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His Dark Materials v2


Pilusmagnus

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Ok so let's restart the conversation then.

How honestly do you think atheism is portrayed in these books. Do You think it's bashing religions or do You think like I do That it's open to interpretation?

I don't think it bashes religion, rather it bashes organised religion that seeks to restrict human nature, calling it a sin.
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Ok so let's restart the conversation then.

How honestly do you think atheism is portrayed in these books. Do You think it's bashing religions or do You think like I do That it's open to interpretation?

But, but… atheism isn’t portrayed at all. God makes a frickin’ appearance in the books, non-allegorically. That’s as far removed from atheism as it gets. It’s less atheistic than Narnia, for crying out loud!

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God makes a frickin’ appearance in the books, non-allegorically.

I'm not sure what you mean. In the context of the monotheistic religions being used as templates in the story, "God" usually means an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient creator. Without spoiling too much, there is a critter in the books that certain characters claim is God, but by the time it makes an appearance, it's obvious that it completely lacks every aspect usually associated with God. It's either an impostor or a dupe (like the Narnian donkey tricked into pretending to be a lion).

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Hm… I think I see your point. But I will maintain that the books are not atheistic. God exists, and so do angels. The books are theistic, or anti-theistic (in the sense of believing in, but rejecting God).



Atheism isn’t restricted to a rejection of the Abrahamic god. (By that yardstick, modern Christianity is atheistic, since it is far removed from an OT description of God.)


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But, but… atheism isn’t portrayed at all. God makes a frickin’ appearance in the books, non-allegorically. That’s as far removed from atheism as it gets. It’s less atheistic than Narnia, for crying out loud!

The Authority is not God, he is the first angel created by the Dust and lied that he created all the rest.

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Is this a spoiler thread or not? Because the original topic was created by someone who's only read the first book, so I was marking later spoilers, but we've gone into some pretty big spoiler territory already here, in which case I suggest you mark it in the topic title so he doesn't jump in here and get smashed in the face with things he doesn't want to know.


To answer the question: the books are pretty clearly written by an atheist and broadly tend towards that, although that's tangenial to the main point which is anti-organised religion (in this I have to disagree with your earlier statement that the books aren't about taking a stand on anything - they're very definitely a stand against that, and also against Narnia). But because the arguments are aimed at least partly at theists, they're framed from that perspective.


They don't particularly bash being theist overall, but I think at best it reads with an air of authorial puzzlement about why someone would want to.

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The Authority is not God, he is the first angel created by the Dust and lied that he created all the rest.

That's the version of God that exists in these books though. So, since there's a direct interpretation of God, the books can't be atheist or pushing an atheist agenda.

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Hm… I think I see your point. But I will maintain that the books are not atheistic. God exists, and so do angels. The books are theistic, or anti-theistic (in the sense of believing in, but rejecting God).

Atheism isn’t restricted to a rejection of the Abrahamic god. (By that yardstick, modern Christianity is atheistic, since it is far removed from an OT description of God.)

I mostly disagree. It's true that the books are not outright atheistic: just like in our world, God could still be out there somewhere and in fact it could be argued that due to the presence of daemons, magic and even something that vaguely resembles a World Soul, it's more likely that some form of God is there. However, I take issue with the statement that "God exists" in the books.

The one theological point the books make perfectly clear is that the entity being worshiped by the church is a total fraud and a rather pitiful one at that. A story where a charlatan is pretending to be God is not the same as a story where God exists.

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I read them in my early 20s and was extremely disappointed - perhaps partly due to being the wrong age to enjoy them, as I'm not an adult who generally enjoys YA. I was looking forward to reading them, as an atheist who was raised Christian and loved the Chronicles of Narnia growing up, but it took about half a book before I lost interest (continuing reading was more about being able to talk about the series and not give up on something I'd started than any enjoyment). For me, they lacked the sense of wonder and possibility of Narnia, felt heavy-handed about religion, and never made me feel immersed in a world that seemed real. The religious figures felt cartoonish to me compared to the complexities of my real past. Despite the fact that HDM reflects my beliefs about religion and Narnia belongs to a belief system that was toxic and repressive for me, I'd rather read Narnia again 10 times in a row than have to slog through HDM once.


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That's the version of God that exists in these books though. So, since there's a direct interpretation of God, the books can't be atheist or pushing an atheist agenda.

Are Jedi atheistic? Because if Dust counts as a deity then the even weirder Force does too.

Still seems a bit strange to call "x observable phenomena with few hints of sapience" a deity instead of a force.

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Altherion… very interesting. I didn’t know one could disagree about this.



However, I take issue with the statement that "God exists" in the books.

I’m fine with decapitalising Him. (My own statement “God exists” was preceded by a full stop, so the nomenclature was purposefully ambiguous.)

Let me turn this around: the default atheist position today is agnostic atheism, i.e., unbelief in gods (including God) based on of absence of evidence. Theism is just considered superstitious nonsense.

This is not the epistemological position of His Dark Materials. In HDM, gods (including the Authority) are rejected even though they clearly exist.

The original question in #6 of this thread was “How honestly do you think atheism is portrayed in these books.” To this question I responded that atheism is not portrayed with high fidelity.

So, maybe to be somewhat clearer: the books are not agnostic atheist (which I claim is the mainstream atheist position). They are anti-theist: a rejection of an existing god based on anti-authoritarianism (which I claim is a fringe atheist position, at best.)

Maybe the position of Hitchens might be easiest to reconcile with HDM: God should not be worshipped, no matter if he existed or not. Belief in gods is a moral defect. (In contrast to Dawkins’s position: belief in gods is an intellectual failure.) I think most atheists are Dawkins-type atheists.

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This could be (and has been) dubbed "Nietzsche-type atheism", it might be fringe now, but I think some of its flavour is also detectable among the "new atheists". But as Nietzsche was smarter, and a hundred times as erudite and knowledgeable about christian tradition it's much better to go back to him than to some contemporary hack.



I think the traditional theist position would agree that one should not believe in "ersatz" gods like the one in those books (which I have not read). But the God of classical theism (that is of Platonism, Neoplatonism as well as traditional christian, muslim, jewish thought and the theist branches of Hindu philosophy) is just not something whose authority can be meaningfully rejected.


Such a rejection would not be heroic defiance of authority (like e.g in Goethe's great poem "Prometheus" where the gods are deemed pitiful because they live on burnt offerings and the naivite of children and fools) but nihilistic foolishness. Like pretending to be able to fly (in the Douglas Adams way where it occasionally works) because one wanted to defy gravity.


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