I’ve been listening to The Golden Compass audibook while I work in preparation for the movie. Imagine my surprise that a book with magic and “demons” is being accused of being an atheist manifesto and The Catholic League is fighting against the movie’s release.
I’m a pretty hardcore atheist, but I didn’t feel the need to fight against The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe which was accused of being pro-Christian or somesuch. Heck, I went to see it. Didn’t care for it, but not because of any hidden propaganda — it just wasn’t very good.
Oh well. We live in a world where people think kids who play violent video games become violent criminals later on so this is no surprise. To quote Mike Meyers when someone brought up people thinking “Wayne” of “Wayne’s World” was a bad role model, “I used to watch a lot of The Flintstones when I was a kid, but I didn’t grow up wanting to drive a car with my feet.”
The anti-religiousness is much more apparent in the other two books – The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, as the whole group of baddies are a conceit for the Catholic Church (although it can also be argued that it could stand for a lot of political and religious institutions alike).
I think that the Catholics are just up in arms because someone who actually understands literature and has read the books pointed out that the series as a whole could be interpreted as such.