Golden Compass is pimping atheism to kids

Submitted by charlie.collins on Tue, 12/04/2007 - 18:34

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Technology

Several news sites have picked up the religious right drumbeat that 'Golden Compass' may be "selling atheism to kids Now, there are a myriad of issues with that sentiment, true or not, but I think something else is more important. They are KIDS, they don't have the preconceptions and indoctrinations that the religious right has, or that grown agnostic/atheists have. They see an interesting story about heroes fighting bad guys and really cool animal companions that help, all set in a fascinating fantasy land. Newsflash, the kids don't give a crap whether it's religion or anti-religion or anything else, so long as it's entertaining - and that's exactly how it SHOULD be. Sure Philip Pullman has called himself both an atheist and an agnostic and in the books there is reportedly an anti-religion/religion as the bad guy theme (I haven't read them, I actually hear they aren't that good). Yet that has also reportedly been toned down for the movie, and again, even if it were there kids wouldn't care, so long as it still had armor clad polar bears. What really gets me though, is crap like this statement: 'Adam Holz of Focus on the Family, writing on the Christian ministry's Plugged In site, calls Pullman's books and the film a "deliberate attempt to foist his viciously anti-God beliefs upon his audience." Most diabolical, Holz said in an interview, is that Pullman's audience is children . . .' I agree that kids are impressionable and we should not thrust religious views upon them until they are old enough to rationally handle the concepts. But I think that goes BOTH ways, religion AND non religion. Have you ever been to Sunday School, or Vacation Bible School, or any church, or any sports practice, or seen what we added to the pledge of allegiance kids are required to recite in PUBLIC schools to weed out the commies (under God) - or any one of a hundred thousand other films that ARE religious? The entire religion thing is based on indoctrinating kids and getting them to accept it BEFORE they are old enough to really think about it. So let me get this straight, it's diabolical to have a fantasy movie that is clearly billed/marketed/presented as just that, entertainment, when the theme even verges on being anti-religious, but it's acceptable to start telling kids that make believe shit is TRUE: the Virgin Mary is real (when actually the entire concept is based on a translation error), the Red Sea parted, the Earth is 6000 years old, the entire foundation of biology is suspect because we "didn't come from no monkeys," and gods (plural, Jesus, God, Satan, Angels, etc, and that's just the Christian ones) will burn and torture you forever if you are "bad" (rather than focusing on the actual altruistic and respect/trust reasons you should not be bad - I digress). Whether or not Compass does pimp anti-religion, it doesn't really matter, it can never hold a candle to the crap religious groups and people around the world pull in terms of brainwashing kids.

Comments

Meet your own daemon

Submitted by charlie.collins on Thu, 12/06/2007 - 09:57.

http://goldencompassmovie.com/ Have a feature on the site to fill out a little questionnaire and meet your own daemon, meh, sort of entertaining it you need a small diversion.

just a thought...

Submitted by Brian (not verified) on Thu, 12/06/2007 - 14:31.

Disclaimer: I am a Christian. The kind that has actually read the Bible and believes what it says. However I strongly disagree with how many â€œChristian leadersâ€ (past and present) interpret and apply the Scriptures. Now, I must say I agree with 90% of your post. I find it rather hypocritical that the same people who condemn Harry Potter and The Golden Compass turn around and preach â€œLord of the Ringsâ€ themed sermons. Many in the modern day evangelical church are stuck in an anti-intellectual mindset, which has resulted in people like Adam Holz making stupid comments. However, I take issue with the following statement, â€œI agree that kids are impressionable and we should not thrust religious views upon them until they are old enough to rationally handle the concepts.â€ Religious and anti-religious views ultimately come down to a philosophical point of view. Thus it would appear that you are recommending people thrust a non-religious system of thought on a child before they are old enough to rationally handle the concepts. In short, your post appears to be recommending that people do exactly what you are arguing against.

Fair point, but I still disagree

Submitted by charlie.collins on Sat, 12/08/2007 - 18:31.

This comes up from time to time when I discuss religion, and I think I understand your point - fair enough. However, I do not equate non religion, with religion (as in it being it's own form of religion, or philosophy). I don't mean that people should actively talk about NON religion with kids, or encourage them to be non-religious, etc. That would be the same thing, true. Not talking about it AT ALL, though, is different, and cannot be construed (at least in my mind) as pushing anything on them, philosophy, religion, non-religion, whatever.

is that possible?

