Posted on 06/03/2004 9:38:49 AM PDT by BobbyBeeper
FIRST-PERSON: Is Harry Potter merely entertainment? Jun 2, 2004 By Phil Boatwright
"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" Photo courtesy of harrypotter.com
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (BP)--"I love Harry Potter. I think it would be so cool to be a witch," Sharon, age 11, says.
That's my answer to anyone who says J.K. Rowling's adventure series is harmless fantasy.
While the Harry Potter book and film series has held a hypnotic fascination for youngsters, its thematic foundation is troubling. Arguably, perceptive children can view such material without succumbing to the snare of the occult, but it would be naive to think that movies and TV programs containing witchcraft are not aiding the rise of Wicca in our culture.
In a television special titled "Hollywood Spirituality" which aired several years back on E! Entertainment, Raven Mounauni, a professing witch and owner of an occult paraphernalia store, credited the 1996 movie "The Craft" with inspiring young women to explore the world of witches. "I get a lot of teenage girls in here. You can always tell when 'The Craft' has been on TV, 'cause we get a big influx of girls looking for supplies."
Occult practices shouldn't be considered just diverting amusement. Ouija boards, psychic readers and other forms of misleading supernatural entertainment should not be taken lightly. In Leviticus 19:26 we are instructed, "Do not practice divination or sorcery." There are several warnings in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, making it clear that we are to avoid witchcraft or anything associated with the occult. So if God is instructing us to avoid occult practices, how can we justify using it to entertain ourselves?
This may not be a popular view right now. The first Harry Potter film installment earned $969 million worldwide. J.K. Rowlings' five books on the young wizard have become a phenomenon, allowing the author to become the richest woman in England, with assets beyond $1 billion. That would indicate that many parents find nothing wrong with these children's adventures.
There are even a couple of books out right now exclaiming parallels between the Potter books and the Gospel. One author suggests the books help relate Christian themes and truths, opening the door for talking about things such as right and wrong, the nature of faith, loyalty, bravery and trust. Honestly, I think that's a bit thin. Yes, Rowlings’ themes deal with honor, friendship and self-sacrifice, but the kids in Harry Potter gravitate to sorcery in order to accomplish these attributes. And even if there are positive elements associated with the series, you simply can't ignore the witchcraft equation.
Members of Wicca teach a philosophy that embraces no absolute truth or sin and replaces the patriarchal male creator God of the Bible with a belief in both male and female gods. Its credo instructs members to embrace spirits and conjure spells in order to control their lives and the lives of others. There are millions of practicing witches worldwide. Indeed, Wicca has become one of the fastest-growing religions in the world today.
OK, it's good that children are reading. But what is it they're reading? Shouldn't that be considered? When an author makes $1 billion on five books that have sorcery as a main theme, and renowned secular critics hail the films as incredible filmmaking without examining their occult roots, I question what's really behind this phenom.
Is it merely entertainment? Or is there a dark spiritual source feeding and supporting it? I realize that may sound like a stretch, but often Satan is most deceiving with a glossed-over package. Wouldn't it be a shame if kids got pulled into witchcraft, while their folks thought of the books and films as merely children's fantasy? --30-- Phil Boatwright is a film reviewer and editor of The Movie Reporter, on the Web at www.moviereporter.com. (BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKAB
I am reminded of Penn Jilette's comment on "backward masking" -- "If that stuff worked, Ozzy Ozbourne would be the President."
Now I remember why I gave up on these threads. I salute your fortitude Xenalyte. You'll never get much in the way of coherence from the "True Believer". Their faith predicates a lack of things like facts. This makes it notoriously difficult to reason with them.
Frigga's luck to you...
That's incorrect, because there is no empirical evidence for leprechauns, while there is empirical evidence for the existence of witchcraft and other supernatural and preternatural phenomena, unless you rule it out a priori.
Here is an example of a phenomenon that has no scientific explanation, although it is not an example of witchcraft.
We have accounts from Catholic exorcists of exorcees levitating, speaking backwards, speaking in dead languages and revealing facts of which they could not have knowledge. There are several logically possible reasons for dismissing their accounts, none of which are reasonable.
They could be lying, but why would they lie? What would they have to gain? If lying, all of the eyewitnesses would have had to have lied too. Why would they all conspire to lie? What would they gain? Why haven't any recanted?
The events could be natural phenomena, but there is no reasonable natural explanation for these phenomena.
In a positive sense, we can know with moral certainty that witchcraft is possible.
The Bible provides accounts of witchcraft > We can trust the Bible to be the Word of God > We can trust the Bible to be the Word of God because the Catholic Church teaches this > We can trust that the Catholic Church is Christ's Church because it fulfills a 2000 year old prophecy. > The Bible tells us that Jesus built a Church, and predicted that the "gates of hell" would not overcome it. > The Church's ecclesiastical structure has been in place for 2000 years with an unbroken line of papal succession, and the Church possesses a 2000 year old body of non-contradictory dogma, comparable to no other earthly institution. > We know that the Bible is the most reliable ancient document of its era since 500 copies of it exist which date to before the year 500 A.D., and all copies agree substantially.
Because in the FANTASY world of Harry Potter there's no matter of choice, making all wizards evil in HP is like making all blue eyed people evil.
HP isn't reality, has nothing to do with reality, has no resemblance to the world of witchcraft the Bible warns against, does not send people on an occult path, and does not open a gateway for Satan. It's just a series of fantasy books that present a made up world and until you realize that you will continue to drive fandom away from the faith with your closed minded factless ravings.
