The Golden Compass
This post stems from an email I received. You may want to read the email below first.
Maybe I’m just late to the party on this one. I received the email from a Christian friend and I usually don’t fwd these types of emails but (they always say that, but they do), since this involves children and we are in the middle of a war of ideas and all…
This is about an English author and a new Hollywood children flick based on his books.
The comments by the author mentioned on Snopes caught my attention: “My books are about killing God.” I thought, well that’s a statement worth looking into, perhaps worth passing on to other Christian soldiers. Children book authors usually aren’t that vocal. I thought I’d learn more about this guy. Turns out he says his books aren’t aimed at children. Of course.
On his website http://www.philip-pullman.com the author replies to the question: “Do you believe in God?” in saying ” I don’t know whether there’s a God or not. Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.”
OK, normal atheist stuff so far. I can’t believe in something that I do not see or can’t prove with my five senses. It’s fascinating to me how Pullman confuses his readers’ minds with the way he uses the term “dæmon.” Maybe it’s the French in me and I don’t understand how else the term is used in the English language. Read on and you tell me.
“Dæmons” are seemingly part of his fictional fantasy (or reality). About Dæmons he says: “I don’t want to say anything about them which will give away some of the plot of the final book, but I will say that the dæmons is that part of you that helps you grow towards wisdom.” Wow, what a strange choice of words even for a fantasy world. I guess a child could easily decipher through that. Dæmons – wisdom, you know a good word association when you see one.
Wait, maybe this is not just fantasy, he further claims: “readers have told me that the dæmons, which at first seem so utterly fantastic, soon become so familiar and essential a part of each character that they, the readers, feel as if they’ve got a dæmon themselves. And my point is that they have, that we all have. It’s an aspect of our personality that we often overlook, but it’s there. That’s what I mean by realism: I was using the fantastical elements to say something that I thought was true about us and about our lives.”
Without reading the material he is saying that dæmons are part of the human make-up and they help you grow towards wisdom. I cringe. He is onto something though I’ll give him that.
Oh I get it now – among his motives for writing are “#1 Money, #2 to make his name known and #3 the sheer pleasure of craftsmanship: the endlessly absorbing delight of making things” he says. There you have it, another narcissistic talent brought to a theatre near you and your family Dec. 7th. After all, in a world where God does not exist, who cares about the impact his writings have on his readers, however old they are. Who cares about using our creative talents to promote true ideas for a greater cause than ourselves. Let’s make the world an even more confusing place as long as our tubby empty-selves are satisfied to the brim.
And then you have Hollywood, throwing millions at this “œuvre d’art.” This all makes me want to speak French. Darn, I love Nicole Kidman as an actress though. I’m really torn on this one. Might have to go see it so I can criticize it better. Nah, get behind me, dæmon! That would be too much wisdom.
Franck
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Cor.10:3-5
Marty is discussing.
Marty 1:04 pm on November 2, 2007 Permalink |
This is legit. I read every one of the books in the “His Dark Materials” series. Philip Pullman wrote them out of his “outrage” at C.S. Lewis for daring to put Christian allegory into children’s literature. But is he outraged to have put atheism into children’s books? No. In the books, the Satan character is the hero, and God is a dottering ancient creature who is manipulated by religious abusers of children. When the children literally “kill” God, they relieve the world from the evils of religion and help everyone accept naturalism as the truth. And the books are dark, materialistic, a-moral, and rather violent for children’s literature. I have read them. I know. I strongly advise Christians avoid the movie out of protest to the books. I am told that the movie downplays the religious elements. But I don’t see how there would be much of a story left.
Roger 1:05 pm on November 2, 2007 Permalink |
Good take Franck. And they say the movie has most if not all of the “bad stuff” taken out, but is more of an attempt to direct folks to his books, which contain the real Dæmons.
It always amazes me to remember back to when I was dead in my trespasses and sins and unable to discern any real knowledge and then to recall what that was like. He just needs to come alive and learn, but will he ever? Right now, there is such spiritual warfare going on it’s really scary. It is so popular to protect all manners of speech (PC), but then to turn around and have a holiday trashing Christians and being with the in-crowd doing so. When good will be evil and evil will be good. But like the book says, when dæmons abound, Jesus is just around the corner.
I heard about your plight with the Jack-O-Lantern. I carved a cross in it one year and set it out for the kids to see. Oh well, I just like to think of Oct. 31st as the celebration of Luther’s 95 theses being nailed up and celebrate it as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. I don’t like the other two celebrations of it at all. (The Catholic and Satanic ones.) Still a good time to evangelize though.
Have a good day, my friend.
Roger
Franck Barfety 9:08 am on March 9, 2008 Permalink |
As a follow up to this post, The Golden Compass to this date has grossed $325,083,519 worldwide and places 152 on IMDb’s All-Time Worldwide Box-Office list. It’s not surprising that most of that comes from overseas. Evangelicals in the US did not fall for it, fortunately. Considering that the film’s budget was a hefty $180 Million, I wouldn’t say it was a huge success. box office