On Dangerous Reading

[Lost_Wanderer]

If he really and truly believed this, he would also have to prohibit Christians from reading the lives of the Patriarchs and other biblical saints, as well as the lives of many other saints since. For these heroes and heroines of the faith are not presented to us in the scriptures and vitae solely as examples of virtues such as courage and generosity. Their egregious sins are also depicted. We do admire the Prophet King David in spite of his crimes.

Speaking of the Patriarchs, I really can’t help my fascination with the likes of Jacob. He not only stole his brother’s inheritance but ended up with two wives and then had his way with their maidservants as well. Would we still have the Twelve Tribes (and to an extent, Christianity at all) if that didn’t happen? You might even say the man’s harem was a necessary evil.

 

[RPRPsych]

Please stop twisting your conversion story as if it somehow justifies and substitutes for the articles’ lack of reasoning (and yours). You may claim to have been in denial but the likes of ‘ex-gay’ ministers, ‘ex-Catholics’, ‘ex-TV watchers’ all have said the same thing when the truth was they’re just using their status as a former something to draw attention and never really admitting that they just weren’t cut out for the label.

Also, what would he say to a counter-example?

HAH! I’m not shy of critiquing the likes of Alphonsus. The man reads like those who burned my own national hero’s novels because they deemed them spiritually poisonous. Religion and moralist censorship. Yeah that combination really won us some historical credentials on integrity. What can you do? Saints are only human after all.

Without wishing to go that far, St. Alphonsus must be read (like every other writer) in the context of his culture and the meaning of the original text; he is not infallible. The very first paragraph speaks of “religious”, meaning that the work is probably addressed to those who are called to higher things (contemplatives / members of religious orders) and not to all men and women; similarly, the example of St. Jerome in the last paragraph is exceptional, because St. Jerome was called by God to translate the Bible and be an apologist, something which is not given to all of us.

And now, if the OP will excuse me, I’m off to continue writing a story of what he would consider “worldly love”, because I don’t know if the word “allegory” exists in his dictionary. (And wouldn’t a dictionary count as a bad book, too? All those unwholesome words! It even has an entry on Calvinism! God forbid!)

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Just because I read Sherlock Holmes stories does not make me want to become a detective and smoke opiates. Reading Edgar Allen Poe does not make me commit murders or attracted to necrophilia. Reading Stephen King does not make me want to conjure up demons. Reading Ray Bradbury does not make me light my books on fire.
IMHO a well balanced person should have nothing to fear from reading fiction. (although I do agree that parents should guide their children in what is appropriate for them to read)

That is an excellent perspective. I watched the DaVinci Code for entertainment purposes, knowing full well it was a fictional (and untrue) account of Christ’s past and the Church. So true with other movies and books. One has to carefully discern between truth and falsity in film and print. Be entertained, but always focus on truth.

 

[agnes_therese]

For the former, all I can say is that I have suffered every negative effect, to some degree, of novel reading that the author talks about. Before my conversion, I would have vehemently denied that fiction was affecting me in that way, but looking back, the effects are, as the author put it, as direct and palpable as the effects of drunkenness. That’s why the article makes so much sense to me.

Hon, only you can determine what harm you’ve suffered. If this is indeed the case, then you are absolutely correct to avoid fiction – for yourself. I’m just very sorry for you that you have to miss out on the rich experiences to be found there.

But you have to understand – in my experience,and obviously that of many others here, you are the exception, not the rule.

 

[mathematoons]

Hon, only you can determine what harm you’ve suffered. If this is indeed the case, then you are absolutely correct to avoid fiction – for yourself. I’m just very sorry for you that you have to miss out on the rich experiences to be found there.

But you have to understand – in my experience,and obviously that of many others here, you are the exception, not the rule.

But here’s the thing. When I was so into fiction, I would have said the same thing as you.

How can you (not just you personally, but everyone responding) know for sure that fiction isn’t affecting you the same way it affected me?

Also, what do we miss when we quit fiction? Some people are saying reality is bad; I thought that way until I found that a relationship with God is far better than anything people can think up. Why fantasize about going to the stars when you can actually go to the One who made the stars?

 

[edward_george]

But here’s the thing. When I was so into fiction, I would have said the same thing as you.

How can you (not just you personally, but everyone responding) know for sure that fiction isn’t affecting you the same way it affected me?

Also, what do we miss when we quit fiction? Some people are saying reality is bad; I thought that way until I found that a relationship with God is far better than anything people can think up. Why fantasize about going to the stars when you can actually go to the One who made the stars?

I would say that reality certainly is good, since it was created by God. And we have obscured the goodness of it through our fallenness and sin. So fiction helps us imagine things that are not, even a world which is not obscured by darkness. And this imagination can give us hope. Some might call it escapism, and it is if you cannot tell the difference between reality and fiction. But oftentimes fiction is more true than reality, because it shows forth the hope that only God can give us.

