Posted on 04/26/2005 7:55:47 AM PDT by gopwinsin04
Well, ok! I found the books to be funny, harmless, and occasionally moving stories. Looking forward to the new installment.
I don't know anybody messed up enough to think HP is real, and I know some pretty messed-up people.
I appreciate your opinion, since Bill's reading them. Back when they first came out, I knew some young people who were over-involved, buying all the accessories, making costumes, etc. We discourage our children from excessive enthusiasm over any fiction.
When fiction begins to be problematic, imo, is when you want it to be real.
Heh... nothing wrong with dressing up for special events. Just means the kids might be a little on the geeky side.
I've often been excessively enthusiastic about fiction, but I've read so much I don't dwell on any one series. I think that minimizes any harm.
Ol' Uta is known--and your take on her is accurate.
She's a heretic from way back when.
Harry Potter sucks.
That said, how about a reliable source on this story?
Me either. But, I firmly believe that the occult is real and that the Harry Potter books are artfully designed to lead children into intrigue with occult material, all the while elisiting responses from ignorant parents to the effect, "I don't know anybody messed up enough to think HP is real."
Ok. Well. I have known probably hundreds of kids and young people who've read HP. None of us have been lead into the occult.
If you did try to get into the occult through Harry Potter you'd be very disappointed, none of the spells work at all.
No doubt that is true. And, that could explain why the readers of Harry Potter are soon requesting the "real thing" at book stores and libraries.
BTW, Have you taken a look at the "Religous" section at books stores lately? They are loaded with occult material. Book stores are not museums. Those books are on the shelves because people are buying them.
Ask yourself, "What does this say about the culture and future of America?"
It tells me that people are, as always, morons. That occult material's been there as long as I remember, though that's not very long. Certainly before Harry Potter.
Personally, what I pay attention to are the stacks of new children's novels, the thick ones on the front racks with complicated names and interesting stories. Those are the good sign. When was the last time you saw B&N hawking some dreadful teen-angst story about pimples? Kids are reading again, and it's partly because of Harry Potter.
There is no reason to celebrate kids reading if they're reading poison.
That kind of elitist attitude suggests that you really should venture off-campus on occassion.
Because people are too stupid to differentiate fantasy from reality, and lots of kids are gonna try magic now, and imagination is bad when it leads you to magic.
Or something.
Frankly, I get confused about why people object to fiction. I mean, "The Da Vinci Code" was no great shakes as a work of art, but it was a decent beach read . . . and I don't feel the urge to go Templar-chasing after reading it.
Besides, most kids would get disappointed after the spells didn't work, and ditch the idea.
I've read them all, and I'm a good Anglican still.
(But I cannot get that damn Patronus to work no matter WHAT I do. I think my wand needs fixing.)
And there are many - pretty much the same group - who are weak in their faith and project that onto the rest of us.
So when do we expect the ditching of all other non-canonical works of fiction?
After all, Dickens and Wodehouse and Trollope aren't exactly advancing the cause of Christianity.
So tell us about the children you know who now practice witchcraft as a result of reading the Potter series.
And we expect to hear that the spells WORK. If they don't, the kids ain't witches.
My feelings exactly, as well as Rome's official exorcist: "Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil."
What's so bad about Harry? All "good lessons" aside, the book serves to normalize occultic practices. That's more than enough reason to keep this book out of the hands of children.
The backdrop is the message.
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."
I've made this point myself. The problem is even more accute in the teens/young adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy section.
Many Wodehouse characters are involved with parsonages or want to marry vicars or attend Sunday morning services and such. Harold "Stinker" Pinker (and his prankster fiancee Stiffy Byng) spring to mind.
Just because something isn't EXPLICITLY Christian doesn't mean it is anti-Christian. Some FReepers are actually hot and bothered about "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" because it contains magic. Come on, C.S. Lewis leading innocent children astray???
Any-hoo, I agree with you: Christians with a good solid foundation in the church can enjoy Harry Potter without being seduced by the dark side, just as they can enjoy "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" or "The Lord of the Rings" or the Prydain Chronicles, all of which contain magic and evil characters and struggles, battles and wars. In all of the good vs. evil stories above, good always wins in the end, which is an important lesson itself.
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