Don't like it? Don't watch it. Its a free country. Keep your religion to yourself and stop trying to control my mind. Believe what you want but keep it off my doorstep and out of my face when I am in public places.

Lenin was right. Religion is the opiate of the masses.

Most of these people couldn't find Israel on a map or tell you who was the Emperor of Rome in Christ's day or anything else relevent to the time. Bunch of mindless sheep...

If it's OK to scare children into believing in The Bible
then
why is it not OK to teach children about other views?

I have seen Catholic and Evangel children told the most horrific stories, to put the fear of God into them, so what is wrong with this?

Ok, just kidding. I have to work. But first...

"They say it will hook children into Pullman's books and a dark, individualistic world where all religion is evil."

I used to have a t-shirt:

In big letters:

J E S U S

In tiny letters:

protect me from your followers.

And when christianists saw me, they first smiled, but then as they approached, they gave me more than a meter of clearance on the sidewalk and looked away. Boy, that shirt said it all!!!

After the personal assassinations, intimidations, tortures, murder and genocide....

Doncha think that religion has been rather the most stellar failure, even moreso than our Brain-Wizard pResident?

I maintain that the religionists are in such a sweat, particularly since the 19th Century. When they see time and again the asssertions of astrophysicists, naturalists, biologists, and pyschologists demonstrating (e.g., see the results of the Dover PA case) that the most-oft touted tenets of the faith (in spite of the fact that they are the most inconsequential details - check in with Jesus, man...) are rubbish, they get more and more dangerous.

Yes, this is the end of religion, if this is all they can do. But in being near to the end, they are as dangerous as Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Theodosius, Athanasius, Innocent III, The Holy Inquisition, The Spanish Inquisition, Luther, Calvin, Columbus, Magellen, Cortez, Pizzaro, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Franco, and all the rest in the 20th Century all wrapped up in one ball of flaming hate.

Ugh.

--UB.

The fact that the Conservative Catholics and the Christo Nazis don't want you to see this movie is ALL THE MORE REASON TO SEE IT !!!!!!!!

Here's an idea, if you don't like it then don't go see it and quit trying to tell eveyone else how to live. I'm sure you are no where near a pure as you try play. Besides who died and made you all god or should I say God wana be's.jerks

Why believe that Pullman is selling Atheism? What, in his books, would suggest that? Book 3 especially of the trilogy implies, not that there is no God, but that society has settled on the "wrong" god, actually a usurper. That we should choose His Adversary instead.

His Dark Materials is only a story, but when we come across someone who believes this sort of stuff in real life, we call them "Satanists", not Secularists.

In the books, Asriel is presented as a kind of hero, because he opposes the "evil Church" and its child-sacrificing oblation board. But his opposition is for selfish reasons, and he is not averse to the occasional child sacrifice himself. The message, ultimately, is that greed is good, and the end justifies the means. Truly a tale for today.

HDM is based on Milton's "Paradise Lost", which is the story of creation and the fall with Satan portrayed as a surprisingly sympathetic figure. Quite why Milton would give Satan all the best lines is unclear, though in reality evil is always very seductive, otherwise nobody would choose it. But I think it's clear why Pullman chose to develop Milton's theme further. Just because he's in some "secular" society, that doesn't make him secularist or atheist.

Some Christians cry wolf too often. Harry Potter is seen as "satanic" because it has witches and magic; but these are just trimmings. There is no attempt to blur the difference between good and evil, or to present evil as good.

HDM will be seen as yet another cry of wolf, because books 1 and 2 are actually an enjoyable adventure story, and the anti-Christian message is sufficiently toned down so it doesn't spoil the enjoyment too much. If book 3 had closed the adventure in a believable way, there could have been a great trilogy, despite the presentation of evil as good.

But books 1 and 2 were just a prologue to the extremely polemic book 3, which I doubt will ever see the light of day as a film.

Belief
The earlier thought, belief in the flatness of the earth, had some foundation in evidence; it rested upon what men could see easily within their limits of vision. There was no search for new evidence. Ultimately the belief rested on laziness, inertia, custom, absence of courage and energy into investigation [Dewey 1933:8]

Selling atheism to kids? Good. It's about time.

There is no god.

I'm always amazed by the number of people who pretend they can't figure out how to be good or kind or how to find meaning in their lives, without a Big Daddy to look up to. It really shows how lazy most people are, because it's so much easier to give it up for Big Daddy in the sky than to make moral decisions based on knowledge, compassion, and experience.

That's why we're in such a mess today. Too many people looking for daddy to take care of things for them.

I almost got into an argument about this movie at a friend's Christmas party on Saturday. I was told NOT to bring my children to see it, because "It teaches kids that the power is all within themselves and they don't need to look to God or any higher power." As a guest at their party, I bit my tongue. But the fact that that is a negative to some people is why I have sworn off religion forever.
I think it's funny that some Christians believe that Christ is their eternal savior and all-powerful son of God but he needs to be protected from a movie about fighting polar bears in armor. Ridiculous.

Just out of curiosity, I'd love to find out how and where these chain e-mails get started.

I was so happy to read that Phillip Pullman is a religious skeptic. I'll for sure go to see this movie.

I hope this does well. I've already received some chain emails from y religious nutjob acquaintences. So much for tolerance and "turning the other cheek". These people are the equivalent of all the Muslims crying foul about everything. Why are they so concerned about this? If they don't want their children influenced, don't go to the movie already.

Lighten up and get a grip!

The more I hear about bullshit like this the more I percieve christianity as a nasty cornered dog.
Any cursory investigation of Christian beliefs will reveal they are mostly nonsensical and unprovable. Any deeper investigation will reveal that the Bible is was put together and edited by folks who used it to solidify their positions of power and control, not enlighten the unwashed masses. Therefore they ALWAYS freak out when someone has the audacity to examine their espoused beliefs in a critical and/or unglamorous light. In the past, the director would have been burned as a heretic. Since they can't get away with that anymore, they resort to imploring people to reject the movie because it might temp their children to explore alternative beliefs before the church has completed their brainwashing.

Religion is other people telling you what God is.

I've read "His Dark Materials". It is an excellent series. And while there is a specific message in it that is a challenge to religious authority, you have to remember a couple of things.

First, is that is a work of fiction. It doesn't portray all religion as evil, although some religions from the various worlds that are visited in the book clearly are. At its absolute worst it poses the idea that religion often acts as the barrier to human freedom. You'll find similar such radical, "anti-religious" statements in the words on Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin who said such things were inherent in religion and thus the reason to separate it from government. In the heroine's world, religion IS the government and a tyrannical one at that.

Second, (and this contains some possible spoilers for the end of the series) in the story there are god-like entities in the universe, but the most powerful among them have actually tricked intelligent races into believing they created the universe and the life in it when in fact they didn't. And they did it to control and dominate intelligent life -- using various religions under their sway to carry out this idea. The afterlife does exist, but its a dreary place where all the dead go no matter how good or bad they were in life -- kind of like the underworld from Greek mythology. Part of the series is about freeing the dead from this afterlife prison.

Third, none of this kind of stuff is new. If you read science fiction and fantasy literature there are LOTS of stories that have taken basic concepts from major religions and changed them to make them villainous or morally questionable. This story is not breaking any new ground here, only telling us that its always good to have an open mind, question authority, and be on guard for people and movements to claim they have our best interests in mind when in fact they are merely self-serving and their real agenda is control and power over others.