-ACEGC

 

[edward_george]

Keep in mind that creativity and imagination are quite natural to us since we are made in the image and likeness of God. To be in the image and likeness of God means to share in his rationality and his creative nature. So when we imagine, when we create images, we are simply acting in a way consonant with how God creates–things take on reality when we imagine them; even if they do not have an extra-mental existence, they still exist in some sense. If those intra-mental images were somehow realized in some other way, then we can give them existence outside of the mind. Thoughts become words, words become actions, so goes the old saying, and this is imminently true. Whether we create a story or a box or a clay pot or a child, we conceive of things in our minds (notice how we use that word both to refer to a concept of the mind and a conception of another human being, because they are rooted in the same creative desire, natural to our beings, and are both degrees of the same thing), we desire to create because we were created in the image of the Creator. To create fiction is just a degree of sharing in God’s image and likeness.

-ACEGC

 

[Fairwinds]

We often talk about how violence in movies, television, and video games desensitizes us to real violence. When I think about it, it seems to follow logically that imaginary distress must similarly desensitize us to real distress. As least when we read about distress in the news, we can pray for the people involved.

you know yourself best, so in your case in might well be true.

however, “imaginary distress” from video games, movies, TV, plays or musicals hasn’t desensitized me or any adult I know to real distress. I think what you call logic is really just your own assumptions and personal fears.

but just to be safe, you won’t want to be reading Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Chaucer. get rid of Gone With The Wind and Lord of the Rings.. much violence in these. don’t read Joshua or Judges, if you accept them as literal fact.

F/

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

How can you (not just you personally, but everyone responding) know for sure that fiction isn’t affecting you the same way it affected me?

Because I for one have been affected by reality’s disappointments more than I have with my little flights of fantasy. You also speak of the mundane as if it was the equivalent of God (and even your current description of religious alternatives are infested with the notion that bland religious activity is somehow superior when it is only different).

Also, what do we miss when we quit fiction? Some people are saying reality is bad;

Well frankly you sound like you haven’t tasted it quite bitterly enough. And no, you do not need some life-changing trauma for that either.

I thought that way until I found that a relationship with God is far better than anything people can think up. Why fantasize about going to the stars when you can actually go to the One who made the stars?

I’m paraphrasing a cartoon character when I say this: “You think I like hanging up there with a buncha high-pitched, singing Santa Clauses?”

Oh and of course there are songs like this that also express similar sentiments. You think that just because this is fiction, it doesn’t count? Guess again. I’ve read plenty of the same religious material you have (courtesy of my very activity on this site). Your theological descriptions of Beatific visions, spiritual experiences, and God knows what else you people concoct to describe your drab alternative only serves to alienate and bore. My own reactions to it are no more different. If you fail to grasp why such things just doesn’t suit our tastes and deem it somehow mandatory to the faith (which it isn’t), then only it makes one thing clear:

You NEVER really steeped yourself.

 

[heavymetallover]

If reading fiction is bad, then is writing fiction? If so, then I’m in big trouble. It’s my aspiration to be a writer. And of fiction too!!!
Just a question: Jesus tells us we at to use our gifts. I feel that my gift is to write. What am I supposed to write if I can’t write fiction???

 

[agnes_therese]

But here’s the thing. When I was so into fiction, I would have said the same thing as you.

How can you (not just you personally, but everyone responding) know for sure that fiction isn’t affecting you the same way it affected me?

Also, what do we miss when we quit fiction? Some people are saying reality is bad; I thought that way until I found that a relationship with God is far better than anything people can think up. Why fantasize about going to the stars when you can actually go to the One who made the stars?

Just because something affects you badly, doesn’t mean it does the same to everyone else. If you’d like to provide some proof I’ve been negatively affected by fiction, please do so. Otherwise, I will follow my conscience just as you follow yours.

 

[mathematoons]

Apparently St. Augustine thought non-Christian books were bad for everyone:

To instruct children from pagan books is not only to teach them useless things, it is to take them from God, and sacrifice them to the Demon. What are all these things but wind and smoke?

Lost Wanderer: everything you say is so anti-faith that I’m not going to dignify it with a response.

 

[aspirant]

Apparently St. Augustine thought non-Christian books were bad for everyone

That might be a more plausible claim if Augustine was not a saint thoroughly steeped in pagan literature and a philosophical Platonist.

What does this have to do with fiction?

 

[fbl9]

Apparently St. Augustine thought non-Christian books were bad for everyone:

Lost Wanderer: everything you say is so anti-faith that I’m not going to dignify it with a response.

your quote from St. Augustine didn’t copy.
This might apply if one was instructing their children in the ways of paganism.
Does this mean one is turning their child over to demons when instructing them in math using a fictional problem?

 

[Daizies]

Apparently St. Augustine thought non-Christian books were bad for everyone:

To instruct children from pagan books is not only to teach them useless things, it is to take them from God, and sacrifice them to the Demon. What are all these things but wind and smoke?

