Why is "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman considered by some as anti religion?

Question

I've read somewhere that His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman are attacked by many religious figures. I have only seen the movie "Golden Compass" but I would like to find out some more information as to why people would think that this series is anti-religion? And is it targeted by Catholic Church only or other Churches are attacking Pullman's work as well?

Answer 1

The author himself said, "My books are about killing God." His work also appears to be anti-established religion, e.g. in this quote:

That's what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling

In addition, one of the main characters gives up being a nun and states, "the Christian religion... is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all" (see above link).

However, for both quotes it is important to realise that the author has stated that readers should not equate his characters' opinions with his own.

Answer 2

The religious elements were toned down considerably in the movie, for American consumption. The books are very hostile to organised religion, and Pullman is promoting the idea of the "Republic of Heaven"; a religion with no central authority figure such as God.

Answer 3

Arguably, it isn't; it's more anti-Catholic and anti-established-religion. This is true both at the level of the author's intentions, as well as at the level of the text.

• The author's explicitly stated views.

  As noted in this answer, Pullman has stated he does not dislike the practice of religion as such, but rather religion that seeks political power.

  Religion when practised privately and modestly hurts no-one, and many of us can point to individual examples of people we know or have heard about whose good and useful work in the world was inspired by religion. But religion plus politics is always, always dangerous.

  Pullman equates this with a church, i.e. any organized religion.

• The textual evidence for the author's views.

  At the textual level, Pullman is not particularly subtle in conveying his views. This obviously is the case with regard to the critique of the Catholic Church and its doctrine—an alternate-world version thereof is the main antagonist throughout the series, their doctrine is shown to be largely mistaken without the context of the series, and so forth. Basically, within the context of the work, Catholicism is kind of halfway correct, but reached all the wrong conclusions: God is real, but not worthy of worship; the afterlife is real, but not a desirable end goal; original sin is real, but represents humanity attaining consciousness and a soul, not a fall from grace.

  What is perhaps less obvious is that he is hardly less subtle in conveying what appears to be his dislike for a purely naturalistic conception of the world. This is something that becomes particularly blatant in the followup series, the Book of Dust, particularly in the second book, The Secret Commonwealth, where two philosophers, Brande and Talbot, play an important role in the narrative. In particular, both of them emphasize the non-existence of daemons, i.e. the soul; this is consistently portrayed as wrongheaded and harmful. Brande's strict rationalism, declaring that "nothing is ever more than what it is," comes in for some particularly harsh criticism, though Talbot's radical skepticism, verging on solipsism, is hardly spared. Lest their villainy be left unclear, both of them are indicated or implied to be working with or for the Catholic Church analogue, the Magisterium.

  And all of this is explicitly juxtaposed with the notion of the secret commonwealth—basically, all the supernatural things that even the people of Lyra's world generally find incredible—with "believing in the secret commonwealth" as firmly good and accepting Brande and Talbot's sterile conception of the world as firmly bad.

• The actual world portrayed in the text.

  Going a bit further into the textual level, one does have to recognize that while the books basically portray a universe in which Catholicism is clearly mistaken from a strict doctrinal perspective, as is every other religion, various religious ideas are, arguably, more objectively true than they are in the real world (obviously, from a non-religious perspective):

  • The existence of the soul is not the perspective of religious people and a few eccentric atheistic dualists, but rather a completely objective fact that people in many worlds do not even need scientific equipment to confirm.

  • Even something very similar to how many ancient peoples conceived demonic possession seems to be real: the Specters appear to be the in-universe cause of mental illness by preying upon the soul.

  • Angels are completely real as well and can readily be communicated with (and that communication can be quite useful!) They can even protect people from entities such as the Specters, so even asking for angelic intercession is actually something that can be meaningful and helpful.

  • The Greeks were basically correct: there is a grim underworld where souls languish in boredom and occasional torment, with Charon and everything!

  • There is an impersonal (but arguably benevolent in some sense) omniscient cosmic force in the form of Dust that is responsible for the existence of the soul and that can be queried to give the answer to any question; this, in particular, is a conception of divinity that a lot of New Age religions would be very much at home with. See, e.g. pantheism and the Akashic records.

  • La Belle Sauvage (the first volume of The Book of Dust) shows that the immortal fairy queen Diania is real. She also claims to have the power to grant Alice supernatural beauty in exchange for keeping Lyra; Alice believes that she is lying, but given her demonstrated high regard for holding to the letter of deals, this seems unlikely. (Incidentally, outside of Christian traditions, Diania would be deity enough for many people). There's also a strong suggestion in The Secret Commonwealth that many other mythological or folkloric entities have some basis in fact in-universe.

  This is not the portrayal of an atheistic universe, to put it mildly—not without equating religion with very specific elements of Abrahamic doctrines, anyway. It's more a universe in which various religions and folkloric traditions, including Catholicism, actually got a lot of things right about the world, albeit with lots of inaccurate information as well, which is hardly an uncommon fantasy portrayal. Though Pullman is himself atheist, portraying a universe in which religion is more accurate than it at least facially appears to be in the real world is not a particularly anti-religious portrayal.