The Grim Reader

I've never met a nice South African

2008-04-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

I was in the pub last night and mentioned to a friend that i used to work for an aristocratic family in their guesthouse as general skivvy. One of the in-laws was a South African feller (who memorably introduced himself to my girlfriend's stepdad by giving his name and telling him "I'm worth £4million"). This chap would regularly tell us how well we were being paid (minimum wage), especially when compared to what he paid the blecks back in his home country, who were nonetheless very well provided for due to the low cost of living over there. Anyway, my friend began singing this song, which i had never heard before but is the funniest thing ever:

HFE Bill - Lord Alton's Power Point Presentation

2008-04-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is the Powerpoint presentation for Lord Alton's talk on the HFE Bill.

April Phooled by my Fone

2008-04-01T06:07:00.000-07:00

I was reading on the internet this morning, keeping an eye on the computer's clock because I needed to be at work for 2pm. The clock rolled round to 12pm, so i dragged myself out of bed thinking 2 hours was plenty of time to walk the dog, get a shower, get some lunch, etc. But when i checked my mobile phone it told me it was 1pm! Now, I trusted the time on the phone because I had changed it on Sunday after getting to work an hour late because i was caught out by the time adjustment. So, anyway, I rushed to get ready, took the dog out, quickly nabbed a sandwich from the nearby deli, and jumped onto a bus and got to work with (i thought) 2 minutes to spare.

"Don't you start at 2 o'clock?" asked on of my co-workers.

"It's the afternoon, its too late for an April's fool," said I.

Then i checked the clock and he was right. So it looks like my phone corrected itself for daylight saving time on April Fool's Day rather than last Sunday as it should have. Sheesh.

Beware the Believers

2008-03-29T14:57:00.001-07:00

Check out 'Beware the Believers', a spoof rap video about Richard Dorkins is awesome, excellent production values. I like the fact that Dorkins himself doesn't know if it is an affectionate tribute or a piss-take. On the Dawkinsnet comments he says:

If anyone can understand a single word of this, don't bother to translate, just tell me whose side it's on. I get the feeling (same with South Park) that there are people out there who assume that something that is obviously MEANT to be funny therefore must BE funny, and they immediately shower it with accolades such as "Wow", "Hilarious", "Awesome" and, most side-splitting of all, "LOL".

Sorry, I seem to be showing my age. Enjoy yourselves LOLling away.

Richard

I'm guessing it is from the same folks who created 'Expelled', or fans of it. Whatever, they've captured the man's arrogance brilliantly!

Bible Fight

2008-03-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

Bible Fight!

Under the Sea

2008-03-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

This is amazing

HFE Bill

2008-03-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday i was lucky enough to attend a talk on the HFE bill at St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle, thanks to an announcement on James Mawdsley's blog. Lord Aston, who I have read about over the last few weeks, gave a very good talk. Given the news coverage over the last few days, it has been reassuring to hear the Catholic argument from the horse's mouth, so to speak, and to verify that much of what has been in the media is simply misinformation and propaganda (such as Lord Winston's accusation that Cardinal O'Brien was lying about science, and the patronizing 'invitations' from scientists to meet with the bishops so they can explain why messing with human embryos is A-ok).

Winston, apparently, is attempting to allay the fears of us superstitious lot by saying "These cells are destroyed after a short period". Winston has clearly missed the point that this is precisely the problem.

Another excellent speaker at the Cathedral yesterday was a young lady who works in Newcastle for the charity LIFE, who spoke very well on the need for compassion and the presentation of real alternatives to women with crisis pregnancies, rather than just the 'choice' of abortion, abortion, or abortion.

