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 5 of 35)
61. ATHEIST
Reply to: In Pullman's world the evil regime is run by God Himself. 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 Dinesh (end)
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As opposed to the Christian story, where children who die as atheists are simply thrown into a fiery pit where they live in agony for the rest of eternity?
duh, dinesh. I mean, don't you see how the stories are basically the SAME???
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Reply to: 589. The Jews looked for a Messiah that would come with political and military power and so did not recognize the Christ when He came... dawn (end)
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See what I mean? A lack of education condemns Christians to a life of "saying dumb things."
Dawn doesn't know what the Christ (literally, Anointed One) is.
OK, let's educate her a bit. The subject is Jewish prophecy.
In 30 AD, the Romans were in charge. After the death of King Herod, his kingdom was divided into four sections.
Galilee, where Jesus lived, was under the control of a ruler who was NOT Roman. So, Galileans had a bit more freedom to protest than other Jews.
Judea, where the Temple of Jerusalem was, was under direct Roman rule, through Pilate.
The Jews thought they had a Covenant with their god YHWH to give them control over their own kingdom.
The Messiah was supposed to be a representative "anointed" by God to restore their independence. The prophecies were written before the Romans came into the picture, but the CORE belief was that the Jews and YHWH had made a Covenant. The Jews would only worship ONE god, and that God would give them a homeland.
This is summed up in Micah 5: "Out of you, Bethlehem, will come one who will rule in Israel."
There was another condition, that he was supposed to be a direct male descendant of King David.
But the ONLY important requirement for being the Messiah was enforcing the Covenant and giving the Jews back their own Kingdom.
Jesus was NOT the Messiah.
It's not that the Jews didn't recognize Jesus as the Christ.
Jesus did not rule over Israel. He did not sit on the Throne of King David.
Dawn, this is pretty SIMPLE. If you weren't trapped inside your Imaginary World, you would never write the stuff you wrote.
The Messiah will RULE in Israel. Jesus did NOT.
God will send a Messiah to defeat.. ie, kill... the people who are keeping the Jews from having their own kingdom...
Dinesh says he BELIEVES in the Bible. But Dinesh is as uneducated about the Bible as Dawn. Because he's written a book and says he's defending christianity against the New Atheism, he's pretty much a joke.
Matthew Murray was the punch line of the joke. A kid who tried to live by all the rules and wound up depressed and... in a nightmare he couldn't escape from.
William Hays at 12:10PM on Dec 17th 2007
62. Again, I see here (and on the Richard Dawkins site) Hitler as a "christian".
And the main "evidence" seems to be Hitler's own words - taken as "gospel truth". Hitler/Stalin were the TRUE postmodern men. Truth was whatever they wanted it to be.
The large, and long and indepth view of Hitler seems to be - he believed in himself, and in whatever "force" or "demon" was his inner voice, and in his own view of the world..
And he had a semi "gotterdammurung" view of the world...probably fueled by his adulation of Wagner...in part.
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The NARROW view of life and of "proof" I read on some atheist sources seems to be
"WE ARE OFF THE HOOK IF WE CAN GET THAT LITTLE SOUND BYTEs that seem to back OUR POSITION.."
This is how they wiggle out from being tagged by the SMELL OF BURnING CORPSES the CRIES OF THE ENSLAVED caused by Hitler, Stalin,- by those atheist or quasi pagan types who devoured humans EN MASSE.
And we should NOT be surprised - if the militant atheists or militant pagan types -start devaluing humans (including the YOUTH) into objects they can exploit.
The kind atheist / pagan you meet STILL has not purged him/herself of values from the Judaeo Christian influence on our culture.
DNA - a great design at 12:14PM on Dec 17th 2007
63. Though I'm a Catholic priest, my parents were agnostic/atheist in their perspective. They were excellent persons - ethical and caring, wonderful parents and spouses. And they thought me an excellent son.
Is the issue believer - non-believer? I have good friends who are in either camp and of various faiths. We genuinely like and respect each other, including our varying perspectives - it's a dialogue of discovery.
Is it not interesting that the big bang was the brain child of a Belgian priest-physicist (Le Maître)and a Russian Soviet physicist (Gamov)?
It's unhelpful to create straw men/women of either side. As Gandhi said, "We're all tarred with the same brush." Is that not the very tragedy of human history - this cold, nasty attitude that sees the other as an object of contempt and derision. This nastiness led Freud to the deeply pessimistic notion that thanatos (the death wish) was stronger than eros (the wish for life/love), which he saw in Nazism.
Ever so slowing but not so subtly we construct the time, place and rational for the new inquisitions, extermination camps, gulags and jihads. Let's see the person and not the ideology. Our very desperate world urgently needs us to work together as respectful friends.
BY the way, I didn't see D'Souza as putting down atheists. He's simply critiquing Pullman, and that seems fair enough.
Fr. Jim, OMI at 12:31PM on Dec 17th 2007
64. DNA...you've influenced my view...now, all I have to say is...
A well I bless my soul
What's wrong with me?
