Michael..thats fine to have the point-of-view you have! I just begin to question how you express it. For instance, You say that you began to "THINK;" as if Christians do not think. And that you "just cannot find any truth in it." First, believing in Christianity is not easy and neither is being a Christian if you are living out the Word of God in your life and continuing a relationship with God. People condemn faith as something that people just accept; when it really means having an evidential knowledge of something where everything is not crystal clear yet. But the point is: it is not blind faith. I personally look at creation/evolution for instance and think (through the evidence) that intelligent design has better evidence; which only supports the information given in Scripture. Not only is it "stories of love and compassion," but THE STORY of love and compassion! You explain one human or worldly story that compares with a holy and loving personal God dying to satisfy the wrath of God for sin in the world. It not only explains things like creation; but the problem of evil; and essentially provides a total worldview when other belief systems cannot. For example, Buddism attempted to explain evil; but could only come up with important questions...not solutions. Finally, when you said you could not find any truth in it; what I interpret you to mean is that you failed to understand it. Christians do not create their own truth; they simply accept (by evidence and faith) what God says in His Word is TRUTH. In other words, everything that can be done on earth is best practiced by using the Word of God to get through it. The worst times of suffering in my life have been when I deceived myself into thinking I could live without God. I found out that living that way can only lead to darkness and ultimately death. (I literally almost killed myself) NOTE: And yes, I know by giving that information that some will say, "SEE, he really is crazy!" But, I am hoping that you and others will see that any of us could find ourselves in the same circumstances. The "world" is not beautiful to people by any stretch of the imagination.

Hi Michael, I can respect that point of view. I read Philip Pullman many years ago when his books first came out, in fact I met him once at a fantasy convention. But you do have a point there. I was responding to someone elses point without referring to the book and this board is about the book. I don't want to give a personal account about the books, not because I can't, it's because I don't wish to. In that sense what can I say, you are right. I hope you realize I meant no disrespect to you or your posts. Wes.

There is a person here who probably thinks I'm an idiot and a bigot, but she didn't call me those names and when I said I didn't want to talk about the book in the same terms you did, she respected my reason. She even pointed out that in my post I used the words "Hitler" and Stalin" when she had never used them in her post. She showed me respect even though she disagrees with me strongly. Respect means taking no for an answer. In my post above I was responding to someone who used the word "bigot" against a Christian(s), by showing that knife cuts two ways. He is entitled to his opinion about the Bible, that it is fiction and Christians have closed minds, but not to use that word. In fact his post would have been better without it. Just my 2 cents to the other side, I stepped over the line and was called on it by the other person and I hope I haven't done so again. But Christians don't like being called names either. I also notice the original poster never said that I didn't have the right to express my views in a response, even though he likely strongly disagrees with them.