This was followed up by a talk by another lady who was introduced as a Catholic feminist. This talk wasn't so impressive, and came across as fairly judgemental towards those in family circumstances outside the norm. She made a lot of good points about how radical feminism has attempted to redefine human life in terms of utility or 'wantedness', as in the phrase 'Every Child a Wanted Child' (the unwanted ones getting eliminated in the womb). She also made some good points about feminist 'liberation' being about the destruction of family bonds, hence the focus on abortion which destroys the most concrete reality of the family bond. All that I was fine with, but I wasn't sure why it was deemed necessary to slip in disapproval of gay and lesbian couples who want to raise a family. If the evening was about trying to raise a consensus in support of life issues, i didn't see the need to introduce an obviously and unecessarily divisive issue into the discourse.

It was during this lady's talk that my wife started prodding me. My wife was brought up by a single parent, without a father figure, and according to this lady's statistics, by rights she should have ended up promiscuous and riddled with STDs. While the statistics, for all i know, may be accurate, you wonder what the speaker expects single mothers to do about it. Consider also that, should our hopes of less abortion be realised, we will end up with a great many more single parent families, especially considering many abortions are urged by male partners who, for that very reason, should be kept as far away from children as possible.

Lord Alton's talk finished the night off with a very comprehensive explanation of the bill and why it should be opposed. The powerpoint presentation he used is, apparently, available for free; i cannot find a link to it, but intend to attach it to this blog post when I get hold of it. There were a lot of good quotations in this from both sides of the debate. One thing which caught my interest is the claim that embryonic stem cell research has lead to precisely zero breakthroughs, whereas adult stem cell research has lead to about 70 breakthroughs which are currently used in therapies. I have a couple of questions about these, the first one being: Is this true? and the second being: If this is the case, what is the motive behind this bill?

I was a little worried at one point in the evening when Lord Alton displayed the picture of a child in the womb resting on the finger of a surgeon. MP Nadine Dorries has been rightly lampooned for suggesting this is a heartwarming image of the child 'reaching out' to touch its saviour. I was relieved when Alton didn't follow her lead here; he was using it to illustrate the fact that we can operate on conditions like spina bifida even in the womb, and that there is no need to abort. I noticed Dorries wasn't mentioned at all at the talk yesterday and wonder whether the organisers have distanced themselves from her. Her attacks upon Ben Goldacre and the publishing of such nonsense as the 'Hand of Hope' story open up the pro-life cause to ridicule...but at the same time, Goldacre is clearly attacking Dorries as the weak link in Parliament's pro-life movement. For example, there is no mention of Lord Alton on his blog, despite the fact Alton has either exposed the bad science of the HFE supporters, or is lying.

I shall write more about the HFE bill itself when i get hold of Lord Alton's powerpoint slides!

Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

2008-03-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Over on richarddawkins.net there is an mp3 of a debate between Sue Blackmore and Alister McGrath on the topic 'belief in God is a dangerous delusion'. What i found particularly wacky was Blackmore's use of 'meme theory'. I find the metaphor of memetics fascinating, and really love it as a way of looking at ideas. But the way Blackmore explains it, humans have no agency of their own or critical faculties when it comes to selecting the beliefs they hold. Religious ideas are seen as trying to take over our brains, so if one finds them compelling that is not evidence that there is any truth to them, but that they have 'evolved' to be more convincing.

Arthur C. Clarke's passing

2008-03-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

As most will be aware, Arthur C Clarke passed away recently, bless 'im (or not, seeing as he wants a non-religious funeral). I liked this post (and comments) on the Guido Fawkes blog, entitled God winks at Arthur C Clarke.

Never gunna give u up

2008-03-26T03:24:00.001-07:00

Never gunna let u dowwwwwwn
Never gunna run around and desert uuuu

Rick Astley interviewed on the Rick Roll phenomenon.

Whatever you do, don't click here.

Barabbas

2008-03-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

This post is for one of my best fiends, Luke, who returned from China recently to challenge me with his best unholy arguments. One thing he asked me was what is going on in the Gospels when Pilate offers to release either Jesus or Barabbas, and the people choose Barabbas. The name Barabbas translates to 'son of the father', (as in the hymn 'Abba, Father'). I had to be honest with Luke and just plead ignorance here; i don't know what was going on, and i hesitated to give an answer that would probably turn out to be incorrect.

