Comments on: The Golden Compass – What’s all the fuss about?

By: fullmetalcoder

fullmetalcoder — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:20:44 +0000

Michael J : “Actually, the books are pretty clearly anti-church”

I’d just like to point out that curch and faith are two different things. Going church is a social event (though it still have a religious meaning, don’t get me wrong…) whereas faith is above all a set of personal beliefs.

Thus, attacking Church and dogma has little to do with attacking faith and even very faitful people can criticize Church which sometimes turns out to be a pretty good thing. This is probably not the best example by far but do you think every Catholic should be proud of what’s been done by Curch in Europe during the Middle Age? Would criticizing these acts be an attack to faith? I don’t think so and someone who does can not honestly pretend to be Christian IMO…

By: Chris Howison

Chris Howison — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:33:04 +0000

Meh

You fail mike. This film was fail.

I have to say, as a long time fan of the books, I have never been so disappointed by a film. The entire religious context has been removed. Everything was in the wrong order. And why was ‘Dust’ explained in the first 30 seconds? It takes 3 books to fully understand it.

And where was the ending!?

By: nacho

nacho — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:38:09 +0000

The covered attacks are specifically against the Catholic Church. I’m sad when I read here that the Church “instigates evil” or that It forces people to think this or that way. The Church, being much more than a “institution” (the Institution is the visible part of the Mystical Body Of Christ), with it’s foundations in the first century, does more good than whatever institution/society/government in the world. Dogmas in the Church are seen as as evil by some malicious people, but they are precisely to preserve the True Faith, not to prevent people from self-thinking. For example, the dogma of the Holy Trinity was the faith of the Church, but was established in the fourth century as a dogma to preserve it against heresies. The Sacred Magisterium is able to interpret the Truths or the faiths. There’s nothing evil on that.. I see much worse to take up the Bible (or the Qur’an or whatever) and interpret it by your own. Personal interpretation in matters of faith can bring distortions and even evil. That’s why there’s the need of a Deposit of the Faith.
You can blame some particular person of doing evil. But what’s common today is that the whole Church receives attacks because of a minority. No one can deny the tremendous good that the Church brings to the world, both spiritually (the most important mission of the Church is to save souls) and materially (charity). It’s obvious that the Hell hates the Holy Catholic Church.

By: Paul Dann

Paul Dann — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:33:42 +0000

I never understood why people boycott productions they consider anti-Christian. It seems to me that they present ideal talking points. Nine times out of ten people get the impression that Christianity is about rules & regs, and boycotting will promote that idea. Christianity is about a personal relationship with God.

By: Karl

Karl — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:50:29 +0000

Going off at a tangent for a moment, I work for Framestore CFC, the company that created
the CGI bears and the battle sequence between them. I thought you might like to know we
use KDE on nearly all of our systems here, including the ones that produced the effects
for the Golden Compass. Amazing where you can find KDE these days, eh?

I thoroughly recommend the books, by the way, they’re a fantastic read regardless of your
beliefs. I personally read them as an attack against religious institutions who use
people’s faith to instigate evil, rather than anything against Christianity
specifically. But to each their own!

By: Vexorian

Vexorian — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:52:49 +0000

I think the anti church part is the part where the “kids kill god”. It doesn’t get more anti church than that.

Even though a second read of the novel would make you notice this “god” character is actually a fallen angel, so I don’t think the church really got a case…

But I think the catholic church does have all right to boycott it, like any other organization does, if you are not a catholic just don’t listen to their boycott call.

By: Jakob Petsovits

Jakob Petsovits — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 02:31:00 +0000

Actually, that guy’s birthday might be off for a few years.

Other than that, nice post, and I think the film (which I do not intend to watch) has motivated me enough to buy the original book

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:34:31 +0000

The way sciences are taught in school is the cause of this: “kids to stop thinking and just accept what they are told.”, schools encourage rope learning concepts without understanding or questioning the reasoning behind them.

That said people in science are very conservative, throughout history they have rejected valid arguments as it disagrees with what they think to be true one example of this being Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics. Needless to say there are many more, and they are often a result of people’s unquestioning acceptance of past theories and unwillingness to accept anything else even when demonstrated they are wrong. That is at least similar to dogma.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 21:55:12 +0000

Cheers Michael, I’ve added them to my Amazon wish list so might get them from family for Christmas, if not I’ll buy them myself.

By: Michael J

Michael J — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:50:38 +0000

Actually, the books are pretty clearly anti-church, and the scriptwriters quite understandably toned it down because not everybody who sees movies is anti-church.

It might be a little clearer if I show you one way to make the screenplay closer to the novel: s/Magisterium/Church/g.

You seem to be pretty cool with the whole “challenging beliefs” thing, so I’d definitely recommend the novels. They’re a good read, and will show you much more what Pullman was actually trying to say.