Golden Encompassing

So The Golden Compass opens today, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. What's been a bit maddening is the ridiculous furor over the "anti-Christian" content in the books, and thus, in the movie. Never mind that other critics are enraged because the filmmakers took out most of the anti-Church stuff. They're up in arms that author Phillip Pullman is promoting his atheist agenda to moviegoers, and at the holidays too! The nerve!

I liked this bit from Brandon Sanderson, a fantasy writer and Mormon, about an email he received urging people not to see the movie:

It didn't seem informative–but COUNTER-informative. It didn't try to explain ideas, but instead tried to get people to avoid listening to those ideas. In short, it didn't seek to promote understanding or learning, but instead promoted exclusivist and censorship. There is a difference between 1) acknowledging and arguing against content you might disagree with and 2) attempting to suppress that content.

Read the whole thing, and make up your own mind.

As for me, of course I'm going to go. It has ARMORED BEARS!!