And the main character has this thought, like he always does:
"What kind of world allowed that to happen? Who was in charge? Obviously no one."
This sentiment is expressed in about 95% of the horror books I read. And I just shrug it off and keep reading, every time.
But this time, I was like "How does this prove that? When things were going well for you and you were happy and enjoying your life, did that prove that someone was in charge of the world? Did that prove that this was a good world?"
The shallow knee-jerk religious philosophy expressed here- and in just about every book by this author that I love- finally got on my nerves.
The question of "Why do bad things happen to good people?" is as old as time itself. Job's story is millennia old and its answers are cold comfort when you're in the midst of suffering.2
So I'm not gonna try to solve the problem of pain. Or try to defend my beliefs.3 Or even take issue with atheism.4
Let's just talk about atheism in horror fiction.
Now of course, there are horror authors that believe in something. To cite the horror elephant in the room, Stephen King repeatedly stated his belief in a Higher Power. He's way outnumbered, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atheist_authors. Not to mention horror legends Bentley Little, Robert M. Price, Jack Ketchum, Joe R. Lansdale, David Cronenberg, Robert E. Howard, F. Paul Wilson, Thomas Ligotti, and- I'm pretty sure- Brian Keene and Richard Laymon.
Whether God actually exists or not, why is atheism the genre's default position?
You probably have to start with Lovecraft. He was a staunch atheist.5 And his atheism permeated all his fiction- his cosmos, full of every monster and alien conceivable,6 was relentlessly rational. Mankind was nothing special. For him, we're an evolutionary accident that will be trodden down by the Elder Gods once they awaken. We're not even worthy of their contempt, we're just a trifle to exterminate so that they can fully dominate our world.7
The sense of hopeless dread permeates Lovecraft's work.8 And maybe the notion that no one is going to save you, no one's going to protect you, and there's nothing to look forward to when you die is just a notion that's a good fit for horror, where fear of the unknown and jangling of the nerves are the main attraction.9
Maybe a God-free existence where death is truly the end is just irresistible to horror. It raises the stakes. It puts you in the position of thinking that if you don't survive- you're done. Over. When a killer takes a life, that's it. The end. The victim no longer exists. God is not going to make it right. The cosmic scales of justice will never be tipped back into balance. Good and bad are arbitrary and it all comes out to what you make of it.10
So atheism makes sense from a narrative usefulness standpoint.
But to circle back to the initial point- a bad thing happening does not prove that there is no God, any more than a good thing happening proves that there is a God.11
There are a ton of great reasons not to believe in a higher power, but this is not one of them.
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1. This is his 22nd "Repairman Jack" novel and yes, I've read them all.
2. You know the stuff- God's testing you, appreciate the good things while you've got them, things can always get worse, suffering is something you just have to endure, etc.
3. Full disclosure: I believe.
4. Full disclosure: Many of my friends are atheists. And they never, ever bug me about being religious and they pretty much never evangelize. They're nice people who would be the same nice people if they were Lutheran or Muslim. I have zero beef with unbelief.
5. He was also racist, sexist, xenophobic, and socially awkward. He's not the best example if you're looking for moral or spiritual guidance.
6. And inconceivable!
7. The idea that Lovecraft's creatures hate us is a misunderstanding of his mythos based more on the authors that followed in his footsteps- especially August Derleth- than anything he actually said or wrote.)
8. And often causes Lovecraft's protagonists to faint.
9. Stephen King proposed a notion of the afterlife in his recent novel, "Revival," that's even grimmer than anything Lovecraft wrote. SPOILER ALERT: In that book- when we die, no matter what we did with our lives, we end up being slaves to hideous oversize insect creatures in a desolate landscape for eternity. Bummer.*
10. Of course, atheism can be exhilarating, too. The notion of controlling your own destiny, defining yourself purely on your own, and finding or creating meaning independent of any preexisting doctrine or philosophy are all worthwhile pursuits for a life without God. But in terms of horror, you have to look at atheism in terms of its utility. Does it make things scarier? If so- it's probably a helpful tool.
11. Also- "God didn't answer me immediately when I prayed for the first time in my life, so that proves he's not there!" Not a valid argument, either. Lookin' at you, Brian Keene's otherwise excellent novel "Terminal."
12. This goes for religious authors, as well- if your character's a Christian just like you, don't bother us with that unless it's actually essential to the plot. You're annoying the people who disagree with you, and you're just distracting the choir that you're preaching to.
*Footnote to a footnote- a mini-review of "Revival," since it's relevant to our topic. With its nightmarishly despairing glimpse of the next world, it took Stephen King 400 pages to do what "Torchwood" did in the opening sequence of its first episode.
King plays with "De Vermis Mysteriis"- a legit but less popular fictional tome than "The Necronomicon"- and has some mythos-y stuff go on, but when you've read as much mythos fiction as I have, 380 pages of buildup followed by a brief glimpse of a blank landscape with crumbling buildings and slave-driving giant ants isn't that impressive.
The core of the book is also this atheist screed that's
basically:
1) People can be awful. (Agreed)
2) People believe different things. (Agreed)
3) People do bad things. (Agreed)
4) Therefore God doesn't exist.
Bah. I think point 1 cancels out points 2 and 3. People
lying to each other or being fanatical about their beliefs or committing
atrocities has more to do with their being awful people than about whether or
not God exists. I always thought bad things happening to good people was a
pretty weak excuse for not believing. This book really forces the issue in a
clumsy, adolescent way.
New rule- it's only impressive if a character is a) an atheist
who's happy, lived a charmed life, has a healthy relationship with his family
and friends, and no real reason to complain OR b) a believer who's been through
the grinder and been cheated on, had loved ones die before their time, been
abused, etc. I'm officially "meh" on traumatized atheists and
charmed-life theists. Losing your faith under pressure isn't interesting and
keeping your faith when your faith is never really challenged is meaningless.
-Phony McFakename
-Phony McFakename
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