Life is complex

The fragment I saw on Sunday was sold on Tuesday for approaching three hundred thousand pounds to someone who, I'm guessing, already owns a house. I'm glad I got the chance to see it.

Currently upsetting me is the fact that I seem to be agreeing with the American Christian Right in that I don't like Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. I console myself with the thought that my objections are on a much more intellectual level than theirs. Luther said "Sin boldly" and I'm more of a fan of intelligent atheism than of that sort of piety which sends people to church every week because it's the done thing. But now it seems like you can get atheistic piety too, which leads to people in the Guardian feting the idea of the Pullman trilogy as an anti-Christian children's book without looking in to what sort of ideas it's really espousing. I don't have any more right to speak for atheists than atheists have for Christians (and I suppose actually I don't have any right to speak for Christians either) but wouldn't atheism ideally not base itself entirely on Christianity, just with all the goods and bads reversed? Pullman's ideas seem like one of the those early gnostic sects where all forbidden things were really mandatory; like the children who have been told never to put beans in their ears, and who then put beans in their ears. At least the Harry Potter books have a morality which doesn't involve God. But I may just be missing the point about the Pullman ones, I suppose. And the American Religious Right's attitude makes me wonder if I should give the books another chance. Oh American Religious Right, will you please shut up! You make us all look like loonies.