The thing is, this quote is pretty much useless without a broader context. What specifically did he consider to be pagan books? It is also not clear if here is meant fiction, non-fiction or both. Then we have the problem of extrapolating to modern literature. Is there some sort of objective measure by which we can determine what would be a pagan book? If we use the measure of Non-Christian, then, as fbl9 suggested, we run into the problem of condemning math textbooks as pagan.

 

[aspirant]

The thing is, this quote is pretty much useless without a broader context.

Yes. And such an understanding should take into account, I think, both what was said in the original document and in the broader context of his life.

What specifically did he consider to be pagan books?

In passages such as this, he appears to be talking about classical education in subjects such as rhetoric, which among Latin speakers at that time was based largely on writers such as Cicero. Augustine has some very mixed things to say about Cicero-- sometimes that reading Cicero raised his mind to God and the desire for God’s truth, other times that being familiar with Cicero’s majestic style made it difficult for him to appreciate Christian scripture (which he read in translations that wouldn’t have similar linguistic merits).

It is also not clear if here is meant fiction, non-fiction or both.

Both, I think. Like I said above, he presents Cicero as both a negative and a positive influence in his life. The same would be true of pagan fiction. If I remember correctly, Augustine has some very negative things to say about Virgil’s Aeneid in the Confessions, yet at the same time the Augustine’s Confessions owe much to Virgil’s Aeneid– so much so that at least one person has called Augustine’s Confessions “a recapitulation of Vergilian epic in a Christian universe.”

Whatever one thinks of Augustine’s mixed feelings and experiences with pagan literature, being totally immersed in pagan literature did not at all prevent him from becoming a saint.

Is there some sort of objective measure by which we can determine what would be a pagan book?

In the case of Augustine, “pagan” meant people who worshipped gods other than God, people such as Virgil.

 

[RedFox0456]

The Lord of the Rings has some amazing Catholic themes in it (EWTN even aired a special on it), so I can’t believe that all fiction is bad.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Lost Wanderer: everything you say is so anti-faith that I’m not going to dignify it with a response.

Translated: I got nuthing so I’m gonna troll. TROLOLOLOLOLOOOOL!

Don’t flatter yourself. Your responses to everyone else has been anything but dignifying.

P.S.

Sad to say, even Catholic universities disobey the oh so infallible St. Alphonsus. (I studied Greek mythology as a requirement. gasps ) Go ahead and call me faithless. By your definition of what the faith is, I’ll take it as a compliment.

 

[aspirant]

What I want to know is this: Is it being suggested that Blessed John Paul II was advocating sin when he encouraged imaginative artists? Are his own works of poetic fiction evil?

 

[mathematoons]

'These are those who would not think of failing to hear Holy Mass every day, and, at the same time, will not deprive themselves of the satisfaction it affords them to attend the theatres, **although the Church has always regarded these as pernicious, considering the ordinary sort of entertainment therein presented. **

Again there are those who sometimes read books of piety, and afterwards pass the night in reading novels filled with the venom of bitterness of falsehood and immorality.

This caused Gerson, one of the most famous lights of the University of Paris, to say, of a novel writer, that if he knew him to have died without doing penance for his sin, he (Gerson) would think no more of praying to God for that man’s soul, than he would think of praying for Judas.’

St. Jean Eudes

I think the saints are in a very good position to tell us what is good and bad. The people who know me the best are in the best position to tell others what I think, so it follows that the people who know God the best are in the best position to tell us what He thinks.

But people seem to think I’m against all entertainment. I’m not. Consider this quote:

We must need occasionally to relax the mind, and the body requires some recreation also. Cassian relates how Saint John the Evangelist was found by a certain hunter amusing himself by caressing a partridge, which sat upon his wrist. The hunter asked how a man of his mental powers could find time for so trifling an occupation. In reply, Saint John asked why he did not always carry his bow strung? The man answered, Because, if always bent, the bow would lose it’s spring when really wanted. “Do not marvel then”, the Apostle replied, “if I slacken my mental efforts from time to time, and recreate myself, in order to return more vigorously to contemplation.” It is a great mistake to be so strict as to grudge any recreation either to others or one’s self.

St. Francis de Sales

No, it’s just fiction I’m talking about in this thread. With the dangers quoted in the original post, it does us good to ask ourselves what we lose if we give up fiction. Would we miss any specific work of fiction if it didn’t exist? Such a loss would be imaginary, not real; after all, we don’t miss the works Mozart would have composed if he hadn’t died at 35 (except for diehard Mozart fans).

Some are saying fiction is not sin. But neither is smoking. That doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

Translated: I got nuthing so I’m gonna troll. TROLOLOLOLOLOOOOL!

Don’t flatter yourself. Your responses to everyone else has been anything but dignifying.

P.S.

Sad to say, even Catholic universities disobey the oh so infallible St. Alphonsus. (I studied Greek mythology as a requirement. gasps ) Go ahead and call me faithless. By your definition of what the faith is, I’ll take it as a compliment.

I think I’m just going to let your hostile words speak for themselves.