Golden Compass and Atheism

golden compassLotsa emails and discussion on the web regarding whether or not author atheist Philip Pullman is promoting atheism [or anti-theism] to children in the movie “The Golden Compass” which gets released Dec 7. Philip Pullman answers some questions regarding atheism and church and basically says he has no agenda but Matt Barber writing for the Examiner says Pullman’s agenda comes across strongly and so he will be spending his eleven bucks elsewhere. I think I lean on the side of Matt but am open to being evangelised.

UPDATE: Kester is worth reading.



Related: The Skinny on New Atheism which – btw – appears to have been vandalized recently by people not happy with it [whatever happened to FREE SPEECH?] and no longer loads properly. Could some geek out there view the html source and tell me how to fix it? In the meantime, scroll down to the text and have a read.

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Andrew

Andrew Jones launched his first internet space in 1997 and has been teaching on related issues for the past 20 years. He travels all the time but lives between Wellington, San Francisco and a hobbit home in Prague.

14 Comments

  • tony sheng says:

    Thanks for sharing this. My wife and I were just talking about this last night and wondering if it was too much ‘christians boycotting’ hype.

  • David says:

    Jeffery Overstreet wrote about the film on the Christianity Today site. I appreciated his thinking on this:
    http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/fearnotthecompass.html

  • rob horton says:

    andrew and readers – i don’t think matt’s article was very balanced – nor did they give any indication that he actually read the trilogy. i did read it and wrote a bit of a review on my blog: here.
    i intend to view the film this weekend and share a critique of the film on my blog sooon after.
    blessings,
    rob

  • Amber Himes says:

    Andrew –
    It appears that ‘ class=”layout-three-column”‘ is missing from your new_atheisim.html’s body tag. I think that is what is causing the page to flow contrary to your expectations. 🙂
    Please feel free to contact me if you need further assistance.

  • waynestead says:

    ditto Rob – Barber’s agenda comes across easily as strongly (and much less creatively) than Pullman’s.
    Overstreet’s review seems at least more dignified and certainly more informed.
    The books are entertaining and creative. I didn’t find them threatening and they certainly haven’t knocked any bricks from my wall.

  • JonP says:

    Yeah, as a creative piece, I think the books were quite stylish, pretty captivating and very imaginative (but the conclusion of the trilogy is a pure, sappy letdown). I’ll be reading them all again soon and I might take a look at the movie when it comes to DVD – it’s not really my kind of movie.
    But whatever I think about the creativity behind the thing, Pullman’s opinion is clear and of course, in sharing his opinion, he is writing to convince. That’s a basic human desire. I don’t know if that was conscious tho.
    Overall, I think it could be dangerous but it’s also fun and unconvincing as far as faith goes!

  • Peggy says:

    Andrew,
    Here’s a link to Brad’s blog…where he is doing his whole shebang analysis of this. Don’t miss it!
    http://futuristguy.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/concrete-media-systems-%e2%80%93-the-golden-compass-part-1/

  • Mike Morrell says:

    After getting hysterical, unloving emails for the fourth time, I wrote an email-response that I forwarded to everyone. You can read it (and forward it yourself, if you’d like) here.

  • Helen says:

    “Matt Barber writing for the Examiner says Pullman’s agenda comes across strongly and so he will be spending his eleven bucks elsewhere.”
    This is an interesting point of view. Christians tend to have agendas – does that mean everyone who isn’t a Christian should avoid them?
    I liked the Trilogy and I’m looking forward to the movie.
    I say, let Philip Pullman give it his best shot. If Christianity isn’t able to convince people “I have something better than this” it’s not worth believing in anyway. I can’t imagine Jesus saying “Uh oh, don’t go see that movie!” Why are Christians so afraid of everything?

  • cloudburst says:

    blah.. condemning a movie like this only gives it notoriety and greater appeal to those whom might not be into it. go see it, discuss it, think about it like anything else, it’s just another story, and regarding the books, there are far more offensive tomes in the realm of contemporary fiction/fantasy.
    there is no basis for a crusade of any kind in our faith. the only thing i can think of that Jesus did along those lines was oust the merchants in the temple.. but that was INSIDE the temple!!
    imo, campaigning against a book or film in this manner only serves to re-inforce the very negative stereotypes the author or creator is perceiving about religion..ie intolerance and censorship.. in that sense is it not yet again counter-productive?
    … what about ‘beowulf’?? i was shocked at the amount of violence (graphic) and sexual innuendo in that film,compared to the mild ‘pg-13’ rating it achieved.. this to me is of more concern.
    anyways, i’m looking forward to cloverfield =D

  • Helen says:

    cloudburst wrote “imo, campaigning against a book or film in this manner only serves to re-inforce the very negative stereotypes the author or creator is perceiving about religion..ie intolerance and censorship.. in that sense is it not yet again counter-productive?”
    That’s exactly what Philip Pullman said, evidently :-).

  • Helen says:

    FYI I’ve posted my general comments – mostly about the trilogy rather than just the movie (no spoilers) – on my blog
    The Golden Compass

  • andrew says:

    “blah.. condemning a movie like this”
    cloudburst – i assume you meant barber and not my little post.
    thanks helen – look forward to reading them.

  • Helen says:

    Thanks Andrew – I’m honored that you bother to read my comments on books.
    (Off-topic: I reviewed Diana Butler Bass’s book Christianity for the Rest of Us last week btw)

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