I'm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree
My friends say I'm actin' wild as a bug
Hmmm...I'm all shook up!
brandon at 12:20PM on Dec 17th 2007
65. Ugh...
Allow me to say this clearly. Totalitarianism and autocracy can exist with or without the help of religion. Atrocity can occur with or without the help of religion. Oppression can happen with our without the help of religion. These are social conditions that are cultivated from many sources of dissatisfaction and frustration and then sieze upon any ideology to justify it. When it's religious we have crusades, inquisitions, and pyramids of skulls in the desert. When it's secular we have mass pogroms, book burnings, and concentration camps. Humans don't need religion to do bad things. It just makes bad things easier when you have a religious excuse.
So please stop invoking Godwin's law and drop Hitler. If he was a christian or an atheist doesn't matter. What matters he he got a nation to systematically expunge and execute ten million jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and communists. It speaks volumes to the topic of society and mass hysteria and the dangers of coupling government with personal ideology, but nothing to the subject of the virtues and dangers of religion.
Somber at 12:22PM on Dec 17th 2007
66. This is, um... weird... and fastidiously manipulative. Well, thank you for inventing a new breed of atheist. Hey all, Potter 5 is out on DVD! Let's conjure curses! Let me teach you a new word today, kiddos ... R-E-L-A-X.
Mokele-Mbembe at 12:27PM on Dec 17th 2007
67. 36. God has brought judgement down on the priesthood...they are no longer getting away with their crimes...and those that thought they did, are being brought forward as well...
Bridget, as someone who has family who were victims of child molesters, let me explain something to you:
Those priests DID get away with it. They got what they wanted. They hurt children, and your "God" allowed it. No amount of punishment, no amount of jail time will give those children back what was taken from them. No amount of time will make it go away. When a murderer is caught and imprisoned or executed, it does not bring his victim come back to life. When a child molester is caught, it does not give a child back their innocence.
God brought down judgment?!? So...he has the power to "bring down judgment", but only AFTER innocent children's lives are destroyed? What kind of a sick God is that?
Come back when your posts start making a modicum of sense.
Kodiak at 12:29PM on Dec 17th 2007
68. Fr. Jim, OMI,
You do seem like a very reasonable guy. The thing is, Dinesh is not simply critiquing Pullman. Look over his other blog headlines, and you'll get a hint that he is not a fantasy fiction critic, but an active persecutor of atheists.
Mokele-Mbembe at 12:37PM on Dec 17th 2007
69. William, the Christ or Messiah had to fulfill all of the prophesies and Jesus did, it is not for you or I to pick and choose which prophesies are more important and only require those to be met. The world power that the Christ came to conquer was a spiritual power not a human power. The Jews misunderstood this prophecy just as you have. The freedom He came to win was freedom from the power of sin to bring us "death" not physical death but spiritual death.
It's quite ok with me that you don't see it that way and that you think I am dillusional. I expect nothing less from you. The wisdom of God is foolishness to men.
dawn at 12:38PM on Dec 17th 2007
70. Cristianity is a disease. Much like dementia. The symptoms are identical.
And this article illustrates it. No matter how many times someone afflicted with dementia is exposed to facts and reason, they seem to ignore them. Same thing with christianity.
Dinesh has been exposed to facts and reason(I've seen it) and either chooses to ignore them, or is incapable of assimilating them. His article is more intent on opening up a "new" argument against reason and fact than it is on contributing anything to support the theists delusion.
Richard at 12:42PM on Dec 17th 2007
71. I agree with mokele. Dinesh spouts nothing but hate towards the atheists that post on here. Thats why as one of the few totally unindoctrinated Christians and used-to-be atheist myself, I take a firm stance against pretty much everything Dinesh says. He is a hate monger.
danny at 12:46PM on Dec 17th 2007
72. BY the way, I didn't see D'Souza as putting down atheists. He's simply critiquing Pullman, and that seems fair enough.
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Dinesh is constantly putting down atheists. His blog in October was entitled: "Why atheists are not very bright." More recently, he titled it "Why secular liberals are so Uncharitable."
Other than that, your post is very refreshing.
emma at 12:47PM on Dec 17th 2007
73. And why we continue to base any of our current opinions or actions on a society that that was illiterate and thought the world flat, is beyond me.
The idea of god was needed then, not now. Come out of the dogmatic shadow people. Open your mind, and your eyes.
Richard at 12:47PM on Dec 17th 2007
74. very well said, dawn!
neworleanslady at 12:47PM on Dec 17th 2007
75. People are always blaming God for the things that other people do. God has given us guidelines to live by, that lead to healthy and productive lives. Sadly there are so many that go the other way. The priests that molested those children were not acting on God's behalf. There are lots of wonderful parents out there who have done their best to teach their children right from wrong and then their children end up being criminals. Using the mentality that "God Allowed IT" then we should be putting parents in prison for the crimes their grown children commit. God's children have all the information they need to do good and be responsible members of society but they have to decide to do those things.
Strange, when good things happen: people get the credit but when bad things happen: God gets the credit.
dawn at 12:48PM on Dec 17th 2007