Philip Pullman quotes revealing his strident anti-Christian and atheistic views
Special note: It appears that Pullman is trying to tone down his anti-Catholic rhetoric in an attempt to avoid financially jeopardizing the His Dark Materials films. Therefore, pay special attention to Pullman quotes from earlier years when he wasn't so cautious about frankly expressing his thoughts about Christianity.

"The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake."
Question to Pullman during a Third Way interview: "In the Amber Spyglass, Mary Malone [the former nun] tells Lyra and Will that the Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake. Is that your opinion?"

Pullman: "I think I'd agree with her, yes."
http://www.thirdway.org.uk/past/showpage.asp?page=3949

"I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. Mr. Lewis would think I was doing the devil's work."
(Wartofsky, Alona: 'The Last Word' in The Washington Post, 19 February 2001)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23371-2001Feb18?language=printer

"The assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven, the infallibility of the Pope - seemed to me such howling nonsense"
http://www.thirdway.org.uk/past/showpage.asp?page=3949

"I am all for the death of God."
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,773058,00.html

"My books are about killing God.”
“I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry [Potter] has said.”
Pullman’s December 13, 2003 interview with the Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/12/1071125644900.html

"There is another consequence of any belief in a single god, and that is that it is a very good excuse for people to behave very badly."
http://www.thirdway.org.uk/past/showpage.asp?page=3949

"I no longer believe in the God I used to believe in when I was a boy."
"Since growing up and since thinking about it, I've come to realize that the basis on which these belief systems were founded isn't there. I no longer believe in the God I used to believe in when I was a boy."
www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/ca153054

Pullman's theme about "celebrating the human body"
Question to Pullman: "One of the major themes, especially in The Amber Spyglass, is about celebrating the senses and celebrating the human body and the here and now--building, as you wrote, the 'Republic of Heaven' where we are. Does that contradict the church's teachings? Is that part of the rebellion against the church?"

Pullman: "I think it is. Because of the traditional emphasis in religions that seek to control our behavior by apportioning, you know, punishment or reward in an afterlife. The emphasis of those religions is that this world is the place of sin and evil and that the material world is very inferior to the spiritual world, which is a sort of realm of gas and nonphysical stuff that exists. And we get there after we die. If we're good, we go to Heaven and we--well, nobody really knows what Heaven's like, and nobody really knows what Hell's like.... It seemed to me that people waste so much of their lives waiting for what's going to happen after they die. And this world is the only world we know or we can be certain of. And it's a place of the most extraordinary and exquisite beauty and delight. This is one of the reasons why I sort of go against traditional [church] teaching in saying that angels are superior to human beings. I've sort of inverted that and say, angels envy our flesh because our flesh gives us sensations of such delight."
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/ca153054.html

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