Southfar answers “I've read a lot of reviews on this book,...”

Gemma asked this question about The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1):

I've read a lot of reviews on this book, and some people say it's very christian, then other people say the author was an atheist. What would you say?

Southfar Although I was quite young when I read the series and I have not re-read them since, I was vastly surprised at the allegation, which first came to my …moreAlthough I was quite young when I read the series and I have not re-read them since, I was vastly surprised at the allegation, which first came to my notice during the filming of the movie based upon the first book, that the trilogy asserted an atheist standpoint. To be sure, the books promote a somewhat critical view of the Catholic Church, although shielded by the deniability of this view being upon a portrayal of the Church as we know it to exist. But that does not in itself imply an atheist standpoint, I'm sure we can agree; in my reading, the book states very little on the actual Deity (with some justification, it could be said to state nothing on the subject) whose properties the Church has ascribed to another entity. (And this is a reading favourable to what I believe to be Pullman's own line of reasoning - I find the the relation of worship far too vague to state it as anything more than a tentative hypothesis that one is actually capable of asserting the worship of a deity - true or feigned - over whose attributes one is in error by confusing them with the attributes of yet another entity.) To me, and without the intent to spoil, an almost gnostic reading seems to be far closer at hand - which certainly is not the cosmological promulgation of our contemporary Christianity and insofar, the cosmology of the trilogy is antithetical to dogma, but it neither asserts the non-existence of a Deity, nor, as would perhaps be a more prima facie reading, dystheism. (less)

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The Golden Compass

by Philip Pullman

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