DrZoidberg
Contributor
Now in Covid times I decided to embark on the epic journey of reading every novel H.P. Lovecraft wrote or had a hand in writing, and it's given me a window into the minds of how the people thought at the turn of the last century.
Lovecraft is very much a product of his time. Lovecraft had read Nietzsche and had had the same horrifying insight, God doesn't exist, and not only doesn't the universe care about us, it's also trying to kill us.
The thinking of that time was very fear driven. The intellectuals of the day were trying to come up to alternative ideas and ideologies to cling to instead of God. I get the impression that people of that day were mostly unwilling nihilists. They all wanted and needed God to exist for their world views, they just couldn't reconcile what they knew about the world with an actual God existing.
Atheist thought has since moved on, and atheists today don't struggle with these thoughts at all. We seem to have accepted that a world without God will be fine. We don't need a God to have meaning.
Lovecraft invented the literary genre called "cosmic horror".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror
The driving force behind this horror is that there's forces out there more powerful than us, and they don't love us.
Especially quantum mechanics was troubling for Lovecraft. The fact that nothing is truly predictable and nothing is what it seems, really got under his skin. A lot of his stories are about this. On a superficial level, his stories are about the occult, and magic. But he always describes magic as a kind of science. Which people of his day often did. I'm not sure when magic in fiction turned into pure supernaturalism. But fiction in his day didn't seem to see it as supernatural. Just science we didn't understand yet.
But he's also trapped within a Christian mindset. A reoccuring horror is people trying to cheat death by prolonging their life through magical means. Which to modern minds, sounds perfectly fine. We wouldn't see that as an unforgivable sin. But Lovecraft, in spite of his atheism, seemed to. Which I think is very interesting. Why wouldn't we want to live as long as we can, and use whatever means we could?
The theory of evolution is also a major influence in his work. There's a lot of talk about tainted bloodlines, and superior and inferior genes. Yes, Lovecraft was a big fan of Hitler and agreed with his ideas on race. But has flipped the script on who's side God is on. Since the gods are a malevolent destructive force, he lets those who are of inferior genetic stock worship the real gods. While the superior people (ie white people) worship the fake gods. Which is quite a mindbending concept. He also has alien races settle on Earth and have them as our ancestors. Which is an awesome idea. As well as having them interbreed with us in horrifying ways (Shadow over Insmouth )
Most of us here are quite comfortable with our atheism and have no problems with asserting that humans created the gods (for whatever reasons). Yes, I'm willing to make that assumption So for us (or perhaps just me) the idea that new scientific ideas will influence our concepts of the supernatural is only to be expected. Today most Christians have incorporated ToE, Big Bang Theory and quantum mechanics into their world views, and it's business as usual. But it's not. We can see that Christianity today of course, barely resembles Christianity of 1920. The foundation is entirely different.
It wasn't so much a topic for discussion, as me just wanting to get this off my chest.
Who here also likes H.P. Lovecraft?
Lovecraft is very much a product of his time. Lovecraft had read Nietzsche and had had the same horrifying insight, God doesn't exist, and not only doesn't the universe care about us, it's also trying to kill us.
The thinking of that time was very fear driven. The intellectuals of the day were trying to come up to alternative ideas and ideologies to cling to instead of God. I get the impression that people of that day were mostly unwilling nihilists. They all wanted and needed God to exist for their world views, they just couldn't reconcile what they knew about the world with an actual God existing.
Atheist thought has since moved on, and atheists today don't struggle with these thoughts at all. We seem to have accepted that a world without God will be fine. We don't need a God to have meaning.
Lovecraft invented the literary genre called "cosmic horror".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror
The driving force behind this horror is that there's forces out there more powerful than us, and they don't love us.
Especially quantum mechanics was troubling for Lovecraft. The fact that nothing is truly predictable and nothing is what it seems, really got under his skin. A lot of his stories are about this. On a superficial level, his stories are about the occult, and magic. But he always describes magic as a kind of science. Which people of his day often did. I'm not sure when magic in fiction turned into pure supernaturalism. But fiction in his day didn't seem to see it as supernatural. Just science we didn't understand yet.
But he's also trapped within a Christian mindset. A reoccuring horror is people trying to cheat death by prolonging their life through magical means. Which to modern minds, sounds perfectly fine. We wouldn't see that as an unforgivable sin. But Lovecraft, in spite of his atheism, seemed to. Which I think is very interesting. Why wouldn't we want to live as long as we can, and use whatever means we could?
The theory of evolution is also a major influence in his work. There's a lot of talk about tainted bloodlines, and superior and inferior genes. Yes, Lovecraft was a big fan of Hitler and agreed with his ideas on race. But has flipped the script on who's side God is on. Since the gods are a malevolent destructive force, he lets those who are of inferior genetic stock worship the real gods. While the superior people (ie white people) worship the fake gods. Which is quite a mindbending concept. He also has alien races settle on Earth and have them as our ancestors. Which is an awesome idea. As well as having them interbreed with us in horrifying ways (Shadow over Insmouth )
Most of us here are quite comfortable with our atheism and have no problems with asserting that humans created the gods (for whatever reasons). Yes, I'm willing to make that assumption So for us (or perhaps just me) the idea that new scientific ideas will influence our concepts of the supernatural is only to be expected. Today most Christians have incorporated ToE, Big Bang Theory and quantum mechanics into their world views, and it's business as usual. But it's not. We can see that Christianity today of course, barely resembles Christianity of 1920. The foundation is entirely different.
It wasn't so much a topic for discussion, as me just wanting to get this off my chest.
Who here also likes H.P. Lovecraft?