Posted on 11/22/2010 10:08:57 AM PST by mlizzy
I understand where he is going, understand the point. Fiction and fantasy is this way. Very addictive. You get lost in it, addicted to it. It is mental, emotional masturbation. You don’t need anything or anyone else but this self absorbing fantasy. The brain has now rewired it self to only be satisfied with the replacement fantasy. It rejects the real thing now and is not at all drawn to it or pleased by it. So everyday you push away the “real world†a little more and make the fantasy your first love, your god. The sorceress/occultist using this vehicle to sell witchcraft/satan and so we find the once faithful falling over themselves in a frenzy, foaming at the mouth to defend HP.
Mlizzy, you have now put yourself on the same side as a Sedevacantist, an Anti-Semite and a tract writer who hates the Catholic Church.
I think it is really a good time to pray for some guidance. Me? I’ll stick with the Vatican.
>>The sorceress/occultist using this vehicle to sell witchcraft/satan and so we find the once faithful falling over themselves in a frenzy, foaming at the mouth to defend HP.<<
Could you please define “once faithful”?
I knew you would love that line.
Would you please define what you mean?
Don’t be shy.
I suppose Rowling’s doubts about Christianity, may explain in part the irritating insistence, on her part, that Dumbledore was gay. There was not even the hint of that in the books, and it was a disturbing, unnecesary, but certainly “hip”, postscript.
I’m glad to hear that she is a practicing Christian, and as mentioned there are numerous undeniable Christian themes in the series; Dumbledore’s necessary, sacrificial, Christ-like death, among the more notable.
Thanks for the very informative post.
Mlizzy, you have now put yourself on the same side as a Sedevacantist, an Anti-Semite and a tract writer who hates the Catholic Church. I think it is really a good time to pray for some guidance. Me? I’ll stick with the Vatican.I am not a Sedevacantist, an Anti-Semite, and I don't know who you're referring to as a tract writer who hates the Catholic Church, but I do not hate the Catholic Church either. This is a waste of time talking to you. You are really "out there." I gave you a link to a Roman Catholic well-known writer (O'Brien) who wrote on Harry Potter, and all you can say in regard to his expertise, is "he wrote a book," "he wrote a book," or words to that effect. I can't even remember why you dismissed the words of Euteneuer and Amorth, both Roman Catholic exorcists.
My husband, Tom, was having lunch with a bunch of schoolteachers, and they were all talking excitedly over the new HP release. Tom mentioned one of O’Brien’s talking points regarding the Harry Potter films, and they looked at him like he was insane, and then went back to discussing the film. Oh, well ... :)
>>and they looked at him like he was insane<<
Well if the shoe fits.....
IMHO, from what I have seen and read, Potter celebrates the victory of good over evil.
In the present controversy, we must keep in mind that our once-Christian civilization is sliding swiftly into an almost universal condition of paganism. It is not like the classical pagan age of old, nor the more sinister world of cultic paganism that preceded and to some extent followed Greece and Rome. Though our times are infected with manifestations of the worst of both eras, the dominant form of the new paganism is different in significant aspects. One of its primary characteristics is its attempt to assimilate Christian "values" into its own supposedly larger view of time and eternity.
The Harry Potter series is a fantasy-projection of post-Christian man burdened by the flattening effect of materialism on his perceptions/imagination. His innate spiritual sense is so deeply entrenched in the material-carnal that he can scarcely extricate himself from it, and his attempts to do so almost always take the form of immanentist beliefs. This manifests itself in both religious and cultural works that present man as a being who possesses god-like powers, without any reference to a source of those powers, nor to any set of moral absolutes against which he can measure the rightness or wrongness of his actions. Whatever authentic morals, virtues, and values are to be found in the Potter books are an inheritance from Christianity, surviving only as a humanistic ethos, a remnant of what they once were. Here again we find another distinction so far absent from the debate: Is there not a qualitative difference in a society (such as ours) that is descending back into the darkness of paganism, and a society (such as the peoples of the early Christian era) who were laboriously climbing out of it? A traveler climbing a long road out of a swamp may meet another traveler going back down into the swamp. For a passing moment they may appear to be at the same position, but their destinations are radically different. --Michael D. O'Brien, Harry Potter and the Paganization of Culture
Interesting. Although this text seems to deal with “post Christian” man, references to “magic” have long been with us.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a Christian, but I see in the big picture that Potter is the fictional “good”. I don’t see Potter as a pagan. The overall message to me is that good is still good, evil is still evil. Good overcomes evil even against the odds.
Not #251, but post #253 ... :)
After skipping and skimming through this thread and others I will say our parental policy is the same as its ever been: Stay the hell away from anything that rings of the occult. No matter how cute and engaging the characters and stage props (If they are — I haven’t seen any of it). I believe that my very brief and superficial interest in things like OoB experiences during my teens **might** have led to a non-healing wound I have even today! (The Devil’s spite against my rejecting his trap).
And to the poster who alleged a lack of good parenting skills on the part of any parent who produces an offspring that can be swayed by this stuff I say: The Devil is much more powerful than you are, best to keep your kids out of his reach! Disclaimer and full disclosure: I believe that a number of independent priests in schism and even Sedevacantist are much closer to the Magisterium than your typical garden variety Vatican II priest. This is part of the inverted world since 1960. Mary warned us.
Hoping Netmilsmom doesn’t write me off for this... I like her.
Yes, the devil is shrewd. It isn’t necessary for the author, the actors, the publisher, the theater chain, etc., to have evil intentions. The devil can work with what he finds.
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