The Golden Compass: The Godly Contest

With all the hype surrounding the December premier of The Golden Compass I decided to give the book a try. I was especially interested in the series after I heard the author was an extremely outstanding writer.

So I did what any good reader would do . . . I looked the book up on-line. What surprised me was that I found more than I bargained for. Apparently a whole bunch of people are up in arms over the His dark Materials trilogy. Well, like any good reading/writing/discerning/human being, I’m going to read the The Golden Compass and come to an intelligent conclusion for myself. Not that I discount the opinions of others, quite the contrary, but no one should talk about an issue unless they know what they’re talking about. I plan on knowing what I’m talking about.

I did the same thing when Harry Potter came out it; the books were shrouded in controversy and people were saying a lot of insane things on both side of the issues. On one front people supported real-life witchcraft (stupid) and on the other they wrote books called Harry Potter and the Bible, which was a “theological” essay on the sin of Harry Potter (not all that good of an idea concerning their arguments weren’t the most biblical).

After reading the entire series . . . three times each . . . and once I read the entire thing out loud (all 7 books), I made my final conclusion.

Drum role please. 

I don’t have any serious problems with Harry Potter. The biggest disagreement I have is with Rowling’s recent un-literary addition of Dumbledore’s sexuality. Other than that it’s all debatable, and I won’t take the time now to debate them . . . we’re talking about another children’s book

I’ve read the first two chapters of The Golden Compass and I’m starting to see two things. 1. The author is an amazing writer, and 2. I know why everyone’s up-in-arms. Sure, Phil Pullman’s an atheist, and though everything he does will be colored by his beliefs, that doesn’t mean all of his works will expressly deal with his atheistically philosophical bent. As far as I know J.K. Rowling doesn’t believe in God either but her books don’t broach the subject in any degree. Yet, it’s very obvious from the first chapter, that Pullman’s anti-organized-church-predisposition is a main character in his series.

So I did some more research on-line this morning and found this . . .    

“http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp”

Though sites like this can be a dime a dozen, this particular site is well represented. I wish the information this site was untrue, but I’m pretty sure it holds more than water. What this doesn’t mean is I’m not going to read the books, but- like Harry Potter- it’s good to know what you’re looking for. In short, I still plan on giving the series a chance. If I can support it I will, but if I can’t, having read the books, I’ll be able to fight against it better.

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but my opinion is that no atheist should be spreading lies to a generation of impressionable children; especially when they put out a high-voltage, watered-down version of it to get kids to buy the trilogy only to find out the books hold a blatant message. I say to Pullman the same thing I said to Rowling . . . if you have a belief system don’t hide it to sell books/movies.

Pullman, at least be honest about the fact you want to kill God when they make your movie. Don’t shroud the film in innocence so you can sell your books.