exist somewhere in the universe, and Bob believes that it could not really have been God.
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