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Dove (http://www.dove.org/) also has reviews, but isn't usually as accurate or detailed, and allows more before they mention it as compared with the above sites).

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Time Warner to release movie described as 'atheism for kids' during Christmas season, please warn other parents and send your email to Time Warner & Movie Theatres

New Line Cinema (A Time Warner Company) will release the movie titled The Golden Compass just in time for Christmas.  The movie has been described as 'atheism for kids'.

The Golden Compass is based on the first book of a trilogy entitled 'His Dark Materials' written by Phillip Pullman.  Pullman is a militant atheist and secular humanist who despises C. S. Lewis and the 'Chronicles of Narnia.' His motivation for writing this trilogy was specifically to counteract Lewis' symbolisms of Christ portrayed in the Narnia series.

Pullman left little doubt about his intentions when he said in a 2003 interview that "My books are about Killing God....."  In Pullman's final book a boy and girl kill God so they can do as they please.  The movie is a watered down version of the first book entitled 'His Dark Materials'. 

"The problem (with this movie) is that kids may see the film and ask their parents for the books," said Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the Catholic League. "The trilogy of books, especially the third volume, promotes atheism and denigrates Christianity. This is central to the plot."

Many church and pro-family organizations are concerned that unsuspecting parents will take their children to see the movie and that the children will want the books for Christmas.
 
Please help to get the word out about this movie by forwarding this email to family and friends.  We believe that it is equally as important to communicate your concerns to Time Warner, New Line Cinema and movie theatre chains regarding movies like this.

We have prepared an email for you to send to Time Warner, New Line Cinema, AMC Theatres, Cinemark Holdings, National Amusement and Regal Theatres regarding this movie.

Please click here (http://www.votervoice.net/Groups/FLFAM/Advocacy/?IssueID=12466&SiteID=-1) to send your email to Time Warner, New Line Cinema and large theatre chains. 

Please forward this information to family and friends (you are free to copy and paste this into an email, or you can give them a link to this webpage).

Click here (http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp) to read more about the movie at Snopes.

Floridafamily.org

The Golden Compass
Claim:   The 2007 film The Golden Compass is based on a series of books with anti-religious themes.
Status:   True.

There will be a new Children's movie out in December called THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It is written by Phillip Pullman, a proud athiest who belongs to secular humanist societies. He hates C. S. Lewis's Chronical's of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side. The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please. Nicole Kidman stars in the movie so it will probably be advertised a lot. This is just a friendly warning that you sure won't hear on the regular TV.

Collected via e-mail:

"Hi! I just wanted to inform you what I just learned about a movie that is coming out December 7, during the Christmas season, which is entitled THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It stars Nicole Kidman and it is directed toward children. What is disturbing to me is that this movie is based on the first of a trilogy of books for children called HIS DARK MATERIALS written by Philip Pullman of England.

He's an atheist and his objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. I heard that he has made remarks that he wants to kill God in the minds of children, and that's what his books are all about. He despises C.S. Lewis and Narnia, etc. An article written about him said "this is the most dangerous author in Britain" and that Pullman would be the writer "the atheists would be praying for, if atheists prayed." Pullman said he doesn't think it is possible that there is a God and he has great difficulty understanding the words "spiritual" and "spirituality." What I thought was important to communicate is what part of the agenda is for making this picture. This movie is a watered down version of the first book, which is the least offensive of the three books. The second book of the trilogy is THE SUBTLE KNIFE and the third book is THE AMBER SPYGLASS. Each book gets worse and worse regarding Pullman's hatred of God. In the trilogy, a young girl becomes enmeshed in an epic struggle against a nefarious Church known as the Magisterium. Another character, an ex-nun, describes Christianity as "a very powerful and convincing mistake." As I understand it, in the last book, a boy and girl are depicted representing Adam and Eve and they kill God, who at times is called YAHWEH (which is definitely not Allah). Since the movie would seem mild if you viewed it, that's been done on purpose.

They are hoping that unsuspecting parents will take their children to See the movie, that they will enjoy the movie and then the children will want the books for Christmas. That's the hook. Pullman says he wants the children to read the books and decide against God and the kingdom of heaven.

If you decide that you do not want to support something like this, I suggest that you boycott the movie and the books. I googled a synopsis of THE GOLDEN COMPASS. As I skimmed it, I couldn't believe that in a children's book part of the story is about castration and female circumcision. 

