The Golden Compass

PZ Myers thoughts on what CNN and Donohue think of the new film, The Golden Compass, is too fun not to share.

Here's what CNN says about The Golden Compass:

Culture: A star-studded, big-budget fantasy film released for Christmastime features religion as the villain. Hollywood is collaborating with a militant atheist British children's book author to indoctrinate children.

Gregg Easterbrook (you already know to expect drooling idiocy) babbles without comprehension. Bill Donohue, of course, thinks it is a plot to corrupt children.

Get real. This movie isn't going to convert anyone to atheism. It's a fantasy story. It's got witches and talking bears in it. It's going to generate about as many new atheists as Tolkien's Middle Earth trilogy generated converts to worship of Eru and the Ainur. It has the nicely appreciated sop to secular interest that the author is an atheist who has no respect for Christian mythology, but this is not a propaganda film — it's entertainment. If your child's beliefs can be shattered by a CGI polar bear on a movie screen, you've got bigger problems than this one film.

I'm going to go see The Golden Compass this weekend. If it's a philosophical tract rather than an adventure story, I'm not going to enjoy it much.

And those of you who are upset that religion is one of the villains in this movie — get used to it. Religion is a villain in real life, too.

Brilliant. And I was getting annoyed watching the piece on CNN when they kept repeating the idea that this will corrupt and indoctrinate children into atheists.

Really?

How many were converted by Passion of the Christ (or any other blatantly religious movie) or Chronicles of Narnia (and the other veiled religious films). Sitting through two hours of fantasy threatens faith that much?

Just how shaky is high and mighty faith?

I plan to see the film this weekend to, assuming I can finish up research proposal and risk assessment in time. I don't like being preached at, hence no love for church time. Religion and religious organizations are baddies, for once. That ain't aloud? Why can't we have a story were the skeptics are right and the blindly pious are wrong?

Is that so wrong?

Plus polar bears and a girl hero (heroine). This sounds like a great film for kids.

Hmm. I am in the mood to watch The Hogfather again.