I'm sorry... I am about as religious as they come and still not in a convent, but I just don't buy that the Harry Potter concerns are any worse than wishing I was the good witch Windy of the Wizard of Oz when I was a little girl. You have to balance these sort of fantasies with good sound foundational training and they are as innocent as believing in Santa Claus.
The problem isn't so much that there are these popular books on witchcraft; such books have been around a long time. The problem is that children today are morally and spiritually vacuous. Thus witchcraft is filling a void in their lives which should have already been taken.
This is just the stupidest issue in the world. When I was a kid I wished my mother could twitch her nose like Samantha on Bewitched...35 years later and I still haven't joined a coven. People who fear Harry Potter need to grow up.
"This may not be a popular view right now."
Major understatement!!!! Let's all be afraid, very afraid of fictional stories and characters.
I can't believe how long it's taken this time around for the "outrage" over Harry potter to resurface. One day before the U.S. release? The paranoid crowd is getting slow...
It's fiction. Pure and simple. Need I remind anyone (again) that the well known Christian apologists C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein both had "good" charcters who use magic in their fantasy series?
Don't you loonies ever learn?
So9
"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.
Then you would prove them right, because witches aren’t real. It's just something weird lesbians pretend to be.
When I was little, I thought it would be cool if I could turn from a car to a robot. I guess I watched too much Transformers. The desire didn't seem to have any longterm negative consequences, and I'm confident the little girl in this story will turn out fine as well.
These movies may encourage an interest in the occult, just as a war movie could encourage an interest in history.
I've done some research in the occult, and have determined that it is a total crock. Wicca is just a bunch of smelly hippies looking for a reason to worship trees.
Any kid with an IQ above room temperature will soon realize that spells do not work and that the occult is just a huge con game. Then (like a lot of people) will just forget about it and go on with their lives.
Isn't that quote from an Onion article. And anybody that credits "The Craft" with anything but being atrociously dull is simply not all there.
I love Harry potter. I stated reading the books because my ex-hubby is a freak and didn't want our daughter to read them.
We are both groupies now (daughter and me)! I rub it in every chance I get too. LOL
I heard that C. S. Lewis "The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe" will be a movie soon. I can't wait.
"Today I met a gentle-man who told me that upon reading the popular novel 'Moby Dick' he decided to board a whaling vessel and take to the sea, forsaking his beloved in New England and throwing his hope to the god of the oceans, away from our beloved Lord. May the accursed Melville answer to the higher power for his wicked tale of the white whale, which has caused many a right-thinking man to drift oft from our sacred shores in a craft hewn of dispair and discouragement. Ahab is but a hollow cast for the dark lord Satan, and represents not the hallowed balm of our Lord in Heaven. I urge all good people of Christian faith to burn this evil book forthwith."
/this guy's great-grandfather in 1870
Actually, they generally resort to good old fashioned bravery and resourcefulness. Relying on a magic spell to save the day would ruin the narrative structure by some kind of deus ex machina.
The Potter books and movies are no threat to anyone. I watched the movies out of curiosity and found them to be entertaining but nothing more. There is no attack on christianity or overt promotion of the occult in the stories.
The Star wars movies have more religious content that the Potter series. Much ado about nothing.
Overall, I like the books. I think many of the people who criticise it are reacting emotionally to the topic without having taken the time to really look into it.
More nutso Christian paranoia about Harry Potter.
It'd be so cool to be Tarzan.
It'd be so cool to be Foghorn Leghorn.
Get over it... Potter has as much to do with modern paganism as Liberals do with small government.
Harry Potter turned me into a newt once.
I got better.
None of the spells in Harry Potter actually ~work~ you know. It ain't ~real~.