The Golden Compass

Apparently, the most coherent objections to the new movie "The Golden Compass" are hidden behind a $5.00 download of an E-pamphlet from the Catholic League. The best Web search I was able to conduct (with limited time on breaks) found five major points of objection.

On the drewkitty scale of morality, we are zero for five! Let's throw down.

* Blasphemy against the Judeo-Christian concept of God

Even if I were devout, this one would be silly. Blasphemy is a religious crime to begin with. If God's a fact, all He has to do is laugh and point and say "Here I am!" If their version of God is a lie, those who call it blasphemy are double liars; triple if they're hypocrites.

* Depiction of Catholic Church as evil, and religion in general as obscurant

No disagreement on either point. If the movie portrays this accurately, more power to them. I have held for a long time that "If the Devil were to set out to create an organization to promote and maximize human suffering, he could do no better than to create the Catholic Church."

* Promotion of the occult

Um, hey, I'm Wiccan.

* Endorsement of relativism as an acceptable system of belief

Depends. If the right to make your own decisions as to what is morally right and wrong is relativist, I'm four square on the side of human empowerment. If the definition of "relativism" is situational ethics or "do-it-if-it-feels-good" then I have a problem with relativism.

* Heretical portrayal of the human person

What the dickens is this supposed to mean?

"Every man and woman is a star!"

If you deny the spark of divinity that is in every person, in my opinion you deny the essence of deity itself.