Just in time for Christmas, Hollywood has released The Golden Compass, a film based on the first book of a trilogy of children's novels written by atheist Philip Pullman. Pullman is not a fan of his fellow childrens' writers J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. He denounced the Lord of the Rings trilogy as "infantile" and absolutely hated the Chronicles of Narnia, calling it "morally loathsome" and "one of the most ugly and poisonous things I've ever read."
This is downright weird.
Some critics have objected to the overdrawn contrast between the forces of light and the forces of darkness in Christian fiction, but Pullman's trilogy is no less Manichean. The only difference is that in Pullman's world the evil regime is run by God Himself. Pullman pictures a kind of Calvinist moral structure, run by a kind of Catholic network called the Magisterium, and behind the whole oppressive system is a tyrannical God. As Pullman envisions it, the church kidnaps and tortures children and subjects them to hideous experiments in which their bodies are separated fro their souls and the children are turned into zombies who are then left to die. Pullman's trilogy finally ends with God being killed, the collapse of the Calvinist moral rules, and the emergence of sexual freedom.
Profoundly stupid stuff. I was not surprised to discover that Pullman is a big fan of atheist Richard Dawkins. Pullman speaks of religion in terms that could be lifted directly from The God Delusion. Pullman has been quoted saying it is not even possible for God to exist. "Every single religion," he says, "that has a monotheistic God ends up by persecuting other people and killing them because they don't accept him." Actually this is flatly untrue of Judaism and Hindusim and only in a very qualified sense true of Islam and Christianity. It would be more accurate to say that every atheist regime, from Communism to the Nazi regime in Germany, has systematically persecuted and killed its opponents for practicing traditional religion and for not accepting their secular race and class-based ideologies.
Certainly Pullman knows that there is nothing oppressive or murderous in today's Anglicanism. He is free in his native London to believe or not to believe. What is it then about religion that he's so strongly opposed to? For Pullman, as for many atheists, the problem with Christianity seems mostly to focus on sexual freedom. Reviewing Pullman's work in The Atlantic Monthly, Hanna Rosin writes, "The most curious aspect of Pullman's theology is the primacy he places on teen sexuality...the whole series builds up to a celebration of losing your virginity." So here is Pullman's case against religion. Basically, religion is what asks you to pull your pants up. This may be termed Pelvic Atheism.
True to form, Hollywood has stripped Pullman's movie of its overt anti-religiosity. The evil guys in the Hollywood version are not God's minions but a kind of amorphous Nazi-type dictatorship. Pullman can take solace, however, in the fact that the movie will probably lead a lot of people to read his books. Aren't we fortunate to have an atheist children's novelist whose main objective seems to be to corrupt the minds and morals of the young?
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 35)
1. "Gott mit uns" on the nazi belt buckles doesn't mean "the easter bunny is with us". The easter bunny is not whispering in our presidents ear to invade other countries either.
a born atheist at 9:23AM on Aug 13th 2008
2. i hope i'm first,
one comment.atheist have never and will never have ONE original thought. its cheap and its contrived and its a bankrupt idea. it robs death of any meaning therefore it robs life of any meaning. its basically like saying that one of the billions who have lived is right and the rest are wrong. not one atheist can answer when the universe started yet it is widely known that it had a beginning. their hero richard"sheer luck" dawkins can only say it was, you guessed, sheer luck!! that is why atheism is such a bizarre fringe thinking that lacks meaning at any level. atheism never had an original thought.
brian at 9:58AM on Dec 17th 2007
3. Hello, Strawman. I'd love to stay and chat, but it looks as though you're about to be blown to bits.
Dan at 10:08AM on Dec 17th 2007
4. Sorry to harp on it, but it really does bear repeating, seeing as D'Souza continually ignores corrections on this: the Nazi regime was not 'atheist'. Hitler was a pretty weird form of Christian who believed that Jesus was Aryan, and he had a lot of pagan influences, but he was not an atheist, and neither were the vast bulk of Germans who carried out the Holocaust and so forth. Those were solid followers of Martin Luther...
And, again, the Soviet Union and communist China *starved* millions of their citizens by specifically rejecting scientific evolution and going with Lysenkoism, with disastrous crop failures as reality didn't match "worker's science". A religion by any other name, etc.
But as to religions doing persecuting: for Judaism, read Samuel 15:3 or Joshua 10:40. For Hinduism... look up the history of its relationship to Buddhism.
