immortal eskimo

29th Jun 2020

The Good Place (2016)

Answer: While the show does explore life after death, the show creators intentionally avoided using many religious terms and beliefs, such as heaven, hell, or God. While one could draw parallels of the Good Place and the Bad Place to heaven and hell, in the show that's not what they're meant to be.

Bishop73

Thank you. It just means, to me, they're atheists.

Rob245

Not sure you can infer them being atheists just because they do not use the terms, "Heaven" and "Hell." Those are mostly traditional Christian concepts. Many religions have different beliefs of what the afterlife is.

raywest

Well you couldn't really call them atheist because atheists don't believe in any type of afterlife or any deities. The "good place" and "bad place" are merely broader terms that could include most belief systems.

immortal eskimo

Answer: They actually do use those terms, in one episode, when Eleanor starts crying Chidi states he broke God and, there is another episode where someone, I believe Chidi says, we're in heaven. Though not saying those words does not make them atheist, it is stated in the first episode that every religion specifically Christians were a little bit right... So when they got to the good place after learning it is really called the good place it makes no sense to call it something else.

2nd Apr 2019

The Good Place (2016)

What's My Motivation - S1-E11

Corrected entry: In this episode we learn that to earn points Eleanor needs to have the correct motivation, and doing good things so that she can get into the good place is having corrupt motivations. However when we meet Doug in a later episode he's shown to be a "model human" yet everything he does is so that he doesn't go to the bad place. This doesn't make sense, as his motivations should be corrupt by knowing about the good place at all.

deadexcel

Correction: I disagree, I think that because his theories weren't confirmed, he has the same chance of getting in as anyone else. There are plenty of other people that do good things because they want better treatment in the afterlife.

The episode makes it clear that Doug is convinced his theory is correct and he even says something along the lines of "I need to do good to get into the good place" (not a direct quote). To Doug his theory is confirmed and that should be enough to corrupt his motivations.

deadexcel

I agree. Doug's motivations for doing good things, are based on the belief that doing good things gets him into the good place. But that's all it is, a belief. Eleanor actually knows the truth and it's only after death, and after the fear of eternal torture, that she tries to be a better person. As for Doug's point total, I think he was so focused on not losing points that he became a passive hermit who rarely did anything. And by not doing anything, there were very few options to earn points.

immortal eskimo

Correction: Which explains why, as we later find out, his point total is nowhere near good enough to reach the Good Place. His good deeds are offset by his corrupted motivations.

That's not what happened at all. His good deeds aren't off-set by corrupt motivations, they're off-set by unintended consequences of good actions, which is why nobody was getting into the Good Place. Doing a good thing, like buying flowers for a loved one gave the expected positive points, but earned negative points for everything associated with the farming, raising, and selling of the flower.

Bishop73

No, Shaun said that because the good place was impossible to get in and it even said no-one arrived at the good place in 500 years.

Correction: The reason Eleanor's motivation is corrupt and not Doug's is because Eleanor was already dead, and knew definitely of the consequences. Though Doug's theory was correct he had no way of knowing what would truly happen if he didn't do good. It is the same with other religions, though Doug was correct in his theory, it still was only a theory that could not be proven. He went to Doug because he knew for certain Doug would be the one person on Earth whose points should have been extremely high.

Except Tahani went to the Bad Place despite all the good she did because her motivations were corrupt. Her corrupt motivations shouldn't have been a factor if it's not a factor for Doug. And Tahani wasn't even trying to get into the Good Place like Doug was.

Bishop73

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