Intelligent response to the Golden Compass debacle - Page 2

[carriebft]

Originally Posted by Meg Murry.

Hey, the first word of the text is "Mein." It's not "Unsere." It's not "A" struggle, but a very personal one.

Thanks for the info!! One question I had, though, is whether we have information about Hitler's continued belief in a Creator past the publication of MK?

When he begins to see organized Christianity as a threat to his regime, he begins to attack the organization. Yet all of his speeches remain "non atheistic"-- so he attacks factions and groups yet continues to talk about his belief in a higher power. So so we get statements like this:

the persecution of the true Christians and sanctimonious churches that have placed themselves between God and man and to turn away from the anti-Christian , smug individualism of the past

I have a bunch of links on this but I think it's summed up really well here:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm

but also if you look at his speeches, too.

[Ok]

As for no minds changed through anger, violence...I have to disgree there. The Christianization of Europe often happened at the sharp blade of a sword (threat of a noose, house-burning, etc). A great read is Njal's Saga, from Iceland, on the coming of Christianization to that land.

There are some ugly, gratutious-violence, gratutious-sex books/movies/etc that do frighten me. Those might challenge my open-book policy (my children are allowed to read whatever they want). However, this 3-book-series is no where close to that line.

[kmeyrick]

Originally Posted by lotusdebi

Thank you, carriebft.
I was raised as an atheist, and the whole "Hitler was an atheist!" argument has been around as long as I can remember - as a way to demonize atheists. As has the argument that atheists have no morals.
It gets old.

I don't think it demonizes atheists anymore than the Spanish Inquisition demonizes the Catholic Church. Hitler did not go to Church, he found religion to be irritating, but had no problem using it to evoke the right response out of people. He used the occult, paganism, Christianity, Buddhism, and pseudoscience to manipulate people. Though Arabs were in his opinion the same as the Jews, he cooperated with an Arab fringe group to target Jews. The man was a sociopath, so all this conflicting behavior would be typical of him.

I'm just saying to the poster who claimed that Atheists were never responsible for any war, that this in incorrect. And no one has said anything about the Soviet Union forcefully annexing every country it could get. All without the sake of religion.

Oh, and I never said atheists don't have morals. While Neitzche may not have, Marx certainly did, so you can't generalize. Atheism is one part of a person's viewpoint- there's also political, social, and philosophical viewpoints.

[carriebft]

I'm just saying to the poster who claimed that Atheists were never responsible for any war

Do you mean the letter in the OP or was there another post claiming this? Because the OP says that no war has been fought in the name of atheism, which, IMO, is a very different thing than "atheists were never responsible for any war"

It's the difference between the crusades (fought in the name of religion) and pointing out a president who is starting a war and is also Christian.

[kmeyrick]

Originally Posted by carriebft

Do you mean the letter in the OP or was there another post claiming this? Because the OP says that no war has been fought in the name of atheism, which, IMO, is a very different thing than "atheists were never responsible for any war"

It's the difference between the crusades (fought in the name of religion) and pointing out a president who is starting a war and is also Christian.

Suppressing, if not stamping out religion altogether, was very important to the Soviet government. When they annexed nearby countries, part of the goal was to eliminate any spiritual beliefs that might compete with the highly proscribed Soviet tenants. So, there at least has been human rights violations committed in the name of atheism. Which is ironic- Marx believed people shouldn't be micromanaged by government, he merely didn't believe in a class system. But this is getting so off-topic here. Poor Pullman. His books seem good to me, and reading Terry Pratchett doesn't bother me, so I'll start out with His Dark Materials.

[carriebft]

Poor Pullman.

Oh i don't feel bad for him at all! All this publicity is just going to drive up the numbers. Yeah, people are misquoting/using his quotes out of context and spreading weird rumors about the books "killing God" and being about female genital mutilation...but, all in all, this is just a gold mine for his works!

[kmeyrick]

Originally Posted by carriebft

Oh i don't feel bad for him at all! All this publicity is just going to drive up the numbers. Yeah, people are misquoting/using his quotes out of context and spreading weird rumors about the books "killing God" and being about female genital mutilation...but, all in all, this is just a gold mine for his works!

That's true. Female genital mutilation? I hadn't heard that one! Well, now I have to read them. The dumber the rumors the better the books. They're on my list to read anyway, but keep in mind I am a librarian on a humble quest to read every book out there so I hadn't gotten around to this series yet. Now I have to move them up.

[carriebft]

Yeah some mass email rumor got blown up-- and it claimed that the books dealt with female genital mutilation. Now, admittedly, there is a one sentence mention of circumcision/cutting of sexual organs as a an evil performed by 'churches in the south'; but the rumor going around is that the books deal directly with the issue, which is totally untrue! Although, to an intactivist like myself, a lot of the themes in the book and other forms of "cutting" that happen really do make me think about circumcision, but that's just a connection I make because of how close I am to the issue.

[Meg Murry.]

Originally Posted by carriebft

When he begins to see organized Christianity as a threat to his regime, he begins to attack the organization. Yet all of his speeches remain "non atheistic"-- so he attacks factions and groups yet continues to talk about his belief in a higher power. So so we get statements like this:



I have a bunch of links on this but I think it's summed up really well here:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm

but also if you look at his speeches, too.

Okay, well, that's proven that question for me! Thanks!

[merpk]

Originally Posted by kmeyrick

Hitler did not go to Church, he found religion to be irritating, but had no problem using it to evoke the right response out of people. He used the occult, paganism, Christianity, Buddhism, and pseudoscience to manipulate people. Though Arabs were in his opinion the same as the Jews, he cooperated with an Arab fringe group to target Jews. The man was a sociopath, so all this conflicting behavior would be typical of him.

Totally OT, but it wasn't a "fringe group." The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, as spent the war years as Hitler's personal guest in Berlin and actively recruited volunteers for the Axis throughout.



FWIW, Hitler may not have been a "believing Christian," but he was raised as a Christian in a Christian milieu. And his slaughter took place entirely within Christian Europe.


And Stalin was educated in Russian Orthodox Church schools. He may have become an official atheist (as communist doctrine required), but he was also raised in a Christian society.

[Ruthla]

My take on the Harry Potter/Earth Spirits thingie is that Harry Potter's style of magic has absolutely NOTHING to do with Paganism or Wicca! Pagans recognize Earth Spirits, in the Harry Potter world, magic is a technology that some individuals have access to.

I want to read The Goldan Compass because it looks like a good story. DD2 wants to read it for the same reasons. If the story opens up a lot of religious ideas we dont' agree with, then we'll have lots of fodder for book discussions!

[EvansMomma]

Originally Posted by carriebft

Oh i don't feel bad for him at all! All this publicity is just going to drive up the numbers. Yeah, people are misquoting/using his quotes out of context and spreading weird rumors about the books "killing God" and being about female genital mutilation...but, all in all, this is just a gold mine for his works!

No kiddin'!
I'd never even heard of these books until all this hullaballoo started on different msg forums that I'm on. And after reading all of this intriguing debate that's going on all over, I decided to go buy the trilogy...

Maybe it's leftovers from my "atheist" days, but I figure anything that can whip the Catholic church up into a frenzy is something that I've just gotta read...haha