Ray Ingles at 10:11AM on Dec 17th 2007
5. I hope I'm second.
Deists will never have one original thought. Its cheap and its contrived and its a bankrupt idea. it robs death of any meaning therefore it robs life of any meaning. Its basically like saying that only one of the religions is right and the rest are wrong. All Deist can answer when the universe started yet each answers differently. Science offers truth, inquiry, and hope. It gives Deists solace when they are frightened and scared. Science has continued to confound Deists. First the world was flat. Then it was the center of the universe. Then we were the only ones in existence. Poor poor Deists. What will science disprove of your misplaced faiths next. Deists never had an original thought... from the cavemen dancing in circles around a fire to the lighting of the advent candles... its still the same fear and ignorance.
RMWiersema at 10:15AM on Dec 17th 2007
6. GREAT STUFF, DINESH!!! WOW!!
Hopefully the church can ban this heathen, and then that will ensure that he sells no more books, and also that nobody will want to see the movie.
I am so glad you did not give this heathen free publicity. Very wise of you, Dinesh, as always!
Jesuchristo, You are the man!!!
christian shill boy at 10:24AM on Dec 17th 2007
7. Jesus, D'Strawman, you just get weirder by the day. A few weeks ago, you mixed the words "Scout" and "Vagina" in a headline, now "Pelvic Atheism" - - WTF?
Whatever you are smoking, I am pretty sure I don't want any.
brandon at 10:22AM on Dec 17th 2007
8. The christians have persecuted heretics for centuries. Even here with the salem whitch hunts. We can't forget the inquisitions where thousands were tortured until they confessed or died. How about the crusades where blood flowed freely to so call defend the church. Christians have no right to point the finger at the Islamic people for being a warring people. Christians have killed as many or more for their cause. What was the reason anyway?
Rick at 10:25AM on Dec 17th 2007
9. I'm looking forward to taking my 13 year-old daughter to see this film, for the simple reason that there are religious leaders publicly calling for its boycott. Censorship is an evil I want her to grow to despise, as I want her to grow to NEVER blindly follow the edicts of any religion.
If a person's faith can't stand up to another person's opinion or artistic expression, it's not worth much, is it?
I've been watching this debate Mr. D'Souza is having (or attempting to have) with generic "atheists". I would be watching with humor if I didn't know that there are many people out there who think the way he does.
Why does it have to be a debate between atheists and believers? Why can't everyone just accept that we all have our own way and leave it at that? If we all left each other alone to our faith or lack thereof, there would be no reason to debate at all.
It's good that Mr. D'Souza has a belief system that works for him, but I don't understand why he cares if other people are of the opinion that he's deluded. It's like I said above, if one's faith can't stand up to another's opinion....
Marianne at 10:28AM on Dec 17th 2007
10. OH!!! MY!!! GOD!!! IT'S.......PELVIC ATHEISM!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!
OH, THE HUMANITY!!!
brandon at 10:28AM on Dec 17th 2007
11. FIND THE DUCT TAPE!!! SEAL YOUR ZIPPERS!! WHACK YOURSELVES OVER THE HEAD WITH YOUR BIBLES!!
PELVIC ATHEISM IS UPON US! THE HORROR!!
I just can't go on...the giggling won't allow me to type anymore...
brandon at 10:30AM on Dec 17th 2007
12. rw weiner,
who is scared? are you? might ought to be, but thats your business. you seem to have a caveman mentality, but thats ok. answer me when did creation begin,did it begin? science say's it began. science doesn't confound the issue of God, atheist do. they just want Gid to go away but he won't and meanwhile the atheist die and go to their decay along with them they had no reason to live. atheism has never had an original thought
brian at 10:36AM on Dec 17th 2007
13. I think I'd rather see...
ELVIC ATHEISM!!
Just consider these lyrics...
"You ain't never caught a rabbit
and you ain't no friend of mine."
So profound. It clearly establishes the basic tenet of atheism that rabbits need to be caught. And that we have no friends, as brian (little b) says.
How about it? Anyone want to join me in
ELVIC ATHEISM?
brandon at 10:36AM on Dec 17th 2007
14. As to Pullman's work... it's not quite as 'pelvic' as D'Souza wishes to paint it. For one thing, Pullman's goal was in large measure to invert the imagery of Genesis. For another, as he's stated elsewhere he was arguing against the veneration of innocence in the sense of 'ignorance'; in this sense 'innocence' is incompatible with wisdom, and wisdom is to be valued. One might read this for an analysis that isn't meant to fit into a sound bite: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0OON/is_1_24/ai_107896947
That being said, I've read the books, and I agree to a limited extent with some of the criticisms against them. Some of the villains are a bit too cartoonish and one-dimensional (though fanatics often approach that in real life) and the overall tone does get a bit preachy towards the end of the series. (In this, Pullman isn't all that different from Lewis...) But the books are worthwhile reads nonetheless.
Ray Ingles at 10:38AM on Dec 17th 2007
15. brandon,
try the bathroom where your stench breeds!! you will find some familar odors,you know your warm pond kind
brian at 10:37AM on Dec 17th 2007