I’d never seen the show enough to make the connection but Chris Sims makes a strong case that Scooby-Doo is like a morality tale for Secular Humanists (emphases his):
Because that’s the thing about Scooby-Doo: The bad guys in every episode aren’t monsters, they’re liars.I can’t imagine how scandalized those critics who were relieved to have something that was mild enough to not excite their kids would’ve been if they’d stopped for a second and realized what was actually going on. The very first rule of Scooby-Doo, the single premise that sits at the heart of their adventures, is that the world is full of grown-ups who lie to kids, and that it’s up to those kids to figure out what those lies are and call them on it, even if there are other adults who believe those lies with every fiber of their being. And the way that you win isn’t through supernatural powers, or even through fighting. The way that you win is by doing the most dangerous thing that any person being lied to by someone in power can do: You think.
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Not only does it embrace the idea of the gang seeking out the truth behind the crooks who prey on superstition, it does so to the extreme where they’re pit against an entire town of adults who lie to them. It’s particularly telling that Velma, who has always been the show’s most iconic thinker, is seen in direct conflict with her parents, who have a vested interest in keeping up the lie of Crystal Cove being a haunted town in order to sell their souvenirs. She ends up valuing the truth more than her own self-interest, and in the end, so does Fred, on a much more personal level.
There’s a lot of truth to that. After all, what scares you more? Frankenstein or a Christian pastor who thinks the Bible ought to be the playbook for your life? The former might send a temporary chill up your spine, but the latter permanently ruins lives by convincing so many people that he’s right, hurting their ability to think rationally, manipulating them into giving up their money (even when they don’t have any give), convincing them that people who don’t fall in line with the faith are eternally condemned, and persuading them to put their lives in control of an imaginary being instead of taking full control of it themselves.
(via Boing Boing)