Well, on Good Friday I stood through the Passion narrative, and was still none the wiser as to what was going on with the whole Barabbas thing. It wasn't until mid way through Easter Sunday that I came across this explanation from Papa Bene's 'Jesus of Nazareth':

...who was Barabbas? It is usually the words of John's Gospel that come to mind here: "Barabbas was a robber" (Jn 18:40). But the Greek word for "robber" had acquired a specific meaning in the political situation that obtained at the time in Palestine. It had become a synonym for "resistance fighter." Barabbas had taken part in an uprising (cf. Mk 15:7), and furthermore—in that context—had been accused of murder (cf. Lk 23:19, 25). When Matthew remarks that Barabbas was "a notorious prisoner" (Mt 27:16)1, this is evidence that he was one of the prominent resistance fighters, in fact probably the actual leader of that particular uprising.

In other words, Barabbas was a messianic figure. The choice of Jesus versus Barabbas is not accidental; two messiah figures, two forms of messianic belief stand in opposition. This becomes even clearer when we consider that the name Bar-Abbas means "son of the father." This is a typically messianic appellation, the cultic name of a prominent leader of the messianic movement. The last great Jewish messianic war was fought in the year 132 by Bar-Kokhba, "son of the star." The form of the name is the same, and it stands for the same intention.

Origen, a Father of the Church, provides us with another interesting detail. Up until the third century, many manuscripts of the Gospels referred to the man in question here as "Jesus Barabbas"—"Jesus son of the father." Barabbas figures here as a sort of alter ego of Jesus, who makes the same claim but understands it in a completely different way. So the choice is between a Messiah who leads an armed struggle, promises freedom and a kingdom of one's own, and this mysterious Jesus who proclaims that losing oneself is the way to life. Is it any wonder that the crowds prefer Barabbas?....

How's that then, Luke? An answer direct from the Pope himself!

(And no, that wasn't a typo in the first sentence.)

BBC's The Passion and Pope B16's Jesus of Nazareth

2008-03-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

I haven't bothered with the BBC's passion, but I have enjoyed the coverage of it over on James Mawdlsey's blog. I liked this passage;

...the Telegraph gives away the key point about the inspiration of The Passion: "If the characters emerge differently from how they come across in the Gospels, it is because scriptwriter Frank Deasy..and his cast...have been at pains to anchor the story in historical realism." Deasy says, "the way we've tried to do it is to really explore what was going on."

There you have it. Deasy knows better than SS Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Gospels cannot be relied upon to tell us what was really going on, and nor can the interpretation of the Church Fathers be trusted, but now that man has come of age, and is truly modern and enlightened, not to mention scientific, we can get to the truth!

Also here and here.

Mawdsley also mentions Pope Ratzinger's book, Jesus of Nazareth. I got hold of it over the Easter weekend, and am really enjoying it. It is very clearly written, and aims to construct a picture of the historical Jesus, rather than the Jesus we would like to construct for ourselves. This, for me, is the importance of being a Christian in the Roman Catholic church, which is very hard-line when it comes to determining God's will and truth. We can't just make it up as we go along, and God does not just 'affirm us in our okayness' (as Mark Shea puts it).

I have particularly enjoyed B16's writing on the Sermon on the Mount, which engages with the Jewish tradition to show the blasphemous nature of what Jesus is claiming (unless, of course, his claims are true). The book has clarified more than ever that the sermon cannot be taken seriously unless the person giving it is God himself. More on this book later...

Someone is WRONG on the internet

2008-03-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

From xkcd.com

Pagans!

2008-03-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Recently, Mark Shea has tackled the subject of Paganism in a three-part series (part 1, part 2, part 3), and has managed to raise the ire of a number of folk who apply that label to themselves. Shea's approach to Paganism is informed by that of G.K.Chesterton, particularly as presented in The Everlasting Man, a book which i was lucky enough to be given last Christmas. In this view, Paganism is not something to be scorned in and of itself, for it is an attempt to apprehend the divine, and is the expression of man's natural capacity for religion. The way Chesterton explains it, Christianity is the logical end-point of Paganism; it shares with the mythologies the expression of religious truths through story, but unlike the mythologies it also unequivocably states that the story is true, really real, and that the God of these stories has come among us as a man, and is still among us to this day.

