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To: Coleus

At the risk of sounding like a jerk I have to say this:

Harry Potter "discovering he's a wizard" doesn't make me think I can be a wizard (or want to) any more than reading the Bible would make me think I'm the Messiah.

HP just a story, the Bible is not. Those who read the Bible and don't just quote it know this.

Read it. Read King Arthur tales as well. And read up on mythologies of the ancient world. They are fascinating STORIES. None of them make me think I am the physical son of any deity.

That being said, God bless. I hope you learn to enjoy some creative works.


5 posted on 03/10/2005 10:07:59 PM PST by MacDorcha (When I say "democratic" I don't mean "Athenian Mob Rule")
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To: MacDorcha

"HP just a story"

Well, no. Everything we read changes us to some degree, and a lot of the time we don't even realize that we have been convinced of a proposition at the time.

Unless you're reading with a hostile, analytical mindset, that risk exists.

Back when I was an agnostic, I ventured the opinion that a man had the obligation to stay with a woman he impregnates and raise the offspring. To which, naturally, the other fellow asked, "Why?"

If there's no God telling you to do so, why should you?

I thought about it very carefully, and finally realized that I had picked that idea up from the writings of Robert Heinlein in my early teens, thirty years earlier.

I didn't realize that I was picking that notion up and accepting it as though it were Scripture, but that's what happened. And it seems to happen to all of us. Many (or perhaps all) of us believe things that we are not aware that we believe.

How is that possible? Well, we act as though they were true without examining our reasons.

Nothing is "just a story" or "just a movie."


17 posted on 03/11/2005 7:19:50 AM PST by dsc
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