I Don't Believe It: Atheist "Golden Compass" -- and my Friends are Blogging!

You may have seen the e-mail circulating warning Christians about the upcoming children's fantasy movie, "The Golden Compass," which is based on a series of books written by ardent Atheist, Phillip Pullman. Along with the other so-called "New Atheists," Pullman is harnessing the power of story to promote his anti-God agenda. In a 2003 interview, Pullman stated that his books—a trilogy titled, His Dark Materials—were about "killing God."

Aimee Herd, of Breaking Christian News, writes, "What may seem on the outside like a harmless fantasy reportedly has an underlying agenda of promoting atheism. The movie is apparently based on the first, in a series of books, by Phillip Pullman, a 'militant' atheist, with a dislike for faith-based writing, such as that of C.S. Lewis."

Adam Holz, associate editor for Focus on the Family's Plugged In magazine, added, "Pullman has been openly hostile about C.S. Lewis, and has been pretty clear about his desire to offer an alternate fantasy series based on what he would describe as humanist principles. I think parents need to be paying attention, to be vigilant and to be engaged."

Bill Donahue of The Catholic League warns that Pullman's goal is to denigrate Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism. “New Line Cinema and Scholastic Entertainment have paired to produce ‘The Golden Compass,’ a children’s fantasy that is based on the first book of a trilogy by militant English atheist Philip Pullman. … Each book becomes progressively more aggressive in its denigration of Christianity and promotion of atheism: The Subtle Knife is more provocative than The Golden Compass and The Amber Spyglass is the most in-your-face assault on Christian sensibilities of the three volumes."

Donahue points out that the more offensive and anti-religious material found in the books have been removed from the movie as a "stealth campaign" to persuade people to buy the books. “We are fighting a deceitful stealth campaign on the part of the film’s producers. Our goal is to educate Christians so that they know exactly what the film’s pernicious agenda really is.”

Rev. Ted Baehr of Movieguide.org writes, "Pullman's books not only mock and belittle God, they also attack the Christian Church (labeled "the Church" and "the Magisterium" in the books). In the trilogy, Pullman rejects the orthodox view of God and presents a nebulous, personal and demonic-sounding spirituality with no philosophical roots or ultimate meaning."

"Pullman's world is a sad, animalistic universe. Since this is the only world there is, the trilogy ends in hopelessness. Love is not selfless giving, because that would be useless in a materialistic world. Love instead is the lust of pleasuring each other. In Pullman's world, there's no hope of eternal life where the lame and the blind and the deaf and dumb can walk and see and hear and talk, where the old are made youthful, there's no heavenly banquet, there's no loving God, there's no order, and there's no peace."

Baehr makes the important historical point that the logical consequences of Pullman's atheism can be found in the lives of the leading atheists of the 20th Century - Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others. "These were men who killed millions of their own people and had no respect for justice or love. Ultimately, it is a road that only leads to meaninglessness, murder and social chaos."

My Friends, The Bloggers

I also want to pass along links to the Blogs of some writer friends of mine that I think you will enjoy. 

A favorite writer friend of mine is Allison Bottke. Check out her two Blog's; "Boomer Babes Rock" Blog: http://www.boomerbabesrock.com/blog/ and "God Allows U-Turns" Blog: http://godallowsuturns.blogspot.com/

My friend Lee Warren's Blog, Little Nuances, has been named as a finalist in the 2007 Weblog Awards in the Best Diarist category. He writes, "It's up against some heavy hitters in the blogosphere (Blogs that attract much more traffic than my Blog does) and just being named as a finalist is an honor. I'm hoping to at least make a decent showing in the polls."

Anyone can cast their vote on behalf of Lee one time every 24 hours up until November 8 when the polls close. Just click on this link to lend your support.

Another writing buddy, Larry Wilson of Wesleyan Publishing, has just "re-skinned" his Blog with "a crazy new design." He writes, "The dog alone is worth the price of admission. Check it out here if you dare ... www.lawrencewilson.com."

Larry also writes a Bible Blog, www.lawrencewilson.com/bibleblog. He is currently working through the book of Romans if you'd like to join him.

Larry is the author of the newly released A Different Kind of Crazy: Living the Way Jesus Lived.

More Christian Blog sites to come.