Tuesday, November 27, 2007

The Golden Compass: Anti-Religious Propaganda!



*Warning: The link contains spoilers.*


I was waiting for the Catholic League President Bill Donohue to comment on the movie, based on the first book in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials, and Donohue didn't disappoint.

He took the anti-religion bait and swam with it, all the way to the end of the reel:

The author of the book on which the new film The Golden Compass is based has hit back at critics who accuse him of peddling "candy-coated atheism".

Philip Pullman dismissed as "absolute rubbish" accusations by the US-based Catholic League that the film promotes atheism and denigrates Christianity.

"I am a story teller," he said. " If I wanted to send a message I would have written a sermon."

The Golden Compass - which stars Nicole Kidman - premiers in London on Tuesday.

In Donohue's world anyone who depicts anything negative about religion is peddling atheism. Only perfectly candy-coated descriptions of Christianity are allowed.

The whole thing is really silly, because Pullman's trilogy can also be read as a retelling of the creation tale from the Bible and in that sense it is very religious indeed.

Go and see the movie, just to annoy our Bill.