Golden Compass Outrage?

Question

Saying this movie is about atheism is the lamest thing I've heard all day. I just watched the theatrical trailer and all I seen was a creative children's story that I'd take my kids to see (if I had kids). What was 'Chronicals of Narnia' then? Tell me, what about this movie makes it tie into religion?

Answer 1

I was just about to ask everyones opinion on this. I really don't know, but I think I'll go see it and find out.

Chronicals of Narnia was about acid trips in the coat closet somewhere cold without heat.

Answer 2

From what I have read tonight, Philip Pulman has a problem with religion when it gains political power. That's what I saw in the movie, "The Golden Compass" I saw tonight as well.

I find it highly suspect when he names the visible spirits of people in the alternate world 'Daemons'. I think that it is unfortunate that he did that. But if he is anti - Christian then I fail to see it by the interviews that I have read.

I can see how the Roman Catholic Church would be upset with him, because the 'magistereum' seems very much like the Roman Catholic Church. I have many issues with the Roman Catholic Church myself as well. So the Roman Catholic Church ought to have a problem with me as well.

Answer 3

They didn't like Harry Potter much either. They HATED The Last Temptation Of Christ. Interestingly, the protest agains the Golden Compass movie is making it sell more tickets and it's gaining popularity .

Answer 4

I read the book last week. After hearing so much whining.

One character, ONE! Says something negative about Christianity. In the last 10 pages. Since the narative roundly condemns this character (because he murders a child for his own benefit), I don't see how this is remotely an issue.

it's because "author is an Athesit" = panic. I guess nobody should tell them what Mark Twain said about god, or they'll be yanking "Tom Sawyer" next.

Answer 5

I wanted to post this earlier but I couldn't because it was too long to put in a question. Anyway below is an interview that Gene Roddenberry gave in 1992. It's a little long but I hope that people read it and start using it to fight the mentality that has been displayed over "The Golden Compass". I think what he says is appropriate for this subject.


"My family was from the South. My mother was very religious. Every Sunday we went to church, Baptist church. I didn't really take religion that seriously. It was obvious to me, almost from the first, that there were certain things that needed explaining and thinking on, but why bother about them? I was a child. Life was interesting and pleasant.

I think the first time I really became aware of religion, other than the little things you do as a child because Mom says to do it (it was mostly Mom) was when I went to church. In my early teens I decided to listen to the sermon. I guess I was around 14 and emerging as a personality. I never really paid much attention to the sermon before. I was more interested in the deacon's daughter and what we might be doing between services.

I listened to the sermon, and I remember complete astonishment because what they were talking about were things that were just crazy. It was communion time, where you eat this wafer and are supposed to be eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood. My first impression was, "This is a bunch of cannibals they've put me down among!" For some time, I puzzled over this and puzzled over why they were saying these things, because the connection between what they were saying and reality was very tenuous. How the hell did Jesus become something to be eaten?

I guess from that time it was clear to me that religion was largely nonsense, largely magical, superstitious things. In my own teen life, I just couldn't see any point in adopting something based on magic, which was obviously phony and superstitious.

I don't remember ever being serious about any of those things. When I sang in the choir, we made up cowboy words to the choir songs. The rest of the choir would be singing "Holy, Holy Jesus," and we would be singing something entirely different.

At five years old I was serious about Santa Claus, but at five and a half I learned it was nonsense. Writers often write these as weighty moments, but in my experience they're not. Santa Claus doesn't exist. Yes, I think back now that there were all sorts of reasons he could not exist and maybe have a little sadness that he is gone, but then I think the same thing about Jesus and the church.

So my thinking about religion sort of stultified at that time and I just decided not to pay any attention to it. I stopped going to church as soon as it became possible for me to do things on my own as a teenager. I made up my mind that church, and probably largely the Bible, was not for me. I did not go back to even thinking much about it for years. If people need religion, ignore them and maybe they will ignore you and you can go on with your life.

I can't say I didn't care about it or examine it; I just let it pass lightly over me. Religion was so full of inconsistencies that I could see no point in arguing each inconsistency out. It was background noise that you ignore.

I've been thinking about how I said that religion seemed pretty foolish to me for most of my life. Indeed, it did, but then comes the question of why didn't I take a stand against it? I used religion several times in Have Gun, Will Travel. Once in a penitentiary where a pastor was trying to keep a fellow from being hung, I wrote that the pastor grabbed a hacksaw blade, was cut by it, and was bleeding. I had him make some comment about blood and salvation. It's not that I actually believed in blood and salvation being connected, but that was the way the audience believed and I can remember going out of my way not to deal directly with what my thoughts were for several reasons.
There will always be the fundamentalism and the religious right, but I think there has been too much of it. I keep hoping that it is temporary foolishness. Some of it will always be around because there will always be people who are so mean-spirited and such limited thinkers that their religious beliefs seem so logical: that there is a god, and so forth, that nothing else in their limited concept can explain what the existence of a god can. There's been a lot of it lately: Youth for Christ and that sort of thing. I'm hoping that this is just a bump in time.

Of course, the only thing that will keep such things from continuing and growing is education. Dewey was right about that. Unless we have an educated populace, there's no telling what may come along. The pressures of life are so great that a certain percentage of all these uneducated people will come up with strange ideas. Strange, violent ideas. They seem to have good answers for all of our problems. I don't think life's problems are such that we have to rely on simplistic answers instead of thinking things through. I think these things will be found in proportion to and in reverse order of how well we educate ---populace."

Answer 6

Most are assuming the movie is as honest about religion as the books - but I hear it's not. I'll find out Tuesday.

Answer 7

People need to complain about something.. And since the Author of the book was an Atheist, they probably had their minds made up before the movie was even made.

Answer 8

Wishful thinking. Science and fiction at it's finest. Some people see demons in the corners of their bedrooms, too. They think mental illness is demonic also. Their minds are locked away behind religious dogma. Don't think, god will do it for you.

Answer 9

The author of the book said that he wrote it undermine Christianity, "kill God," and promote an atheist world-view among Christian children. That is the source of the outrage.

Answer 10

It's just another harmles awsome movie. I'd go see it I had enough money for the popcorn. But thats why you always bring a friend with you. YAY for free popcorn!!!! ^_^