Posted on 12/04/2007 8:52:33 AM PST by Between the Lines
A controversial children's movie described as anti-Christian is set for release in South African cinemas on Friday, prompting an outcry from Christians, and email circulars warning people against taking their children to see the film.
The Golden Compass is based on the book Northern Lights, the first of a trilogy entitled His Dark Materials by British author Philip Pullman.
Pullman has described himself in the European and American press as both an agnostic and an atheist.
He was quoted saying that to his knowledge, there was not the "slightest evidence" that God existed.
He added that he loathed The Chronicles of Narnia books by C S Lewis.
Pullman has also been quoted as saying: "It is my goal to go after Christianity. I want God to be dead in my works. I want to undermine Christianity."
Critics of the books have drawn parallels between Pullman's stories and the Narnia books, but say their underlying ideologies are very different.
The film is about a 12-year-old girl, Lyra, who hides in a wardrobe. She is then transported into a fictional universe similar to that of Narnia and given a truth-telling device called an alethiometer.
Lyra learns that children are disappearing and that the church is trying to learn about a substance called Dust, which is believed to be connected to original sin.
The church's investigation involves experiments on children to separate them from their demons, which are animal spirits.
The film has apparently been sanitised so as not to offend Christian viewers, but it is also alleged to be the milder of the three books, the last of which, The Amber Spyglass, sees God dying.
Pullman said in an interview: "Of course I don't say: 'There is no God.' I say: 'There is a God and here he is dying,' and he goes with a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief."
-snip-
Ummm, yes, and your welcome.
Matt 18:5-6 Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
We have some confirmed atheists friends, family and associates that I confront much too often. My wife is always reminding me that this is their heaven and that I am turning it into a hell for them. : )
I am sure that he would object to our prayers, but prayers up anyways.
You need to see South Park’s two part shows, “Go God Go” and “Go God Go II”. You want to see a world full of athiests, which are ripped on throughout the episodes, and don’t mind some of the coarse language, you’ll get a laugh.
They do a good job of skewering Richard Dawkins here too. I was laughing pretty hard. Even the athiests can’t get along ultimately, as there are several groups who have different answers to their own “Great Question.” You’ll be amazed at what that is.
It is a great comfort knowing how the story ends.
Stevenson: Anti-Christian message gets in the way of a good story
But it is of the books and not the movie. The movie is probably less offensive. I do have to wonder though, if the first movie does well, will they get bolder with the anti-christian sentiment in the next two?
It’s because most athiests aren’t really athiests at all, per the definition of not believing in God. They wholly belive in God, they are just against Him. A better, more descriptive, term would be anti-thiests.
As for agnostics, I claimed to be such for quite a time. Most of all, I was misguided with anger.
Just like Satan and the fallen angels that serve him. Probably more than anyone else, they know that God exists. But they have chosen to separate themselves from Him.
I was a secular humanist for a time, but that was driven by a combination of despair and egotism. I still struggle with the problems that come of having an outrageously large ego, but have made some progress in keeping that under control, as well as regaining a measure of hope and faith.
The onle thing about Hollywood that hasn’t changed is if the first one does well, they’ll follow the exact formula for the next one.
The Lethal Weapon movies are a prime example of this.
As for the direct line argument, that is treating history as a causal science. History is more complicated than an easily explained series of causes. There have been many atheistic movements in history. One of the biggest and bloodiest was the French revolution, before Darwin, Nietzsche, and Nazism.
It seems to me that every age has people who want to be atheist. The Middle Ages had its scholars of Aristotle. Some of these were Christian, some only believed in an impersonal divinity, and some were materialist and atheist. Did Aristotle cause them to be that way? I would say no. They only found in their interpretation of Aristotle what they wanted to find.
I would not attribute this latest movie to a direct cause going back to Darwin, or anyone else. The author is simply an atheist, a tendency seen in every age. Let's simply hope this tendency does not become the majority opinion.
So it sounds like a parody of Lewis' story The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But does the Pullman's story have any charm for children other than special effects? I guess the box office will tell.
I think it is more correct to say that Truth is power.
Yep, and thats where it gets ‘interesting’.
Who’s ‘truth’?
Truth is.
I am not a relativist. Makes no sense.
Words mean things.
There is some emotional thing going on with them. If they were operating out of pure reason, it wouldn't make any sense to spend any time trying to 'undermine Christianity'. . .that is, if they truly believed that God does not exist.
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If this little dude sets out to "kill" God, he'd better pack a big ol' lunch...
Mr. Pullman will be dead in God’s world long before God is dead in his.
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