My Daemon?

Yesterday, my wife and I took advantage of school being canceled, in spite of relative benign weather in Lawrence, to go see the Golden Compass. We like this sort of fantasy and our interest was piqued because of the Catholic League's claim that the film is anti Catholic. The League claims that Catholics and other Christians should avoid the film because it it "bait" which might cause unsuspecting parents to buy the books by Phillip Pullman upon which the movie is based.

The League accuses Pullman of being a militant atheist with the goal or denigrating Christianity, especially Catholicism and the League claims that the film sanitizes much of the anti Catholic rhetoric in the book. Further, the League dismisses the claims Pullman and others associated with the film that the film is benign. You can download the League's report here.

I have not read the books, so can't comment on that particular controversy except to say that I have never been impressed with arguments that one should avoid such and such work simply because the author's theology, or lack of it, is a problem. Arguments, be they couched in fiction or not, have to stand on their own merits.

Harm to kids? I think not. Perhaps the League's leaders did not go through any sort of questioning of their faith as a teenager...but from what I remember and experienced with my kids-questioning of all sorts is part of being a teen.

Now to the movie. The movie was lots of fun. Mrs Coulter (Nichole Kidman) was the ultimate female villain; the Magisterium appropriately sinister, the good guys appropriately good. So yes, the Golden Compass's characters are very one dimensional from an adult perspective. However, what kid or adult can possibly resist having their "soul" taking the form of an animal daemon? What kid or adult can resist a film that promotes free thinking? OK... don't answer that.

Given the 'controversy' about the film, my antennae were all a quiver for anti Christian references. But aside from the the Magisterium the only swipe at Christianity was a comment Nichole Kidman makes to the young heroine, Lyra to the effect that many of our problems stem from a couple of our ancestors who did not obey authority. This could be a reference to the Fall. But that doesn't disturb me since I have strong Pelagian sympathies, as you might suspect.

The movie's pacing was a bit frenetic and choppy giving the impression that a lot was cut out..which it probably was. But I don't think the director and screen writers did as good a job as other attempts to condense large fantasy books to a movie; certainly the editing is not up to the quality of the Harry Potter films. The special effects are generally good and not too obtrusive. I really liked the daemons which by the way ranged from a snow leopard to a praying mantis to a ferret.

Oh, I suspect now we will buy the books if only to see what the League's fuss is all about. Given the overtly Christian themes of some other fantasy writing-C.S. Lewis comes to mind here-fantasy from an overtly atheist perspective might be refreshing.

The movie has an official web site of course ,and just out of curiosity I visited it and had fun with the choose your daemon game which asks you some basic personality questions and purports to match you with your daemon. Mine is below. Not sure I agree with the choice but it is appropriate for an evolutionist don't you think? At least I didn't get the praying mantis.

Conservatives split over Darwin

Often times conservatives are portrayed as being anti evolution. But an article in today's NY Times, notes a growing split among conservatives. Some conservatives take the intelligent design/ creationist approach, that evolution negates God and thus undermines the fundamental rationale for human rights and morality.

Other conservatives argue that evolutionary thinking is consistent with conservative thought. For instance conservatives and evolutionary biologists, according to this argument, both believe that humans are imperfect. Social systems have evolved and such systems evolved from the ground up "have more wisdom than rationally planned reforms". This argument reminds me of the free market idea that individuals making their own decisions make for more efficient markets then centrally planned systems.

From my way of thinking there are flaws in both approaches. The intelligent design/creationist argument is flawed because they present no scientifically credible alternative to evolution. Unless of course you consider the Creation Science Museum credible. The flaw in the second approach is Hume's Guillotine. Hume argued that you cannot argue what ought to be from what is. This means for instance, that just because other animals behave in a certain way that means we can behave the same way. Or just because a certain institution has operated the same way for hundreds of years doesn't mean that it is relevant today.

David Hume (Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

My approach is a bit more pragmatic. First I believe that the bottom up approach that evolution takes suggests that markets ought to generally be free. This also applies to most other sorts of freedom of choice issues. Yet we also know that evolution is blind and that there are issues that need a rational look ahead approach to certain key problems facing us as a civilization and species.

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