We hate anti-religion!

I don’t know if you remember the part from the movie “Clue” (Terrific movie!) where the character Mrs. White (hee hee hee, Mrs. White!) says “Flames, Flames… I hated her soooo, much!” Well, that’s about how I’m feeling right now. I’m so flaming mad I could breathe fire, I think!

I just saw a news clip with Bill Maher, about his new movie about religion. Apparently it is mocking religion. I don’t watch or know Bill Maher, and I actually only saw the last 45 seconds as I was channel surfing while using my fabulous elliptical machine. I cannot tell you how disturbed I was!! He actually said that we are the last civilization still clinging to religion and we need to shed it if mankind is to advance! We need to shed religion for Mankind to advance?!! Wow! I mean, Wow! This might not disturb me quite so much (no, not true, it would still have floored me!) but I am reading the final book in the Golden Compass, his Dark Materials trilogy. Yikes.

There was just so much controversy about the book and the movie and I decided to read them.
Yikes again! I might have been okay to just read and be entertained, if I hadn’t gotten all the background and arguments about it beforehand. I admit that I have no respect or love of the Catholic Church, and mainly his books are anti-Catholic, but some of the stuff in them!!! The fact that there are 2 angles that are implied to be gay, that they are “fallen” angels, who were the ones who were cast out of heaven , and yet supposedly had bodies? The fact that he writes that god was merely a higher ranking angel who claimed to have created the world, but didn’t actually, and that he is the reason for sin and unhappiness….. Ug. He has the characters visit the place where the dead go, and its just soulless nothingness, and that’s all god’s fault- he put them there, and they must escape to be released into energy particles to be happy. Religion lied to them about where they would go and it wasn’t true. The “good” people were not sent to heaven, they all went to the same miserable place and god is the reason they are stuck there.

His plot is that the original war in heaven should not have been won by “god”, and it must be refought- which is what they are leading up to right now. I’m half way through the last book right now, and I’m only finishing it because I want to know how it ends. I’m so annoyed that there is no mention of Satan, or Christ. Just that the god is not really god, and is old and fallible. He calls him “The Authority”. And that’s what the church is called too. Atrocities are committed by both and that’s the reason man is unhappy. Oh, and the characters will be tempted again, as Eve. So there must be a new War, and if the “right” side wins this new war, then man will be free and happy. That irritates me. That and the whole idea that religion and god is what is corrupt and evil. Yes, that is really what bothers me the most. He is saying that god and religion is what makes people miserable and enslaved. Does he not know there is a huge difference between God and the religions that represent Him?

Can you tell that this book is getting to me?!! It really is. Dan is getting tired of me making him listen while I read parts that astound me (not in a good way). And I do think that this would not bother me if I had just picked it up to read. (I did like the movie.) But knowing how controversial it was, I apparently am reading it as a personal attack on religion. Ug. And to hear that Bill Maher thinks that religion is silly and something we need to stop clinging to?! Are you kidding me?!

This concludes my venting session today. I will mention that I am profoundly grateful to know the truth about religion, and to have it. I am grateful to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and to know that I have free will and the ability to choose for myself. I love that my church encourages me to go to the source, to ask God Himself if the things I am hearing are true. I love that I can know for myself, and I am glad that I do. I may worry about what is happening to this country, where people think we need to eradicate religion and mock those who believe, but I know who I am, I know that all that is good and right comes from God, and I will never shed my religion.
The end!