The Golden Compass: Harmless? Hardly.
The last place I look for morality from is Hollywood. I expect the depraved, the sadistic, the dark, the immoral, and the sinful to be glamorized and served to us as entertainment. It’s been that way for a long, long time. However, even coming from Hollywood I have to say that I’ve been taken aback by the upcoming release of The Golden Compass, a movie based on the trilogy of books His Dark Materials by atheist Phillip Pullman. It is an obvious bit of propaganda that is meant to entice children into the world of atheism and moral relativism (at best).
The first five minutes of the movie have been posted here. For those of you who don’t care to watch, here’s the opening narration from the film:
There are many universes, and many earths — parallel to each other. Worlds like yours, where people’s souls live inside their bodies. And worlds like mine, where they walk beside us as animal spirits we call daemons (pronounced “demons”).
So many worlds, but connecting them all is Dust. Dust was here before the witches of the air, the gyptians of the water, and the bears of the ice.
In my world, scholars invented an alethiometer—The Golden Compass, and it showed them all that was hidden. But the ruling power, fearing any truth but their own, destroyed these devices, and forbade the very mention of Dust.
That’s the setup that you get in the first two minutes of the film. In the first two minutes our children are told that there are other universes, that there is a world where your spirit and guiding conscience is a demon (spell it how you wish), that scholars know all truth, and that religion destroys scholarship and truth, forbidding debate and discussion. (If you watch the video, the line “But the ruling power, fearing any truth but their own” is accompanied by imagery of a building very similar to the Vatican.)
Now, this movie is based on the first book in a trilogy. What I’ve read to you is mild compared to the other books. The author, Pullman, has expressed his desire that the watered down film version of the first book will entice parents to buy the much less innocent book trilogy, and win children over to atheism. He said flatly in a 2003 interview, “My books are about killing God.”
The second and third books in the series see the heroine, Lyra, and the hero, Will, becoming the new Adam & Eve. They find themselves on a mission to destroy the Kingdom of Heaven, where God rules mankind, and establish a Republic of Heaven, where each person rules themselves. This mission involves castration, female circumcision, sexual experimentation (as a means of child enlightenment) and in the third installment a pair of homosexual angels, lovers, guiding the young children on their mission to kill God.
One of the angels, Balthamos, tells Will (the young boy lead character) that God was not the creator of the universe. He was simply an angel who came to power above the others and started telling the other angels that he created everything. A woman angel discovered the truth, so he cast her out of heaven along with her followers. God is actually old now, and feeble. He is kept in a glass box and another angel actually runs Heaven because God is too old to do so.
Think I’m making this up? Think I’m exaggerating for effect or using hyperbole for drama? Read for yourself. The books are available at any bookstore, especially now. Or you can head over to SparkNotes and read the synopsis of each book (Overview: His Dark Materials, Book One: The Golden Compass, Book Two: The Subtle Knife, and Book Three: The Amber Spyglass).
Again, I’m not looking to Hollywood for guidance or Christian entertainment. What I resent, however, is someone who is, as Pullman himself said in a 2001 interview, “trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief”. If you don’t want to be a Christian, fine. Don’t be. Choose atheism, or agnosticism. Choose Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius, Shiva, Vishnu…whoever you want to choose, choose. But you show your weakness, your ignorance, and your fear of real Truth when you feel that you must lie about or rewrite someone else’s beliefs to validate your own. It’s absolutely predatory that someone who cannot convince another of his beliefs because of strong argument to the contrary, would then turn to a child, who has not the vocabulary, wisdom, or scholarship to be able to articulate anything to counter, and force his beliefs on them.
What an irony that Pullman’s film and books are all about the great lies the church has forced on children, when he himself is guilty of the very same.
6 Responses to “The Golden Compass: Harmless? Hardly.”
By ADawg on Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
WELL SAID!! That’s the best article I have read yet on this film!! God Bless!!!
By jeremy on Dec 8, 2007 | Reply
i like it… i will be linking people to it… that way i don’t actually have to argue with them… they can just read your well-argued points.
yay for piggybacking.
By DavidThissen on Jan 7, 2008 | Reply
“In the first two minutes our children are told that there are other universes, that there is a world where your spirit and guiding conscience is a demon (spell it how you wish)…”
What do you think is best for children? all fairy tales, all children’s books are about worlds that don’t exist. But that’s no threat, it’s something children need. They need fantasy stories to understand the reality and their own world.
I can’t understand how you can claim that the The Golden Compass is “immoral”. It is one of the best fantasy books ever, but it expects the reader to think a little bit about it, which some seem not to do!
By ****ing load of rubbish on Feb 19, 2008 | Reply
**** whoever wrote this, sanctimonious ****
Editor’s note: Now, now — let’s play nice. Just because you lack the mental capacity to represent a superior argument to that presented doesn’t mean we should use foul language.
By David Thissen on Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
“In the first two minutes our children are told that there are other universes”
this page might be interesting for you:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/parallel-universe.htm
By DavidThissen on Feb 26, 2008 | Reply
Did you know that “Dark Material” could really exist? Scholars actually try to find out more about it in CERN…
see the following link:
http://www.issibern.ch/PDF-Files/Spatium_7.pdf