Terry Mattingly on the "Pied Piper of Atheism"

From Mattingly's Nov. 14th Scripps News column:

Those values viewers in the heartland are at it again, clicking "forward" on yet another wave of hot e-mails about sin, evil, magic and Hollywood.

Here's the news, as harvested on the Internet by experts at Snopes.com, a giant website dedicated to researching urban legends.

"Hi! I just wanted to inform you what I just learned about a movie that is coming out December 7, during the Christmas season, which is entitled 'The Golden Compass.' ... What is disturbing to me is that this movie is based on the first of a trilogy of books for children called 'His Dark Materials' written by Philip Pullman of England.

"He's an atheist and his objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. I heard that he has made remarks that he wants to kill God in the minds of children, and that's what his books are about."

Snopes.com researched the many issues raised in this message -- concluding that these e-mails are (you may want to sit down) essentially true.

It's even true that Pullman devotees have accused New Line executives of editing out some of the book's juicier heresies in an attempt to offend fewer Christian consumers. After all, the studio has about $180 million invested in this project and would like to make two more movies based on the award-winning trilogy.

"What's really amazing is that all of those evangelical and Catholic critics have been aiming their heavy artillery at J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books, when they could have been firing at Pullman, whose books came out first," said Sandra Miesel, co-author of the upcoming book "Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy Literature."

"Pullman is brilliant at hiding what he's really saying," she added.

Read the entire column.

Learn more about Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy.

Comments

[Gail]

Are there any short fliers or articles available anywhere about this film? I'm looking for a heads-up for parents that is not hysterical in tone. I could write one but I'd rather find one already written, and I hoped someone here would know.

Gail Finke

[Cristina A. Montes]

Gail: Someone from a local apologetics group here in the Philippines asked me to draft a Q&A about it. He plans to reproduce it and distribute it. I did one, using, as my sources, the articles that were uploaded on this blog, articles appearing in Michael O' Brien's webpage, and wikipedia entries on the books. THe person who asked me to do the Q&A is still reading my first draft for revisions I should make, but if you want to see the first draft just the same, you can e-mail me at camontes_dragon2001 (at) yahoo (dot) com.

[cheryl]

Gail:

This is an excellent short (non-hysterical!) Q & A: What Every Parent Should Know About The Golden Compass:

http://www.zenit.org/article-21008?l=english