This way of looking at Paganism seemed to me very positive, affirming that it is an attempt to attain truth. Where Shea seems to have struck a nerve with the online Pagans is the way in which he characterises post-Christian paganism, calling it a 'divorcee' (as opposed to the 'virgin' of pre-christian paganism). Basically, Mark claims that post-Christian paganism, rather than being a search for truth, is a reaction to christianity and an attempt to flee from God.

I came across a post on the Wildhunt blog which responded to Mark's writing about post-Christian pagans by characterising it as part of a continuing Catholic anti-pagan pile-on, motivated by contempt. As evidence, they quote this paragraph from Mark:

"Finally, in these latter days, 'pagan' has taken yet another turn and is now used in some circles as a compliment. Among a growing number of people, 'pagan' now means 'post-Christian religionist who is attempting to rescue reverence for Nature from the hands of evil Judeo-Christian earth rapists.' The notion behind this version of 'pagan' is that there was once a magical far-off time when humans dwelt in harmony with Mother Earth, everybody was comfortable with their various Jungian archetypes, and all was well as we worshiped the 'gods' and 'goddesses' who both expressed the beauty of Nature and got us in touch with our inmost selves (and lots of libido, to boot). Who needs all that stuff about sin, dying to self and the need for redemption? The great blunder of the human race was when the old gods were swept away by the evil Judeo-Christian God."

The thing is, this does indeed characature the Wildhunt's approach to Christianity, so it is hard to see what they have to complain about. Look, for instance, at their post regarding the Brisbane priest who has been baptising with an invalid formula. In this matter, it is obvious that these Pagans are well-intentioned in thinking the baptismal formula should be able to take a gender-neutral form. What they don't seem to take into account is that Catholics actually believe in God, and that He has made a revelation about himself. We cannot just make it up as we go along, because that would be saying that it is all man made and the Gospels are not true. Of course, with Paganism, you can do that sort of thing, cos most Pagans are happy with the idea that Zeus or Apollo or Dionysus are as much products of the imagination as they are aspects of reality.

What has been even more interesting than Mark's original Paganism pieces have been the engagement with Pagans that have resulted. There was a little back and forth with a Pagan who took issue with some of his points. The discussion continued here, here and here, and there is little point in me re-hashing Mark's discussions. The best point, though, was made by one of Mark's commenters, Fuinseoig, who made the following contribution:

Dear Whoever-You-Are

Yes, you are playing dress-up. Because no matter what costume you may wear, nor what rituals you may practice, they are reconstructions.

Whether you venerate the Dagda, Odin, Osiris or Jupiter Optimus Maximus, you are not following an organic, developing, living tradition that has survived down through the centuries and has been handed down as a genuine cultural survival. You are following a reconstructed, best-guess-by-archaeolgists, here's what the papyrus scraps are deciphered to say, X wrote his seminal work on this back in the 1930s, Y spearheaded the revival in 1970 and today Z has reformulated it for the 21st Century estimation.

Now, if you wanted to be a Buddhist (of whatever tradition) or a Hindu, or an Animist, then maybe I'd listen. Because those are living religions that have lasted and have a verifiable history.

But the Gardiner/Mead/Whomever mishmash that passes for modern Wicca and Pagandom and Heathenry - no, sorry. My ancestors left all that behind 1,500 years ago and I'm not inclined to go back.