Okay, show me this empirical evidence.
We have accounts from Catholic exorcists
We have accounts of UFOs and alien abductions, too.
Do you understand the distinction between empirical and anecdotal evidence?
Where did I say that? This would be an example of the ends justifying the means, rather than an example of choosing the lesser of two evils, which is morally permissible.
You are even more illogical when you refer to the "actions of the State[sic]" as being judged by a different standard than those of individuals.
The proper object of the State is the promotion of the common good. The proper object of the individual person is to know, love and serve God in this life and to be happy forever with Him in the next.
You can try to propose alternatives if you like.
The state is not a conscious entity (and certainly not a divine personage,
No, it's not. Nevertheless, all created things, conscious or unconscious, have proper objects. The proper object of unconscious vegetation, for example is nutrition, growth and reproduction. The proper object of an "unconscious" corporation is the production of goods and services at profit for the benefit of its shareholders, employees and customers.
though your capitalization indicates that you worship it as such),
The capitalization emphasizes the idealized sense of the term.
...and thus is incapable of choosing to take actions.
But individuals must work to order the State to its proper object, the common good, just as individuals work to order business to its proper object..
How do libertarians justify sending some people off to war to fight and die?
The same way they justify sending firemen into a burning building -- it's the job they signed up for, and they knew it was dangerous when they took it. Duh.
So is it permissible to sign a contract to have yourself murdered or to become a slave?
If yes, the State would not be fulfilling its primary purpose, according to you, of securing individual rights to liberty and property.
If no, how could you justify State nullification of such contracts?
Do soldiers fight to preserve the common good, or their personal rights to life and property?
Ultimately, they fight to defend the rights of themselves and those for whom they have chosen to accept responsibility.
So is a draft ever permissible?
Is it just that the children of the wealthy are generally exempt from military service in a volunteer army?
It had better not be short; there isn't too much they could get away with cutting out.
And I'm with you on the extended/director's cut idea!!
We have accounts from Catholic exorcists of exorcees levitating, speaking backwards, speaking in dead languages and revealing facts of which they could not have knowledge. There are several logically possible reasons for dismissing their accounts, none of which are reasonable.
They could be lying, but why would they lie? What would they have to gain? If lying, all of the eyewitnesses would have had to have lied too. Why would they all conspire to lie? What would they gain? Why haven't any recanted?
The events could be natural phenomena, but there is no reasonable natural explanation for these phenomena.
In a positive sense, we can know with moral certainty that witchcraft is possible.
I have to admire your persistence, Aquinasfan.
Although you are Catholic, and we may differ in some areas of theology, I enjoy reading your posts, and your attempt to get your point across with some of these otherwise rational folks.
The standard criteria for evaluating evidence, which in this case boil down to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", are perfectly reasonable. It is clearly out of the question to accept an extraordinary claim (e.g. levitation) on the basis of what is at best ordinary evidence (e.g. a few people's say-so).
Why don't they have any video of this?
Victorian spiritualists, to do them credit, put on a great show.
Pity that those spoil-sport scientists invented concealable IR cameras. Ever since then, their successors have been reduced to entering "altered states of consciousness" and babbling inane commentary from the "Other Side" (which, if accepted at face value, would suggest that everybody goes to Hell, and that Hell consists of the eternal company of crashing bores).
Some will argue that there are those who attribute Potter with getting them interested in wicca. I suspect that blaming Potter for these people would be like blaming Star Trek or Star Wars becasue some crackpots have turned the franchise into a way of life.
Some people are whacked, that's always been the case. And some of those whacked people get wierd ideas from stuff they read and hear. Most people listen to "Revolution 9" and hear a bunch of annoying noise, Charles Manson heard a call to start a race war by killing white people and inspiring blacks to follow suite. Does that mean the Beatles are evil? Or does it mean that an elementary school drop out who spent most of his life in prison is a twisted fool? I've got my answer, and the fact that I don't like the Beatles hasn't influenced it at all.
They don't? Now I'm just sad.
On the other hand, the leprechauns don't think I exist, so we're even.
There are two differences between eyewitness reports of UFOs and eyewitness accounts of demonic activity. The first is the reliability and character of the witnesses. Secondly, there is no positive reason for believing that these phenomena have occurred, while the existence of witchcraft and demonic activity can be demonstrated positively.
Here's an audio interview with a real life exorcist that you can listen to for free.
In this book, an exorcist tells his story.
Let me try this another way. What if Harry Potter was a fantasy story about the misadventures of a child Nazi? Or a child abortionist? Or a child communist?
No. Here's evidence that it does, unless you think that all of these child reviewers are lying.
Be sure to skim a few pages, although it would take a while to read all 111 reviews.
A sample:
"How can you say that its fake when you ask whats on a players hat and they get it right when no one says it or when you ask a name that your neighbors call you and they get right. I asked what my moms last name was and they gave her maiden name. If you believe then you should get this."Good question kid.
If the actions and moral choices of the characters remained the same, it would make no difference. As a matter of fact, the Potter stories ARE pretty much about WWII. Of course, Harry Potter has more in common with Anne Frank than with her Nazi tormentors.
Of course you wouldn't know this because you prefer to wallow publicly in the filth of your own ignorance.
I'm glad someone does ;-)
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