With the controversey surrounding the movie I decided to start reading the "His Dark Materials" Trilogy, of which The Golden Compase is the first book. I have not seen the movie yet but the books are amazing. They are now my favorite Fantasy series. The part that I don't get is that in the first book there is nothing for religious people to be upset about unless they have read the book series. While the books are amazing they are hereticle as they show the stories in the bible from genisis to adam and eve in a very very different light. So to all those who have seen the movie why is it controversial. And to everyone who has read the books did you like them or hate them and why.

P.S. If your post has a spoiler in it please post a spoiler alert at the top of the post and give enought space so people don't have to read it if they don't want to.

Yeah, I have read the books over and over, and for anyone who wants to get upset, they can grow the hell up lol. It's a freaking movie! I love the books

My parents, my brother and my child saw the movie. They all thought it was fantastic and will watch it again when it comes out on DVD.

They said there was nothing about religion in it at all. There was some content referring to free choice.

My father thinks alot of the controversy starts with the fact that the author is an atheist and the book was written about the time the theory of evolution started to be protested to not be in schools.

Btw, my child's new school and old school have forbidden the children to bring the book to school or write book reports on it. My child's teacher told the parents to not let the children see the movie because they kill God in it.

Oops, Grandparents took child to see the movie. God is still
alive!

Well winx I have been doing some reaserch and found out a few things the first is that In many parts of christian religion the book has been baned for its content. But the funniest thing is that they ban it because the author is an atheist and not what is actually in the book.

From Fox News.com "In 2003, he (phillip pullman author of the trilogy) said that compared to the Harry Potter series, his books had been "flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God."

Which is true, though appaerntly the director decided to strip the movie script of anything that referenced the church or bible in the movie.

On Christmas one of my Aunt's gave my child the book as a present. It started a heated discussion amongst relatives.

A couple of the super, super religious ones said that the movie was made more gentle to make the parents more comfortable/trick them into buying the books for the children.

Quite the conspiracy theory going on there.

My child's school sells Scholastic Books. The book is on this month's list and they intentionally did not give the list out this month for that reason. I do not like them taking away my choices like that.

And, yes, it is a Christian school.

censorship can be soooooo wrong!!!!!!!

I thought we lived in America......ya know land of the free!!!!
What the Heck happened?

I know I hate when anything in censored, but all that does is show people that a book is saying something that makes sense and is important.
The reason The Golden Compass books are baned is because they tell people to think for themselves and they do have an anti-church message. Thats the one thing that organized religions hate is when people think for themselves.

So while I hate that things are censored private schools have the right to choose whether or not they want to show something. Now if it were a private school then it would be horrible as the institution is a function of the government.

I went to see the movie and thought it was great. As far as all the controversy surrounding it, my opinion is if you dont like it dont go see it. I am looking forward to when it comes out on DVD

If Christians can have books with pro-religion undertones [Chronicals of Narnia] without there being a huge fuss, it's only fair that non-religious people have stories that parallel that.

What frustrates me is that it seems that Christians are getting upset and claiming that the story is against God. To me it seems that this story is against theocracies, not religion as a whole.

Raven you are right it is about all religions, but becasue he specificly says the christian church they are naturally going to get offended. And techniqly he is not saying that there is no God, but the God that everyone thinks of as God is not.