At Ask Me Help Desk you can ask questions in any topic and have them
answered for free by our experts. To ask questions or participate in
answering them you must register for a free account. By registering you
will be able to:
Get free answers from experts in any of our 300+
topics.
like in a way i kind of understood the movie but then again i didnt but like can someone explain like why ppl like its anit-religion and pro-atheisim like wat in the movie protrayed that
But the religious organisations have been doing this for years nigh centuries! I remember being given a children's bible of watered down bible stories with colourful pictures, taking part in nativity plays, and reading the Chronicles of Narnia. The latter being exactly the same to Christianity as the Golden Compass is the atheism.
It's not really the same. Books of bible stories and nativity plays are intended for the children of believers. They're not intended to proselytize the children of atheists and convert them to Christianity through stealth. As for Chronicles of Narnia, Peter J. Schakel, a professor of English at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, states that a non-Christian reader can approach the book as a fictional story and "be moved by the exciting adventures and the archetypal meanings, and not find the Christian elements obtrusive or offensive"; for source see following:
This is clearly not the case with Dark Materials, in which the anti-Christian elements ARE obtrusive and offensive to the believer.
The care of childrens' spiritual needs is the responsibility of the childrens' parents, not of an author like Pullman. I have no problem with Pullman's books if they are viewed as adult fantasy -- one of my favorite authors is John Crowley, whose works are Gnostic in character (actually, I'd characterize Pullman's message as more of a Gnostic one than a Christian one but that's off-topic). But he has written them for kids (specifically pre-teens and early teens), and it feels as though he's tried to do an end run around parents who may not realize that this isn't just another Narnia or Lord of the Rings and give approval to their kids' reading something that will undercut their spiritual formation (and if you think telling your kids to see the movie but not read the books will work, well, you've never been a parent).
If you think young children will understand the anti-religion content of the movie then think again. Even if they do people, even children, are entitled to be informed. Children born into the christian religion do not chose it, it is forced apon them, but how many people are complaining about that. There is enough buzz around this movie to warn religous parents of the content.
Well I would just have to say Believers don't go see the movie, and don't take your kids. That way they can grow up to be narrow minded and good little cows for their government. And for the group that is all up in the air about it, this is America where we are free to have all kids of diffrent views on the world around us. And for everyone else lets go see the movie, cause it's just a movie. Thankyou and goodnight lol.
Even if they do people, even children, are entitled to be informed. Children born into the christian religion do not chose it, it is forced apon them, but how many people are complaining about that. There is enough buzz around this movie to warn religous parents of the content.
Do young children have a right to demand reading "120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade"? Or "Psychopathia Sexualis" by Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing? Why not, they're entitled to be informed about human sexuality, right, even the abnormal and cruel side of it? How about some of the other works in my library of psychopathological works?
Responsible parents do not let their kids do (or read) whatever they want. This isn't coming from me as a Christian, it's coming from me as a therapist who works with families & couples with parenting issues, as well as leading a male parenting group. Permissive parenting leads to messed up kids ... so does brutal parenting grounded in power and control. Responsible parents give their kids more access to information as they need it and AS THEY'RE READY FOR IT. Why do they have this authority over their kids? Because they're adults ... and presumably they know better.
That way they can grow up to be narrow minded and good little cows for their government.
How did government get in there?
Let me take a stab at it ... Pullman critic = Christian = fundamentalist = political conservative = George Bush supporter = fascist. Ergo, anyone who believes that His Dark Materials is not suitable for young children is a fascist. Seems pretty broad-minded and free-thinking to me.
If you think young children will understand the anti-religion content of the movie then think again. Even if they do people, even children, are entitled to be informed. Children born into the christian religion do not chose it, it is forced apon them, but how many people are complaining about that. There is enough buzz around this movie to warn religous parents of the content.
It's likely children wont pick up on the message, but you can't be sure of that, so it's not worth the risk. Young children don't have the right to be informed of things they are not ready for. There's no harm in teaching children to have faith, if they CHOOSE later on that they don't believe it, fine. But it's much easier for a child that was raised religiously to deny faith then for a child raised without religion to gain faith. And many people who grew up in a religious environment do end up inevitably deciding for themselves. (My sister and I were both raised Catholic, she is now an atheist)
Well I would just have to say Believers don't go see the movie, and don't take your kids.
You're right, believers can just steer clear of this film. But some people may not be informed. (Honestly until this post, I knew nothing about this film, and I'm pretty well informed)
Quote:
Originally Posted by zyi
That way they can grow up to be narrow minded and good little cows for their government.
This was uncalled for, and has no substance. Religion has nothing to do with government. Obviously. And religion does not equal close mindedness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zyi
And for the group that is all up in the air about it, this is America where we are free to have all kids of diffrent views on the world around us.
Americans are free to believe anything they want, but knowingly trying to alter the underdeveloped mind of a child is not acceptable. Like I said, it's much easier for a child deny their faith as they get older, then to develop faith after being told there is no God.
What's wrong with having faith anyway? If there is any possibility that life after death could be real what's the harm in believing? If nothing really does happen to you then there's no harm done. If something DOES happen, non-believers are, well for lack of a better word, screwed.
That's just my opinion.
Do young children have a right to demand reading "120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade"? Or "Psychopathia Sexualis" by Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing? Why not, they're entitled to be informed about human sexuality, right, even the abnormal and cruel side of it? How about some of the other works in my library of psychopathological works?
Vasily
How can you compare The Golden Compass to any of those works. The Golden compass is MADE FOR CHILDREN. Children do have the right to be informed, and if there was appropriate texts about the abnormal and cruel side of human sexuality then my answer would be the same.
First of all let me just say that I live on the bible belt so I hear this discussion anytime I leave my house, and both sides have interesting points.
With that said.......
Quote:
Originally Posted by stardust713
What's wrong with having faith anyway? If there is any possibility that life after death could be real what's the harm in believing? If nothing really does happen to you then there's no harm done. If something DOES happen, non-believers are, well for lack of a better word, screwed.
That's just my opinion.
There is nothing wrong with having faith. But I don't see why anyone would waste their entire life worrying about what is gonna happen to them after they are dead. In my opinion when I'm dead I'm dead, end of story. I don't need something to believe in to survive. And I don't want to waste my life now worrying about things after my psyical body dies. After that is not this life anyways so why worry about it. It's just like the old saying what will be will be.
And as far as the government thing, If i offended you I'm sorry. I believe that our government like to keep religion cause it keeps us a cattle. Think about it Bush used his Religion belieffs when he vetoed the stim cell bill that could save billions of lives. So you can't say that religion has nothing to do with government it actualy has alot to do with it.
I was discussing this with my sister earlier and she made a very good point that I had completely overlooked. "The Chronicles of Narnia" are allegory and Christian metaphor, but His Dark Materials are in no way metaphor or allegory. The "God" portrayed in this book never pretends to be any but the Christian God of our own world. There's a paragraph in the third book that kind of sums up the basis of the entire trilogy.
"Ah, but I knew about [angels]. I used to be a nun, you see. I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn't any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all." - From p. 393 of the 2003 Laurel-Leaf paperback edition.
These books blatantly sabotage a religion, where the Narnia books are merely a story based on the bible. They don't try to destroy anything for anyone. And children don't HAVE to view them as anything religious at all. If you are unaware of religion as the child of an atheist may be, then you can simply take the story as just that, a story. But His Dark Materials is aimed to literally destroy the faith of the reader.
These are two EXTREMELY different aims. Pullman's is harmful to an induviduals own opinion, where Lewis's is not.
Linear Mode
