What do you think about Harry Potter?

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Have you been reading The Screwtape Letters lately? 😉

Eamon
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Actually, I should probably reread “The Screwtape Letters”… it’s been a while… Of course, while I consider Lewis to be a fair writer, it’s also pretty apparent that he was struggling with latent pedophilic tendancies, and I have a hard time with that. He was also a bit pompous… I really prefer Lovecraft… Ia, Ia, Cthulhu Ftaghn!!!

Peace

"That which is not dead can eternal lie, and with strange eons, even death may die…
~Abdul Alhazred~
 
I have to express my thanks to God for Marie’s, Buffalo’s (and others’ in this thread) defense of the Holy Father and the importance of properly teaching our children the true difference between good and evil, as taught by the Church, not by Harry Potter.

I was fascinated, but terrified by stories of witches when I was growing up. I come from a very sensitive family line, my mother being paranoid schizophrenic and my grandmother having had a lobotomy. Several of my mother’s cousins have had serious breaks with reality. Personally, I attribute my own sanity to daily Mass from the time of my conversion at the age of 44 years old. (That was almost 10 years ago.)

My mother told me that her mother had been involved in the occult before being struck with serious mental illness, and I followed my mother into the occult. I shudder to think the damage I caused to my family and others using the codes, which I now know to have been satanic, I learned from the so-called “Church of St. Michael” [no longer in existence, and not a Catholic Church, obviously…it was started in the early 60’s by a man who falsely claimed to be a “channel” for St. Michael the Archangel. His protege, by the way, who was also my mentor, now has her own web site, and advertises her “school,” which I won’t name because I don’t want to promote it]. This is in spite of the fact that my intentions were “good.” I never wanted to harm anyone, but I did want to be a witch, having power to influence the world for my own purposes, and this false religion promised that to me. I know now, thanks to my Savior and the only true God, Jesus Christ, that it was a wicked deception. I wouldn’t wish this deception of thinking one can be a “white witch” or “warlock” on my worst enemy. As a wise priest once told me, “When you go to an astrologer [or palm reader, witch, or other such deceived person] for help, you exchange one problem for ten other worse problems.” Amen!

I find great consolation, but also a loving warning, for myself and my family in today’s OT reading, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”(Ex.34:6b-7)

As another dear priest taught me, “Lord Jesus, I put all my trust in you. All my hope is in Your mercy!”

God bless you dear Catholics, and teach your children, whether they read Harry Potter or not, the true Faith, and the real difference between right and wrong.
 
I love the books, full of excitement and a great fiction book. I can’t wait for the 7th!
 
ShroudMan said:
Grand Theft Auto. Now THAT is EVIL…not to mention the entire game itself…too bad the Church jumps on the yearly Potter bandwagon along with the fundies, and doesnt comment on much more serious types of childrens entertainment…
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See, this is exactly why videogames have gotten so out of hand. People still think of them as “children’s entertainment”. When are people going to realize that the vast majority of videogames are sold to and for adults? It’s exactly this kind of attitude that gets games like GTA in the hands of kids in the first place. Parents say, “It’s a video game, it’s for kids.” and they don’t even think that maybe they should check the rating on the game (the ESRB being one of the most comprehensive and strict ratings systems for any media ever) or that they should look at the ESRB info box on the back of the game which describes exactly what is in the game that may be objectionable and is required on the back of all ESRB certified games.

GTA is garbage and those responsible for it’s production should be ashamed, but it’s no different than a movie full of garbage except that parents don’t seem to think that games deserve the same discretion that R movies do. Video games are not for kids. They never really were. The only reason old people think they are for kids is because their kids were the first to recognize that videogames were fun. Those kids have grown up now and they’re still playing games (more so than kids today are playing videogames according to every market survey).

It’s like animation. Put an R rating on a Schwarzeneger movie and most parents will keep it far from their kids. Put the same R rating on an animated movie and most parents won’t even notice it because “cartoons are for kids, right?” Then they get upset at the video store for letting them rent an R movie for their children without pointing out that it was clearly rated R and if the parent had read the box they would’ve known that.

