Abstract
Midnight Mass (created by Mike Flanagan) is a Netflix limited series about a small fishing community on Crockett Island and the small Catholic Church that serves as the core of its religious life. A young priest takes over the parish, only to eventually be revealed as the elderly priest who spent his life running it – returned to youth by a creature that he thinks is an angel. He tries to do good for both God and islanders by having his churchgoers drink the creature’s blood – thus healing and making them young again – only for Crockett Island, in the end, to turn into a fiery bloodbath. Not at all a “jump scare” kind of “vampire” series, Midnight Mass is cerebral and deep and – I will argue – serves as an argument for atheism. Not only is the problem of evil articulated, but arguments are presented against belief in miracles, the supernatural, and the afterlife. To boot, it explains away religious belief and endorses the idea that religious faith is dangerous. Each of these arguments will be explored in turn.
Bibliography
Bitzer, Lloyd F. 1998. The ‘Indian prince’ in miracle arguments of Hume and his predecessors and early critics. Philosophy and Rhetoric 31 (3): 175–230.
Boudry, Maarten, Stefaan Blancke, and Johan Braeckman. 2010. How not to attack intelligent design creationism: Philosophical misconceptions about methodological naturalism. Foundations of Science 15 (3): 227–244. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-010-9178-7.
Clifford, W.K. 2010. The ethics of belief. In Philosophy: The quest for truth, ed. Louis Pojman and Lewis Vaughn, 134–138. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cline, Austin. 2021a. Karl Marx on religions as the opium of the people, Sept. 10. learnreligions.com/karl-marx-on-religion-251019
———. 2021b. Understanding the “No True Scotsman” Fallacy. ThoughtCo, Dec. 6. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-no-true-scotsman-fallacy-250339
Cobb, Kayla. 2021. ‘Midnight Mass’s respect to religion is revolutionary for horror. Decider. https://decider.com/2021/09/28/midnight-mass-respects-religion/
Collins, Chad. 2021. Faith and fear make ‘midnight mass’ an affirmative experience. Dread Central. https://www.dreadcentral.com/editorials/415166/faith-and-fear-make-midnight-mass-an-affirmative-experience/
Couenhoven, Jesse. 2007. Augustine’s rejection of the free-will defence: An overview of the late Augustine’s theodicy. Religious Studies 43 (3): 279–298.
Deis, Robert. 2019. Kill them all and let God sort them out, July 22.
Edis, Taner. 2021. Weirdness! Durham: Pitchstone Publishing.
Feldman, Richard. 2006. Clifford’s principle and James’s options. Social Epistemology 20 (1): 19–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691720600631645.
Flanagan, Mike. 2021. The deeply personal horror of “midnight mass”. Bloody Disgusting, Sept. 27. https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3684646/deeply-personal-horror-midnight-mass-guest-essay-filmmaker-mike-flanagan/?fbclid=IwAR1g7v71EEr4iQEcoQ_V_ZvRDHDUAUTeMmizGumwrurvsa0HbFRyM3A4yFo
Gallois, Andre. 2016. Identity over time. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/identity-time
Giles, James. 1993. The no-self theory: Hume, Buddhism, and personal identity. Philosophy East and West 43 (2): 175–200. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1399612
Greene, Brian. 2013. How the Higgs Boson was found. Smithsonian Magazine, July. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-the-higgs-boson-was-found-4723520/
Hanh, Thich Nhat. 2003. No death, no fear: Comforting wisdom for life. Penguin books.
Harris, Sam. 2012. The moral landscape. London: Black Swan.
