I have watched every glee episode up to this one. So far, I absolutely love the show. But this episode is kind of horrible.
The atheist viewpoints depicted are by no means comprehensive (both Sue and Kurt are portrayed as missing something important, like their longing for something bigger, especially near the end. In reality, there are atheists that are very much at peace with themselves). While Sue's and Kurt's atheism origin story is by no means universally relatable (I think there are far more atheists that do not believe in God due to a lack of evidence than due to hardships in life), they do raise strong arguments against God's existence and against using the opportunity (grief) for trying to indoctrinate a student at school. The arguments are not debunked by any of the religous characters.
Quinn acted like a bigot and all of the students clearly crossed a line with their praying in the hospital when they knew Kurt didn't want that.
Except for calling them "mental patients" at one point, Kurt had nothing to apologize for. The others did. Kurt did not have a problem with the others being religious, he just wanted to stop them from shoving their ideologies down his throat.
My favorite character Emma calling Sue "arrogant" in this episode disappointed me, because while Sue is generally arrogant, of course, in this scene, she was not. She was right.
In the end, religion somehow "won" the fight, even without arguments. Just because. This really disapponted me intellectually, and I consider it bigoted. Intellectual diversity would have been nice. The opposing mindsets could have been portrayed as equal alternatives, at least. Maybe present one third of the students as theists, one third as skeptics and one third as atheists, with a few characters questioning their respective opinions at the end.
Review of Grilled Cheesus
