I ask you again, how does something different glorify something different? You’re comparing apples and oranges. Saying Harry Potter glorifies witchcraft is like saying a peach glorifies an apple. Opinion or not, it’s logically preposterous.
Not at all
Since two out of three of the definitions can easily be found in the books and the third you are arguing about with several other users than it is not a far off use of the English language. Oh, and glorifying - making a multi-million dollar movie counts.
umm, except that the “witchcraft” of Harry Potter is not real “witchcraft.” It has nothing to do with communicating or conjuring spirits or trying to acquire power from somewhere other than God.
Any biographical description of her? Here is a link to the text only version of her OFFICIAL WEBSITE, which makes no mention of anything to do with Christianity other than the word Christmas, twice: jkrowling.com/textonly/en/biography.cfm
This makes me question just how much of Tolkien’s works you’ve ACTUALLY read. Did you just stop at the LoTR trilogy? The hobbit? Anything more?
Cultural hubris leading to poor cultural assumption. My atheist cousin has godparents for her children. Every single one of my pagan friends has godparents for all of their children. And if Harry IS baptised and Sirius Black IS a christian Godfather, Sirius fails to ever remind Harry to give any prayer on the subject or have faith that God will help.
Except that Harry is not a Christ figure anywhere approaching the level of Aslan. Harry is fallible, he even commits “unforgiveable” crimes by casting spells which are forbidden. As a Christ figure, Harry is not acceptable.
I’m embarrassed that you’re putting extra symbolism where there is none. I’m guessing you can find symbolism in a can of alphabits soup, though… the scene in King’s Cross bears NOTHING of a Christian message at all, as I’ve already discussed in posts previous.
Hey, you’re the ones saying he chose to die to save his friends. You can’t have it both ways. And the Avada Kedavra is the killing curse, lest you forget. Instead, Harry didn’t die… his “resurrection” is only by a magical loophole…
Go to 1 Cor 15. Read. You will see what I mean by the application being totally different from the way that JK Rowling has used it. 1 Cor 15 deals with the resurrection of ALL of the dead at the end of time. Anyone can look up a verse in the bible that appears to say what they want, parse it out of context, and stick it in. The reality is Rowling’s quote has nothing to do with the section of the Bible that it came from.
My objection is that there is no “natural law” which is separate from or not directly under the command of God. There is no such thing as a loophole by which we conquer evil. An exorcist does not banish demons by “loopholes” or twists of the natural law. He does so ONLY through grace, which transcends and supercedes all natural laws. In Harry’s world, evil can be beaten by relying on the natural law (in this case, one that includes magic). In real life, this ability to conquer evil WITHOUT direct imputation of Grace by God does NOT exist.
I never said Harry Potter books are WITHOUT values, only that they do not agree with Christian values. Furthermore, the idea of sacrifice is not limited to Christianity either. It’s a common theme to all sorts of movies. Is Rambo a Christian allegory because he willingly risks his life to save people? No. Again, you’re taking what is a good moral precept and directly linking it to make Harry Potter something it is not… a Christian allegory.
Again, the use of a bird does not denote a Christ symbol. It’s simply a bird sent by an old (gay) man (who according to you is supposed to be an allegory for God?)
You’re right. Harry lies there and can’t save himself. Finally, we think, here comes a symbol of Christ, and Harry is SAVED! But you’re also wrong. Because the REALITY which the reader is revealed to is that there never was a magical stag, the symbol of Christ was only a spell cast by Harry. What’s the message? He was on his own the whole time and just needed to save himself all along using his own innate abilities.
Oh, I don’t know. Why would it be a bad idea to create the idea of Christ symbols for children where the Christ is portrayed as fallible, often wrong, committing “sinful” acts by using forbidden actions?
As I’ve already said, the fact that something can come out of human imagination in no way justifies that thing. By your logic, Rambo is a Christ symbol. Not every good guy is a good allegory for what Christ is. Just deal with the fact that it’s a FANTASY and should be treated as such. It is NOT a primer on good Christian values.
Wrong. Divine power is through grace and is not innate in any human being. Supernatural power other than divine is through innate abilities of the spirit who responds to the call. They are NOT found in the same place and are not any part of OUR natural constitution.
