Benedict XVI-New Pope Hits Out at Harry Potter Books

the anecdotes can be very convincing and difficult to explain otherwise

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data". If it were, it would be an accepted fact that Elvis is alive.

181 posted on 04/27/2005 11:10:07 AM PDT by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)

No you were never in my shoes, you were one of those screwed up kids I mentioined a while ago. You were a wreck going down the wrong path before you ever discovered gaming or metal and now you blame the gaming and the metal, but if you honestly assessed you'd aknowledge the truth, you were on that path before.

Nope. You can make that assumption all you want and you can shout it from the roof-tops. But the fact of the matter is, you're wrong. This stuff DOES lead good kids down the wrong path. Those with problems at home are particularly vulnerable, but even those from great homes can be led astray. I have a sister-in-law that proves this point.

And I can see it in one sentence " It's amusing now to remember how seriously I took it all at the time", I don't take it serious, it's fun stuff to pass the time, enjoyable music to keep me energized at work, and the method I've used to develop most of my important friendships in life.

You claim you don't take it seriously, and yet your reaction to my criticisms of the world of fandom border on hysterical. Who am I supposed to believe, you or my lyin' eyes?

The only part of the whole thing I take seriously is how people like YOU drive metal fans and gamers away from the faith, people driving others away from the faith is serious, harmless forms of entertainment are not, and anybody that took them serious was a screwed up kid on the path ruin.

You keep saying that as if it has any authority at all outside of the hackneyed Iron Maiden song "Holy Smoke" which you're parrotting. In fact, I am the antithesis of you. I needed Christianity applied with a sledge-hammer in order to help me see through the nonsense that was the world of gaming, fandom, metal music, and bad fantasy writing. Two things pulled me out of that alternate reality: St. Augustine's Confessions and a couple of really strong, really knowledgeable Catholic priests who applied Catholic catechesis without apology.

I'm 35 years old, married for 13 years, well respected in the local area of my field for my skills, paid hansomely, and not in debt. I think as a man, I understand as a man, and I entertain myself with things made by men. Deal with it.

Age is not necessarily an indicator of maturity. There are plenty of 30-something adolescents running around out there. Clearly, you have done nicely for yourself in this world--as the Prince of This World would no doubt recognize. But if you are truly a Christian, you must be preparing for the next world as well, right? Or does this more accurately reflect your sentiments on the matter?

I don't feel ready, there's so much left undone,
And it's my soul and I'm not gonna let it get away.

Chorus:
Heaven can wait,
Heaven can wait,
Heaven can wait,
Heaven can wait til another day.

I have a lust for the Earth below
And Hell itself is my only foe,
'Cause I've no fear of dying,
I'll go when I'm good and ready,
I snatch a glimpse of the light's eternal rays,
I see a tunnel, I stand amazed,
At all of the people standing there in front of me,
Into the paths of rightness I'll be led,
Is this the place where the living join the dead?
I wish I knew this was only just a nightmare.

182 posted on 04/27/2005 11:44:06 AM PDT by Antoninus (Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Hosanna in excelsis!)

No this isn't new age gnosticism, it's a STORY about an IMAGINARY world where wizards really exist and it's purely a genetic trait. The only thing it's an invitation to is buying the merchandising, like any other mass market product it's all about the benjamins.

Sorry, but that lie no longer works. If it were "all about the benjamins", Mel Gibson would have had no trouble finding a distributor for The Passion of the Christ.

183 posted on 04/27/2005 11:48:57 AM PDT by Antoninus (Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Hosanna in excelsis!)

Additionally, you can find plenty of people here on FR who've had similar experiences. My wife played around with a ouija board once when she was a child, and she swears the planchet moved on its own. She never messed with it again.

My wife tells a similar story about an experience with a ouija board. Coincidentally, she stopped listening to heavy metal music as a teenager because of a demonic dream she had after listening to one particular song.

It would be easier to dismiss Harry Potter, death metal, horror, etc. as harmless if the occult wasn't real...

184 posted on 04/27/2005 11:53:33 AM PDT by Antoninus (Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Hosanna in excelsis!)

It's no assumtion, it's clear in your own statments, you took it seriously and you're STILL taking it seriously. Heavy metal is about volume, energy and fun. My serious reaction is to how you push people like me away from Christianity, that's a seriously wrong thing you're doing by forcing people to make a choice based on your false assumptions.

I needed to get rid of people like you in my life, people foolishly saying that my music was leading me somewhere it wasn't. I needed to escape from the nonsense of fools condemning that which they don't understand just because they don't understand it. Nothing in metal, or gaming or fandom led you to a world of nonsense, YOU led you to a world of nonsense, and you're still IN a world of nonsense but now you've got a whole new brand of nonsense, the nonsense of condemning the decorations of your old life for the mess it was.

The successes in my life have been the result of two things: hard work (which is a bi-product of maturity), and just plain dumb luck (which is generally described in this world as "God smiling upon you"). You want to quote song lyrics, great lets do it:
Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you’re dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
Is christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?

