Phillip Pullman Makes It Easy

No need to speculate about what Pullman's stories are about when he keeps coming right out and saying things like this.

Pullman, though, expected more. I've been surprised by how little criticism I've got. Harry Potter's been taking all the flak . . . the people – mainly from America's Bible Belt – who complain that Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven't got enough in their lives. Meanwhile, I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God.
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As a teenager, he fell in love with Paradise Lost. "Books I and II, when the angels have just been thrown into Hell after the war in Heaven. They plot a terrible revenge, to destroy, subvert and ruin the new world God has made."

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Pullman has no qualms with critics who label his books sacrilegious, so how does he describe himself? "If we're talking on the scale of human life and the things we see around us, I'm an atheist. There's no God here. There never was. But if you go out into the vastness of space, well, I'm not so sure. On that level, I'm an agnostic.

Wouldn't it be nice if Dan Brown was so straightforward?