Harvey, Van. 2016. Nietzsche and the problem of suffering. Philosophy Now. https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/Nietzsche_and_the_Problem_of_Suffering
Helmenstine, Anne Marie. 2020. A brief history of atomic theory. ThoughtCo, Aug 28. thoughtco.com/history-of-atomic-theory-4129185
Henderson, Leah. 2018. The problem of induction. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/
Hill, Libby. 2021. The very real monsters in Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass. Indie Wire, Oct. 22. https://www.indiewire.com/2021/10/midnight-mass-vampires-monsters-mike-flanagan-what-it-means-1234673807/?fbclid=IwAR1holvdOSDNidwXWmht5q15aEgJ3IlN-qqa-R9dfB3RBeDQf3f1m7wST9E
Hume, David. 1993. An enquiry concerning human understanding. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Johnson, David Kyle. 2011. Natural evil and the simulation hypothesis. Philo 14 (2): 161–175.
———. 2013a. A refutation of skeptical theism. Sophia 52 (3): 425–445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-012-0326-0.
———. 2013b. Do souls exist? Think 12 (35): 61–75. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1477175613000195.
———. 2013c. The failure of Plantinga’s solution to the logical problem of natural evil. Philo 15 (2): 145–157.
———. 2015a. Justified belief in miracles is impossible. Science, Religion and Culture 2 (2): 61–74. https://doi.org/10.17582/journal.src/2015/2.2.61.74.
———. 2015b. The myths that Stole Christmas: Seven misconceptions that hijacked the holiday and how we can take it Back. Washington, D.C.: Humanist Press.
———. 2017a. Justified belief in demons is impossible. In Philosophical approaches to demonology, ed. Benjamin McCraw and Robert Arp. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315466774-11.
———. 2017b. Moral culpability and choosing to believe in god. In Atheism and the Christian faith, ed. Bill Anderson, 11–32. Wilmington: Vernon Press.
———. 2018a. Mystery therefore magic. In Bad arguments: 100 of the most important fallacies in western philosophy, by Robert Arp, Bruce Robert and Steve Barbone, 189–192. Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119165811.ch38.
———. 2018b. The Galileo Gambit. In Bad arguments: 100 of the most important fallacies in western philosophy, ed. Robert Arp, Bruce Robert, and Steve Barbone, 152–156. Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119165811.ch27.
———. 2019. The Relevance (and Irrelevance) of Questions of Personhood (and Mindedness) to the Abortion Debate. SHERM (Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry) 1 (2): 121–153. https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2019.vol1.no2.02.
———. 2020. Identifying the conflict between religion and science. SHERM (Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry) 2 (1): 121–153. https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2020.vol2.no1.06.
———. 2021a. Inference to the best explanation and rejecting the resurrection. SHERM (Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry) 3 (1): 26–51. https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2021.vol3.no1.02.
———. 2021b. Refuting skeptical theism. In God and horrendous suffering (GCRR Publishing, 2021), ed. John Loftus, 212–232. Denver: GCRR (Global Center for Religious Research) Publishing.
———. 2022a. Does god exist? Think 21 (61): 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175621000415.
———. 2022b. On angels, demons, and ghosts: Is justified belief in spiritual entities possible? Religions 13 (7): 603. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070603.
———. 2022c. Free will, the holocaust, and the problem of evil. SHERM (Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry) 4 (2): 81–96. https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2022.vol4.no1.06.
———. 2022d. God’s Prime Directive: Non-Interference and Why There Is No (Viable) Free Will Defense. Religions 13: 871. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13090871
———. 2023. More on the relevance of personhood and mindedness: salvation and the possibility of an afterlife. SHERM (Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry) 5 (2).
Langley, Jonty. 2021. Midnight Mass: The Christian horror series with a challenging message for the Church. Premier Christianity. https://www.premierchristianity.com/reviews/midnight-mass-the-christian-horror-series-with-a-challenging-message-for-the-church/5670.article
Loudon, Irvine. 2013. Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis’ studies of death in childbirth. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 106 (11): 461–463. https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076813507844.
