It is easy to see that if you are going to be out on the town, searching for a new movie to see this weekend, there is about a 90% chance that you will be seeing The Golden Compass — although if you are in a market where it is showing, I would recommend Atonement (review forthcoming). Based on the popular “His Dark Materials” series of books by Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass will undoubtedly take it’s release weekend with ease, mostly thanks to a weak slate of opponents but also due in part to the controversy surrounding the film’s source material.

Back in October, Catholic League president Bill Donohue wrote that the books upon which the film is based were written to promote Atheism and denigrate Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism. Since then the debate has been raging over whether The Golden Compass is a harmless source of entertainment or the work of Satan himself.

That of course, leads us to this weekend’s Talking Points. This is our twice weekly column where we turn to you, the members of the Reject Nation to give us your opinions on the hottest topics in the movie industry. So how about it, what did you think of The Golden Compass? In seeing it, were you converted over to Atheism? Also, was the hype about the religious implications of this film justified, or was it all just a bunch of bologna?

Feel free to leave your unabashed opinions in the comment area below.