-> A man without faith is without a soul. Suffer not the soulless in thy ministry, for they make doors for dangerous forces.
-->-- '''The Commandments of the Ophellian Conclave''', ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''

-> ''Who today can truly say,\\
Their faith has never faltered?\\
Whose neck, so trained to pray\\
Would never strain against the halter?\\
[...]\\
Stay praiseful to your deity,\\
Their prophecy and priest,\\
For the [[SweetSheep sheep may be the shepherd]],\\
But the flock is being fleeced.''
-->-- Music/TheStupendium, [[VideoGame/CultOfTheLamb "Wool Over Our Eyes"]]

->I spoke with […] Creator/MikeFlanagan […] about why horror and religion so often go hand in hand. You look at ''Film/TheExorcist'', ''Film/TheOmen'', ''Film/TheConjuring'', religion often inspires horror films. And Flanagan says it's because a lot of things in Literature/TheBible are just really scary.
-->-- '''Jake Hamilton''' in [[https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/midnight-mass-marries-religion-horror-in-new-netflix-series a Fox 32 Chicago segment]] on ''Series/MidnightMass2021''

->'''Jake Hamilton:''' I'm often fascinated by how often God and horror go hand in hand. You know, from demons and holy water and crosses, there's so many aspects of religion that can be found in the most terrifying stories. I'm sort of curious, from both of your perspectives, why do these two worlds, which really should be very far apart, kind of snap in together like puzzle pieces?\\
'''Creator/MikeFlanagan:''' I would actually argue it's the other way around. There's an enormous amount of horror in religion. There's a huge--and we didn't put it there--there's a huge amount of, you know, monsters and demons and, you know, angels showing up to slaughter babies while rivers turn to blood and pillars of fire rise up. It's the sky beam! There's a sky beam in the Old Testament. You know, I think, in a lot of ways, our religion--all of our religions--draw on two things: our desire for there to be life after we die, and our rampant fear of everything else in the world. Even down to the weather. We create gods to explain earthquakes and volcanoes. When we're afraid, we deify it. So horror I think is woven into the fabric of religion. I think it's interesting now that we--a lot of people--have this idea of religion as kind of washed and glossy and light and clean, and it's like it's... blood-soaked. And it always has been. I think for us, it was just really fun to kind of shine a flashlight at the blood. Because a lot of the ideas you think are--you know, in horror--the dead rising, and these winged monstrous creatures coming to your door to tear you limb from limb, these aren't inventions of the horror genre, they're inventions of Literature/TheBible.\\
'''Creator/TrevorMacy:''' But if we pitched you "Oh there are winged monsters coming to your door to tear you apart"... is that a horror movie, or is that the Bible?\\
'''Hamilton:''' Yeah, we could play, like, "Creator/StephenKing or the Bible?" We could take a quote, like you guys present some Bible verses, that if you read them literally, you go: "Shit, that's really scary!"\\
'''Flanagan:''' Yeah. If you read the Literature/BookOfRevelation, that is--if you're a horror literature fan?--that is a gold mine of really phenomenal stuff. And it is out there stuff, too. Like it is intense. You know, you look at some of the most extreme horror movies out there, like ''Film/{{Martyrs}}''. That movie doesn't exist without a thorough knowledge of and respect for religion, and in particular for the fates of many of the saints. You know? So yeah, it's a fascinating marriage that I think is really fun for us to play with.
-->-- [[https://youtu.be/UN-0bwxTxCw?t=525 Interview]] with the cast/crew of ''Series/MidnightMass2021''
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