Next you're going to tell me they've banned or are going to ban the Hyperion series. :o

I have a semi-serious intention of sending any future children of mine to catholic school. This should guarantee them a future of rational atheism.

/In the same way banning books guarantees them to be read

jwood: /In the same way banning books guarantees them to be read

This exactly.

Mrs. Coulter approves.

I read The Golden Compass in middle school and really liked it, but I didn't pick up any of the anti-religious messages. But I am now an atheist, so maybe it worked subliminally.

The author of the books openly said they were about killing God. On top of that, the books are definitely not for younger kids. I agree that older more mature kids should be allowed to read and discuss them as a way to prepare them to defend their faith. Let's not forget the school isn't instructing parents not to let their kids read the books "or else". It's a Catholic school and taking this kind of stance isn't irrational given the intent of the author.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: The author of the books openly said they were about killing God. On top of that, the books are definitely not for younger kids. I agree that older more mature kids should be allowed to read and discuss them as a way to prepare them to defend their faith. Let's not forget the school isn't instructing parents not to let their kids read the books "or else". It's a Catholic school and taking this kind of stance isn't irrational given the intent of the author.

You actually think Catholics/Christians want their followers to read atheistic literature in an attempt to rebuke it?

jwood

Real Catholics and Christians? Yes. I don't know what to call the ones who would oppose an evaluation of the positive and negative aspects of the book and how to debate them. It seems like they would have to be atheists themselves to be so obtuse as to endorse a strategy sure to make more atheists. And not just atheists, anti-theists.

Let me rephrase your post.

The writer is a nonbeliever and his books have the potential to influence young children against the church. The kids are not properly brainwashed yet. But when they are properly brainwashed, they can read the books because the meaning will have no effect on their narrow-path minds.

Where would we be without the distorted teachings of Jesus to guide our morality?

We hold these truths to be self-evident: jwood

Real Catholics and Christians? Yes. I don't know what to call the ones who would oppose an evaluation of the positive and negative aspects of the book and how to debate them. It seems like they would have to be atheists themselves to be so obtuse as to endorse a strategy sure to make more atheists. And not just atheists, anti-theists.

I agree sincerely, but the problem is under your definition of "real" Christians, they are very few and an insignificant minority of people claiming to be Christians. I have friends who go to theological schools and they are expected to read philosophy and rebuke it, but as children I expect they were generally kept at distance from other influences. Christianity for children in this sense is like a pair of handcuffs, with the occasional taser coming in the form of fear.

SpyroChiro: Where would we be without the distorted teachings of Jesus to guide our morality?

I read this book as an adult and I guess I was just too dense to catch the atheistic message in it until it was pointed out to me.

That's sort of funny since I was indoctrinated at a young age to believe that my family's flavor of christianity was the "right" flavor and everyone else was learning a bastardized christian religion. Even did some missionary work in Trinidad when I was in my early teens, as well as preaching to large congregations when I was no older than 15 or 16.

Then I started trying to match up my literal interpretation of the Bible (yes I was taught the young earth crap) with science and couldn't do it. That was the first wedge in my belief system. Add to that the differences in Saul of Tarsus's teachings and those of Crhist's, as well as various errors in interpretation in what is supposed to be a "perfect" book, and ... well, I pretty much became agnostic on the idea of a deity at all.

If you narrowed it down to the deity as taught in the Bible I would have to say I tend towards full blown atheism.

So I guess the Bible was the source of my agnostic/atheistic beliefs. Maybe they should ban reading it too.

interpretation = translation

I am tired and my mind is in hibernation mode.

Going to bed.

jwood

The author openly stated his books were about killing God, that's a bit beyond him personally being a non-believer and just happening to have written fantasy books targeted at kids. Have you actually read any of the books? Removing the whole thing about theism, do you think they're appropriate to be read by younger kids?

Brainwashing eh? What books on theology have you read to challenge your own belief system? Do you have kids or if you plan on having them, would you want theological materials presented to them?

We hold these truths to be self-evident: jwood

The author openly stated his books were about killing God, that's a bit beyond him personally being a non-believer and just happening to have written fantasy books targeted at kids. Have you actually read any of the books? Removing the whole thing about theism, do you think they're appropriate to be read by younger kids?

Brainwashing eh? What books on theology have you read to challenge your own belief system? Do you have kids or if you plan on having them, would you want theological materials presented to them?

