That being said, I still think that the “awareness” is beneficial for parents or relatives who simply may not know any better, because of x or y, so from that standpoint I agree with Soutenus a 100%.

I just think that the fact that this initiative comes from the Catholic League who continues to be an embarrassment is just unfortunate, because they take everything to the next level.

I’m not into Catholics playing the culture war games.

As to whether “I” would watch the movie, that is different completely. We are not talking about adults at all and their preferences.

And Michael, I dislike Donahue as much as you do. I think he is wrong most of the times or overly sensitive, but even wrong people can be helpful sometimes.

It is rather better for a parent to be pro-active in the education of their children. I think we can all agree with this.

I personally find Pullman to be problematic because of his dishonest presentation of Lewis and others; even when he is corrected, he will return to his stock description of Lewis’ ideologies and use it to justify his “anti-Narnia.”

I have no problems of watching films made by atheists, even with an interest to convert people to atheism (Douglas Adams comes to mind); but there is something insidious to Pullman to me, and so I have no interest in providing him any extra income through my wallet. Others are free to decide as they wish — but I do think it is fine for people to show concern, while others to feel no need to join in with the boycott. It’s a difference in how one conducts a prudential decision in this regard, and the kind of difference allowed.

1) The world we exist in is evil, created by an inferior creator, who can be scene as tainted by “evil” if not evil (depending upon the form of gnosticism)

2) There is a great universe which transcends this world, the world of the good.

3) The connection between this world and the higher, real good, is found in a “docetic” Christ: that is, a higher being/entity who is trying to lead us through our spiritual side to the higher good. As a result of this, there are two traditions, the wordly following of this being with its apostolic succesion, wordly reasoning, etc and the higher, greater revelation which transcends them and which must be followed — allowing us to know the world, the flesh, and all within is to be rejected as evil so we can be pure spirits.

4) Hence the idea of gnosticism is “we are in the know” vs everyone else; this does not mean (as some think) that they were hyper rational, etc; rather it just means their understanding of the world was light/dark, good/evil, spirit/flesh and all kinds of dualism along those lines.

5) Marcion and many like them follow through with this system to say that the God of the OT, Yahweh, was the creator of this wordly system, ignorant of the real spiritual realm, and so controls this world without the higher , true good which he needs. Thus he is a “creator” but not “the good” and indeed, seen by many of them as “evil” (though not all would say he is; some would say he is just ignorant and need help from Sophia; yet, for many groups such as the Sethians, he was indeed declared to be evil, and all that was said to be evil in the OT was actually good and vice versa).

I found this an interesting commentary on the piece (from someone who understood its gnostic tendencies): http://gotthammer.blogspot.com/2007/11/golden-compass-reflections-on-danger-of.html

While I don’t agree with him in saying I think the text is good, it nonetheless is refreshing to see someone who can catch the gnostic element.