Here be Spoilers (come to think of to both "The Golden Compass" and "The
Bible").
I finally got around to finishing the trilogy. I knew from the religious
right that these books "promoted atheism" but, of course the first book had
nothing of the kind in it. The second book began to poke nastily at the
church and the third book opened things up hugely in that direction... but
never, ever did these books even come close to presenting an atheistic point
of view.
Anybody care to share some light on this?
In the books:
1) God ("The Authority") ABSOLUTELY EXISTS. Yes, he's not immortal or
omnipotent, but he is (or was) immensely powerful and easily fits the
classic view of God.
2) Angels exist. Lots of them - especially many of them names explicitly in
the bible. The angelic rebellion exists. Granted the books make it clear
that "angels" were probably men once but still...
3) Ghosts and the land of the dead (very "Hell-like") exist. When you die
you continue on in spirit form.
4) We have "souls" (the Daemons) and it's made clear that even if you can't
see your Daemon, it's there.
5) "Dust" is portrayed as unifying, intelligent force of elementary
particles absolutely necessary for life and completely responsible for
intelligent life. While Pullman never presents directly as such it's
clearly analogous to the new-age babble-speak about "The Intelligent
Universe" and the "something out there".
So where's the atheism? I realize that these books are profoundly
anti-religious but it seems like blaming atheism for that is just plain
wrong. Pullman never claims an absence of God. He only slantways claims a
materialistic viewpoint (in that "Dust" is described as a physical - but
intelligent and sentient - partical).
I'm just not seeing any atheism at all in this. If anything the books end
up as a soft sell (a "stealth campaign", to use the words of the
anti-atheism crowd) for informal religion than for atheism. Am I just
missing the point here?
Jim Davis
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