Harry Potter - Good or bad?

[seebs]

Originally posted by Ben Reid

Seebs, you may not believe me, but I have talked to a former satanist who explicitly told me about some of the key people, driving forces and motivations about Harry Potter. What he told me would blow you away.

This is not harmless fun. This is a clever, sophisticated scheme to introduce children to the occult. Make no mistakes about it.

 

I am always skeptical of such claims; there are a lot of people who convert, and then have amazing stories about their past - which turn out to be totally unverifiable, and often just plain wrong.

I think it's very telling that, for quite a while, a majority of the anti-HP sites were quoting a parody article from _The Onion_ as if it were factual.

I would be interested in talking to a real live person who claimed to have such information, and checking his information out. However, unless I can talk to him, all I can do is observe that I have seen people make false claims about belief systems they used to hold, both in the sense of being false descriptions of a belief system, and in the sense of it being false to say they used to do certain things.

I've read all of these books, and I have compared what's in them to the claims made about them, and many of the claims appear to me to be false. I have heard "testimonials" which were clearly cribbed from other sources, rather than with any reference to the actual books; a dead giveaway is when the claims about the books are factually false, such as claiming that the books contain tarot cards.

 

[seebs]

I have to say that Havoc does have some point; having been involved with things that have been on the receiving end of some of the brief "fads" in Christian intolerance, I am somewhat sympathetic to the concern. e.g., I've been playing D&D for ~20 years now, and I have yet to find any harmful occultism in it, but there were people who made all *SORTS* of claims during the 80's and 90's. Some of those people are still out there, repeating urban legends or made-up stories, and doing a lot of damage.

 

[mac_philo]

Ben, you do not have "first hand knowledge," what you have is the canonical definition of hearsay. You "know a satanist" who "knows who's behind these books." First hand knowledge is when you've seen the Dark Lord enscribe the books with the blood of the beast, or whatever it is you people think is going on.

JK Rowling has convinced a generation of lazy, sedentary, Cheez-Doodle eating Nintendo addicts to read 500 page books. For that you should be making her a saint.

 

[Annabel Lee]

Originally posted by mac_philo

JK Rowling has convinced a generation of lazy, sedentary, Cheez-Doodle eating Nintendo addicts to read 500 page books. For that you should be making her a saint.

Good point.
We don't have a Nintendo in our home. What my kids do have are library cards.
I haven't read the book yet but intend to as soon as my daughter is old enough to enjoy it. Sounds like a good Christmas gift.

 

[seebs]

FWIW, I was raised on fantasy novels, and I don't believe they did me any harm. I never had any trouble separating fantasy novels from reality.

 

[Annabel Lee]

Harry Potter books don't frighten me. What does scare me is this kind of behavior:

http://www.mindsetcentral.com/harrypotterburning.html

Straight out of "1984" and "Farenheit 451"

 

[Havoc]

Please stop your false accusations. The satanist I talked to was very real, all too real.

Why, because he told you he was real? Do you have any idea how many ex-satanist christians there are running around out there? More than there are real Satanists I would speculate. We already know there is a tendancy toward agrandisement of witness stories among some Christians (Mike Warnke, Bill Schnoeblen, Rebecca Brown et all are just the famous ones) in order to increase their stature in the community. This is not a Christian problem it's a human problem, we call it "tall tales". If someone in came to your church claiming he had once been the mayor of New York, you'd want a little evidence, why then do you not view claims of being an ex-satanist or ex-witch with the same attention to determinig the veracity?

BTW a good place to start in maintaining your credibility would be to understand the disctinction between Satanism and Witchcraft. Satanism is essentially a religion arising out of rebellion against Christian authoritarianism. Witchcraft has nothing to do with Satanism or Christianity. Satanists and Witches don't hold meetings together or perform similar rituals. Our Faith, tenets, and beliefs are radically different. There is no plausible reason I can think of why a Satanist would want to promote Witchcraft. If the Witchcraft in Harry Potter books was real Satanists would be campaigning against it.

 

[Annabel Lee]

Originally posted by Annabel Lee
Harry Potter books don't frighten me. What does scare me is this kind of behavior:

http://www.mindsetcentral.com/harrypotterburning.html

Straight out of "1984" and "Farenheit 451".