Origins:   The Golden Compass, a fantasy film starring Nicole Kidman that is scheduled to be released into theaters on 7 December 2007, has been drawing fire from concerned Christians. The film is based on Northern Lights (released in the U.S. as The Golden Compass), the first offering in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy of children's books, a series that follows the adventures of a streetwise girl who travels 
through multiple worlds populated by witches, armor-plated bears, and sinister ecclesiastical assassins to defeat the oppressive forces of a senile God.

Books of the trilogy have sold more than 15 million copies around the world, with Northern Lights winning the Carnegie Medal for Children's Literature in 1995 and in 2007 being awarded the 'Carnegie of Carnegies' for the best children's book of the past 70 years. The Amber Spyglass, the final book of the series, won The Whitbread Prize in 2001, making it the first children's book to do so.

The series' author, Philip Pullman (who has described himself as both an agnostic and an atheist), has averred that "I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality.'" Critics of Pullman's books (conservative British columnist Peter Hitchens in 2002 labeled Pullman "The Most Dangerous Author in Britain" and described him as the writer "the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed") point to the strong anti-religion and anti-God themes they incorporate, and although literary works are subject to a variety of interpretations, Pullman has left little doubt about his books' intended thrust in discussions of his works, such as noting in a 2003 interview that "My books are about killing God" and in a 2001 interview that he was "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief."

A Los Angeles Times article on the Golden Compass controversy noted that:
[Pullman]'s never hidden his skepticism about God or his rejection of organized religion. A quick Internet search turns up a 2004 essay he wrote deploring "theocracies" for a newspaper in his native Britain, and his own Web site states that he thinks it "perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it." "His Dark Materials" features a sympathetic character, an ex-nun, who describes Christianity as "a very powerful and convincing mistake," while "The Amber Spyglass" concludes with the two child heroes participating in the dissolution of "the Authority," a senile, pretender God who has falsely passed himself off as the creator of the universe.
Bill Donohue, president of The Catholic League, has condemned The Golden Compass as a "pernicious" effort to indoctrinate children into anti-Christian beliefs and has produced a 23-page pamphlet titled The Golden Compass: Unmasked in which he maintains that Pullman "sells atheism for kids." Donohoe told interviewer John Gibson on 9 October 2007 why he believes Christians should stay away from the film:
Look, the movie is based on the least offensive of the three books. And they have dumbed down the worst elements in the movie because they don't want to make Christians angry and they want to make money. Our concern is this, unsuspecting Christian parents may want to take their kid to the movie, it opens up December 7th and say, this wasn't troubling, then we'll buy the books. So the movie is the bait for the books which are profoundly anti-Catholic and at the same time selling atheism.
Other reviewers, however, have described Pullman's works as being more generally anti-religion rather than specifically anti-Christian or anti-Catholic:
In "His Dark Materials," Pullman's criticisms of organized religion come across as anti-authoritarian and anti-ascetic rather than anti-doctrinal. (Jesus isn't mentioned in any of the books, although Pullman has hinted that He might figure in a forthcoming sequel, "The Book of Dust.") His fundamental objection is to ideological tyranny and the rejection of this world in favor of an idealized afterlife, regardless of creed. As one of the novel's pagan characters puts it, "Every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling."

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

An Athesist Children's Fantasy: The Golden Compass Comes to the Big Screen
by Dr. Ted Baehr and Dr. Tom Synder
http://cftvc.org/

On Dec. 7, 2007, the movie THE GOLDEN COMPASS based on the first book in the fantasy trilogy entitled His Dark Materials by atheist Philip Pullman will be released in theaters throughout the world. Pullman wrote his trilogy because he was so upset by the Christian evangelism that C. S. Lewis wove into his wonderful series entitled The Chronicles Of Narnia. Pullman is an avowed atheist who has dedicated his life to undermining Christianity and the Church among young readers. The film's release is another example of a culture deconstructing, a culture where we must declare truth.

Pullman represents God as a decrepit and perverse angel just like Satan in his novels, who captures the dead in a prison camp afterlife. As one fallen angel tells one of the novel' young heroes:

"The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty - those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves - the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself."

When the hero finally finds this god he is ultimately described as a demented and powerless creature that could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery. The boy then kills this god by breaking him out of his crystal cell, thereby evaporating him. The only god in this universe is matter.

Meanwhile, the Church is depicted as an organization bent on power, control and the torture of children. One heroine in the story who turns from the Church did so when she realized, there wasn't any God at all and. . . the Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all. Instead, the church just kept her from finding love, thinking freely, and pursuing bodily pleasures like sex.

