I'm a Christian. K? I watched The Golden Compass twice in a row. I have NOT read any of the books though. I just wanted to see what so many Christians are getting their panties in a bunch over. They made it sound so horrible, like if you let your children within 10 miles of a theater showing this movie they are all going to not believe in God anymore and start worshiping Satan or something. I had a hunch that as with many other things in life in general, they were probably overreacting and missing the point anyway. And I think I was right. As a Christian, and a very devoted one at that... I thought this was a good movie. I don't understand what is so bad about it. From an artistic perspective, it was a beautiful movie. From a story telling perspective, it held my interest to a great degree and stimulated my imagination. Even if it seemed to rip off the basic storyline from Star Wars, lol. From a cinematic perspective, maybe a bit too much CGI, but I digress. Overall, a good movie, and one that I would allow my young children to see. Even with the anti religious establishment message. Yes, it "attacks the church"... the CHURCH! Not God. Not spirituality in general. Not even ALL religions! It attacks the CHURCH... the Christian and/or Catholic (those are not the same to me, sorry) CHURCH... That particular religion and I am sure it is also representative of other non-Christian but just as corrupt RELIGIONS as well. Religion and spirituality are completely different things and in my opinion one can exist without the other. The movie kind of acknowledges this which I appreciated. And quite honestly, I feel it made a valid point. My husband is also a Christian, though not as "devout" as me, watched the movie also, and agrees with me. It's really more political than it is about religion, honestly. Religion, at least in this day and time, IS politics anymore. Religion, where I have found it in my lifetime anyway, has never really been about true spirituality, true belief in a higher power, etc. To me, the Church, whether Catholic or Protestant or whatever, has just become another government, only almost worst than the ACTUAL government because it takes something that SHOULD be left alone and private and special to each individual person that chooses to be spiritual, and uses it to emotionally and mentally manipulate it's citizens, er, I mean congregation. The Church (and I use this term collectively) only pointed me in the direction of God and perhaps got me comfortable with reading and thinking about Scriptures, but outside of that, in my experience not one single Church sermon or chapel (I attended private Christian schools the majority of my childhood) ever TRULY contributed in a positive way to my spirituality or my relationship with God. Those came from my OWN studies of the Bible, my OWN thought process and my OWN soul searching. I asked questions and sought the answers from anything but man. The movie made the point of basically thinking for yourself and not allowing others to force you to let them do your thinking for you. Anyway, I can honestly say that after I sat and thought about it for a while, I don't feel that God would be upset with me for watching that movie. I don't even think God would be upset with the movie itself. Why? Because I don't think God is happy with the Church, either! It IS corrupt. But this does NOT mean Christians themselves (at least not ALL of them) are also corrupt. The majority sadly are, due to blindly following the corrupt church, but not all of us. Now granted, I have not read any of the books, so perhaps this is where the twisted panty Christians are coming from, I don't know. I have heard the movie "dumbed down" or "watered down" the book to a great degree, but I am discussing the movie, not the books. And I might add, this particular movie, as I do NOT speak for the whole "his dark materials" series, just THIS installment in movie form. I'm interested to see how the next 2 go. Bottom line: The movie "The Golden Compass" is not evil, and will not harm a Christian who watches it. The key is critical thinking. If a Christian watches this movie and finds themselves or their children in turmoil about their beliefs or their faith because of this movie, then they've got a much bigger problem than the movie shaking up their faith: not having thought critically enough, or teaching their children to think critically for themselves, to really UNDERSTAND their chosen beliefs and CONSCIOUSLY choose to believe that way. Because if they did, this movie wouldn't be such a big deal to them. Because, if they think critically, they'd also understand that the Church in real life truly is corrupt and they can't really deny that. While they may not agree with the movie, they'd UNDERSTAND it. Now that I think about the NUMEROUS forwards I received in my email "warning fellow Christians" about this movie and how evil it was and how we should all boycott it and children should be kept far, far away from it, I am really quite embarrassed of my fellow Christians... Anyway. Those are my thoughts. I had to get this out of my system.
yeah, i think it was a TOTAL overreaction. APPARENTLY many christians don't even know their own jesus story. the man was a rebel against the "church" too. when something is wrong, it needs to be brought down.
To my way of thinking God is probably more upset with the number of movies we watch than which ones we watch. I mean really, counting all the things we do to entertain ourselves and compare that with how much time we spend on our spirituality, most people are only dabbling at spirituality, not making it a way of life.
The film may not be offensive, but it certainly has been over-rated. Personally, I just found it rather dull. Perhaps the books are better.
making spirituality a way of life. there's more than one aspect to life, so making one thing the entire focus of one's life seems very limiting to me. i'm just not the sort.
Thanx mamaKCita, got it. I can see how you might feel that way. Actually I was talking more to Lilyrayne who said she was; "a Christian. K". When you sign on to be a Christian you make an agreement with God to make Christianity your way of life. It's part of the deal. Not that you can't do all the other things in life, it's just that you said that becoming a better Christian would be first in your life. So my comment was not to say that there was something wrong with entertainment, because there's not. But if a Christian spends more time entertaining himself than working on his spirituality then he has his priorities in the wrong place.