So, if the author openly said that the book was about killing Voldemort, would you have a problem. God (or his meme) is certainly more retributive, rash, emotional, and genocidal than Lord Voldemort. After all, this God intends for people to suffer for all eternity.

I would much rather have my child read the golden compass rather than the bible. I was an avid Christian, and I have various books against evolution. One of these books was the very book that convinced me that evolution was in fact true.

The theological book that I have been most recommended in various arguments, and have read is Mere Christianity, which now fails in the face of evolutionary psychology.

I think the primary difference between theology and philosophy is that theology starts with a conclusion, while philosophy starts with a guess. I find the first method to be nothing more pitiful fear.

In short, reading about ghost hunting is not worth my time. If science in turn isn't worth your time, then we must agree to disagree.

If I have kids, I'll let them read it, for three reasons:

1. If your religious convictions are so weak they can be shaken by a novel, then they're pretty shiatty convictions. Sand 'em off and start over with more info. If your faith is really worth having, you should be able to handle a book that challenges your beliefs just a little bit. It is only by challenging the status quo that humanity advances; I'm not going to hinder that, no matter how scary the idea may seem.

2. Banned books are almost always interesting, and if nothing else, there's always some smartass grad student teaching a college course on banned books, so if you've read them all by age 18, it's an easy A.

3. It has polar bears in it and they wear armor. How seriously can it possibly be taken.

While I would never support the banning of a book, I think it's stupid for the school board to expect parents to sit idly by and allow their kids to just read anything, without being able to help properly place what they're reading, into the proper framework.

parents are responsible for raising their children. not the school board. Not the administrators. Not the village.

The parents. Right or wrong, it's ultimately up to them to raise them. Even if the parents are closed-minded god nazis.

having said that, if my kid were younger than 15 years old, I'd prefer they didn't read this book or see the movie, for that matter. if my kid were older, I'd allow them to read the book or see the movie, then I'd ask them what they thought.

Religion is a good thing. Idiots who get in charge of the administration of a religion is a bad tihng. but don't blame god for the christian middle ages. god didn't give man such capacity for reason and thought for man to ignore his senses and his reason. that was man's doing to live the way he lived between the roman age and the renaissance.

Why did your dumbass god let them get written then? Did they slip past him when he was burying all those fossils?

SpiderQueenDemon
I would advise reading them yourself first if you haven't already in case you find some of it may be inappropriate for younger kids.

jwood
In short, reading about ghost hunting is not worth my time. If science in turn isn't worth your time, then we must agree to disagree.

One, what are you talking about in the last sentence? Two, with respect to Catholicism anyway, evolution isn't a make or break belief. Three, it doesn't sound like you've read anything that complex, theologically. I don't mean to say you didn't try, I don't presume to be an expert myself and I don't think I'll give advice on what to read at this point. I'm just saying there's better than Mr. Lewis.

Naman: Next you're going to tell me they've banned or are going to ban the Hyperion series. :o

Raul Endymion FTW.

Born to Die: Mrs.Mr. Coulter approves.

Who cares, the movie isn't even good enough to be put in the clearance sale bins at Walmart.
Let the school board ban Ultraviolet while they're at it, not too many people saw that either.

Why would I choose to spend my time with fairy tales that don't interest me?

Making these books forbidden fruit by banning them will only serve to encourage children to read them.

The one thing I took away from His Dark Materials was that the message wasn't entirely anti-religious, but was thoroughly anti-authoritarian. Funny how the Catholic church wants to nip that right in the bud...

Our fiction is better than your fiction.

/got nothin'

So now they just have that one star the shows up every couple of thousand years to show them the way? Dummies.

/ got no frankincense
// got no mirh
/// lousy gold

It sucks that Canada has no establishment clause.

I want to read this thread, but I just started on the third book, and I don't want to read where one of you bastards writes "Snape kills Iorek Byrnison!!!111!!!!" or similarly spoiling crap. So I'll be back in a few days.

Remember kids: ideas are dangerous.

sad.

We hold these truths to be self-evident

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you should bother to read the interview that you keep referencing and the books before you make yourself look any more foolish.

"The board felt that because it really was in opposition of what we're trying to teach the children, there is a lot of literature out there that is more appropriate for teaching critical thinking," she said.


translation: "you can think critically, but only if it's in a catholic-approved manner"

farking ridiculous.

