Comments on: Facebook Groups Against The Golden Compass

By: Katie

Katie — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:10:59 +0000

Facebook is MySpace for people.
Or, inversely, MySpace is Facebook for deranged howler monkeys.

By: Friendly Atheist » 2008 » April » 14

Friendly Atheist » 2008 » April » 14 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:36:26 +0000

[...] We’re bad at this whole Facebook thing. [...]

By: Nathan Myers

Nathan Myers — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:35:37 +0000

If you haven’t read “His Dark Materials” yet, let me recommend skipping the third volume, “The Amber Spyglass”. Anything you imagine will probably be more satisfying than what you find there, and infinitely less likely to poison your favorable impression of what came before. (In particular, the portrayal of angels in the third volume sharply contradicts everything in the first two; they become more akin to spoiled children than transcendent “sentient architecture”.) My impression is that he had got tired of the whole concept by that point, and just wanted to get it finished and sent off.

Really, Pullman made a profound mistake introducing armored bears in the first volume; nothing could possibly compete with them for intrinsic interest. Once he got the armored-bear concept worked out, he might better have tossed the whole Milton notion in favor of spending the rest of his life writing about the bears. Toss the compass, toss the knife, toss the daemons, toss the Magisterium, toss the Dust. Armored bears! Do you hear me? Armored bears!

By: Coturnix

Coturnix — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:13:36 +0000

Support The Golden Compass group has 5907 members right now.

By: diodium

diodium — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:10:08 +0000

I went to see the movie tonight and loved it. I found it to be intelligent and very insightful. The movie was more anti-establishment than anti-God. I am not an atheist. I read some commentaries on Pullman and some excerpts from his book. I found the book offensive, personally, because he wanted to tell me how to think. I love God, but abhor religion. I don’t think religion has one thing to do with God, but I don’t want some freak telling me how to think. Religion is about control over the masses. Christianity/Judaism especially. I love Jesus too. Let me say this. No man has ever known any more about God than me or anybody else. This is what I find so offensive. I don’t claim to know one thing about God, but personally I choose to believe that everything that was, is and ever shall be is a reflection of God. I don’t know how God came to be. I just know that as sure as I am living he is an intimate part of everything. That’s my belief and I am entitled to believe, as I want to. The bible and Christianity does encourage free will, yet in the bible it talks about free will as the one thing that set aside Adam and Eve and their descendants from angels and mythical beings. Let’s take, the story in the Old Testament about Jacob and his brother Esau. Jacob and his mother were conniving tricksters, who stole what was meant for another. Why would I celebrate this? Yet the Jewish and Christian teaching does. Peopled didn’t just become corrupt today. The Devil sits ahead of the Christian Church, not Christ. It is corrupt, about money and control. The Christian Church has killed more people than any other group or institution. Jesus would not have wanted one death celebrated in his name. What I learned about him is that he was open minded and truly good. He was about charity, acknowledging females as compliments to males, not to be subjugated. Constantine a devil took all the real life teachings of a great man, a true son of god and merged it with pagan, traditions and beliefs. All of the words to describe Jesus and his life were the same words that once described Horus. He was known as the light of the world. I heard this over and over, as a child going to Catholic Mass. Then what is so horrible is that the humans of Europe were wiped out through open slaughter, as these beliefs were forced on them. Love of Jesus and Christ would have never brought slaughter on humanity. Santa Claus has nothing to do with Jesus. Christmas trees came about because of the belief that Horus could disguise himself as a trees. Tribes following those traditions in Germany would cut heads off of their warring enemy and hang them from pine trees as sacrifices. Over time, they stopped using heads and began using bulbs. Yet all over America, at Christmas time, you see nothing but pine trees decorated up. Look at where Christianity comes from. Many of the same people today that are crying about abortions are praising the death penalty. Jesus said turn the other cheek. The Christian Right isn’t worshipers of Christ. Jesus was a liberal. Europe took a horrible spiral downward when Christianity was forced upon them. Wise, intelligent human beings who were, knowledgeable on a great many things, were killed and destroyed for not practicing a forced belief. Most religions throughout the world, the holistic ones, anyway, were a natural progression of the people in particular areas beliefs. No harm in that. The harm is when one takes his beliefs and forces them upon another. You seen this happen in Europe and now Europe have gone about the world, forcing it on others. That’s nothing but the Devil. Beware of anyone who claims to know how and what God thinks. How is it that a Hebrew living 6,000 years ago knows what God was thinking? The Hebrew says in Genesis that Adam and Eve came before him as did many others. Most people around the world would agree that the Ten Commandments are good rules to live by. I would never disagree, but understand that they are human rules for how best to get along with others in society. Jesus preached only good. How is it that Christian people are so eager to go to war and destroy the Middle Easterner? Even if, he did blow up the World Trade Center, when Jesus told you to turn the other cheek? Let’s stop fooling ourselves. The church is a powerful manipulator, ran by the devil. He wants money, he wants power and ultimate control. How is that Godly? We know it isn’t Christly, at least not like what Jesus taught. Now we have the European and his descendants poised on nonsense and aiming it at others. There is some great wisdom in the bible, but it seems lost on humanity. We learn in the New Testament that judging others is wrong. We also learn that God has no use for material things. Afterall Everything in and out of time is the lord. I didn’t enjoy the excerpts taken from the book because it said that Pullman tried to tell the reader that God was basically all washed up. That sounds more like the Devil talking to me. I do wonder if maybe Pullman isn’t just poking fun at mans beliefs because it is provocative and because he is fed up with religion. I am fed up with religion too, but I could never think that God doesn’t exist. I hate what forced Christianity did to the European and subsequently to the world. I think the earliest brand of Christianity as celebrated in early Ethiopia and parts of the world near where Christ was born was real, authentic and pure. This Christianity was about challenging oneself to live a life close to the teachings of Jesus. The European has never came close to experiencing that, not with a blade to his throat.