When you think about death do you lose your breath or
Do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the pope on the end of a rope
Do you think he’s a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I’ve seen the light and I’ve changed my ways
And I’ll be prepared when you’re lonely and scared at the end of our days

Could it be you’re afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don’t believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can’t retrieve

Perhaps you’ll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he’s the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear? yes! I think it’s too late.

Guess who wrote that. The condemning Christians' favorite band to hit for being evil and nasty, Black Sabbath. Yep, total freak satanists there. /sarcasm

185 posted on 04/27/2005 12:31:27 PM PDT by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)

I probably wouldn't have picked the movie up either, the last big movie about Jesus was Last Temptation of Christ which grossed a whopping 8 million dollars, and originally he wanted to distribute it with no subtitles. Any movie distributor in the world would have looked at that and said "box office bomb". Notice in the end it was distributed with subtitles, and benefited from a lot of free press, and being a generally better movie than Last Temptation. Sorry charley, it's all about the benjamins, based on past performance of movies about Jesus and movies in a foreign language there was no reason for any movie executive to think Passion was going to make money... which of course just shows the problem with trying to use past events as a predictor of future occurances, but that's the only crystal ball these guys have.

186 posted on 04/27/2005 12:35:55 PM PDT by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)

The coolest drinking game is to read a Harry Potter book and take a shot every time you read the word "scarlet".

_________________________________________________________

LOL, just don't try downing one every time you read the word "furious" or you'll be toast real fast.

187 posted on 04/28/2005 12:12:42 PM PDT by Rippin

As far as Harry breaking the rules goes, one of the major threads of the books is the importance of his loyalty to Dumbledore, who represents true authority. The books are such a relief after all the pap kids get these days that tell them to just "believe in themselves" and "be true to their feelings." If Harry had done that, he'd have been dead in the first book.

Here is one parent's testimony: My daughter, who is twelve now, has read Harry Potter books or had them read to her since she was four. She has always gotten the point that the wizard/muggle distinction is a figure for differences between more and less gifted people. She has learned from the books that if you have gifts, they don't make you better than other people; that good and evil are real; that true authority is real; that growing up involves making decisions about right and wrong that really matter; that it takes courage and loyalty to good people and good principles to make a good life. She has also, of course, had a whale of a lot of fun. She is a passionate Christian and has shown not the slightest interest in the real occult.

People who get exercised about Harry Potter ought to read one of the polemically anti-God books by Philip Pullman. I've told my daughter that those she may not read until she is an adult, if she wants to then, because the author has set out deliberately to confuse kids and alienate them from their faith. Her response is on the lines of "Yuck, who'd want to read that?"

188 posted on 06/04/2005 7:42:16 AM PDT by Southern Federalist

Pope Benedict Opposes Harry Potter Novels

Gabriele Kuby RIMSTING, Germany, June 27, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the sixth issue of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - is about to be released, the news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prior to his elevation to the Pontificate, had denounced the wildly popular series has resurfaced. In 2003, a month after the English press throughout the world falsely proclaimed that Pope John Paul II approved of Harry Potter, the man who was to become his successor sent a letter to a Catholic German critic of Harry Potter outlining his agreement with her opposition to Rowling's offerings.

As Amazon books touted over a million pre-orders for the newest in the Potter series, Spiritdaily.com, a Catholic news website with the flair of the DrudgeReport, recalled a German magazine article speaking of a letter from Cardinal Ratzinger to German Potter critic Gabriele Kuby.

That letter came to Kuby on March 7, 2003. A month before papers around the world were littered with false headlines such as "Pope Approves Potter" (Toronto Star), "Pope Sticks Up for Potter Books" (BBC), "Harry Potter Is Ok With The Pontiff" (Chicago Sun Times) and "Vatican: Harry Potter's OK with us" (CNN Asia). The stories were based on an off-hand comment in favour of the Potter books by a Vatican spokesman at a press conference on the release of a Vatican document on the New Age. (See the LifeSiteNews.com coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/feb/03020703.html )

A 2003 German-language interview with Kuby, the author of "Harry Potter - gut oder böse" (Harry Potter- good or evil?), by Zenit news summarizes Kuby's objections to Potter neatly as its theme being "My Will be done' opposed to 'Thy Will be done". In that interview Kuby readily admits that many people, Catholics included, do not see the dangers she sees in the Potter series. "I have no desire to see and depict devils where there are none, but when I see with my own eyes, when my intelligence and heart inform me, that there is a devil painted on a wall even though most everyone else sees on this same wall one flowery wallpaper design, then I feel obliged to give witness to the truth , whether convenient or unwelcome. There is such a thing as public deception - we Germans know about that," she says. (See the German Zenit interview http://www.zenit.org/german/visualizza.phtml?sid=4... )

The main thrust of Kuby's objection to Potter is that the books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy.

