jack | (no subject)

One of the thoughts about different aspects of atheist belief is that the natural one is not believing "God exists", but some people do believe something like "If He does exist, He's a bastard."

But it occurred to me, that's basically the point of the Northern Lights trilogy. The central message is "God doesn't exist because he's a bastard". If that sounds confusing, well, exactly, that's why the message the books send seems to be confusing :)

It's not a wrong way to go about it. Narnia could be described as partly carrying the message "God *does* exist because he's nice," and does it very well indeed. Using God's metaphorical absence as a metaphor for his literal absence is a good metaphor -- I can see if the books had clicked for me more, it might be quite exciting, if instead of having no unifying message, atheism was a crusade against an uncaring God and a malicious power-hungry arch-angel. Yay!

For that matter, in some sense, it's a real argument: if you say "If God were running the world, I don't like it," you might get from there to "then He isn't," via "if he's not doing it right, he's not God or not there".

But Pullman's presentation didn't really work for me, and so all the flaws in the presentation continued to bother me.

Contrariwise, sometimes people do over-seize on the second aspect of atheism, especially if they're used to their religion being the default and assume an atheist *is* not someone factually thinking God doesn't exist, but someone morally choosing not to follow Him.

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cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com

I know what you mean, that makes more sense, but to me it felt more like "The book falsely tries to equate religion with dogmatic organised religion" than "The book is against dogmatic organised religion, (but other religion might be ok)". (However, I don't have any basis for that, I might be wrong. Or it might try to be one but your reading might be a more consistent way to interpret it whatever Pullman felt.)

ilanin.livejournal.com

Liberalism has throughout history been regarded as a godless and atheistic philosophy because it rejects dogma of organised religion - currently that's most easily seen in the United States, but it's been true enough everywhere throughout the last three hundred years.

That's a good point -- see also my comment to gareth_rees; the ideas are mixed in the minds of people on several sides, somewhat confusingly, somewhat relevantly.

alextfish.livejournal.com

Mm, I think my reaction on reading HDM was fairly close to "The book is against dogmatic organised religion (but other religion might be ok)". Or indeed, as

atreic put it up-thread, "it's suggesting that "we shouldn't believe in a god like that" but I deal with it easily by knowing that my God is not like that."

I think to the extent that people try to take HDM as an allegory about the real world, they usually do mis-equate "dogmatic organised religion" with "all religion".

robhu.livejournal.com

I think to the extent that people try to take HDM as an allegory about the real world, they usually do mis-equate "dogmatic organised religion" with "all religion".
There can't be very many people who would make such a ridiculous assertion. [Bad username or site: lark_ascending' / @ livejournal.com] excluded of course.

Ah, that's interesting. Of course, it makes sense, in that logically it supports both interpretations -- and yours is a lot more consistent. (As a parody of dogmacism, it does work well.)

And yours is more likely to spring to your mind, as a God who isn't like that is very clear and important to you :) Whereas my interpretation might loosely be described as disagreeing with equating of "dogmatic etc" with "religion". But that it sprang to my mind because (a) I *do* have a predisposition to see an argument against religion and (b) I get the impression that's how the book is often/intended to be seen. [OK, I should check that.]

(a) I *do* have a predisposition to see an argument against religion and (b) I get the impression that's how the book is often/intended to be seen. [OK, I should check that.]
I think you're conflating God and religion too tightly. The book is obviously anti religion, if by religion we mean the human system around God (priests, rules, hierarchies of authority, control of knowledge, violence / laws against people and groups, etc), but that doesn't mean it's anti-God.

God appears to be absent in Pullman's universe (in the same way he is in ours), so I don't think the book can rightly be seen as being anti-God. I don't think Pullman intended it to be either. I think he meant it to be anti-Catholic, which is quite different.

Perhaps this distinction which seems obvious to me is only obvious because I was once a religious person who believed in God myself. I think all the Christian people (well, [Bad username or site: atreic' / @ livejournal.com], [Bad username or site: alextfish' / @ livejournal.com], and [Bad username or site: woodpijn' / @ livejournal.com]) would make this distinction and see God and the religion of following God as being distinct, because the people who run the religion can misunderstand things / get things wrong / do things for their own gain. Whereas Christians usually* think God is this really wonderful loving father figure, even if the people in their church / denomination / Vatican are complete bastards.

* wobbling and bad life experiences aside

Oh yes, I think you're quite right. (1) It's anti-religion or anti-catholic (2) that doesn't mean it's anti-god (3) However *I* think it *is* anti-god anyway, or at least often seen that way.

I know it's often seen that way (validly or not). Now I feel I should check how Pullman intended it, and perhaps a more detailed reading to see if there is any indication of non-religion god stance in the books.

What about it is anti-God?

Lyra even discovers the angel who claimed to be God, and they aren't angry with him.

Well, that's the question, isn't it? I had that impression, but cannot remember anything supporting it -- quite possibly there isn't, and I was unfair to Pullman and/or HDM. However, I don't feel I can say there *isn't* either, without checking, so I'd like to research/check that point, but probably won't get to it today.

Hm, I may indeed have been hasty in that interpretation. I'm going to make a follow-up post.

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