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.
Scientific materialism, which goes hand in hand with atheism, was sold as the ultimate liberty and the path to secular Heaven. You no longer had to follow all these religious prohibitions on sex and drugs — you could do whatever you wanted, and no one was going to toss a lightning bolt at you for it! Also, look at all this neat tech — priests didn’t build it, smart guys who saw through the priests’ flimflam artistry did, and they made your life good and your country strong and wealthy! We were going onwards and upwards, and we didn’t need some magical man in the sky to help us, just our own ingenuity. When humanity stands strong and people reach out for each other, there’s no need for gods. LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!
Then, the good times didn’t roll anymore.
By now, generations were raised to mock God. Creation was just a fairy-story made up by ignorant dullards; we knew that everything came about by chance. After all, that’s why we could smoke and fornicate all we wanted. Our behaviors didn’t matter, because we were just dust in the cosmos. Everything is collapsing; the shiny scientific utopia was not meant to be. Nothing will protect us. But we’re too smart to believe in God, so what to do?
Descend into nihilism. Hence, modern horror.
In a universe without God, where everything is at the mercy of blind physical forces and random chance, there’s no point to heroism or virtue. No matter what you do, you’ll be chewed up and spit out the same way, and your final destiny is to just rot in the ground (or in some animal’s stomach.) This worldview was sold to us as a way to get pleasure by indulging one’s appetites as much as possible, but it leads to a profound hopelessness.
The way I see it, it sets you up to fail.
If everything is random forces, you will only be confident when times are good and never when times are bad — which is when you need confidence most. You will accept the idea that might makes right — that those with the most power and wealth are the true arbiters of morality. What difference does it make that you stand against evil? It’s just a force of nature, an animal trying to survive just like you are.
Only naive morons think there is meaning to any of it.
When you put it this way, you can see scientific materialism for the sham that it is.
But what about its claim to “reality?” Remember that Christian societies lived through times with lots of random, senseless deaths, from plagues and natural disasters to wars and other violence. Yet they remained Christian not because they were “naive,” but because they understood that Earth was not Heaven. Nowhere did Jesus Christ promise an easy life for His people.
Those older societies retained hope and continued themselves onward, but our modern society abandons all hope because we want to indulge our passions. We deprive our posterity of the good, the beautiful, and the true because we want to look smart and sophisticated.
It’s best to sidestep that trap.
Agreed. Thank you for the post and the link (that article is fascinating).
I think I first started to notice scientific materialism back in the early 80’s and I think you put it well when you speak of the abandonment of Hope and its effects.
Trap indeed.
I’m glad you got something from it. I apologize for this late response; somehow, I didn’t get the notification.
When you really think about it, it’s easy to see how materialism can corrode the soul.