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Sunshine: Danny Boyle’s space slasher plays out like an atheist’s worst nightmare
(www.theguardian.com)
As an atheist, no it doesn’t
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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Me an atheist reading cosmic horror since 1999 "ooooooh evil outer gods scawwy"
One of my favourite movies
That's not even remotely an "atheist's worst nightmare." A deity exists and it's horrifying? That's a theist's worst nightmare, and the basis for several arguments for atheism.
How could the existence of a god be the basis for an argument for Atheism? Atheism conceptually requires that no god exists.
That being said the headline is dumb because from what I can gather the premise of the movie is that god is real but it’s not the one that anyone in the modern world is worshipping, so it would be equal in nightmare across theists and atheists alike
It works like this:
- Assume for the sake of argument that the deity exists.
- Examine the horrific, implausible, and logically absurd implications of that existence.
- Use those as evidence that the deity doesn't actually exist.
The context of the nightmare is that a god definitively exists. You couldn’t then take the horrifying reality of that objective existence and use it to then deny that it exists.
From the headline I would've thought this was Screenrant. Did I miss when the Guardian started using the cheapest of click-bait?
Also, good movie, except for the ending - it is Alex Garland after all.
basically Project Hail Mary’s older, emo cousin
Yeah, straight from the start, there's signs that this author is trying so hard to be smart and failing miserably.
From the article, explaining why they think it's an "Atheists Worst Nightmare":
Garland’s writing frequently reaches for this sort of inverse Spielberg effect, where secular revelation is inseparable from existential horror. Much like his later works Ex Machina (2014) and Annihilation (2018), which also combined highbrow philosophy with good old-fashioned schlock, Sunshine plays out as an atheist’s worst nightmare. Imagine: you’ve staked your life on rational science and journeyed into the very gut of the galaxy, only to discover something irrefutably Godlike, terrifying, awe-inspiring and utterly impartial towards your continued existence. Perhaps those sun-deifying ancient civilisations were right all along. The sun giveth and it taketh away, and if it decides our number is up, who are we mere mortals to argue?
Oooh Ray Comfort's banana has nothing on this.
Edit: Also, "into the very gut of the galaxy", for fuck's sake, THE FUCKING SUN is not the gut of the galaxy.