2007 - The End of the Global Warming Hoax?

Finally!

I don't know about y'all but I've been waiting for this report. This may not count as a Sign of the Times per se' but it has definitely been a world event.

They say there is strength in numbers but I think now we can add bravery to that saying as well. REAL scientists are gathering together and standing against the devilish deception that has been "AlGore's Man Made Global Warming Franchise" (Copyright pending).

These people have had enough!

HEAT OF THE MOMENT
Hundreds of scientists reject global warmingBasing policy on carbon dioxide levels 'potentially disastrous economic folly'

Posted: December 21, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A new U.S. Senate report documents hundreds of prominent scientists – experts in dozens of fields of study worldwide – who say global warming and cooling is a cycle of nature and cannot legitimately be connected to man's activities.

"Of course I believe in global warming, and in global cooling – all part of the natural climate changes that the Earth has experienced for billions of years, caused primarily by the cyclical variations in solar output," said research physicist John W. Brosnahan, who develops remote-sensing instruments for atmospheric science for clients including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.
However, he said, "I have not seen any sort of definitive, scientific link to man-made carbon dioxide as the root cause of the current global warming, only incomplete computer models that suggest that this might be the case.

"Even though these computer climate models do not properly handle a number of important factors, including the role of precipitation as a temperature regulator, they are being (mis-)used to force a political agenda upon the U.S.," he continued. "While there are any number of reasons to reduce carbon dioxide generation, to base any major fiscal policy on the role of carbon dioxide in climate change would be inappropriate and imprudent at best and potentially disastrous economic folly at the worst."

The report compiled observations from more than 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen nations who have voiced objections to the so-called "consensus" on "man-made global warming."

Many of the scientists are current or former participants in the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose present officials, along with former Vice President Al Gore, have asserted a definite connection.
The new report comes from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's office of the GOP ranking member, and cites the hundreds of opinions issued just in 2007 that global warming and man's activities are unrelated.

"Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists," the introduction to the Senate report said. "In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics 'appear to be expanding rather than shrinking.'"

"Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears 'bite the dust,'" the introduction said.

And there probably would be many more scientists making such statements, were it not for the fear of retaliation from those aboard the global-warming-is-caused-by-SUVs bandwagon, the report said.

"Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media," noted Nathan Paldor, professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
He's authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, and said, "First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!"

At an earlier hearing, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., had confronted Stephen Johnson, administrator of the EPA, about a threatening e-mail from a group that includes the EPA. That e-mail from the American Council on Renewable Energy was addressed to Marlo Lewis, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and said, "It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on."
It was signed Michael T. Eckhart, president of ACORE.

The scientists cited in the new study hail from Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, New Zealand, France, Russia and the United States, and defied the idea, being carried forward by various political and environmental agendas, that man's activities are endangering the future of the Earth through contributions to a rise in temperatures.

Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a "consensus" of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false.

"I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority," he said.
The report was generated after UN IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri implied there were only "about half a dozen" skeptical scientists left in the world.
Former Vice President Gore, of course, has likened skeptics of the global-warming philosophy to "flat Earth society members."

But the Senate report noted the scientists who are expressing a dissatisfaction with such generalizations include experts in climatology, geology, oceanography, biology, glaciology, biogeography, meteorology, economics, chemistry, mathematics, environmental sciences, engineering, physics and paleoclimatology.

"Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Price with Vice President Gore," the report said.

Besides the Nobel Gore shared over the issue of global warming, he also won an Oscar for his work on "An Inconvenient Truth," which proclaims the validity of man-made global warming and advocates urgent action.

However, Muriel Newman, director of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, has told Academy President Sid Ganis and Executive Director Bruce Davis that honor should be withdrawn.

That's because British High Court judge Michael Burton has concluded Gore's documentary should be shown in British schools only with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination. The decision followed a lawsuit by a father, Stewart Dimmock, who claimed the film contained "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush."

The Nobel panel honored Gore and the IPCC for their efforts to spread awareness of "man-made climate change."

But the British court pointed to 11 inaccuracies in the production:
"The truth, as inconvenient as it is to Al Gore, is that his so-called documentary contained critical distortions that are quite contrary to the principles of good documentary journalism," Newman said. "Good documentaries should be factually correct. Clearly this documentary is not."
The court ruled the Guidance Notes to Teachers must make clear that:

The film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.

If teachers present the film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.

Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
The inaccuracies, according to the court, include:

1. The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

2.The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The court found that the film was misleading: Over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

3. The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.

4. The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr. Gore had misread the study: In fact four polar bears drowned, and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

And others.

The new study includes opinions from scientists at Harvard, NASA, NOAA, NCAR, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Danish National Space Center, U.S. Department of Energy, Princeton, the EPA, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the University of Helsinki, Notre Dame, Stockholm University and others.
The study is intended to dispel the validity of such statements as Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein's description of a scientist as "one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels."

"Even if the concentration of 'greenhouse gases' double man would not perceive the temperature impact," said Russian scientist Oleg Sorochtin, of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He's authored more than 300 studies, nine books and a 2006 paper titled, "The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth."

"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number – entirely without merit," said Hendrik Tennekes, a pioneer at the Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute. "I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."

"The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming," added Eugenia Hackbart, the chiefmeteorologist at the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil. "The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming."
Gore, as recently as Nov. 5, has said:

"But when you're reporting on a story like the one you're covering today, where you have people all around the world, you don't take – you don't search out for someone who still believes the Earth is flat and give them equal time. And the reason the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the thousands of scientists who make up that group, have for almost 20 years now created a very strong scientific consensus that is as strong a consensus as you'll ever see in science, that the climate crisis is real, human beings are responsible for it."

A WND reader said perhaps a remedy would be to reissue Gore's Nobel and Academy wards under the designation "best in class for science fiction," or appoint a prosecutor to investigate the extent of fraud committed "at the expense of the global community.
WND earlier reported more than 500 scientists were cited by an analysis of peer-reviewed literature by the Hudson Institute as having published documentation questioning an least one facet of the global-warming agenda.

The assessment supports another study on which WND reported recently, one that revealed carbon dioxide levels were largely irrelevant to global warming.

Those results prompted Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, to quip, "You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide."

The analysis by Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery said 300 of those scientists have found evidence that a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to the current circumstances since the last Ice Age and that such warmings are linked to variations in the sun's irradiance.

"We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new," wrote B.P. Radhakrishna in the new Senate study. He's president of the Geological Society of India. "It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles."

"The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or evnts to blame on global warming," said Kelvin Kemm, former of South Africa's Atomic Energy Corp.


And there you have it! The end of this fraud is near. Maybe not in 2007 seeing as how it's days from being over..... but soon. Very soon.

And we will be watching.....

Well...ok. As long as its ok with the Muslims.

Howdy folks!

Boy, you guys really MUST be praying out there. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this article but... there it was.

Apparently Muslims and Hindus in England have had enough when it comes to the RABID attempts at removing Christ from Christmas. They say it's "Gone too far".

Let me get this straight.....The Muslims are saying its gone too far?!?!


British Muslims say: Put Christ back in Christmas
Hindus, Sikhs, and Human Rights Commission agree that secularization has gone too far.
From: Reuters
London - Muslim leaders joined Britain's equality watchdog Monday in urging Britons to enjoy Christmas without worrying about offending non-Christians.
"It's time to stop being daft about Christmas. It's fine to celebrate and it's fine for Christ to be star of the show," said Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Mr. Phillips, reflecting on media reports of schools scrapping nativity plays and local councils celebrating "Winterval" instead of Christmas, worried the unintended consequences of secularizing the holiday would "fuel community tension."
So he joined forces with minority religious leaders to put out a blunt message to the politically correct: leave Christmas alone.
Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Shayk Ibrahim Mogra said, "To suggest celebrating Christmas and having decorations offends Muslims is absurd. Why can't we have more nativity scenes in Britain?"

"Hindus celebrate Christmas, too. It's a great holiday for everyone living in Britain," said Anil Bhanot, general secretary of the UK Hindu Council.
Sikh spokesman Indarjit Singh said: "Every year I am asked 'Do I object to the celebration of Christmas?' It's an absurd question. As ever, my family and I will send out our Christmas cards to our Christian friends and others."

More than 70 percent of Britons – some 41 million – are Christian, according to 2001 census figures. Muslims are the second-largest religious group with about 1.6 million in Britain.
Suicide bombings by British Islamic extremists in July 2005, which killed 52 people in London, have prompted much soul-searching about religion and integration in Britain, a debate that has been echoed across Europe.
The threat of radical Islam, highlighted by the July attacks, prompted reflection about Britain's attitude to ethnic minorities and debate about whether closer integration was more important than promoting multiculturalism.

Folks, with what we have seen lately with the world practically bowing down to Muslin extremism this is nothing short of a miracle! It was very hard not read this and wonder when the other shoe was going to drop and I'm not usually that cynical believe me.

Imagine the people reading this in America and realizing that now (At least in another part of the world) we can celebrate Christmas again (That's CHRIST-mass to you) without fear of riots from offended Muslims.

Oh Goody!

So now we have Muslims in England saying Christmas, er, CHRIST-mas is A-OK and we have avid atheist author Phillip Pullman (of Golden Compass fame) unintentionally bringing people to look at Jesus the Christ because his new movie and books are dreary and literally Hopeless unlike its much better CHRIST-ian counterparts, Narnia and Lord of the Rings.
I love it!You just gotta see God the Father's hand in all this.

Pardon an immature moment here but I must say......
um, Mr. devil? Just a word for you.

Nah nah nah nah naaaa nah!
So there.

Golden Compass

Here's a Sign of the Times if there ever was one.

You've probably heard of the new movie "The Golden Compass" coming out, yes? Well, I thought it important to post some things here for you to read about it. The book (one in a trilogy) that the movie in based on was written by an atheist and is in essence about "Killing God"

This is by Chuck Norris (Yeah, that one.)
'The Golden Compass' goes south – way south
Posted: December 3, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
Last weekend we released a new video on YouTube giving the reasons why former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is "Chuck Norris approved" for president.
This upcoming weekend I'm giving the worldwide release (Dec. 7) of the children's movie, "The Golden Compass," a definite "Chuck Norris disapproval."
I normally don't critique others' movies, but this one not only warrants critiquing but condemning. The reason is it will very subtly push agnosticism, atheism, secularism and anti-Christian thoughts upon youthful minds and hearts.
There is hot debate right now about this movie all over the Internet. And liberal news agencies and publications are waging war to assure its global proliferation, viewing and success.
Is this for real?
When I first heard about the movie via e-mail, I thought it was another Internet-perpetuated urban legend. I was shocked to discover it was real, and the books upon which it is based have already gained some award-winning acclaim. (They are a trilogy from Philip Pullman called "His Dark Materials.")
On the surface, "The Golden Compass" comes across as another fantasy-filled movie like "Harry Potter" or "Chronicles of Narnia." What lies beneath, however, is a tale spun with intention of promoting antagonism against the church and Christian belief.
The surface story
The story is fairly simple: "In a parallel universe, young [12-year old] Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by a mysterious organization [which just happens to parallel a church-like organization]." Explained further:

Lyra Belaqua, living in Oxford's Jordan College, is not but a young girl living among scholars. Her world may seem diverse, from physical embodiments of souls that take the shape of an animal, but similar with people around you to become friends and enemies. She is thrown into a perilous adventure when she overhears a conversation of an extraordinary microscopic particle, dust. This particle is said to unite different worlds, and is feared by many who want to destroy it forever. As Lyra is flung into the middle of this horrible struggle, she meets wondrous creatures both big and small, and villains who are not what they seem. Gobblers, that kidnap children, will turn out in the most unexpected places. And a magical compass of gold that will answer any question if one is skilled enough to read it. Lyra's adventure continues throughout these three books, and the first is about to be told [via "The Golden Compass"].

What lies beneath
The problems with the movie lies not in imagination or ingenuity, but in authorship and analogy.
I strongly urge everyone to read the Focus on the Family review of "The Golden Compass." Suffice it for me to highlight these few points from it.
Though Philip Pullman looks with disdain upon the works of C.S. Lewis saying, "I hate the 'Narnia' books, and I hate them with a deep and bitter passion":
There [is]no shortage of parallels between "His Dark Materials" and C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series. Lyra instead of Lucy. A wardrobe. Alternate worlds. Talking animals. Cosmic consequences linked to a final battle. Oh, and witches – this time on the side of so-called good rather than evil.
As to whether or not a real Creator is responsible for everything, however, another character says simply, "There may have been a creator, or there may not: We don't know."
"The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all," says an influential character named Mary Malone, who then goes on to relate her own "testimony" of why she abandoned her calling as a nun.
Other messages woven into this story exalt witchcraft, evolution, divination, homosexuality and premarital sex. Accompanying them are smoking, drinking, occasional mild profanity and moments of visceral violence.
[In the end] …"God" gets overthrown and the "fall" becomes the source of humankind's redemption, not failure.
Philip Pullman additionally states about his own belief and work:
"… if there is a God, and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against."
"I wanted to reach everyone," he says, "and the best way I could hope to do that was to write for children."
"My books are about killing God."
No surprise that Pullman has been called "the most dangerous author in Britain."
Children casualties in Christmas culture wars
"The Golden Compass" is more than enough proof to demonstrate the Christmas culture wars are alive and well. We've drifted so far way from the innocence of Christmas movies like Jimmy Stewart's "It's a Wonderful Life." We've shifted from celebrating a savior to crying out for more secularism.

I respect artistic ability and one's right to freedom of speech, religion and creativity, but that does not mean I or millions of others have to agree with or tolerate it. It is also my American right to say, "My name is Chuck Norris, and I disapprove of this movie." And it's also others' rights to not frequent a theater showing it.
I even urge others to join the American Family Association to protect children from inappropriate programming on television by assuring a full Senate vote of the Protecting Children from Indecent Programming Act (S.1780) before they adjourn for Christmas break.
There are plenty of other brighter and more joyous Christmas movies (past and present) than Philip Puller's "Dark Materials" to captivate our children's hearts. With our culture already walking in wayward ways of Christmas, I don't believe any young mind needs to fill his or her yuletide with any additional religious antagonism and resistance. Shouldn't we be encouraging the opposite?
I have a better, more positive idea for a movie. It starts with an angel declaring,
Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Now here is the Focus on the Family "Plugged-in Online" article

Sympathy for the Devil

plugged-inonline.com
A gargantuan polar bear bounds through snow dunes. A well-coifed gentleman whispers to the snow leopard at his side. A golden-hued beauty gives her ferocious monkey a furtive glance. And a young girl traces her fingers over symbols on a device vaguely reminiscent of ... a compass.
If you've been to the movies lately (or watched much TV), these images from the Dec. 7 film The Golden Compass (starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig) may have caught your attention ... and perhaps even whetted your appetite for fantasy and adventure.
Which is, of course, exactly what New Line Cinema is hoping.

To stoke the fires of imagination further, the studio's early promotional material went so far as to equate this adaptation of author Philip Pullman's work with The Lord of the Rings. "In 2001, New Line Cinema opened the door to Middle-earth," says one trailer, "This December, they take you on another epic journey." It's a safe bet, however, that J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn't be amused by the comparison of his story to that of Pullman (who, coincidentally, also hails from Oxford).

The 1995 book The Golden Compass is the entry point to Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy—a series of fantasy novels aimed at children that loosely draws inspiration from John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost. This time around, however, "God" gets overthrown and the "Fall" becomes the source of humankind's redemption, not failure.
These three books, along with at least one (and presumably two more) movies, constitute British agnostic Philip Pullman's deliberate attempt to foist his viciously anti-God beliefs upon his audience.

A Different Kind of Wardrobe

The Golden Compass begins with a precocious 12-year-old girl named Lyra clambering into a wardrobe to avoid detection. What she sees and overhears through its doors launches her into a universe-altering adventure. (Sound familiar?) In the room outside, her uncle, an iconoclastic explorer named Lord Asriel, begins to describe a mysterious substance called Dust to a group of scholars. ...
Once she reemerges, the drama quickly starts to pile up: Lyra is given a truth-telling device called an alethiometer (the golden compass) and told to keep it secret; she begins to hear rumors of children disappearing without a trace; and she's whisked into the care of a glamorous but ruthless agent of the church named Mrs. Coulter. Lyra soon discovers that the church is also desperate to learn about Dust—a substance they believe is somehow connected to original sin—and that Mrs. Coulter is spearheading chilling experiments on children in her pursuit of "truth." Specifically, she's separating children from their dæmons (pronounced demon), animal spirits that physically embody each person's soul and accompany them throughout life.
As The Golden Compass draws to a close, the forces of good (represented by the church-rejecting Lord Asriel) have begun to array themselves against the forces of tyranny and wickedness (represented by Mrs. Coulter and churchmen who blend the worst of, say, the Spanish Inquisition and Adolf Hiter's dreaded SS). The battle will span not only Lyra's world, but many other alternate worlds. In Vol. 2, The Subtle Knife, Lyra meets 12-year-old Will, who comes into possession of a potent blade with the power to slice portals between those worlds. The Amber Spyglass concludes the series, with angels, armored bears, witches, a shaman, a lapsed nun-turned-physicist and other fantastical creatures marshalling their resources against the hated Authority—the "god" whose reign they can tolerate no longer—even as the mystery of Dust is finally resolved.

The Anti-Lewis

There are no shortage of parallels between His Dark Materials and C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series. Lyra instead of Lucy. A wardrobe. Alternate worlds. Talking animals. Cosmic consequences linked to a final battle. Oh, and witches—this time on the side of so-called good rather than evil.
But beyond those superficial similarities, Pullman represents the polar opposite of Lewis. Pullman has repeatedly—and with apparent glee—lashed out at both Lewis and the faith he represents. "I hate the Narnia books, and I hate them with a deep and bitter passion," he told one interviewer, "with their view of childhood as a golden age from which sexuality and adulthood are a falling-away."
Such venom isn't the exception when it comes to Pullman's stance on all things Christian. He told the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph, "Atheism suggests a degree of certainty that I'm not quite willing to accede. I suppose technically, you'd have to put me down as an agnostic. But if there is a God, and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against. As you look back over the history of the Christian church, it's a record of terrible infamy and cruelty and persecution and tyranny. How they have the bloody nerve to go on Thought for the Day and tell us all to be good when, given the slightest chance, they'd be hanging the rest of us and flogging the homosexuals and persecuting the witches."
Given such ferocious antipathy for Christianity, it's only a matter of time before those beliefs sneak into heavy-handed sermonettes, delivered by the story's protagonists, such as this one from a witch: "There are churches there, believe me, that cut their children too, as the people of Bolvangar did—not in the same way, but just as horribly. They cut their sexual organs, yes, both boys and girls; they cut them with knives so that they shan't feel. That is what the church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling." Without exception, Pullman characterizes churches and anyone connected to them as agents of wickedness, oppression, torture, murder and malevolence.