Horror stories

2008-03-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking that I ought to get posting again on this blog as I've hardly done anything since starting it. I've not actually been to the St Mary's Blackfen site listed on the right for a while, so checked it out and came across the horror stories on this post. They are mostly regarding detainees' experiences at Yarls Wood Detention Centre, pretty awful stuff that Britain manages to sweep well and truly under the carpet. It isn't just refugees and asylum seekers who get this sort of treatment ... children in youth prisons have been killed by security officials using 'restraint' holds on them, and it is actually legal in Britain for children in detention to be tortured (the language gets dressed up but not a lot).

Dr Who Comic Relief with Rowan Atkinson

2007-11-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

I remember watching this years ago, and finally located it on youtube!

part 1

part 2

part 3

Gospel of Q

2007-11-08T13:53:00.000-08:00

Star Trek and Religion at Ex Astris Scientiais another page looking at expressions of faith in the popular sci fi TV series, with a more comprehensive cataloguing of the cases where religion has raised its head. Reading this, I was reminded of the character Q, who has made for some of the very best Next Gen stories out there. I’ve read in the academic literature the suggestion that the omnipotent Q, played by John De Lancie, is linked to the so-called Gospel of Q (so-called by Wikepedia, that is). I don’t know enough about the Q documents or the writers of Star Trek to know if that is true or even likely – I would love it if any Christians or geeks could feed this line of speculation!

Houses of Parliament Destroyed

2007-11-06T13:09:00.001-08:00

This was on telly last night. Topgear's Richard Hammond builds a replica of the former House of Commons which Guy Fawkes targetted, and sees what would have happened had he lit the fuse.

It was only when looking this up that I noticed that Richard shares his surname with Evey, of V for Vendetta fame. Here's Big Ben going up;

As the wife says, The Voice of Fa-*Ahem*Radio 4 would just replace the dongs with 'Sounds of Summer'...

While I'm at it, here's a UFO smashing into the side of Parliament.

Oh, alright then. One more; Time Trumpet's Terrorism Awards. One of the nominees is the al-qaeda 747 attack on Big Ben.

Star Trek and Faith

2007-11-06T05:55:00.000-08:00

I recently came across this discussion of religion in StarTrek by Raymond J Keating, which recalls only a few instances in which a Christian faith is suggested. One is when Kirk meets an alien claiming to be the Greek god Adonais, to whom Kirk retorts, “Our one God is sufficient” (faint praise?). Another instance is when the crew of the Enterprise come across a planet almost identical to Earth, but for the fact that the Roman Empire never fell. Throughout this episode we meet sun worshippers; it is only in the closing minutes that we discover these aren’t pagans, but in fact followers of the son (of God)! Keating, goes on to say that ‘the Next Generation television show wallowed in a rather foolish utopian vision of the perfectibility of humankind. The sinful aspects of human nature simply withered away. The Federation is billed as paradise in space.’

Indeed, Next Gen went out of its way to avoid any extended religious discourse, preferring instead made-up Klingon or other alien ritual, and that piss-poor episode with the American Injun reserve in space where Wesley becomes a rainbow child of the universe. One particular episode for me underscores the writers’ lack of willingness to get into discussion of religious/metaphysical ideas, and that is the one where the Enterprise is trapped by a godlike being called N’geelum (but probably spelt differently). N’geelum wants to kill a proportion of the inhabitants of the Enterprise (I can’t remember how many – something like 50 percent or so) in order to discover more about humanity. In response, Picard spits the dummy and sets the Enterprise’s auto-destruct mechanism. Every single person on board will die, but at least they will not be tortured by this insane alien.

In the minutes before the ship is due to be blown to kingdom come, Picard retires to his quarters to prepare himself for death. He is visited by Data, who begins to question him about the nature of death, and starts to enquire after Picard’s beliefs. I haven’t seen this episode in a while, but I seem to recall that it is this line of questioning from Data which tips off Picard that something is amiss. He hails Data on the intercom and finds that he’s on the bridge; this Data who is inquisitive about matters of faith is in fact an illusion induced by the malevolent N’Geelum.

