Posted on 08/25/2007 10:00:49 PM PDT by monomaniac
> Young children can understand the spiritual content in Harry Potter books and films - - it is an unclean spirit; devilish.
I am conscious that I am butting into your discussion and I apologize in advance for doing so. Harry Potter is about as sinister to Christians as “Beowulf” and “The Iliad/Odyssey”, in my day-and-age. Full of heathen stuff, but plenty of harmless fun all the same.
My Mom and Dad raised me to be a Christian, which I still am, despite me reading Beowulf and Homer. If history, it was interesting-but-irrelevant history. If fiction, it was a rollicking-good-read guaranteed to build Character. But nothing more.
Kids aren’t stupid, unless we raise them to be stupid. They can easily discern fiction. Mine do.
*DieHard*
I see them get off the big yellow pervert-o-mobile at our corner, 3:00 daily (when we are in the States), one arm trying to hold britches up, one arm around girfriend’s neck, and no books to carry.
They are bombarded with satanic messages more frequently and consistently today than when “Beowulf” and the “The Iliad/Odyssey” were standard high school reading (Homer’s works required in literature courses in my California high school).
> They are bombarded with satanic messages more frequently and consistently today than when “Beowulf” and the “The Iliad/Odyssey” were standard high school reading (Homer’s works required in literature courses in my California high school).
Crikey! That says heaps about a California education, and all of it SAD. We did that one way before high school...
More satanic than in my day? Doubt it: I grew up as a child of the 60’s and 70’s. Luckily with good parents. Nobody did drugs in our family but plenty of neighbors did.
My Grandfather (RIP) read Beowulf to me when I was six. I read Homer, alone, (upon his recommendation) when I was eight.
Heroditus followed, as did Thomas Mallory, as did William Shakespeare, as did Cicero and the rest of the whole toga-wearing lot. And I was a kid, a product of the 1960’s/1970’s. It was Entertainment, along with Gilligan’s Island and Baa Baa Black Sheep and Wonder Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man and, ultimately, The A-Team.
We did not have PlayStation or MTV or Xbox back then. If it wasn’t in a book then perhaps TV would do OK, and it was a poor substitute. And I did not miss it.
Maybe I’m just getting old.
Impressive list of books.
Our children each read at least a couple of books each week, and they are not short stories, believe me. But they have chosen, for the most part, biographies, histories, and a few historical novels. If there is time they read natural science and naturalist books and journals. My eldest son, now 30, is quite the expert in botany, by his own reading and wilderness note taking. He was reading Thomas Sowell’s books at age 12 (finds himself a Conservative of an older order). His other interest in reading has been weapons and balistics. Not interested in a list that runs from Pooh to Potter.
My 15 year old son is reading late 19th century theologies and political movements. He enjoys the British theatre in both areas. Not interested in fictional spritist stuff. He told me that the “Scriptures (the Bible) have enough about the spiritual realm to make a lifetime study — why waste time on man’s junk on the issue.”
Our kids read through the Bible several times each year. Only 20 chapters per day can get one through the Bible six times each year.
We are grateful to God for the result.
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