didymos
Posts: 1828 Joined: Mar. 2008
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Quote (midwifetoad @ June 29 2009,03:44) | Pullman's Dark Materials posits that Jehovah is a poser, not the creator, but a regent who usurps the throne.
Hence the OT combination of superpowers and moral perversion exhibited in the Fall, the Flood, etc. Basically a James Bond megalomaniac with actual magic powers.
In the happy ending, Metatron (Jehohah) is overthrown, The Authority (creator) dies of old age, and all the dead souls are released from heaven, which is a kind of gulag.
Some thumpers were a bit put off by the fact that this was a popular children's book. They managed to kill off the movie series. |
Yeah, read those. It was a little different than how you've put it though: Yahweh was The Authority, and he was simply the first angelic being to form (spontaneously, apparently). He later claimed to be the creator to secure his throne, and various religious texts like the Bible were more or less just political propoganda. The Authority, having gotten a bit old and tired, appointed Metatron (who was once Enoch) as regent, after which Metatron covered up God's increasing senility, eventually locking him away in a box, and became the new, de facto Authority. Also, the afterlife wasn't supposed to be heaven. It was going back to ancient netherworld concepts like Sheol, Hades, etc. and everyone went there after death, bad or good or indifferent. Oh, and after getting sprung, they just dissolved away into fundamental particles, basically. Not exactly awesome, but much better than an eternity of numbing gloom.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the first two, but the last one was, well, preachy. I quite dug the whole concept of God-as-False-God-usurped-by-yet-another-False-God, but as the final book went on I felt more and more like I was being lectured at and that Pullman was overindulging a bit with the whole "Take that, Christianity!" thing. Later I found out it was more like "Take that, Chronicles Of Narnia...especially The Last Battle!" which is appropriate because the final Narnia book suffered from the same lack of subtlety and "author lecture" syndrome that the earlier books had kept much more in check (but still lapsed into now and then).
-------------- I wouldn't be bothered reading about the selfish gene because it has never been identified. -- Denyse O'Leary, professional moron Again "how much". I don't think that's a good way to be quantitative.-- gpuccio
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