The Golden Compass

I saw the Golden Compass this past week. I really enjoyed it. I think it's worth seeing. I haven't read the book but plan to over the holiday break. I was out last night at a local bar with my friend Z and we were chatting with these 2 guys. They were very cool and we even exchanged numbers and plan to hang out again. One of the guys and I totally clicked but in a completely platonic way. He has a potential girl and I have a potential guy. I think he and I can be friends though. I have so missed have close guys friends I can hang out with. I've lost touch with most of the ones from college so I'd really like it if this works out.
While we were there, I was telling one of them that I'd really like to get an armoured bear like Iorek from the movie :) He was very cool(the bear). A guy at another table leaned over and jumped in and said to me "a lot of atheists say that they left God completely out of that movie". I have so many issues with that statement. For one, if what he says is true, for at least some atheists, then why do they care? IF they really don't believe in God what does it matter. Another thing that kills me - when the first Narnia movie came out, people said, there were too many Christian connotations(that it was very propaganda-like) and that's why they didn't like it. Now with The Golden Compass(TGC) movie, they are complaining because they think it's lacking God. WTF? I did not have a problem with either movie. If I had to choose a fav between the 2 movies it'd be tough. For visual effects alone, I would choose TGC over Narnia b/c none of the scenes made me think of CGI special effects. It all looked real. The polar bears in particular as well as the other animals looked so real and I know logically that they couldn't have been real and speaking :) but in all the scenes - you believe it. In Narnia, there were several scenes which I could tell were done by models/computer graphics/etc. yet that didn't diminish my enjoyment of it. Also with Narnia, I knew the basic story from having seen a cartoon version of the story as a child, so I had a fondness for the story ahead of time. All I knew about TGC was what I got from the previews I saw. Also b/c I haven't read the book yet, it didn't seem to be missing stuff and it set up the next sequel at the end.
That's my 2 cents.