Warnings about Harry Potter

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estesbob said:
I guess this wouldn’t be a good time to start extolling the virtues of the stories of H.P. Lovecraft?😃
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Yes. We don’t want people to worry just what we mean when we say we are “LURKING” on a thread.
 
YAYYYYY it came out today. I’m seeing it this weekend!!! :extrahappy:

i love the series!
 
faithfully said:
I’m so jealous! No spoilers… but tell us how much you love it… k?
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When do you plan on seeing it?

OH WAIT, its in the IMAX too, i think?

duh! ill just go there instead!!! 😃 Its a little further but im sure my friends can all make it.
 
BlueShadow123 said:
When do you plan on seeing it?

OH WAIT, its in the IMAX too, i think?

duh! ill just go there instead!!! 😃 Its a little further but im sure my friends can all make it.
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Hopefully in the next few weeks. I’m sure it’s at an IMAX. I’ll be happy to just get to a regular movie… (you’ve got to consider where all the babysitting $$ is spent… LOL!)
 
What’s amazing is that almost any comment might be serious. On a forum where premarital kissing is a sin, why would anyone be surprised that hands are wrung raw over a kid’s movie?
 
BlueShadow123 said:
When do you plan on seeing it?

OH WAIT, its in the IMAX too, i think?

duh! ill just go there instead!!! 😃 Its a little further but im sure my friends can all make it.
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It IS in IMAX! Sadly, though, I will have to see it on the regular screen this sunday. No spoilers! I mean, I’ve read the books and all, but I don’t wanna know what they put in the movie and how they did it!
 
John_of_Woking said:
I think when CS Lewis and JR Tolkien were penning their works Britain was more rooted in Christian tradition.
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Regardless of the spirit of the times here in 2010, the English literary tradition itself is very Christian, and that is the tradition in which Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series. The works of critic John Granger have painstakingly and thoroughly documented this fact.

Collectively and individually, the novels’ plot structure, character development, imagery, and symbolism are all unmistakably Christian both implicitly and - especially later on - rather explicitly. In particular, no one who hasn’t been living under a rock for the last two thousand years of western civilization can possibly miss how blatant the Christian elements in the last novel (Deathly Hallows) are.

A Christ figure saves the day in the climax of each work. The end of Chamber of Secrets is a medieval morality play. Every book features both thematically and in its plot a journey from self-sacrificial spiritual death to resurrection and new life. Other examples abound, enough for authors like Granger to have published four or five books analyzing them.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows quotes the New Testament twice: Matthew 6:19 and 1 Corinthians 15:26.

And the magic resembles real-world occult practices the way the exploits of Joyce’s protagonist in Ulysses resemble the wars of ancient Greek epics.
John_of_Woking said:
I think the problem now is that kids are growing up with zero religious (name removed by moderator)ut. They are living in a relativist, moral vacuum. They are avidly searching to sate their spiritual appetite with whatever presents itself to them.
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Then we need to get them to read Harry Potter - fast. It will ingrain in them a deep sense of the chasm between right and wrong and an appreciation for the value of self-sacrifice which will prepare their souls to accept Christ’s challenge to take up their cross.
John_of_Woking said:
I know in the USA there is still a strong Christian bulwark but over here a lot of children are really easily influenced…I remember here in Britain the pagan federation really did experience a massive increase in interest as a result of the HP phenomenon. Harry Potter really did spark a wave of interest in Wicca.
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(a) I doubt that. The statistics behind such perceptions have proven spurious in the past, and it’s literally more likely that The Chroncles of Narnia would lead someone to occult magic than Harry Potter. The latter doesn’t even have invocational sorcery in it, whereas the former does mention it (though it always unequivocally condemns it).

(b) Every real-world practitioner of Wicca, witchcraft, or occult practices laughs when asked whether Harry Potter resembles what they do. There was even one on this thread a few pages back.

(c) Ordinary humans can’t even do any magic whatsoever in Harry Potter anyway.
John_of_Woking said:
Now I am sure all the good people here on CAF can read these stories and watch these films and extrapolate some moral virtue here and there. I am sure children in Christian families are quite rooted in the Truth to remain unaffected but the reality is for most people Harry Potter is their first introduction to anything vaguely preternatural/supernatural etc and they seem to be turning to Wicca rather than Christ as a result…I think this is what the exorcist was referring to…
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If so, then he was gravely mistaken. Harry Potter is loaded with praise of solid virtue, powerful portrayals of the ugliness of vice, the heroism and efficacy of self-sacrifice, and impossible-to-miss Christian imagery and plot structures.

