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coolcatholicguy
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Movies or books like Harry Potter and Twilight, any book or movie with pornography in it, etc…
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Orleans_Attny
Guest
Depending on your purpose and intent, of course it’s possible.
Pax,
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Pax,
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Catholic90
Guest
The Harry Potter series is fun. Have not read or seen the Twilight series.
You will probably want to stay away from porn…
Read some good classics. Aenid by Vergil for starters!
You will probably want to stay away from porn…
Read some good classics. Aenid by Vergil for starters!
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phoenixrrt62
Guest
Hum. Seeing as you are a guy-I’d venture to say that reading anything to do with Twilight would be a crime because of the horrendous writing-but, hey, that’s just my humble opinion.
Now porn? Hum. Yeah. That might not be wise. If’n I saw a porn mag in my son’s room, I may have to speak to him about the ‘why’ of it…
(my son is 13, btw)
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wjp984
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Don’t start this again; even the Vatican came out with some support for the last Harry Potter movie because it clearly portrays good and evil.
The short answer is if there is a movie/book that leads you personally to sin (if for whatever crazy obscure reason, Harry Potter leads you to occult) then you should avoid it.
Porn for the sole purpose of porn should be avoided in both movies and books; for the rest of the movies/books that are not strictly for pornographic purposes; see above.
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LilyM
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There are legitimate reasons to watch or read most anything - there are people who work as film censors, book reviewers etc who may have to do so for work purposes.
And yes, there are grey areas too. Books like the Harry Potter series can teach moral lessons to youngsters in a way that is palatable for them. I believe the ‘Bella’ character in Twilight is a girl who is committed to staying a virgin until marriage, so there’s something useful teens can get out of that series.
And yes, there are grey areas too. Books like the Harry Potter series can teach moral lessons to youngsters in a way that is palatable for them. I believe the ‘Bella’ character in Twilight is a girl who is committed to staying a virgin until marriage, so there’s something useful teens can get out of that series.
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Suni_Moon
Guest
I was going to write a legitimate response here… Then I saw the username and thought “oh, you again.”
I really don’t know if you’re pulling our leg, or if you seriously need help with your apparent issues.
I really don’t know if you’re pulling our leg, or if you seriously need help with your apparent issues.
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twoangels
Guest
Watching pornography is always sinful. Reading adult romance novels can be sinful for women (granted, love stories like Pride and Prejudice, etc are not sinful to read. Its the trashy romance novels with explicit sexual content). Those are the two clear cut things that exist primarily because our culture right now is obsessed with sex.
Beyond that its important to understand how what you read and watch affects you. Is it stirring up sinful passions? It is training you to dehumanize people? Is it desenitizing you to violence? The other thing to look at is how much time you’re spending on these passive activities of entertainment. Are you neglecting other things? Do you watch so much TV that its leading you to draw conclusions about the real world? I think its a sad thing that most kids struggle to spit back history and stuff they’ve learned in school, but when you ask them about pop-culture, they know exactly what you’re talking about.
In regards to Harry Potter and Twilight, I would say that the fandom for both are a bit crazy. However you can find that sort of crazy fandom among fans of Star Wars and Star Trek as well. I’d say avoid the crazy fandom. Harry Potter as a series of books are very entertaining and even have good moral content in them. However, it is wrong to consider all the books children’s books. JK Rowling really let the characters develope in very human ways. As her characters age and mature, they deal with things that may not be suitable for younger readers. They almost don’t fit in any typical section of the library or book store. I would say Harry’s 7th year is not an appropriate book for 9 year olds to be reading. But the series itself is very entertaining for adults to read and a lot more wholesome than most adult reading and even most books in the young adult section.
With Twilight, I’ve read the first book and have heard a lot of things about the rest of the books. I know the basic content in the books. I think it is legimate to say that the story involves a girl whose love obsession with a vampire is romanticized and put in a positive light even though the relationship is actually damaging to her. She sinks into a horrible depression when he breaks up with her, and from what I heard, once they get married in the last book, the sexual content gets very descriptive and overall its rather violent because of his strength. My sister was rather disturbed about the last book especially since Bella becomes pregnant with a half human/half vampire who eventually eats her way out of her mother causing the vampire to finally follow through with a decision over whether to save Bella’s life by turning her into a vampire or to allow Bella to die. And then stupidly the whole love triangle thing is solved as Bella’s daughter ages very quickly and she and Bella’s other love interest fall in love.
The stories i think are actually very poorly written, and overall I think Stephanie Meyer is using the vampire as an analogy for abstainence. Because of this, there seems nothing truly sinister about ending up married to the vampire and becoming a vampire. Its much more that the timing is off, Bella is young and she and the vampire have to resist urges that would end up seriously harming Bella. Its sort of a poor analogy.
In traditional vampire books, there is a dangerous lure the vampire has even on the reader, but throughout the state of being a vampire isn’t dismissed. I mean, I think there are plenty of good stories about vampires fighting against their nature as well, and striving to even love the women they love, but typically they have the drive to strive to become human and overall have to find redemption of their own. In Twilight, the vampires in question have conquered most of their nature, only drink animal blood and fight against those who still want to go after humans. Its something that overall can be controled, and it seems any feelings the vampires have about their vampirism is just old guilt given to them from previous generations but overall not true. What I find strange is that bad things do happen to Bella, but its written in a way that excuses it. The reader just wants Bella and Edward together and empathizes with Bella’s constant request for Edward to turn her into a vampire so that she can always be with him and not have to deal with growing old while he stays forever young.
As such, the main criticism of it is that its a really poor analogy for sexual abstainence and that it may lead young girls to stay in abusive relationships because just like Edward can’t help himself from hurting Bella sometimes, well maybe men can’t help themselves from hurting women. And honestly, most fans of the books that I know were completely disappointed in the last book and almost now say that the entire series lead them down a false road where now they make fun of the books and the movies. Its not all Twilight fans, but I see it in a lot of Twilight fans.
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coolcatholicguy
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I am sincere.
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wjp984
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Thanks for summing Twilight up; that sounds like one of the most ridiculous and stupid stories I’ve ever heard of. I am so glad I’ve never read one of the books or been forced ot see one of the movies.
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LilyM
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I wouldn’t be so quick to say this.
Many a priest, in the course of (for example) working for the Inquisition or the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, or working on the so-called Index of Forbidden Books, would have to read and analyse a heck of a lot of sinful material. Including pornographic - some descriptions of people selling their souls to the devil involve a great deal of graphic sexual content, after all. This had to be done in order to determine whether the works were sinful or heretical (and the authors should be punished or the work placed on the Index) or not.
For an ordinary layperson to read these works on their own would indeed be wrong, at least once they HAD been determined by Church authorities to be inappropriate. However it wasn’t wrong for these clerical workers - someone at some stage has to read this material in order to determine which works should be condemned/banned or restricted.
Same logic applies to film censors - many films contain sex scenes, some are deemed permissible for public distribution, provided they are labelled appropriately, some are not and must be restricted to adult stores/theatres. Some are so awful they must be banned outright. Someone MUST watch each and every film proposed to be distributed in order to determine which category it falls into.
It’s not a sin to take part in this work, it’s a public service. And I for one would rather it were devout Catholics who did this - at least they would be conscientious about how much content they approved.
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