Is it wrong if it's a made up story?

[jesusismyrock]

I have since the time of it coming out fought with several people over the Harry Potter books. Especially now that the series has ended and good conquered evil, the books have helped me through my teenage years of coping with my own day to day problems and it isn’t based on a true story. Is there really something wrong with reading these kinds of books or seeing these movies? Why or Why Not?

Another series would be the Stephanie Meyer books (Twilight,New Moon, and Eclipse) These books are different though because they are about vampires and are not of God therefore being evil.

Just wondering, I struggle with many people on these particular things.

 

[Simon_X]

Just my opinion, but my wife and I have taken our kids to the Potter movies and also have purchased the books. I look at them as fantasy, not real. The message is good over evil. I guess I ve never tried to read too much into these stories anymore than that…hope it helps…

 

[jesusismyrock]

Thanks for your opinion! I look at them as fantasy too and they wouldn’t be worth reading or the most popular books in the world if the Evil conquered the world. Each time good conquers the Evil.

 

[Catholic90]

I think the HP series is a wonderful thing! Good beats Evil, the value of friendship is clear, and loyalty and faithfulness win! It’s great!

My oldest was in first grade when it first came out. That first book became our special reading time together over summer for me and my boys. When the next book came out, they wanted me to read it out loud again. The same with the third. And the fourth. The fifth…the sixth… and guess, even the 7th! My oldest 2 were starting high school and they still wanted MOM to read the book to them!

So, I have the great Harry Potter series to thank for creating a lasting memory of Mom reading a great series to her boys! (of course, we read many other book when they were younger, as well, but NOTHING created the memory like this series did!)

(And guess what?!? Not one of them has ever thought the magic was real!)

 

[strngrnrth]

Mixed feelings.
I remember as a child reading The Secret Garden and other children’s books where a spell was just a small part of a story about good values – and rereading the passages about spells and trying to do them. I got way into the occult in my teens and twenties.
But then, it’s obvious most kids benefit from the Narnia books and the Tolkien Books, and from good (non-Disnified) fairy stories. So it depends on the kid, I guess. I probably would have found some way to become fascinated by the occult anyway.

Actually, the majority of what I even know about Harry Potter is from a book called Harry Potter and the Bible, about how bad the HP books are. The main point of that book was that Harry was naughty, saucy and sometimes mean but still was portrayed as basically good and triumphant whereas the bad guy had to be nightmarishly bad to be a bad guy. The author also felt most kids’ minds were too sensitive to cope with the portayals of graphic ugliness. The second point seems valid to me. Maybe a lot of the readers are too young to read some of it. It’s hard for young people now to understand how different growing up feels when you aren’t crammed with scary information and images all the time. I know, I experienced childhood both ways.
But I have been told that Harry as an imperfect, growing good guy is very much in keeping with the type of learning, growing hero in most folktales and fairy tales, and in Tolkien and Lewis.

 

[Catholic90]

Actually, the majority of what I even know about Harry Potter is from a book called Harry Potter and the Bible, about how bad the HP books are. The main point of that book was that Harry was naughty, saucy and sometimes mean but still was portrayed as basically good and triumphant whereas the bad guy had to be nightmarishly bad to be a bad guy. The author also felt most kids’ minds were too sensitive to cope with the portayals of graphic ugliness. The second point seems valid to me. Maybe a lot of the readers are too young to read some of it. It’s hard for young people now to understand how different growing up feels when you aren’t crammed with scary information and images all the time. I know, I experienced childhood both ways.
But I have been told that Harry as an imperfect, growing good guy is very much in keeping with the type of learning, growing hero in most folktales and fairy tales, and in Tolkien and Lewis.

First I have to say that I NEVER take anything seriously about Harry Potter from people who have never even read the books.
Second, if you HAD read the books, you would know that the statement in blue is blatently untrue.
Third, read the books and MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND!

 

[jesusismyrock]

I have read the books and don’t have any problems with reading them, I was just wondering about other peoples opinions. I know that there was nothing that Harry Potter did unless it was out of self defense and all the other things that went on in the books. I cannot stand the movies because I feel like all of them should have been made atleast 5-6 hrs long and nobody bothers to take the time to do that even though it was make the movies 1 million times better. I have read all of the books several times and enjoy them thoroughly. So I have read the books and formed my own opinion. Thank You.

 

[strngrnrth]

First I have to say that I NEVER take anything seriously about Harry Potter from people who have never even read the books.
Second, if you HAD read the books, you would know that the statement in blue is blatently untrue.
Third, read the books and MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND!

I would but there are seven (right?) and I’m approximately interested enough to read a Cliffs Notes version or maybe a Reader’s DIgest version someday. The analysis I looked at had a lot of longish excerpts and plot summaries, or I’d never have considered it anything to go on. The number of books I’d have read if I had nothing else to do outpaces the number I get around to by far. The Book Club forum makes that painfully clear to me very often.
Anyway, the excerpts I did read suggest he really did start out kind of sassy, but perhaps his living situation made that hard to avoid.

 

[surfinpure]

It sounds like what you’re actually asking is, Is it wrong to read, enjoy, or learn from a work of fiction? Absolutely not!! Some of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and G.K. Chesterton wrote wonderful works of fiction and taught a great many important lessons along the way. I have read the entire Harry Potter series several times and can say firmly that the work is redemptive and uplifting, taken as a whole. I plan to read it to my own children when they are mature enough.

Read and enjoy, friend. Remember, even Jesus told parables to teach.

 

[rusty20]

Harry Potter, specifically, does not appear problematic to me. I’ve read all 7 books. JK Rowling writes a fantastic story, and the themes are good. My dad never liked the books. He seemed to think they were condemned by the church or something (they’re not, right?). The books promote good over evil. The books do have many dark sections, especially this last one. The ending is familiar to any Christian (hint hint). A lot of fiction (especially Marvel comic books) have one thing in common. I think there is an innate desire for something greater than this world. These books are just one person’s depiction of a higher being or a higher world. Not heaven, of course, but I think they show that we really are made for something higher. So long as these books are ont treated as a religion and people are realistic about the Harry Potter ‘universe,’ I see no problems…

 

[BlaineTog]

I have since the time of it coming out fought with several people over the Harry Potter books. Especially now that the series has ended and good conquered evil, the books have helped me through my teenage years of coping with my own day to day problems and it isn’t based on a true story. Is there really something wrong with reading these kinds of books or seeing these movies? Why or Why Not?

Absolutely not. Reading is just reading. It isn’t sinful unless it’s a) a near occasion to sin, like erotica, and b) you know this. Even then, what a “near occasion to sin” is has a large degree of subjectivity. Some people would find books with any sort of sinful behavior as desensitizing them to horrors and making them seem ok whereas others might use them as a way of breaking the act of sin down in a more clearly delineated arena.

In the case of the Harry Potter books, they clearly aren’t trying to depict what magic would be in the real world (it would actually y’know, make sense, one would think), so I really don’t see any way in which reading them could be considered sinful. Other than as a sin against literature, I suppose (kidding, kidding, only kinda, but kidding ).