harry potter

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Is watching harry potter movies ok. just as recreation or a bit of entertainment. or are we supose to not watch such things
 
Some folks have argued that the Harry Potter movies and books entice young people to dabble in the occult and are not spiritually healthy. I don’t agree with this view. I don’t think Harry Potter entices people to dabble in the occult any more than crime novels entice them to dabble in murder. Harry Potter is fantasy and stimulates the imagination. Of course, there may be weak minded people out there who will let their imaginations run wild, but that is hardly the fault of Harry Potter. Watch the movies, read the books, enjoy yourself. Use common sense. Harry Potter and his world are fiction. Enough said.
 
It is fiction. It can be harmless.

It is however creating a bridge to the next step toward the demonic. Some people will get pulled in and some will not.

Anyone that dismisses this aspect of HP is simply untruthful. To be untruthful is to be connected to the father of lies.
 
Samuel63 said:
It is fiction. It can be harmless.

It is however creating a bridge to the next step toward the demonic. Some people will get pulled in and some will not.

Anyone that dismisses this aspect of HP is simply untruthful. To be untruthful is to be connected to the father of lies.
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Well, there you go; a different opinion. Since all of us are sinners, we’re all connected to the father of lies on some level. Fortunately, we have the grace of God to guide us. I’ve read all the Harry Potter novels and I’ve seen the movies. I’ve never been tempted to play games with the demonic. In my opinion, Harry Potter is no more dangerous than the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, or Casper, the Friendly Ghost. If you think it is dangerous for you, don’t read the books or see the movies. Simple as that.
 
jesus4ever said:
Is watching harry potter movies ok. just as recreation or a bit of entertainment. or are we supose to not watch such things
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I agree with the opinions that Harry Potter movies are fine, but would add a caviot… As a parent of a young child I’ve found the latter movies to be a little “heavy” for a 7 year old. She still watches them but never alone. It’s more to do with the violence than demonic issues. I’ve actually found the books and movies to be a good opening to discuss the lure of the occult and the consequences with my 12 year old. These are subjects that probably wouldn’t have come up otherwise and now I feel more secure that when her friends introduce her to Tarot cards and Ouija boards, she’ll be more informed and be able to make better choices than I did as a kid.

Just my 2 cents…

God bless…
 
jesus4ever said:
Is watching harry potter movies ok. just as recreation or a bit of entertainment. or are we supose to not watch such things
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There is nothing wrong with watching the Harry Potter films. I personally don’t like them as films, but whether you choose to watch them or not is strictly a matter for your own prudential judgment.

Also relevant to your personal decision on the matter ought to be the understanding that the “dangers” of Harry Potter are essentially a fiction, the product of hysteria, paranoia, and ignorance of how literary fantasy works. Many of the same charges that can be leveled against Harry Potter can also be brought against Narnia equally effectively.

If, however, you’re asking in the context of younger children, I agree with Mygyl:
Myqyl said:
I agree with the opinions that Harry Potter movies are fine, but would add a caveat… As a parent of a young child I’ve found the latter movies to be a little “heavy” for a 7 year old. It’s more to do with the violence.
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I agree. The later books and movies can be very intense and would probably not be appropriate for younger readers. But everyone develops differently, so there’s no hard and fast rule. Parents just have to make the call for themselves.
Myqyl said:
I’ve actually found the books and movies to be a good opening to discuss the lure of the occult and the consequences with my 12 year old.
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That’s really great! Having read the series, I can definitely see how they would be good for that in light of the theme of the utter spiritual futility of Voldemort’s depraved attempts to conquer death through power and force.
Samuel63 said:
Anyone that dismisses this aspect of HP is simply untruthful.
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Clearly. The mountains of evidence in favor of Harry Potter’s positive moral and spiritual themes count for nothing. :rolleyes:
Barbkw said:
Knowing that full grown adults believe in the occult as a religion, why would one offer the enjoyable tastes of Potter witchcraft to Christian children?

What practices are involved in the religions of the occult:

christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-occult-defn.html

Which occult practices are involved in Harry Potter books and movies:

logosresourcepages.org/OurTimes/potter.htm
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There are no real-world occult practices in the series. That second link is an utter joke - it even lists the made-up “spells” the characters use. Those “spells” are so far from anything real - let alone anything occult - that I must unfortunately conclude that the authors of that page do not have a solid grip on reality.

By the standards of that page, Narnia encourages the occult because Lucy uses a good magician’s spell book in Dawn Treader to cast a spell that “makes visible” things that are invisible.

Thus the charge that “Harry Potter books are the perfect primer for teaching the occult!” is beyond absurd.
 
Barbkw said:
Knowing that full grown adults believe in the **occult **as a religion, why would one offer the enjoyable tastes of Potter **witchcraft **to Christian children?

What practices are involved in the religions of the occult:

christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-occult-defn.html

Which occult practices are involved in Harry Potter books and movies:

logosresourcepages.org/OurTimes/potter.htm
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I think you overestimate the legitimacy of the magic in Harry Potter. It isn’t like he is a Wiccan :rolleyes: It is just another fantasy book. unfortunately it got a lot of bad press from people in the media trying to drum up a bit of hysteria.

