[FONT="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Ah yes. I do recall when The Golden Compass came out and there were so many who tried to persuade you to not see it. Here's my opinion...
The Golden Compass is actually part of a trilogy written Philip Pullman, an acclaimed atheist. From what I heard, he wrote this series to combat, for lack of a better term, C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series, which has a lot of Biblical/Christian symbolism within them. The Golden Compass is actually the first part of the trilogy as well as the "cleanest." Again from what I have heard and read of commentaries, Pullman gets more aggressive as the series progresses, and in the end, the boy and girl (symbols of Adam and Eve) kill God to do their own thing.
Now, I'm a Christian myself, yet I wasn't on the streets to keep people from seeing the movie. In fact, even before I heard about all of that "kill God" stuff, I wanted to see the movie since it appeared nothing more than a fantasy flick. And even after hearing what I heard about it, I still wanted to see it. *gasp* Does that make me a sinner? Lol No. If I can't stand in my faith and my beliefs because of a simple movie, then my faith in God must be very weak.
Ok, so moving on to your REAL question about censorship... I think, as you said, that some censorship is good and beneficial. As you pointed out, movie ratings are good form of censorship: they let people know what is appropriate for this age group, etc. I guess it boils down to balance: some people take some censorship way out of proportion, with either TOO MUCH or TOO LITTLE. If we can find that balance, maybe it would work better for everybody.
Oh geez, what a lengthy answer... Sorry! Interesting topic though.
[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]