RE: Atheists and Horror Films
May 9, 2015 at 12:46 am
(This post was last modified: May 9, 2015 at 12:49 am by henryp.)
1) I think humans are designed to be spooked by the dark. Makes a ton of sense evolutionarily speaking, right? That's when stuff that's good at seeing at night comes out and eats stuff that isn't good at seeing at night.
B) Supernatural stuff is a vague world. I've encountered several atheists who aren't ready to give up on a lot of the 'unknown.' They say things like "Who knows what happens when you die!?" Or "Consciousness is something separate from the 1's and 0's pinging around in our brain." Both ideas that include things that as far as we know don't exist. So you open up the idea of things that don't exist existing, the door isn't really closed on them. If you don't think you know what happens when you die, it's hard to completely rule out some type of ghostlyness nonsense.
Thirdly, we haven't put the thought into it like we have with God. I think most of us have really hammered through the thought process of there being God, and reached a confident conclusion. Random supernatural stuff, however, (I'm guessing) most have given cursory thought at best. I don't believe in ghosts. But not nearly with the certainty I don't believe in God. And that's probably a lot due to the specificity of God. While generic supernaturalness casts a pretty wide net. Plus the threat of real people just murdering you for realsies adds something to the fear equation. Because there's almost certainly no monster in the closet. But it could be some maniac with a hatchet. I think the two threats can blend a bit.
Combining 1) with the thirdly point, the human mind evolutionarily speaking is built to expect threats from unseen places, and seeing a scary movie just triggers that response?
B) Supernatural stuff is a vague world. I've encountered several atheists who aren't ready to give up on a lot of the 'unknown.' They say things like "Who knows what happens when you die!?" Or "Consciousness is something separate from the 1's and 0's pinging around in our brain." Both ideas that include things that as far as we know don't exist. So you open up the idea of things that don't exist existing, the door isn't really closed on them. If you don't think you know what happens when you die, it's hard to completely rule out some type of ghostlyness nonsense.
Thirdly, we haven't put the thought into it like we have with God. I think most of us have really hammered through the thought process of there being God, and reached a confident conclusion. Random supernatural stuff, however, (I'm guessing) most have given cursory thought at best. I don't believe in ghosts. But not nearly with the certainty I don't believe in God. And that's probably a lot due to the specificity of God. While generic supernaturalness casts a pretty wide net. Plus the threat of real people just murdering you for realsies adds something to the fear equation. Because there's almost certainly no monster in the closet. But it could be some maniac with a hatchet. I think the two threats can blend a bit.
Combining 1) with the thirdly point, the human mind evolutionarily speaking is built to expect threats from unseen places, and seeing a scary movie just triggers that response?