By: MikeClawson

MikeClawson — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:14:07 +0000

In comparison to the Pentecostal BBQing preacher nutbag? Oh yeah! You’re sane.

Yeah, I guess it is all relative.

By: grazatt

grazatt — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:02:19 +0000

I hope this makes sense. I’m probably doing a much worse job of explaining it than Brian originally did. I wish I could point you to an article or something where he fleshes it out, but unfortunately I encountered it in a chapel talk by him at Bethel College several years ago and I don’t think there is a print version online anywhere.

it did that was pretty cool!

By: Mriana

Mriana — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:20:08 +0000

MikeClawson said,

November 30, 2007 at 5:56 pm

MikeC is sane.

Are you sure?

In comparison to the Pentecostal BBQing preacher nutbag? Oh yeah! You’re sane.

By: MikeClawson

MikeClawson — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:56:05 +0000

MikeC is sane.

Are you sure?

By: Mriana

Mriana — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:44:59 +0000

Claire said,

November 30, 2007 at 5:03 pm

“I guess I could grab the Pentecostal minister who owns and operates the BBQ resturant next door.”

Depends – how good is his BBQ?

I don’t know. I don’t eat meat, but I’ve been in there and there are more health violation than I can count! Not to mention, he’s got D-Con hiding back there where he cooks and does dishes. Given that I worked there for a short time, I also know he doesn’t clean his fier- just changes the oil once a month and never cleans the flew. He has roaches as big as water bugs too, if not bigger. The two months I worked there, I never saw that he sprayed once. Need I say more?

Yes, he definitely has dubious rationality. Even his wife looked at him like he was insane with that immortal bit. Why did I quit? I got tired of his insanity and illogical preaching- to almost everyone, esp his employees. One morning he said, “He has risen! He has risen! The Son has risen!” Trust me, I wanted to say, “Oh yes, the sun has risen and it’s nice and bright!” I just smiled and refrained from saying anything. Not to mention he had this out of church sermon one day during a dead period- no customers. Needless to say, by his definition, MikeC would not be a Christian. The man is a loon! No, not MikeC, the BBQ man. MikeC is sane.

It got to be way too much and the two of us had it out almost every day- not over religion though. His insanity flowed into other things. One cannot read the order if the boss keep throwing bread and other items of food on it, not to mention getting in my way so I could not fill it. I even told him so when he kept saying “Read your order.” I said, “I can’t if you keep throwing things on top of it!” We went around about things like that. His idiotic supernatural beliefs would have been next eventually, but I chose not to go there in order to keep the peace as neighbours. He got into a dispute with a waitress as well as another co-worker almost daily too- on the job concerns again. So I wasn’t the only one.

Like I said, he is a Pentecostal nutbag! No, as far as I know, he’s not playing with snakes, but he’s definitely brainwashing his followers with insanity. Somehow, I don’t think his kids are going to see the Golden Compass, but he is a riot to us rationalists. Don’t know what MikeC would think of him though.