Wizard of Oz is just a story.
Red Planet...
Where the Wild Things Are...
Ramayana (in my opinion)...
Twentyone Balloons...
Lloyd Alexander's books (Black Cauldron, Book of Three)...
Beowulf...
Do any of these make one think they can run into and defeat supernatural beings? Or find more advanced societies than our own on remote and desolated islands?
No, because it is understood that to most they are "just stories" (with the exception of the easily "touched")
It isn't hard to put a book into context of reality. You look at the book, then you look out the window.
And a simple answer to us doing things without examining our reasons: Examine them. God gave you a brain, ask questions with it.
"Do any of these make one think they can run into and defeat supernatural beings? Or find more advanced societies than our own on remote and desolated islands?"
Let me explain the logical fallacy that invalidates your argument. The fact that these books don’t have the extreme effects that you--and only you--have mentioned, in no way shows that reading them doesn’t have other effects.
Your argument boils down to an assertion that the fact that the common cold doesn’t kill anyone proves that it doesn’t make anyone sick.
“No, because it is understood that to most they are "just stories" (with the exception of the easily "touched")”
That is nothing more than an assertion that you are correct because you say you are. My position is that reading books and watching movies can have effects that we are not immediately aware of. Several people have offered examples to support that notion. To refute that, you have to do more than just repeat unsupported denials.
“It isn't hard to put a book into context of reality. You look at the book, then you look out the window.”
So, no one learns anything about life from reading Proust or Maugham? Shakespeare doesn’t tell us anything about human nature? No 12 and 13 year old girls saw Murphy Brown having an illegitimate baby and were given the impression that this was just fine?
If your position were correct, there would be no criteria for distinguishing great literature from tripe.
“And a simple answer to us doing things without examining our reasons: Examine them. God gave you a brain, ask questions with it.”
That may be just fine for an adult with the education and wetware to do it, but it’s asking way, way too much of young skulls full of mush, and even of your average “liberal” or “progressive.”
A lot of people want to think that they are too smart for something like that to happen to them. Same reason people don't want to believe that the MSM has been lying to them for decades: "They couldn't get over on me; I'm too smart for that."
Ain't nobody that smart.