Now compare the above posted link to this Harry Potter article from a Parody site.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1199/potter.html

Hard to tell the difference. Another example of life imitating fiction.

 

[Havoc]

Ben:

Who wants to persecute you?

Well where should I start..

U.S. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, a fundamentalist Christian, introducing legislation to prevent the military from allowing Witches in the military from practicing their faith on base (when all other mainstream religions are provided with on-base support).

A group of Christians intentionally disrupting a wiccan ceremony held in the parking lot of a metaphysical book store in Palmdale Ca, using rented trucks and blaring loud Christian music and attempting to walk through and disrupt the circle (would you like for us to do this to your sacred services?).

Christian Lawmakers in California threatening to "take action" when a Wiccan Chaplain was appointed to the Wappun Correctional Institution in a primarily administrative position, even though the test results and interviews clearly show she was the best candidate for the job.

A 15 year old student, with no recorded discipline problems and a perfect attendance record is suspended for 15 days from school in Oklahoma for allegedly "casting spells". She was also forbidden to wear or draw any symbols of the Wiccan religion.

Schools throughout the country are forbidding children from wearing Pentacles yet allowing crosses or star-of-david.

I could go on for pages, and I can provide the source material if anyone wants it, but this should be sufficient to show that Wiccans ARE being actively persecuted by Fundamentalist Christians.

Havoc

 

[Morat]

  Stuff they can't handle? Like, I dunno, speaking nonsense Latin phrases and watching nothing happen?

   Children do deal poorly with disappointment.

 

 

[Brimshack]

I once interviewed a substance abuse counselor that claimed to have met a former drummer from ACDC. He and this individual had conducted a number of community seminars in which they discussed a Satanic plan to bring demons into the community through the music. Several members of the community actually blamed the rise in gang membership in the mid 90s on the demons brought in by the heavy metal influence of the 80s, partly as a result of these seminars. I do not doubt that the counselor and others in the community sinserely believed these thigns, but I doubt every single claim that supposedly came from this character.

I consider you to be a thoughtful and honest prson Ben, so I will assume that you did actually meet someone claiming to be a former Satanist Ben. I would be far less inclined to give some of your bretheren that same benefit of the doubt, and I remain unwilling to base any judgements on the nature of Harry Potter on your account of the statements of an unknown entity.

 

[Aussie_Tash]

Well WWJD?? That is it, What would jesus do?!! Well for certain He would not be reading these kind of books, and yes witches have tries to disrupt church services, but to no avail, the presence of God is ALL POWERFUL and as I said before Read the bible to see what it says about this kind of stuff!

 

[Havoc]

Actually I have read the bible, I'm very familiar with it thank you.

How exactly did these Witches attempt to disrupt the alleged church service? Did they drive up in rented trucks and blare loud music and attempt to walk through the sanctuary singing at the top of their lungs like some recent Christians did to a group of Wiccans in California?

And if so, how exactly did your God prevent them. Did he swoop down and physically stand in front of them? Did he strike them all deaf?

Havoc

 

[Havoc]

Brimshack:

Well said

Havoc

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by Havoc
Did he strike them all deaf?

People trying to sing that loud are generally effectively tone-deaf anyway. Close enough?

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by Aussie_Tash
Well for certain He would not be reading these kind of books

Yeah, and He wouldn't read the Bible either, because why bother?

I would expect Jesus would like a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. After the amount of work He put in to trying to make us creative, wouldn't you think He would revel in our creative works?

 

[ashibaka]

Originally posted by Aussie_Tash
Well WWJD?? That is it, What would jesus do?!! Well for certain He would not be reading these kind of books

How do you know what kinds of books Jesus likes to read? Are you in His Holy Book Club?

 

[mac_philo]

Originally posted by ashibaka


How do you know what kinds of books Jesus likes to read? Are you in His Holy Book Club?

I think he's committing the classic religious false syllogism:

1.I believe the bible is right.
2.I believe that everything I believe has biblical support.
3.I believe Harry Potter is wrong.

Therefore Harry Potter goes against the bible.

 

[Aussie_Tash]

10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. 12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.

And yes the bible is true

 

[Aussie_Tash]

And those verses came from Deuteronomy 18:10,11,12