I recently watched a pretty wild sci-fi/horror movie titled “Pandorum.”
The premise is basically that we have blown up the Earth and all that is left of humanity is aboard a space ship on a long journey to an Earth-like/habitable planet—the basic atheist vision of the future, I suppose (whether we blow up the Earth of the Sun explodes).
In any regard, Pandorum is, at least, psychologically interesting in that the various characters exhibit various characteristics from the altruistic to the utterly selfish.
I have not been able to find a transcript of too many quotes but one of the interesting dialogues comes about via Leland, who is trapped on the apparently doomed spaceship which has become inhabited by creepy-crawlers who basically want to devour everyone in sight.
Upon encountering other humans—as they were all in cryogenic sleep due to long distance space travel and were due to wake up in shifts—Leland first offers hospitality but then gasses them. When they wake up they are hanging upside down and Leland is preparing to cannibalize them:
Bower: What are you doing? Leland: Nothing personal, guys. It’s just “survival of the fittest”… Or maybe it’s the brightest [mumbles] if you know what I’m saying. Bower: You gassed us! Leland: Oh yes! And I’m sorry, but I’m a little too old and too tired for the honorable way of hunting game. Nadia: You better make sure I’m dead… [speaks in German] Leland: [stabs her] Manh: [yelling in Vietnamese] Bower: You don’t have to do this. We’re on our way to save the ship.
Leland: Don’t sweat it. I wouldn’t have survived this long if I had a heart.
Thus, the Darwinian survival of the fittest/brightest busts open Pandora’s Box out of which comes betrayal and self-survival at all costs.
In fact, one of the main characters, the villain really, states, “God? You think God survived? He’s dead just like the rest of humanity.” Yet, the context is clearly that since the Earth is gone, humanity is gone and so there is no one left to dictate morality, no society to conjure an arbitrary social contract. Thus, he is free to express his every desire.
Some atheist attempt to argue from the cosmic insignificance of humanity to moral behavior but this is a non sequitur as one could just as easily, if not even easier still, argue from the cosmic insignificance of humanity to immoral behavior—as some reason, “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1st Corinthians 15:32). Carpe despero.
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Of further, atheism at the movies, interest may be: The Collateral Worldview