There is no heaven in this universe, just a dank and dreary prison camp afterlife. Pullman thought Christians like C.S. Lewis positive view of the afterlife was a celebration of death.

The children in the story ultimately discover that true wisdom is doing what is right in their own eyes, becoming their own gods. The result of this wisdom is a focus on bodily pleasure over eternal truth. Although ambiguous as to what exactly happens, at the end of the novels the two children pleasure each other bodily and finally experience true joy.

The world of Pullman's series mechanically mirrors that of C. S. Lewis. While The Chronicles Of Narnia starts with Lucy going into the wardrobe to get into Narnia, Pullman has Lyra going into a wardrobe, but what Lyra finds is not the supernatural world, nor a world where God rescues His creation, like Narnia, but rather a world that ends in dust, where the highest meaning can be found in pleasuring each other and God is just a sniveling old man who doesn't know what he's doing.

Pullman's world is a sad, animalistic universe. Since this is the only world there is, the trilogy ends in hopelessness. Love is not selfless giving, because that would be useless in a materialistic world. Love instead is the lust of pleasuring each other. In Pullman's world, there's no hope of eternal life where the lame and the blind and the deaf and dumb can walk and see and hear and talk, where the old are made youthful, there's no heavenly banquet, there's no loving God, there's no order, and there's no peace.

The logical consequences of Pullman's atheism can be found in the lives of the leading atheists of the 20th Century - Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot - men who killed millions of their own people and had no respect for justice or love. Ultimately, it is a road that only leads to meaninglessness and murder.

Even though the movie waters down the book, it can only demean, devalue and diminish life. Therefore, we urge people of faith and values not to corrupt their children with this odious atheistic worldview. Instead, there are plenty of good movies this Christmas, such as ENCHANTED; that will build (and not destroy) values.

A society shaped by the materialist and godless ethic promoted by THE GOLDEN COMPASS is a society without hope. If there is no God and no eternity, if all that exists is matter, human life loses all value. Sex becomes the ultimate form of pleasure we can achieve, and unlimited autonomy from other people while being our own gods becomes the goal. A society like this will destroy itself.

Unfortunately, discouraging signs abound that the message of THE GOLDEN COMPASS is impacting our society.

The Culture War Heats Up
New Movies Continue Attacks on Traditional Christan, American Values
by Dr. Ted Baehr and Dr. Tom Synder
http://cftvc.org/

Ever since the critical and box office success of movies like Michael Moore's BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE and FAHRENHEIT 9/11 the atheist, left-wing elitists in the mass media have stepped up their attacks on the patriotic, traditional and orthodox values of America and Christianity. Clearly, these people feel threatened by the success of conservative evangelical Christians and other traditionalists in the entertainment industry with such hits like THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA not to mention their success in electing George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

Not only has there been an increase in the number of explicitly left-wing, anti-American, anti-Christian documentaries in the last two years (such as The Road to Guantanamo, Jesus Camp, Jimmy Carter Man from Plains, and For the Bible Tells Me So, but there has also been an increasing number of anti-Christian, anti-American mainstream movies such as The Da Vinci Code, Brokeback Mountain, and the recent box office bombs In the Valley of Elah and Rendition.

Two upcoming movies will continue these attacks, Robert Redford's already outdated propaganda movie against the War in Iraq, Lions for Lambs, and a new movie, The Golden Compass, based on the first book in secular humanist Philip Pullman's anti-Christian children's trilogy, His Dark Materials.

Redford's new movie, which we have seen already, contains a slew of shallow arguments against the Republican Party, the War in Iraq, the Vietnam War, and the United States military, spiced with a vague secular humanist call to political action, presumably against those "evil" conservatives in the Republican Party and their supporters, the so-called religious right.

Pullman's books not only mock and belittle God, they also attack the Christian Church (labeled "the Church" and "the Magisterium" in the books). In the trilogy, Pullman rejects the orthodox view of God and presents a nebulous, personal and demonic-sounding spirituality with no philosophical roots or ultimate meaning.

Pullman's world is a sad, animalistic universe. Since this is the only world there is, the trilogy ends in hopelessness. Love is not selfless giving, because that would be useless in a materialistic world. Love instead is the lust of pleasuring each other. In Pullman's world, there's no hope of eternal life where the lame and the blind and the deaf and dumb can walk and see and hear and talk, where the old are made youthful, there's no heavenly banquet, there's no loving God, there's no order, and there's no peace.