Leishu

Could you please be more vague?

Well, I know what *I'm* buying *my* kid for Winter Solstice Gift Day!

hej: Well, I know what *I'm* buying *my* kid for Winter Solstice Gift Day!

I can dig this.

Banned?

Well I guess that's going on my reading list.

Thanks, Religion!

CanadianCommie: farking ridiculous

Why?

How many athiests send their kids to Sunday school? How many liberals read everything Ann Coulter writes? Or everything from Rush Limbaugh?

I keep hearing farkers say "the other side" should do it, but I doubt they practice it in their own lives.

/Yes, yes, now begin the posts of "gee, but I do..." that always follows.
//Doesn't believe in religion, not defending catholics.

It was one school board, the other catholic school boards in the region are not banning it.

This is, by the way, one more reason why John Tory lost my vote. I don't want these religious school boards to proliferate. If you want religion do it on your dime, not mine.

No book should be banned, but some materials should be kept away from younger ones. Not because of "ideas", simply because their frontal lobes are quite up to snuff to be able to honestly make their own judgment call.

Yes, I'm saying that the younger ones can be easily swayed in one direction or another.

It's up to the parent to give them a solid framework to work out their own ideals. And yes again, it may mean your kids grow up to be UNlike you.

/Not defending anyone, they can defend themselves.

The Catholic Church is promoting hell on earth with their bullshiat stance on birth control, amongst other things. How anyone can take them seriously anymore is completely stunning to me. I guess some fraction of the populous of the world likes speaking dead languages and bowing down to authority and having their children molested occasionally.

Transubstantiation itself is an intelligence test, I think. You believe that shiat and you should qualify for the special olympics.

jwood: SpyroChiro: Where would we be without the distorted teachings of Jesus to guide our morality?

I'm a student of the History of Science, so I really got a kick out of your reply, namely the ridiculous graph you posted. A few things:

a) How on earth do you measure scientific progression? In theories per century? What about theories that get debunked? It seems like the progression that that graph claims is basically 20th century scientific chauvanism.

b) There are a lot of myths about what people believed in the middle ages.
Your misconceptions, let me debunk them:
-The medieval university was one of the greatest insitutions of learning that the world had seen to that point. Every idea was questioned, and there were fierce debates between philosophy/theolgy faculties all the time. This lead to numerous natural philosophical (science did not yet exist) advances. While the idea that largely prevailed was a Christian-Aristotelean natural framework, that was because that was simply what made the most sense given the raw data they had avaliable. It doesn't mean that such an idea was never challenged. Read some St. Thomas Aquinas for more clarification of this.
-Crop Rotation. Stirrups. High-backed saddles. Gunpowder. Water wheels. The Compass. The Caravel. Improved metalurgical techniques. Printing. All these things and many more were invented in the so called "dark" ages. Also, have you seen the structural engineering on Medieval cathedrals? More complex than anything before. There are 700 year old cathedrals where modern engineers can't figure out how they were built.
-Theology was far from a stagnant and dogmatic discipline. The bible was constantly interpreted and reinterpreted. It wasn't until the rise of protestantism in the Rennaisance that the bible became something that had to be interpreted literally.

c) Science did not take off as soon as the middle ages finished. First of all, nobody can really pinpoint when they did in fact finish. Secondly, the Rennaisance, while a time of great intellectual ferment, remained steeped in religious teachings. The only difference was that they focussed a lot more on the human.

d) Believe it or not, science is currently slowing down. Technology is speeding up, but likely only until the cutting edge of technology catches up with the cutting edge of science. The simple fact is that we're running out of things to discover. The time of great scientific revolutions is at an end. It's now the age of the tedious interpretation of those revolutions.

Seriously. I didn't want to get involved in this flamewar, but that was the most fallacious image I have ever seen posted on Fark, and that is really saying something.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: Leishu

Could you please be more vague?

The books aren't anti-god. If you had read or (if you have read) understood them, you'd already know that they are anti-dogmatic tyranny, and if they "challenge" your faith, it's because you have faith in some mortal theocratic system of control and not God.

catholics are afraid of this book because it poses a "what-if" scenario challenging their narrow conception of a Creator, and their authority to run the lives of all their underlings. The book challenges authority, not spirituality.

