I just saw an ad for "The Golden Compass" that said it was "A brilliant fantasy in the tradition of Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia." YEAH. Because those two devout men would totally endorse a movie or book series whose author is an avowed atheist, and in which (
Cut for a big fat SPOILER )
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I really don't think it's any deeper than that.
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I'm not really sure there were too many references to "god" in the first book (not having read it) to be excised (and, to be fair, I've heard that "The Golden Compass" is pretty good), but in the third one it's crystal clear what Pullman's point is. He can couch it in "commentary on religious oppression," but the fact is that God dies in his book, and this is supposedly a good thing, and the people who bring it about are heroes.
It's a shame. I wanted to like it. Yay for genre movies and all that, and the polar bears look awesome. But I won't be going to see this one.
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I can't speak for Pullman, obviously, but despite being an atheist myself, I love C.S.Lewis' books dearly. And not just Narnia: I have The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters (hilarious stuff), and several others of his works.
(On the other hand, it was when I heard that Pullman was an atheist that I became interested in The Golden Compass. Sorry.)
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God does not die in the books. It is a being pretending to be God (or at least "a god"). The creature has aged over time, was overthrown, and was basically being held captive by creatures who were (if possible) worse. Meanwhile, the religion in Lyria's world has been hopelessly corrupted by power and is pretty much quashing dissent of all kinds.
The books are not, at all, atheistic. Gnostic Christian, yes. There is a nod to the idea that there's something above "the Authority (i.e., the being/beings pretending to be God)," but it becomes clear in the third book that "the Authority" and "the Church" and God (and God is not defined in the novels) are three very different things and none are like the other.
So you can go see the move without fear and/or guilt.
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....
how exactly does that work?
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The children kill a being that had masqueraded as God, but was being held captive by other beings that are doing thing's in the fake god's name.
The books are not about atheism. They use Gnostic Christianity as a template.
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