In another Harry Potter thread on this forum, someone described how the series helped bring them back to Christ and the Church,

and in a documentary produced after Deathly Hallows came out, Rowling even found it necessary to clarify that she wasn’t intending to proselytize for Christianity with her novels.
takers said:
May I also through out the book titled “Finding God in Harry Potter” by John Granger.
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Yes, that’s a great book. But the book has been updated for the whole series, since its first edition came out when there were only four or five Harry Potter novels.

The title of the most up-to-date edition is How Harry Cast His Spell. I highly recommend it for anyone who doubts that Harry Potter can be anything but extraordinarily beneficial to a child whose spiritual faculties are still developing.
estesbob said:
I guess this wouldn’t be a good time to start extolling the virtues of the stories of H.P. Lovecraft?😃
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Oh, please do! That’d be hilarious to watch unfold. 🍿
 
tigerick100 said:
HELLO OUT THERE!!! HAVE YOU NOT READ THEE ABOVE!!!

IF YOUR GOING TO READ ANYTHING…READ THE BIBLE…NOT ONCE BUT 7 TIMES 70!!!

:amen::amen:
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I only read Sacred Scripture when I need reference for defending Tradition and Christian virtue.

I don’t use it for pleasure reading. :rolleyes: I’m not into Middle-Eastern literature. :rolleyes:

Strange. It’s actually stuff like Pollyanna that made me decide that I would never, ever, write anything aimed towards children. If you were to take any of my stories and say, “Could you tame it down so that it’s suitable for young ones?” Well then congratulations, you have just unknowingly given the biggest insult to me and my work.
 
Yes, I have read some of the detailed responses to my posts and they seem to be cogently argued.
I freely admit that I perhaps am a bit overly cautious when it comes to popular media/entertainment…I guess I am possessive in making sure my family don’t succumb to any of the new age/pagan practices because there is no doubt in my mind that the devil is only too keen to look for opportunities to introduce himself through what ever means possible.

I guess reading Bellarmine’s “pains of the damned” only exarcebates my anxiety when I get a taste of my possible destiny :p.

Anyway Any more scary pictures? Do your worst! 😃

Joke :o

Peace and oremus pro invicem (+)
 
Why all the fuss about Harry Potter?I took my kids to see one of the movies and though I found it so boring I fell asleep they enjoyed it very much.

It is just another fantasy like the tooth fairy,Santa claus(not st nicholas but the imaginary fat guy who arrives through the chimney) Easter bunny and such.

Of course none of these characters practice magic of any sort while there are many who really do practice something called luciferian magick.
 
John_of_Woking said:
Yes, I have read some of the detailed responses to my posts and they seem to be cogently argued.
I freely admit that I perhaps am a bit overly cautious when it comes to popular media/entertainment…I guess I am possessive in making sure my family don’t succumb to any of the new age/pagan practices because there is no doubt in my mind that the devil is only too keen to look for opportunities to introduce himself through what ever means possible.
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Personally–I don’t have a problem with the “overly cautious” approach to popular media/entertainment … as long as you’re working from a “for me and mine, the rule is …” approach rather than suggesting that your rule ought to be the rule for everyone and that there’s something wrong with the approach of those who draw the line in different places when the particular subject is one on which agreement is not necessary. In arguing “for Harry Potter fiction” I am not trying to say that anyone who excludes those novels from his own children’s library (or his own, since there are plenty of adults who find the books enjoyable) is wrong–although I will criticize exclusion on the basis of false reasons (the misrepresentations and even outright lies about the content of the novels or the “Pope Benedict condemns …” misrepresentation; but then I’m also critical of the “Vatican approves …” line because I believe that’s a misrepresentation as well). There is simply no official position of the Church regarding this particular fiction (nor do I think there should be).

There are too many books out there for any one person to read them all, so exclusions have to be made on the basis of genre, subject matter and treatment of the same, and the personal interests of a given reader (and when the reader is a child, the parent should be involved in the exclusion-making except for the personal interest element because I do think it’d be wrong to exclude something from a child’s reading list for no other reason than that the subject isn’t of interest to the parent but the child is interested in … oh, let’s say sci-fi adventure and the parent finds sci-fi adventure less interesting than watching paint dry–which isn’t to say that there might not be reasons to exclude particular examples of sci-fi adventure).
 
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