Another instance of religion in Star Trek: The Next Generation comes not from the TV series, but from the comic books, which I think can safely be assumed to be non-canon. 'Beginnings' is a TPB collecting the early Next Gen comic book stories, and are obviously from the early days of the TV series when things hadn’t quite settled down into convention yet. For example, I seem to remember some chemistry between Geordie and Troi which was never hinted at in the TV show. Deanna was entangled with Riker, and later Worf, but never Geordie, who was obviously gay for Data. In the comics, there are also crewmen on board wearing outlandish costumes which follow comic book convention, but not that of TV’s Starfleet. For example, the Bickleys, a bickering husband-and-wife pair of bridge officers wearing cloaks but no trousers. There’s also the stuff that is just totally out of character, like where Worf attempts to stop Tasha Yar disturbing the Captain in his ready room. They argue and then wrestle like they are schoolkids in the play yard, until the Captain comes along to tells them off. It is all great fun, but really off the mark for how the characters ‘really’ behaved on the TV screen.

The bit I always remember as slightly cringe-worthy, cos it is so out of keeping with the whole tone of the series, is in the ‘Christmas special’ story when we see Tasha Yar getting ready for the festivities and musing on her faith. Having just gone and dug out the comic in question, it is actually pretty innocuous, but I think the rareity of such a hint that there might be a Christian believer in Next Gen has exaggerated it in my memory. Tasha stands in front of a mirror dressing for the party, and gives in a thought bubble says:

‘I’ve always longed to have the holidays back in my life…I didn’t get to do much celebrating when I was a child on the colony…and my duties with the Federation since have kept me from keeping my faith…I’m really looking forward to loosening up tonight!’

So, like I say, no big deal. It is actually pretty nonspecific about what her ‘faith’ is, but given it is Christmas one would assume she is some kind of Christian. It does make you wonder whether Tasha was intended to be a Christian all along, and it was just unspoken or taken for granted, or whether this was just slotted in so that the Christmas theme bore more relevance to this otherwise most secular of crews.

I will try to post some scans from the comic, so check back to see if i’ve updated this post.

Guy Fawkes Night

2007-11-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

When I were a bairn, me and my sisters weren’t allowed to go out on bonfire night because of its anti-Catholic overtones and the demonisation of Guy Fawkes who was probably innocent but certainly a victim of torture by the British state. The anti-catholic stuff has largely receded to the background in favour of fireworks and sprinklers, and the anti-catholic origins of the festival are for most (one would hope) a historical curiosity.

It turns, however, that a place called Lewes still retains much of the anti-Catholic sentiment of Guy Fawkes Night, and tonight they will be displaying the traditional banners reading ‘No Popery’. Via Fr Tim Finigan and Fr Ray Blake comes news of Lewes’ own Parish Priest, one Fr Richard Biggerstaff, who is responding with his own catechetical campaign called ‘Know Popery’.

Moon Dust

2007-11-04T08:47:00.001-08:00

Writing that last blog entry got me remembering the Youth Alpha course that was organised at the church my family regularly attended. Being about 14 or so, and proclaiming myself atheist/pantheist at the time, I used to really enjoy going along to their Sunday evening meetings for a good argument.

The funniest memory I have is when one of them, with a straight face, began telling me that he could prove that the universe was only 6,000 years old. “You remember when Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong went to the moon?” he said, “Well, when they stepped out of the space craft, and stood on the moon, how deep was their footprint. About an inch or so, right? Well, that proves that the universe is only 6,000 years old, because if the moon had been there for all those millions and billions of years, right, there should have been about 12 foot of dust on the moon!”

I shit ye not.

Creationism vs. Evolution

2007-11-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

The LoveCraken is a kid i met through the web who makes videos and posts them on youtube. He has recently gotten engaged in the Creationism vs. Science debate, taking aim at some tube called Eric Hovind by parodying his creationist propaganda:

The Hovinds have been getting people banned from youtube, claiming copyright infringement, despite the fact that they have publicly disavowed any copyright claims in the past. This is Rabid Ape explaining the situation:

I understand that some of the people who have found themselves censored never even used any of the Hovinds’ footage, and are guilty only of responding to their arguments. The creationists are basically abusing copyright law, and it is possible they will end up being prosecuted for this; if I can find any of the relevant links, I may post a more complete account later. As far as I’m aware, the story hasn’t been picked up by the print media at all (at least not here in the UK) which is surprising cos I’d have thought it is the kind of story the Guardian would love.