The logical consequences of Pullman's atheism can be found in the lives of the leading atheists of the 20th Century - Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot - men who killed millions of their own people and had no respect for justice or love. Ultimately, it is a road that only leads to meaninglessness, murder and social chaos.

Reportedly, the new movie based on Pullman's book has toned down some of Pullman's virulent attacks on the Christian religion. Whether or not that is true, however, we do urge people of faith and values not to bother to corrupt their children with this odious atheistic worldview.

Of course, there are other attacks to come next year, including another movie based on one of DaVinci Code author Dan Brown's scurrilous attacks against orthodox Christian teachings and the Bible and perhaps a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11 from Michael Moore.

Every year, however, we present an Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry, which looks at the content of the Top 250 Movies at the Box office each year. Year in and year out, our statistics show that movies with very strong anti-biblical, anti-Christian, anti-American values don't do well at the box office.

For instance, movies with very strong anti-biblical, anti-Christian content only averaged $23, $22.6 and $21.4 million at the box office in 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively. Movies with anti-patriotic, anti-American content did even worse on the whole, averaging only $26.8, 10 and 19.6 million, respectively - as much as two to six times worse than movies with very strong biblical, Christian, patriotic, and pro-American content.

Thus, movies in 2007 like In the Valley of Elah, Delta Farce, Home of the Brave, and Rendition have made only $6.6 million, $8 million, $40,000, and $7.8 million in North America, but movies like World Trade Center, Spider-Man 3, Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, Top Gun, Passion of the Christ, and Sergeant York have made $70 million, $336 million, $302 million, $516 million, $315 million, $393 million, and $317 million when adjusted for inflation!!!

Of course, the antidote to all of these attacks on America and Jesus Christ is to teach your neighbors, and your children and grandchildren, to reject the bad and support the good.

PARENTAL ALERT: This weekend your local theater will  be showing a movie aimed at children  that will undermine the values  you are instilling in them.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS points children toward dishonesty, selfishness, rebellion, atheism, and the desire to kill their mothers!

THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie is based on a trilogy of children’s books by British author, Philip Pullman, who is an avowed atheist who has dedicated his life to undermining Christianity and the Church, especially among young readers. One of Pullman’s goals in writing these books is to be the “anti-Narnia” series.

HELP US GET THE WORD OUT.

Please encourage your friends and family members to avoid the movie. Unless they are warned, they may be attracted by the preview for the movie that features a little girl riding a polar bear and fighting what look like bad guys.

There are two reasons to avoid this movie and encourage others to do so as well:

FIRST: The message of the movie, and the books on which it is based, is anti-Christian propaganda. THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie features a dishonest, selfish and stubborn heroine and is the opening to a story that glorifies atheism (primarily in the later two books). We believe in freedom of the press. Anyone can write a book or screenplay that makes Christians look sinister, stupid or wicked. That does NOT mean Christian parents need to buy that message and feed it to their children.

SECOND: In the movie business, the purchase of a ticket, or DVD, is a vote for more of something. If a studio loses money on an expensive anti-Christian adventure it is less likely to make more of the same. In this case, THE GOLDEN COMPASS is the first part of a trilogy that gets worse as it progresses. If THE GOLDEN COMPASS is a monumental flop the second and third book may never get made into movies.

While THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie is not as overtly anti-Christian as the books by looking at some of the excerpts from the novel you can see what the author hopes to teach children:

One fallen angel tells one of the novel’s young heroes, “The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty – those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself.”

When the heroine finally finds this “god,” he is ultimately described as a “demented and powerless” creature that “could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery.” The boy then kills this “god” by breaking him out of his crystal cell, thereby evaporating him. The only “god” in this universe is matter.

In the book, the Church is depicted as an organization bent on power, control and the torture of children by cutting.

The heroine in the story turns from the Church when she realizes, “there wasn’t any God at all and...the Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all.”
Children learn scripts of behavior from the movies and entertainment. The role model in this movie is Lyra who is commended for lying, stealing, cheating, and trying to kill her mother.
Even worse, the official website has an area where children can meet their own daemon. It says: “To discover your very own Daemon, look into your heart, and answer the following twenty questions openly and honestly. Your true character and the form of your Daemon will be reveled…”
There are many wicked movies made every year, but THE GOLDEN COMPASS is aimed at family audiences and is made to appear similar to Christian allegory THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Please help get the word out that this would be a movie to avoid.