If you are well enough educated on issues of the Catholic faith, you would clearly recognize that the church teaches that evil IS real and has a real personhood. I refer you to the catechism on this one:
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In this petition, evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God. The devil (dia-bolos) is the one who “throws himself across” God’s plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ. "This is not something which is indicated in the text. No where does it mention that Harry can do magic because he loves God… You have added this in of your own volition. I think it would be a wonderful addition to the book, but alas, it’s not there.
As long as we’re clear as readers that Harry Potter is just a fantasy and that it’s moral values and wordly construct are not accurate to Christian values and wordly understanding, it’s not a problem. It’s when people try to take Harry Potter from something it is (fantasy) to something it is not (primer of Christian values) that we run into severe issues.
Doubtful.
Many of my books are physics/chemistry related… and I’m also a fan of some pretty obscure heretical texts (although I like some of the more mainline ones too, such as “Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah” and “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”)Disagree. A priest does not need to have been married to give marraige advice to couples. A priest does not need to have had sex to give sexual advice to young people. A priest does not need to have committed murder to give moral advice to criminals.
What church did you grow up in? Are you aware that the Catholic church teaches the Divine Command Deontological moral theory? Ethics is a field of Philosophy, and in the case of Divine Command theory, the two are tied in essense to Theology.
Bad? No. Not in keeping with the reality of Good vs Evil in the real world? Yes.
I think I’ve already addressed this, but I’ll reiterate: If you can separate the two from each other in a fantasy novel, then the moral theory posited is automatically out of line with the Divine Command Deontological perspective taught by the Catholic church.
HA HA HA HA HA! Silly woman.
Where is it that Harry gets his power? Is it fundamentally different from where Voldemort gets his power?…trying to acquire power from somewhere other than God.
But it doesn’t glorify witchcraft. There are no real-world occult practices in the novels. It’s fictional, literary, incantational “spellwork” that symbolically undermines the philosophical materialism of our times and inculcates powerful (and good) spiritual lessons into its reader.
Of course. That doesn’t change the fact that Tolkien crafted a whole mythology for his fantasy world, one that is not theologically synonymous with Christian beliefs.
… No. Not an allegory. That’s one of the principal points I’m trying to get across. Allegory is heavy-handed and very limited. Obviously Dumbledore couldn’t be an allegory for Christ, but he often functions as a symbol for our heavenly Father. For instance, he is clearly a God/Father-figure at the climax of Half-Blood Prince as we readers experience it.
That message isn’t there at all. Look at how the Patronus Charm works, at what it is: everything about the mechanics of this fictional spell suggests looking beyond our own power for victory over evil. That’s why Harry’s Patronus takes the form of the animal his father could transform into, and remember that he would be totally unable to cast it if he didn’t have a memory happy enough to generate his Patronus - and the memory he uses is an early one of his parents. Harry’s father does in a very real sense save him in that scene.
That attitude is rationalistic. No one’s going to interpret any character (Albus, Lily, Harry) or creature (Fawkes, unicorn, stag patronus) as a Christ figure when he’s behaving in flawed ways. But that doesn’t change the fact that they do literarily function as Christ figures at key points in the series.
You know, I don’t think I really disagree with you here. Harry Potter is not an allegorical theology textbook, nor am I trying to make it into one. Someone who didn’t know the Christian faith couldn’t learn it from Harry Potter.
Thank youwhispers Pssst… “Lord of the Rings Online”, go check it out some time! Loads of fun, and you actually can be an Elf.
I grew up Catholic. I have never heard that before, what does it mean? Is there something I can read in the catechism about it? Thanks.
It’s not that I’m not aware. It’s the fact that you are completely missing my point. Look when I say you are imposing outside Theology, I am saying that you are basically pitting the laws of one universe against the laws of another. Go back to what I said with the superheroes and the physics nerd. In the Marvel Universe, getting blasted by anything that has “atomic”, “nuclear”, or “radiation” in its label somehow gives you superpowers. In the real world, the physics nerd will tell you you’re more likely to die ugly and painfully, not to mention complain about how fiction doesn’t conform to what he’s studied about actual science. (My answer to that of course would obviously be because it’s FICTION for crying out loud.)
What I’m saying is less about you being correct and more about you crashing the laws of two different universes together and forcing ours upon another (a fictional one, no less).