In discussing the Creationist vs. Science debate with the Craken over MSN, I have recommended he checks out some of the talks at faith.org.uk which emphasise that science and christianity have the same aims of discovering the truth, and that the sciences themselves grew out of a christian worldview.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

2007-11-04T05:34:00.001-08:00

My wife and I went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age last night, and we also got to see the trailer to the new movie adaptation of Pullman’s Northern Lights trilogy which has been getting a number of American Roman Catholic bloggers in the mood for some book burning. I’m not sure what the American Catholics will make of The Golden Age. I picked up a copy of The Catholic Herald at church this morning, featuring a review of the film which neatly expresses the British Catholic’s attitude towards non-Catholics and their ideas, in stark contrast to our American brethren’s hysteria.

The Herald’s reviewer, Freddie Sayers, writes;

‘when a Daily Mail reporter rang me last week to find out if the Catholic community was “outraged” by the new film, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I took great pleasure in denying her the tabloid quotes she was after. Is The Golden Age anti-Catholic, she asked? Of course it is. Will that upset the Catholic community in this country? Not overly, I suspected: they are more likely to be upset by the absence of artistic merit than by the ludicrous villainy of every Catholic cast member. British Catholics are a tough bunch, you know, and highly discerning to boot.’

Since the protagonist of the film is our famously protestant monarch, the ‘baddies’ were always going to be the Catholics and, perhaps predictably, they were presented in a laughably grotesque light. As Sayers says, the king of Spain

‘is shown to be a wicked fellow, bow-legged and clad in black, constantly surrounded by monks mumbling ominous prayers, pacing through cathedrals in a perpetual state of disquieting religiosity. To top off this melange of voodoo magic and murderous superstition, he clutches a miniature doll of Elizabeth, on which to cast his murky spells. It is a preposterous parody of the Catholic stereotype that has prevailed through the ages.’

I believe the doll actually belonged to Phillip’s daughter Isabella in the film, but you get the point. The Protestants, on the other hand are presented in a better light. Elizabeth, though aging, is a beautiful woman surrounded by beautiful maiden servants and chased after by suitors. Also on England’s side is the swashbuckling Walter Raleigh, played by Clive Owen. The same crude signifiers we’ve seen in dozens of movies since cinema began are used to help us distinguish between the good (ie beautiful) and evil (ie ugly). This was, though, merely superficial as any discerning viewer would have noted, as we see the protestant English partaking in torture as well as subterfuge, to see Mary Queen of Scots executed for treason, neither of which shows the prods in a particularly sympathetic light.

One thing I found amusing was that whenever we see the underground church in England, they are feverishly dying cloth red. I’m sure there is some historical basis to this that the creators of the movie have latched on to, but after the second or third time we see this it comes across as really silly.

Another quotation from Sayer regarding British Catholics which I liked was;

we will defend ourselves when under attack, and we will censure what we perceive to be wrong, but we strive to do so with the measured calm that true confidence allows.

It is a lack of such confidence that I object to in the drive to ban the likes of Pullman. If we think we have it right, that our faith is the one, true faith, then why should we be so afraid of Mr Pullman?

It will be interesting to see what, if any, reaction the film draws from the American Catholics, who need little provocation to reach for the pitchfork and flaming torch.

The best part of the film, I will point out, managed to transcend the Protestant/Catholic divide by appealing to the english audience's sense of nationalism. After the Armada is comprehensively spanked by Sir Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake, the film fades out with a subtitle proclaiming words to the effect of:

'The loss of the Armada was the most humiliating defeat ever experienced by Spain'.

The englishman in me couldn't help but grin.