OWB makes a valid point. However, I don't agree that being a better Christian being a priority has to mean that you spend more time with your spirituality than you do other things in life. I don't even believe they are separate... Once you become a Christian, your faith and every minute of your life are intertwined together. It's not so black and white. For example when I was watching The Golden Compass, I wasn't spending more time on entertainment than I was with God. Spending time with God, or time on your faith, doesn't necessarily mean reading the Bible 24/7 and crap. It could be anything. For example, I was spending time with God while watching the movie, because I was praying about it to see it for what it really was and how it applies to me and my faith, or if it did. Just as beneficial to my faith as reading the Bible would be, because while reading the Bible can be a great benefit, there is still real life to navigate, too. By looking at me one might assume I'm being lazy and just watching a movie, but that wasn't all that was going on at all. So no one has the right to judge me in that way because you really just never know the full truth. We have no place to judge one another on how much effort we are putting into each other's faiths. We can only observe the fruits of those faiths.
My, my, Lilyrayne, getting a little bunchy? Did you even read my posts before you commented? I did say that being a Christian should be the first priority in a Christian’s life and that Christianity should be a Christian’s way of life. I don't believe I ever said that; "mean(s) reading the Bible 24/7 and crap" and God doesn’t want that either. I did say; “So my comment was not to say that there was something wrong with entertainment, because there's not. But if a Christian spends more time entertaining himself than working on his spirituality then he has his priorities in the wrong place.” Kind of saying there’s nothing wrong with entertainment but if a Christian does it 24/7 or even 16/6 then his priorities are in the wrong place. I don't believe that I was judgmental towards you either. You asked as a Christian what was wrong with the movie The Golden Compass. I merely answered your question by saying that God is probably more upset with the amount of time we (all Christians) spend with entertainment as a whole than the actual movies we watch. Lilyrayne, I don’t know anything about you or your faith and quite frankly, I don’t want to know, that is between you and God. I just was stating a principle that all Christians should follow and that is God first, everything else second. If you disagree that’s between you and God, not you and me!
LOL Heeeey easy, I was just speaking generally. No probs It's off topic anyway. I was speaking about the movie itself. I didn't see any reason why you felt the need to mention the whole entertainment/God ratio thing since that wasn't what this thread was about originally. But at the same time I didn't want people to read your post and feel they weren't good enough Christians because they spent 4 hours watching movies and 2 hours reading the bible that day or something. That doesn't mean they have more priority to entertain themselves in every single case. There is no way to easily judge that kind of thing, and that was my only point. Not everyone understands that spending time on their faith is more than just reading the bible and going to church and all that. That had potential to hurt a lot of people's feelings, especially people for whom it doesn't really apply anyway, that's all I was getting at. Back on topic please (the movie), THANKS!
I think your thread got SNIPED... :cheers2: I saw the movie a couple of months ago... So, bear with me, my memory isn't so great... I think the reason "Christians" are so upset with the movie is because it is an attack on the whole "God" idea... The whole idea that I took from the movie is that we are all divine in our own right... We all have our "demons"/"spirits"/"souls"... The movie was trying to represent the "CHURCH" as a power hungry establishment trying to separate our MINDS from our SPIRIT... Hence the scene where they try to separate the kids from their "demons"... I could be way off, as I heard the author of the book was an atheist... So, I don't know why an Atheist would even incorporate a "demon"/"spirit" into his/her book... Me personally... I think Religion in general is a huge "block" on the mind... Here we are debating over if some guy was "real" and if he was the savior of mankind or god himself... I think the human mind/soul is way more than some story written 2,000 years ago... And the whole idea of GOD using FEAR to manipulate people into following him... Well, I for one don't want to be associated with something that ridiculous... Open your eyes/mind and think for yourself; Don't get caught up in this battle for your soul bullshit... Don't take my word for it though... OR YOU MIGHT BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY... BWA HAHA...
Did anybody else catch the anti circumcision statements in the movie the whole intercision thing was all about circumcision, and is confirmed by the next book pretty obvious though when they just kept using the line "it's just a little snip"
It was so over-rated...the two best aspects of the movie...the polar bear fight and nicole kidmans role (she depicted Ms. Coulter perfectly). However, I LOVE the trilogy. Seriously the books are amazing. I don't see what all the hype is over, its like when parents were trying to get Harry Potter banned from libraries and schools.
(*Spoiler. If you're planning on reading the books I'm going to give away a rather large plot element.) I love the books, too. I didn't want to see the movie, because I couldn't see how they could do it justice. But the books are pretty sacrilegious, especially the third. Not only is the church represented as evil, but eventually God is seen as a fraud, and a war is lead against him. This description of the character pretty much sums it up... The Authority was the first angel to come into existence; as did the subsequent angels, he formed and condensed from the substance known as Dust. He led other angels and, later, humanity to believe that he was in fact God the creator of the multiverse. This false claim legitimized his taking political power in the Kingdom of Heaven. The angel Xaphania later found out the truth about him, so he banished her. Xaphania and some other angels later started the first war and rebellion against him. The angel Balthamos told about this to Will Parry. Several names are ascribed to him, including "Jehovah", "Yahweh", the "Lord", "El", "Adonai", and "the Almighty". He is the god of the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions and his word and messages to humanity are recorded in the Bible and the Tanakh.
Books are always better. How about the books Devinci code Angles and demons I am a christian but why hate the books. Everyone admits they were fiction and were writen for intertainment rather than for disproving our beliefes who here agrees? I know i spelt several wrong but its late and dont want to run a spell check See ya guys tomarrow.
Here's something a bit strange, but true. 'The Golden Compass' is part of the trilogy named 'His Dark Materials' - this phrase is a quote from 'Paradise Lost' by John Milton, a thoghroughly Christian piece of work. Wierd.