Submitted by Brian (not verified) on Sun, 12/09/2007 - 06:21.

From Wikipedia: Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic). Is it possible to avoid those four points while explaining to a child, or adult, why an action is right or wrong.

What does that have to do with it?

Submitted by atrox (not verified) on Sun, 12/09/2007 - 11:19.

You can touch on ethics, and altruism, and group dynamics, and evolution (the real reasons for good and bad), and of course logic and knowledge - while explaining anything, but what in the world would any of that have to do with the discussion here? You can certainly teach right from wrong without religion, and without non-religion. Is that what you are trying to say is impossible? Religion is not the basis for morality. It can be used as a stick to try to enforce a set of rules at the lowest levels (you bad, you burn, ), but it is not the *actual* basis for why you should be good or bad, or what is good or evil. All of that can be explained in the natural, real, world - without religion. (There is a great deal of scientific theory, apart from Wikipedia articles, about the evolution of morality and group dynamics, which in fact many theorize is the root of religion itself - not the other way around.)

don't be offensive

Submitted by nunya bidniss (not verified) on Mon, 12/17/2007 - 23:39.

if we can describe stupid as a rash phrasing of an argument which repulses the reader based upon a life choice, then your argument is extremely stupid, it's obvious that you don't actually want any conversation, you want the security of commiting hatespeech without the reprecussions, your post was ill informed, ignorantly phrased and generally badly conceived, any christian reading this will not be swayed by your argument, just offended that you believe we're "brainwashing kids" if you think about it with the logic which you have, paradoxically, claimed to subscribe to and simultaneously ignored you would hve realized that nomatter the paren twe all approach child rearing from a position of moral subjectivity, so no matter the method every shild is, in effect brainwashed from the viewpoint of any philosophy not agreenig with your own. furthermore it was more stupid, once again in the objective sense not in any anger at all, of you to post this entire spiel on something you have never read, because as any person can tell you a movie is entertaining to a point, but when the dynamic struggle is to overthrow the catholic church it enters a new realm , one beyond entertainment, and can you tell me where the entertainment in KILLING GOD is? the children do that, they find god and he is stabbed with a knife by a twelve year old boy, would you not find that offensive, what if we killed your logic? lastly, you can believe what you like, you can say what you like, but it is unwise, hateful and closeminded to say that other people's religions are made up, it is furthermore unwise etc. to open your mouth when you don't know what you're talking about, god is the only god, he has three aspects, yet is one being and is the only god, angels are not gods, nor is satan, who was an angel, mary nor any of the saints are deities, and to claim they are is blasphemy, so as you can see, to say that christianity has gods, makes you sound like a twit, not objective there, i'mjust really tired of all you hypocritical asses who believe that they can claim to understand the world perfectly and explain things which they have no idea about, give their opinions on, for example, books they've never read, it sickens me to see that another asshole thinks he's qualified to preach to me about how i'm perverting the masses to some fictional religion while he perpetrates hatespeech because he thinks that it's bad for people to listen to jesus and the great stuff he said about loving one another, i don't even hate your kind anymore, i pity you because you can't seem to look beyond your own swollen egos can't just live with the rest of the world all you can do is talk aboutyour own self concieved superiority to anyone who has found something hopeful in this world which doesn't agree with you.

Exactly

Submitted by charlie.collins on Tue, 12/18/2007 - 10:31.

I don't have anything to add to that, I think that post sums up how much thought you have put into your arguments, and your life, on its own. Bravo.

Exactly + 1

Submitted by David (not verified) on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 13:01.

I second that "Exactly". As some one who has been raised as a Christian and now on the fence about any religion as part of my beliefs, this thread has helped to push me into the realm leaning towards not believing. Which is hard to do, considering I was brought up to believe. The post before the post "Exactly", which was posted by a Christian is a prime example of a Christian described in this article entitled "Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus" : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuckerman/why-evangelicals-hate-jes_b... Furthermore, I am not grammatically perfect. But when it comes to showing ignorance via jumping to conclusions of other people's motives using long-ass run-on sentences that reveal anger and hate riddled with no-sense commas, this Christian who posted before "Exactly" takes the cake.