The Golden Compass

Me, too.

 

The intent of my comment was directed towards your insinuation that there wasnt much in the mainstream that showed "the other side".

There is far more anti-religious (or at least anti-JudeoChristian) themed elements in mainstream than there is "Pro".

With the execption of perhaps mainstream country music, anything with a pro-religious theme is usually pigeon-holed to religioius programming (which, in my definition at least, doesnt really qualify as mainstream).

 

The book was stupid.

By the way, they don't kill God.

I was really disappointed when I found out.

 

The "arts" have never been about the status quo or the protection thereof.

 

Nor did I say they should be... I just said that you can't really make an arguement that the "mainstream" is Pro-God. Granted, perhaps I'm reading too much into Freakshow's original comment.

 

Lots of books and games I enjoy have said critical things about Christianity, but if Gregg Easterbrook's column was accurate, the Golden Compass books go well beyond the bounds of legitimacy. I wouldn't want to support something that was so outright hateful.


"Meanwhile, TMQ asked in August whether the three Golden Compass books would carry their very strong anti-Christian view onto the silver screen -- the first big-budget installment opens this week. In the Golden Compass trilogy, God is both a fraud (a space alien pretending to be divine!) and the source of every evil in the universe; Christianity is "a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all"; God has created not heaven but hell and sends all souls, even those of the righteous, to hell; Christian churches are run by corrupt power-mad conspirators whose goal is to abolish pleasure in life; the quest of the astonishingly competent English schoolgirl who is the trilogy's heroine is to locate ancient magical objects that will allow her to kill God and free the world from religion."

 

Too bad you don't quote the entire column. Of course, then we might get mired down in the Tuesday Morning Quarterback's take on the tight abs of a doctoral candidate.

 

I agree with his position that the producers shouldn't be so scared that they water down the message and attempt to hide what it's really about. I'm not saying that the movie should be banned from theaters, I'm saying that I would not choose to support it and I don't think that other people should either. Whether they agree is completely their business.

 

I've read about a third of the book. Considering how much different everything else is about 'the world', so far I don't consider it any less religious than fantasy/sci-fi books that don't even mention religion, much less make a statement about it.

 

I read the whole book yesterday. Except for some references to the book of Genesis at the end of this book, the book is far too complex for kids to think of it as an atheist vs believer story. Different worlds on different planes of existence, people connected to shape changing daemons that they can't survive without, witches, talking bears. Seemed just like another epic fantasy to me. Maybe the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy will expand more on the religious stuff, but I thought it was more of an adventure than a "statement" piece of work. It wouldn't influence my thinking on religion any more than Lord of the Rings did.