In the Zenit interview, Kuby quotes from the letter she received from Cardinal Ratzinger. In the letter, then-Cardinal Ratzinger specifically pointed to the fact that the danger in the Potter books is hidden was greatly concerning. "It is good that you shed light and inform us on the Harry Potter matter, for these are subtle seductions that are barely noticeable and precisely because of that deeply affect (children) and corrupt the Christian faith in souls even before it (the Faith) could properly grow," said Cardinal Ratzinger.

Kuby's Potter criticism also received recognition in Germany from the city of Munich's office of Youth affairs, which at the time made headlines for indicating that the Potter books were not fit for children.

Regarding the harm to children from the Potter books, Kuby says, "That they (children) are being cut off from God, the source of Love and Hope , so that they in sorrowful life conditions are without a foundation that supports them -that they lose the spirit of discernment between good and evil and that they will not have the necessary strength and knowledge to withstand the temptations to evil."

The most prominent Potter critic in North America, Catholic novelist and painter Michael O'Brien commented to LifeSiteNews.com on the comments of now-Pope Benedict saying, "This discernment on the part of Benedict XVI reveals the Holy Father's depth and wide ranging gifts of spiritual discernment." O'Brien, author of a book dealing with fantasy literature for children added, "it's consistent with many of the statements he's been making since his election to the Chair of Peter, indeed for the past 20 years - a probing accurate read of the massing spiritual warfare that is moving to a new level of struggle in western civilization. He is a man in whom a prodigious intellect is integrated with great spiritual gifts. He is the father of the universal church and we would do well to listen to him."

See O'Brien's essay analyzing the Potter series:
http://www.lifesite.net/features/harrypotter/obrie...

See the LifeSiteNews.com Harry Potter controversy page:
http://www.lifesite.net/features/harrypotter

See Gabriele Kuby's, Michael O'Brien and Spiritdaily's websites:
http://www.gabriele-kuby.de/
http://www.studiobrien.com
http://www.spiritdaily.com

Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children's Culture

189 posted on 07/12/2005 5:03:44 PM PDT by Coleus ("Woe unto him that call evil good and good evil"-- Isaiah 5:20-21)

To: gopwinsin04; 2ndMostConservativeBrdMember; afraidfortherepublic; Alas; al_c; american colleen; ...

190 posted on 07/12/2005 5:04:35 PM PDT by Coleus ("Woe unto him that call evil good and good evil"-- Isaiah 5:20-21)

How misleading. Not to put to fine a point on it, but something Cardinal Ratzinger wrote as a personal matter is hardly an official pronouncement by Pope Benedict XVI. This is the kind of thing that leads many Protestants to believe that the Pope tells us which stocks to pick and which weight-loss plan to follow.

191 posted on 07/12/2005 5:29:09 PM PDT by Tax-chick (No! I don't want a socialist muffin in a boat!)

192 posted on 07/12/2005 5:29:32 PM PDT by Coleus ("Woe unto him that call evil good and good evil"-- Isaiah 5:20-21)

Dude, can't you even start a new "Harry Potter is EEEv1l" thread instead of necrobumping one as stupid as this was?

193 posted on 07/12/2005 5:33:49 PM PDT by JenB (Doin' my own theme song)

My goodness - I didn't even realize how old this was!

194 posted on 07/12/2005 5:36:22 PM PDT by Tax-chick (No! I don't want a socialist muffin in a boat!)

Yeah, it bored me the first time around. I really liked it when people took "Onion" articles seriously and we got to flame those. These days the threads are just pathetic. I mean, three days until the new book and this is the best they've got?

It's been six years and counting since I discovered Harry Potter, and I'm a better Christian now than I was then. Someday I'll read HP to my own kids. And they won't turn to evil either.

195 posted on 07/12/2005 5:38:35 PM PDT by JenB (Doin' my own theme song)

I staked out a "Yeah, whatever ..." position on Harry Potter 4-5 years ago, and I'm still there :-). My oldest boy just read the first one this week, and said he liked it well enough to check out the second.

Literature is full of characters who aren't exemplars of Christian perfection. Dear General Patton, for example ...

196 posted on 07/12/2005 5:41:18 PM PDT by Tax-chick (No! I don't want a socialist muffin in a boat!)

It's germane to the subject of the thread and I'm saving bandwidth.

197 posted on 07/12/2005 5:41:32 PM PDT by Coleus ("Woe unto him that call evil good and good evil"-- Isaiah 5:20-21)

Read it with them. My mother got in to it a few years back and now she helps us read aloud when we get the book. Plus you'll feel better about it. It's something we all like - 22 down to 10. Nice family time.

How old's the boy? The books get darker... I wouldn't really recommend them for anyone under nine or ten.

198 posted on 07/12/2005 5:43:05 PM PDT by JenB (Doin' my own theme song)

Bill is 11. If he decides something is too creepy, he just won't finish it. My oldest daughter, who's 14 now, started one HP book and decided it was boring.

I haven't been in a fantasy mood for several years now. Too many great mysteries, and nonfiction. Maybe someday I will be again.

199 posted on 07/12/2005 5:45:21 PM PDT by Tax-chick (No! I don't want a socialist muffin in a boat!)

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