Dave and I decided at the last minute on Friday to go see The Golden Compass. What a good movie – fun, entertaining, creative, scary, sweet, etc. And pretty violent, so think twice before taking the kiddies to see it. There seems to be a lot of controversy surrounding this movie. Being pretty open to new ideas and not being particularly religious, I don’t get it. So I have no opinion to add. Instead I’ll share with you Thomas’s thoughts on the matter – he seems pretty sensible.
Afterwards, we hit the Lynnwood Grill for beers. Can you believe there was a wait? But we didn’t have to wait because Mom and Gene were already there, so we sat down with them! They stayed until they finished their beers, then headed home.
I love hanging out with Kerri and Dave! They’re both such funny people, and they seem to fuel each other’s funny. I don’t ever laugh as hard as when I’m out with these two.
Before we left, the live music started. Here’s my favorite composition of the night.
From what I hear the controversy is the same as the witch-hunt against Harry Potter. But. I don’t care. I’m not going to read Thomas’ entry because he always writes a lot and I’ve gotten enough emails and Facebook group invitations to be sick of it.
I’ve read a little more than 100 pages in the book so far and am not yet offended and I don’t think I will.
So far, I’m offended and I’m tired of the “Christian” idea that we Christians should all boycott it. It gives us a bad name, a name that I try hard to keep sacred. It’s only making more people want to read the books and see the movie and that only puts more money into the author’s pockets so any rallying was not well thought-out. Furthermore, if we’re not supposed to read or watch it I’d hazard a guess that most people rallying against it haven’t seen it or watched it so what would they know about it? Just doing what someone told us again are we?, ahh, yes, I thought so.
I don’t condone atheism as it makes me sad because of what I hold dear and where I know I’m going and thus want for other people. But likewise if I were to write books I’m sure my Christian values and faith would influence my writing so I can certainly see that an atheist’s would too.
Anyway, the judgmental attitude is only serving to make people hate Christians (who by now are all seen as judgmental because of this sort of thing) more than they already do. No one wants to be judged and judging people isn’t adding sheep to the flock. Shut. Up.
Comment by Cristin — December 9, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
I think you and Thomas are some of the most reasonable, sensible religious people I know. If you’re not offended, then I think it’s unreasonable anyone else should be. 🙂
Comment by admin — December 9, 2007 @ 3:53 pm
Thank you:) People don’t have enough to do, I guess.
Comment by Cristin — December 9, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
I finished reading the book yesterday and I found it not very interesting in terms of religious or non-religious themes or as a book in general. It took me well over 100 pages to stop falling asleep to it. There were multiple plots and they bounced around and were quickly wrapped together at the end like an afterthought.
Then I finally read the emails and reviews that have been passed around. (I didn’t want to read them before the book because I just wanted to read the book and not be looking for something in particular.)
Apparently the first book is supposed to be the most toned down in terms of tearing down Christianity but the things it was supposed to tear down I found to be weak attempts. And from what I can tell from the trailers the movie is not even more toned down like the emails and such have said, they out and out say “this world is dominated by the Magisterium who seeks to control all humanity.” The Magisterium is the Church in the book and people will identify the Church with Christianity.
Furthermore, I don’t understand Philip Pullman’s quote of “I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words ‘spiritual’ and ‘spirituality'” (Snopes) as he wrote a story in which he’s given each human an “animal spirit” (trailer). And he based the trilogy on his hatred of Christianity and the Narnia books (Snopes) which I find to be a rather losery reason to write books. Write books because you have a good story to tell.
Also, he misses the point in tearing down “Christianity” because so far in the book he keeps referring to “the Church” which is a different idea entirely. Perhaps he’ll change his terms as the books progress.
All this to say, I found the whole thing–Christians getting uppity, atheists getting uppity, the book, the changes I can tell they’ve made to the movie–boring and am no longer that interested in seeing the movie. Or finishing the books for that matter.
Comment by Cristin — December 15, 2007 @ 11:44 am
[…] shots and photographed the event. Everyone helped out getting things set up. And it seemed as if Mom cleaned the entire kitchen by herself – we had to chase her out of […]
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