Revelation outside one's self

When there is a great deal of hub-bub about a book, especially one that is juvenile fiction, I feel like it is my duty to investigate, castigate, and envigorate those that want to know. The latest is The Golden Compass. The only reason it is causing such a stir right now, is because it has been made into a movie that millions of unsuspecting children will attend this holiday season.
I had to find out for myself, not just take someone else's word for it. I am sure you all have received at least one email warning you not to see or read the books. The Christian community got it wrong when in our haste to ward off anything that smelled of evil, we took Harry Potter to the wood shed and he stayed there for quite a while. Then Christians that like to think actually read the books, went to the movies, and decided that we had made a moutain out of a mole hill. My first reaction to all the hype, about The Golden Compass, was to tell the Christian ghetto not to make it more than it was, all we were doing was selling books, and movie tickets! I read the first tome in about five or six hours, maybe less. It was fast paced, easy to understand, mysterious, and interesting. My mind kept wandering to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and to The Narnia Series as I tried to compare them for their literary highs and lows. Now that I am almost finished with the three, I have made some most interesting conclusions. The first thing is that they are much more dark than Harry Potter, or the other series I just mentioned. Harry Potter is written from a humanistic point of view, but so is Nancy Drew. Yes, there is killing in all of them, but the killing has to do with right verses wrong, even in Harry Potter! Human life is always upheld to be precious and something that we do not take lightly. Pullman doesn't regard human life as something that should held in high esteem. Lyra, the main charachter, uses people and regards them as pawns in her pursuit of her quest. In one scene, she comes across an old man being imprisoned by the King of the Bears. She can tell that he is "mad" and therefore it is ok to use him to gain what she wants. Another scene has the rightful bear king eating the flesh of a man that saved his life, because he was hungry (the man was already dead). It seems to Pullman that since he was already dead, it would be ok to desecrate his body and to "nourish" the bear's appetite. At another place the bear eats the heart out of a man, after he is dead. This goes against the sacredness of God's creation. God's image is not only shown in the soul of a person, but in his or her body as well. Pullman turns evil good, and good evil. Rebellion is a good characteristic for the characters of The Golden Compass. This is Lyra's number one characteristic.
Pullman has come out and said that he is an atheist and he hates God and the church. That point comes out loud and clear throughout all of the books. The bad guys are the priests, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and the ultimate bad guy is God. According to the novel, we have gotten it all wrong, the bad guys are Christianity, God and the church. That is why there is repression and killing. The quest of the stories is to kill God and all will be well. He (Pullman)twists the Bible narrative, the story in the garden and original sin to be the real evil. I really feel sorry for Pullman. His anger, his repression (sexual and otherwise) pulses off of every page. He denigrates Christianity for the Bible being revealed, and Lyra his main character, cannot do anything apart from the "revelation" of the Athemeiter. Lyra cannot, without supernatural transcendence, go on her quest. I find that very ironic to say the least.
More coming later.