Censorship .... from religion?

Jesus farking Christ - how the hell else can that continue to spout bullshiat stories that just happen to fit into their ugly agenda?

/keep the flock loyal and stupid

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

On top of that, the books are definitely not for younger kids.

Not all kids are equally stupid. My family has always been big on reading, so I read books that a lot of the up-tight parents of today would be absolutely mortified about if they knew their 7/8 year old had their hands on them. If you react like an irrational "Think of the children!" sort and molly coddle them, then they won't be able to handle 'grown-up' books at any age (which explains why these Catholics are up in arms over this book).

Real Catholics and Christians?

The "No True Scottsman" fallacy strikes again!

Here's what makes the whole argument ring false to me: if Christians are offended/bothered/whatever by a work of fiction that runs counter to Church teachings, why aren't the standards applied across the board? Why aren't Christians speaking out against:

A Christmas Carol
Charmed
Star Wars
Nightmare on Elm Street
I Dream of Jeannie
The Lost Boys
The Time Machine
The Wizard of Oz

Proof positive that the books are not anti-religious or pro-athiest: I saw The Golden Compass on sale at Wal-Mart yesterday, and they don't carry any anti-religious books. Except, of course, the Left Behind series.

I've not read the books nor the seen the movies, but I have to weigh in with this...

I can't tell if it's amusing or sad that the Catholic church assumes it has the moral authority to dictate anything lately, and that it started re-flexing that recently withered moral authority to condemn a young-adult fantasy book.

Seriously. There's nothing else going on in the world they could be dealing with? Because I can think of at least one major, in-house problem the Church could address before getting down to pulp literature.

Yeah, that'll work, just like it did with abortion.

Murkanen

You missed the point. I'm sure you would agree that the decision as to whether a kid watches an 'R' rated movie isn't usually based on whether a child is "stupid". I'm saying there are subjects in the book that most people wouldn't want little kids reading regardless of the theism themes.

Cambo_: jwood: SpyroChiro: Where would we be without the distorted teachings of Jesus to guide our morality?

I'm a student of the History of Science, so I really got a kick out of your reply, namely the ridiculous graph you posted. A few things:

a) How on earth do you measure scientific progression? In theories per century? What about theories that get debunked? It seems like the progression that that graph claims is basically 20th century scientific chauvanism.

b) There are a lot of myths about what people believed in the middle ages.
Your misconceptions, let me debunk them:-The medieval university was one of the greatest insitutions of learning that the world had seen to that point. [Not in the Christian world: Baghdad was the center of knowledge until 1258] Every idea was questioned, and there were fierce debates between philosophy/theolgy faculties all the time. This lead to numerous natural philosophical (science did not yet exist) [WOW!, WTF?] advances. While the idea that largely prevailed was a Christian-Aristotelean natural framework, that was because that was simply what made the most sense given the raw data they had avaliable. It doesn't mean that such an idea was never challenged. Read some St. Thomas Aquinas for more clarification of this.
-Crop Rotation. Stirrups. High-backed saddles. Gunpowder. Water wheels. The Compass. The Caravel. Improved metalurgical techniques. Printing. All these things and many more were invented in the so called "dark" ages in China. Also, have you seen the structural engineering on Medieval cathedrals? More complex than anything before. There are 700 year old cathedrals where modern engineers can't figure out how they were built. [Sources please]
-Theology was far from a stagnant and dogmatic discipline. The bible was constantly interpreted revised and reinterpreted. It wasn't until the rise of protestantism in the Rennaisance that the bible became something that had to be interpreted literally.

c) Science did not take off as soon as the middle ages finished goes back over 2000 years. First of all, nobody can really pinpoint when they did in fact finish. Secondly, the Rennaisance, while a time of great intellectual ferment, remained steeped in religious teachings. The only difference was that they focussed a lot more on the human.

d) Believe it or not, science is currently slowing down. [No. It is increasing exponentially]Technology is speeding up, but likely only until the cutting edge of technology catches up with the cutting edge of science. The simple fact is that we're running out of things to discover. [Not even close] The time of great scientific revolutions is at an end has barely begun. It's now the age of the tedious interpretation of those revolutions beginning of the end of religion.

Seriously. I didn't want to get involved in this flamewar, but that was the most fallacious image I have ever seen posted on Fark, and that is really saying something.