Recently, I came across an article (archive here) about the evolution of the horror genre in film. While the article is from 2000, and I’m not a horror fan myself, one point stuck with me: how scientific materialism, rather than an understanding of good and evil, became dominant in horror filmmaking, starting with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.
In the materialist worldview, the universe came into being by random chance, and so did the Earth and humanity. Said Earth and humanity are just insignificant bits of matter in a vast cosmos; if we were to vanish tomorrow, the universe will simply go on as before, and no other lifeform — if they even exist — would notice. There’s no meaning to anything, and thus notions of good and evil, of virtue and vice, make no sense. This worldview is dominant in most learned circles today. But how did people arrive at such a horrifying worldview? They would tell you that they’re just smart enough to grasp “reality,” unlike those stupid Christians and their invisible friend the Sky Daddy.
I think it’s simpler than that. Keep in mind how this worldview was sold.