Attacking horrible games like GTA because they’re bad for kids isn’t going to accomplish anything because everyone (including the game’s developer) already knows that – they’re not selling them to kids, they’re selling them to males ages 18-35 (the primary consumer demographic for vidoegames). The reason they get away with producing garbage is because people keep using the foolish “think of the children” argument to attack a cultural problem that is rooted in the adult population. It’s not about kids, it’s about the adults who enjoy this stuff. If you want to change the games industry, work on them and leave the kids out of it.

And if you don’t want your kids playing garbage, make use of the most informative content ratings system currently in use in any form of media anywhere, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board which is on every single videogame you buy in the US and not only rates the games, but provides (on the back cover) a complete listing of the potentially offensive forms of content that the game contains. I’ve seen football games that are rated E (for everyone) but still have warnings on the back for “mild violence” (tackling). The warning list on the back of GTA is over an inch long in 10pt typeface. Any parent who bought that for their kid got exactly what they deserved (and no kid could buy it on their own because the vast majority of retailers won’t sell M rated games to anyone under 17). I feel sorry for the kids who get this garbage, but I place the blame solely on the parents, where it belongs.

This is really the first and only time the ESRB has failed to properly indicate what a game had in it and being a former software developer, I can see how it happened without it being their fault (and I’d expect some policy changes to prevent this from happening again). Don’t attack the people who are providing tools that parents can and should use. Tackle the real issues of why so many ADULTS are buying this garbage when they have inoffensive alternatives to choose from. This is a cultural problem effecting adults and it needs to be dealt with as such. Those people who say “videogames are for kids, and therefore this stuff doesn’t belong in the medium” are living 20 years in the past, and they’re doing more harm to their cause than good.

Sorry. I’m just tired of people attacking this problem from the wrong angle (for over a decade now). There is a serious problem with the video game industry, but those who are most adamant about changing it are also usually the most clueless as to how to actually accomplish anything, and they end up just driving the sales of games like GTA further up rather than hurting them.

Sorry for the off topic rant.
 
I respect the opinions of others, especially when they are informed opinions. How many of you folks who said Harry Potter is evil have read the books (or any one of them)? Kind of like condemning Catholics as idolators, cannibals and traitors because that’s what you’ve been told. I watched “Fahrenheit 911” and “Bowling for Columbine” not because I like or respect Michael Moorer (which I don’t), but because I wouldn’t criticize a film that I had not seen.
 
I don’t think the magic is the problem. I think the problem is that the kids do something they’re not supposed to do and then get rewarded for it. Kids know magic is fake. Have them read Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.
 
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Marie:
Having taught children for many years, I have run across more than my share of sad and deeply disturbed children. One such craze was the “Dungeons and Dragons” game of the 90’s. In a class of 30 children, 2 of them were so wired from the exposure to this so called harmless game, that they had to have serious physiological treatment. Two others went even farther off the rails. One 12 year old in the class tried to commit suicide…and another one actually did commit suicide. I stand by my caution that Harry Potter can cause harm. It can be entertaining true. But it can lead to serious problems in children who already have more problems than the average bear.
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What you describe is just awful, and I can understand your feelings. However, the fact is that it’s the responsibility of parents and guardians to determine whether or not their children can handle it. The fact that some (perhaps many) do not does not mean that the books should be burned or banned! What it does mean is that we, as Christians, need to step up our efforts to educate parents about the effects of ALL media on children. A thing should not be universally condemned because SOME people will abuse it. Responsible parents can even, as I believe other posters have already pointed out, use Harry Potter as a teaching tool for making right choices - what could they have done differently that would have been better?

Children who are drawn so deeply into a fantasy life come to it from much bigger problems anyway, so whether it’s D&D, Harry Potter, drugs, sex, or whatever else is out there, they are often primed from the start to be sucked into it. They are looking for an escape from reality, or else for a place where they feel accepted and loved for who they are (or both). This is a serious problem that won’t go away just by getting rid of Harry Potter! It begins at home, in the family, which makes it that much more difficult to root out.

So I guess what I’m saying is - rather than putting your energy intto convincing parents not to let their children read Harry Potter, concentrate on teaching them to make responsible and informed choices when it comes to their children’s entertainment, and being involved in every aspect of their children’s lives. You can’t prevent every tragedy, but you can do your best to influence a child’s life for the better.
 
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