His Silly Material

[jeff_duntemann]

The film version of The Golden Compass opens tomorrow, and people have been asking me what I think of all the frothing over Phillip Pullman's anti-religion polemic. I read the books a couple of years ago; I also know a little bit about the history of Christianity. So let me respond here:

Comments

[forvrin]

First, the cool: take a look at this. I have no idea if you'd find it as interestingly awesome as I did.

Second, I'm a little confused. Do you think that Pullman's Church is a strawman, or that Pullman has a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Church believes? Or both.

I loved the Golden Compass, right up until I found out what was going to come in the next two books. Then I found it lame. I want to see the movie, because hey, airships.

[jeff_duntemann]

I hate to second-guess an author's inner intentions, especially since synthesis is something he does well, and something that I appreciate. The Magisterium is a synthesis of most of the worst elements of Gnostic Dualism, with a vague Catholic flavor and a thin Calvinist frosting. Pullman's a smart guy and I'm pretty sure he's read history. I think he knows that the Reformers had no equal in authoritarianism and bloodthirstiness. He may have wanted to make sure that the rabid anti-Catholic lunatic fringes in the present-day Protestant camp didn't embrace him as one of their own

[daisy_knotwise]

Life is too short to read sad fiction.

GHR

[baron_waste]

a weird sort of fully imaginary Gnostic sacramental Calvinism as his heavy

What a fascinating idea. Kingsley Amis' The Alteration was the first AH novel I'd ever read.

I've heard rumors that I Asimov's Foundation Trilogy is in development limbo; considering what was done to I, Robot, I really hope it stays there…

[jeff_duntemann]

Kingsley Amis was brilliant, both as an author and as an anthologist/editor. I've never seen that book and should probably read it.

The role of religion in history is the wildest of all wildcards, and if I live long enough to write them, I have some AH concepts in my notefiles that might break some new ground there.

[vila_resthal]

The world was recently saved from a Sci-Fi Channel version of "Ringworld" which would have totally rewritten the story in order to make it more palatable to TV executives. (In other words, to show lots of cleavage and CGI and dumb the plot down.) Larry Niven was *not* happy about what SFC intended to do. Thankfully, the estimated cost of doing even a crappy version of "Ringworld" made SFC decide to forget about the project.

Larry was quite pleased with the version of "Inconstant Moon" what was made into a (New) Outer Limits episode. And he's always liked the animated Star Trek episode made from one of his Known Space short stories...

The problem is that Niven stories are so *good* that it would be hard for anyone to do a version that would please a majority of his fanbase. Niven fans argue constantly about who should play which Niven characters if a particular story should wind up being filmed. One thing that we all agree upon is that Hollywood can't be trusted not to screw it up.

Dan

[chris_gerrib]

Isn't Gnostism (or however the heck you spell it) a pre-Christian theology? I seem to recall that they attached themselves to Christianity back in late Roman times.

Gnostism does seem to be an attractive concept that keeps coming back - see Dan Brown's body of work.

[jeff_duntemann]

"Gnosticism" is a much-used word that has "blurred out" in the last 50 years almost beyond usefulness. Used by itself, it indicates direct spiritual experience as the underpinnings of religion, rather than mediated revelation. "Gnostic dualism" has roots in ancient Persia, and it tried to graft itself into Christianity in the 200s or so. The resulting synthesis was bitterly fought by mainstream Catholicism for a long, long time, and never really vanished. However, after the Albigensian Crusade (circa 1220) it went underground

[jeff_duntemann]

Here's an article from a different issue of Gnosis that offers some interesting insights into both ancient and modern Gnosticism:

http://www.gnosis.org/iniquity.htm

I am not a Gnostic, and I have over many years come to the conclusion that the solution to the problem of evil and suffering is freedom: The all-good God allows evil and suffering to happen to keep both individuals and the forces of creation free. This implies that there is a divine end-game toward which we are moving that involves gradual improvement, and such improvement can only happen if we are free to choose it, and if the consequences of errors can be freely experienced, even if they hurt, and hurt others.

This is an intuition of mine, and, not being a philosopher, I'm not entirely sure I can defend it against all attacks. However, it's the best that I can do.