Maas, Jennifer. 2021. How ‘midnight mass’ creator Mike Flanagan used the bible to ‘completely justify’ a horror story. The Wrap, December 1. https://www.thewrap.com/midnight-mass-bible-vampire-angel-connections-mike-flanagan/?fbclid=IwAR2%2D%2DxjxMQtc-UIzpzHICN7Eka8QQj3C-Q-EJknCPCkV06EoZoiWAWy-ryU
Mackie, J. L. 1955. Evil and omnipotence. Mind 64 (254): 200–212 Evil and Omnipotence on JSTOR.
Manson, Neil. 2021. This is philosophy of religion. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Marx, Karl. 1843/1970. Critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right, trans. Joseph O’Malley. Oxford University Press. Available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critique_of_Hegels_Philosophy_of_Right.pdf
McMullin, Ernan. 1992. The inference that makes science. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9744.2012.01319.x.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1956. The birth of tragedy and the genealogy of morals, trans. Francis Golffing. New York City: Anchor Books.
Olson, Eric. 2010. Immanent causation and life after death. In Personal identity and resurrection, ed. G. Gasser, 51–66. Ashgate.
Pike, Nelson. 1979. Plantinga on free will and evil. Religious Studies 15 (4): 449. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20005600
Placher, William C. 1988. Readings in the history of Christian theology. Vol. 1, From its beginnings to the eve of the reformation. Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox Press.
Plantinga, Alvin. 1967. Chapter 6: The free will defense. In God and other minds. Cornell University Press.
Radford, Benjamin. 2011. Tracking the Chupacabra: The vampire beast in fact, fiction and folklore. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Romano, Aja. 2021. Why I felt betrayed by Netflix’s Midnight Mass. Vox. https://www.vox.com/21509362/netflix-midnight-mass-mike-flanagan-horror-religion
Sagan, Carl. 1997. Demon hunted world. London: Headline Book Publishing.
Saka, Paul. n.d. Pascal’s wager about god. In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/pasc-wag/. Accessed 17 June 2022.
Sant, Joseph. 2019. Copernicanism and Stellar Parallax. http://www.scientus.org/Copernicus-Stellar-Parallax.html
Schick, Theodore, and Lewis Vaughn. 2020. How to think about weird things. 8th ed. New York: McGraw Hill. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1477175600000154.
Serrao, Nivea. 2021. All the verses and how they connect: Biblical references in Netflix’s ‘Midnight ass’ explained. Syfy Wire, Oct 1. https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/netflix-midnight-mass-bible-references-explained
Steere-Williams, Jacob. 2016. The germ theory. In A companion to the history of American science, ed. Georgina M. Montgomery and Mark A. Largent, 397–407. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119072218.ch31.
Swinburne, Richard. 1968. Miracles. Philosophical Quarterly.
Thornton, Stephen. n.d. Sigmund Freud: Religion. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/freud-r/
Uribe, Francisco Mejia. 2018. Believing without evidence is always morally wrong. Aeon, Nov. 5. https://aeon.co/ideas/believing-without-evidence-is-always-morally-wrong
Whittaker, John H. 1978. Causes, reasons, and the genetic fallacy. Journal of the American Academy of Religion XLVI (3): 351–368. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/XLVI.3.351.
Wilson, E.O. 1975. Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Wykstra, Stephen J. 1984. The humean obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering: On avoiding the evils of ‘appearance’. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16: 73–93.
———. 1996. Rowe’s Noseeum arguments from evil. In The evidential argument from evil, ed. Daniel Howard-Snyder, 126–150. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Zhenyi Li, Jing Zhang, Zongya Zhao, Hongxing Zhang, Martin Vreugdenhil, and Chengbiao Lu. 2019. Near-death high-frequency hyper-synchronization in the rat hippocampus. Frontiers in Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.00800. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2019.00800/full
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Johnson, D.K. (2024). Midnight Mass as Philosophy: The Problems with Religion. In: Kowalski, D.A., Lay, C., S. Engels, K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24685-2_111
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24685-2_111
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-24684-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-24685-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities