Phillip Pullman

I doubt I will read his books, nor see his film (I haven't read the Narnia books, Harry Potter or any of the Lord of the Rings stuff, and seen the first Narnia film and fifth Harry Potter) so I doubt I'll change here.

Plus given his scathing criticism of the purpose of the CS Lewis Narnia books - that's they are a thinly veiled attempt to indoctrinate children, a criticism which Pullman is quite guilty of himself - I'm quite put off.

But I'm intrigued by the idea that at the end of the third of his books (see BBC article), "God dies" - people often talk about God dying, or having died, as if his existence was dependent upon what we thought. It's not that often, however, that (say) a clay pot will kill its maker, and the same is true with us. Whether or not we believe in God, he is either out there or not; we can't kill him.

Pullman finds the God of the Bible offensive, and presents some other view of God that he's made up. We can all do this, but the Bible claims to be God's revelation to about himself to us (see John 1:1-18 as one of many bible passages that claim this), and can be argued to be persuasive and reliable.