I cannot help put wonder how I would feel if I wrote a piece of fiction and people where condemning it and me.

Nobody thinks Harry Potter is real.
 
Enjoy Harry Potter for what it is, a work of fiction. Like others have mentioned, those that are young may need a little guidance from adults when watching Harry Potter or the many other movies that are available.
 
True Story: While waiting for my husband’s Benedictine Oblate meeting at a local Benedictine Abbey, we went into the library to kill some time. Guess who was there? Two Benedictine monks getting ready to watch, guess-what-movie? HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE. This is a highly respected, cloistered abbey, and one of the monks was the Father Prior. If Harry is good enough for the brothers, he is good enough for me.
 
Fone_Bone_2001 said:
What’s to explain? Congratulations, you got hits when you did a search that combines “paganism” and “Potter.”

Narnia has pagan influences, too. Just read Prince Caspian, with Bacchus, Silenus, a river god, astrology, etc…
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Erm… read the footnoted version of the entire Narnia series. The whole thing is a metaphor for biblical events. It was meant by CS Lewis, a VERY prominent Anglican writer, as a primer for Christian teaching to children.

By contrast, Harry Potter’s author has no christian influence whatsoever. Her “morality” is that people can stand against ultimate evil by themselves (they can’t) using their own power (they can’t), and that triumph over evil is somehow based on some sort of rulebook (it’s not). The reality is that humans CANNOT stand against satan without God, that ALL power comes from one of two sources: God or evil, not of ourselves, and that salvation and triumph over evil is by Grace DESPITE the natural law (which God transcends).

All that to say, I don’t have a problem with people who have a well-formed conscience watching or reading Harry Potter. As utter fantasy, they’re rather enjoyable (if you ignore the author’s political gambit of stating that Dumbledore was gay). But I do think that care needs to be taken to educate children properly about these films as well…
 
Harry Potter has nothing to do with the occult. NOTHING. It’s not even a little close to the real occult. In real life, spells don’t have immediate affects, and there’s a lot more to them than speaking one or two words of gibberish and waving a stick around. Real occultists are nothing at all like Harry Potter’s witches and wizards.

It’s as harmless as can be, any concern over it is an overreaction out of ignorance.
 
kbwall said:
Harry Potter has nothing to do with the occult. NOTHING. It’s not even a little close to the real occult. In real life, spells don’t have immediate affects, and there’s a lot more to them than speaking one or two words of gibberish and waving a stick around. Real occultists are nothing at all like Harry Potter’s witches and wizards.

It’s as harmless as can be, any concern over it is an overreaction out of ignorance.
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I’m less concerned about the occult aspect of it than I am by the message that people can defeat and destroy ultimate evil by their own native power with no assistance whatsoever from God. We humans do not have that capability and care should be taken to explain to children that we require God’s grace to be able to stand against sin and Satan.
 
I think that watching the Harry Potter movies is perfectly fine, as long as you accept that they are fictional, and that means that the magic in them is not real. If you just accept them as movies that are designed to entertain you, there’s nothing sinful in watching them.

That being said, I have to admit that, while I love the Harry Potter books, I don’t think the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth movies were that great, although the first, second, and the first half of the seventh were quite well done. I also would say that you should observe the ratings. From the fourth movie and beyond, they are not suitable for young children who might be scared by violence, etc. However, that doesn’t make them inherently evil any more than other PG-13 rated movie is. It simply means that they were designed for an older audience.

Of course, if you haven’t read the books, you’ll probably like the movies more than I did, since you don’t be thinking about how they butchered the books as you watch the movie…

Harry Potter is not some series glorifying the occult. Yes, as a fantasy book series, it is about magic, but I found that the series does a wonderful job of emphasizing the power of love and choice. As a Catholic, I approve of that, just as I approve of J.K. Rowling’s focus on the importance of the soul and a life after death. The books are not as strongly Christian in message as the Chronicles of Narnia or the Lord of the Rings, but they are by no means anti-Christian and some of the Harry Potter themes are definitely compatible with Christianity. I wouldn’t recommend the Harry Potter books or movies as something that would clear your path to salvation the way LOTR or the Chronicles of Narnia might, but, by the same token, I would not call the Harry Potter books or movies sinful. The Harry Potter books and movies were meant to be entertaining, and that’s what they are. There is no crime in that, and if a few morals that are compatible with Christianity are emphasized in them, that is all for the good, as far as I can discern.
 
promethius said:
I’m less concerned about the occult aspect of it than I am by the message that people can defeat and destroy ultimate evil by their own native power with no assistance whatsoever from God. We humans do not have that capability and care should be taken to explain to children that we require God’s grace to be able to stand against sin and Satan.
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It’s not humans taking on ultimate evil though, it’s humans taking on other humans. Voldemort is not a satanic equivelent, he’s basically just wizard Hitler.

Also, practically no movie I’ve seen involves the protagonist praying and wishing the antagonist would go away.
 
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