A Tale of Two Insights

Still, Pullman wants his readers to believe he's more interested in telling a good story (and his is engaging at points) than delivering a particular message. On his personal Web site, he writes, "The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and thoughts in the reader's mind. So when people ask me what I meant by this story, or what was the message I was trying to convey in that one, I have to explain that I'm not going to explain. Anyway, I'm not in the message business; I'm in the 'Once upon a time' business."
Don't believe him.
Not the least because Pullman contradicts himself when he talks about his understanding of how stories naturally influence people's beliefs. "All stories teach," he's said, "whether the storyteller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. They teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions. ... We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: We need books, time and silence. 'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten."
That is a more honest and insightful statement than the first one.
Therefore, it's a fair question for those curious about this story to ask what it is teaching. At the most basic level, His Dark Materials is an attempted refutation of the Christian faith: "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all," says an influential character named Mary Malone, who then goes on to relate her own "testimony" of why she abandoned her calling as a nun.
Other messages woven into this story exalt witchcraft, evolution, divination, homosexuality and premarital sex. Accompanying them are smoking, drinking, occasional mild profanity and moments of visceral violence.

That Pullman's message is blasphemous and heretical goes without saying. What's more diabolical—a word carrying with it an original Greek meaning that literally means to separate into two pieces—is the fact that he's aimed his well-written tale and its messages directly at children. "I wanted to reach everyone," he says, "and the best way I could hope to do that was to write for children." Pullman's strategy for inculcating his beliefs involves planting these bad seeds in the minds of those who may not have the discernment to understand what he's doing.
Beliefnet's Rod Dreher writes that that's exactly why he intends to protect his children from Pullman's poisonous influence. "One expects that religious parents will keep their children away from the [Golden Compass] film. 'But why?' the question arises from liberals. 'What are you afraid of?' My children losing God, especially before they have a firm hold on Him, that's what. At some point they will question the existence of God. I did. It's normal to do so. I want more than anything else I want for my children, even their own happiness in this life, for them to believe in God, who is their salvation. If you believe in God, and that the loss of God is the worst thing that can happen to a person, then you would sooner give your child a rattlesnake to play with than expose him or her at an early age to the work of a man who openly says he wishes to destroy God in the minds of his audience."

Trying to Kill God

Pullman has said unambiguously, "My books are about killing God." But despite a great deal of publicity on this subject, the series never addresses the issue of God's existence with any real certainty. There is a character who masquerades as God, known as the Authority. But we discover he was simply the first being to evolve—and there's definitely a heavy emphasis on evolution in this story—out of Dust into conscious existence.
As to whether or not a real Creator is responsible for everything, however, another character says simply, "There may have been a creator, or there may not: We don't know." Ultimately, then, the story remains agnostic about God's existence. And with regard to death and the afterlife, Pullman first imagines a dark underworld where all the dead go, regardless of their actions or beliefs. The dead are then released by Lyra, and their molecules are dispersed throughout the world.

Pullman tries desperately to convince us that this vision of annihilation after death is a hopeful one. One of the dead contemplating this fate says, "This child has come offering us a way out, and I'm going to follow her. Even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothing. We'll be alive again in thousands of blades of grass and a million leaves; we'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we'll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true home and always was."
If that doesn't sound much like happily ever after, that's because, well, it isn't. In the final analysis, Pullman has nothing of substance to offer when it comes to concocting an alternative to the Christian faith he detests so venomously. Which is why, perhaps, flowery-but-empty passages and promises like the one above seem to echo those of a well-known serpent.
And lest that comparison sound too harsh, the author himself seems quite comfortable with the association. "[English poet William] Blake said that Milton was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it," Pullman has said.

"I am of the Devil's party and know it."

Billye's back!

Hey folks,

Billye Brim just posted a new weblog about her latest trip to Israel and commentary on the Annapolis Summit Meeting..

Heres the link....

http://www.billyebrim.org/node/1767

Good stuff!

John