Gnostic....or Agnostic? The Gnostics were just an early form of modern day fundies.....who claim to "know" God, to an extent.
Agnosticism seems to make the most sense to me, actually....we most certainly cannot know about God, at least in our limited human capacity. I just happen to believe in a God anyway, which is probably contrary to true Agnosticism. On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 9:56 AM, David Churvis < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Really, the books don't have an atheistic viewpoint - they have a Gnostic > viewpoint. But most fundies don't have enough of a nuanced view of other > peoples' belief systems to differentiate between the two. > > David > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jim Davis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 10:00 AM > To: CF-Community > Subject: "The Golden Compass"... what's this about Atheism? > > 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 > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;192386516;25150098;k Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:259523 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
