I think lot of people over think things and try to find something insidious where there is nothing.
Well said! I agree 100%.
Yes, I do have a kind of tunnel vision. It is called the narrow path, which is the road that the Lord not only invites us, but commands us to take. Broad is the path that leads to destruction, and many walk on it, even those who calm themselves Christian.
I don't take my own view, or go by my own understanding, but rather the one that God has given us through His Word, and through the revelation He gives us by His Holy Spirit, as He opens our eyes.
I would urge you to ask the Lord to truly open your eyes, in Spirit and in Truth, and see what He brings you.
In Germany there is a proverb: Lord, give us wisdom. We have the stupidity already.
Harry Potter is a novel series. Well written, exciting, and with interesting characters. I have to know it. I write screenplays. Neither do these books seduce to magic, nor do they teach magic. The devil does not matter, but the evil in the form of the fascist Lord Voldemord. If one wants to draw parallels between the books and the Bible, why not the obvious comparison? The Harry Potter, because he was the seventh Horcrux, had to die to be able to live again (parallels to Jesus Christ, Krishna, Mitras and Horus are supposed to be intended).
Or another obviousness! What Dumbledore says in "The Chamber of Secrets", and what I chose as a signature. Did not Jesus, Paul, and John say something similar?
Remember that satan uses Scripture to confuse people, and that false prophets come with the power of satan, which is what some people call magic. I believe that JK Rowling is very much blinded by darkness, because a true Christian must understand that magic is in a sense real, and we should never promote it, nor downplay it. It's something that is very dangerous and something that God warns us about often in His Word (For example
Revelation 21:8) Blurring the lines between good and evil like this, causes our eyes to become blinded and not seeing the Truth as God wants us to see it.
Bad luck to you; that I do not believe in a devil, the way I do not to a personified God (the old man with beard). For me the Divine is energy. And, I do not believe in the Bible as the word of God, which is literally written down. I know through theology and Bible science that many things were written in it later, and only an instructive story, but not really so happened. I value some things in the Bible, others I reject because they have long since been disproved in bible science.
A couple of notes. I was very much interested in paganism and the occult for a portion of my life. These books did not sway me one way or another. The argument many have against them, is of real magic and spells being in them. Completely untrue. I'm ashamed to say I studied many branches of paganism, (wicca, asatru, hellenism, left hand path, ceremonial magick etc) and can verify there is no actual magic or ritual in them.
I have only met some of the so-called pagan religions in my life. Although I found some good (for example, that one could give space to one's spirituality), I never became a Wicca. Why not? Because they replaced God with the goddess, and although the goddess is portrayed differently as the male God of the Bible, I felt then that I was looking at the other side of a coin.
To a certain few, I could see them being harmful, in that it may encourage interest in magic etc. I also believe The Chronicles of Narnia could do that as well, and that was written as a christian based story.
I would like to know if there are researches on how many people (children, teenagers, adults) who have read the HP books, were interested in magic, etc., and how many of them were Wicca or the like? And what would interest me the most: How many of them were or are Christians?
I think if at all, then a vanishingly small number. Whoever is fortified in his faith is immune to temptation. Whoever was tempted, and yielded to him, whose faith was not solidified.
If anyone believes in such stuff then they are obviously not Christian.
Not necessarily! I will give you an example of the Mormons:
Mormons believe in "holy underwear," so-called "garments," which every Mormon who gets his endowment in the temple must wear 24 hours (with few exceptions). Mormons believe that this garment protects them above all evil, and in my day stories were regularly narrated or published, according to which someone who wore the garment survived a conflagration, a shipwreck, or a bullet.
Anyone with a clear mind would immediately recognize this as dizziness. But Mormons believe in it. Are you stupid? Not duller than the normal population. Gullible? No more than the average American.
So why do they believe this nonsense? Answer: Because it is so taught to them. To quote the Nazi Goebbels: "Repeat a lie until it becomes the truth!"
