The Harry Potter book has arrived!!!

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tagron

New member
The pope is one person, and no holyer than you or i, so why are we having a tread over one mans opinion? If me or the pastor of my chrch went and declared that listening to techno was evil would you all start a thread?? Nope.

So if the pope said that (and that seems to be in question) take it wih a grain of salt, dont view him as the voice of the entire christian religion.
 
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philologus

Subgenius
@tagron:

Me and my pastor don\'t have the power to call an audience with any world leader and have it granted either. Il Papa has access to all media outlets making him heard more.
 
QuietiManes

QuietiManes

New member
I dont think any Christians/Catholics actually think Harry Potter is directly \"evil\". I think what they see is that the books show you that being \"good\" is as simple as doing the right thing. Being honest, helping friends, using your brain, being self reliant. Something which the church goers dislike highly. How can you be good if you arent being told what to do by God himself every 2 seconds? How can you be a God fearing productive member of the church community if you dont have an immense fear of thinking for yourself and instead have to turn to the good book to figure out each and every move you make?

Church seems to be just another addiction. Something to get you through the day because you cant do it yourself. No brainwashing = evil, Harry Potter makes you think and question, therefore Potter must be evil even though the story only promotes good things as far as anyone can tell. Sure there\'s some freaky stuff in it, but is any of it more disturbing than cooking kids in an oven? Hansel and Grettel (sp) had that and I dont hear anyone calling for a book burning for Mother Goose books.

This whole Harry Potter thing strikes a nerve with me. My sons mothers family are the typical Christians, who spout off about the evil that is Potter. Funny how they cant give one reason for it. Brainless monkeys. I\'ll tell ya what evil is, it\'s things like the Holy Crusade and the Spanish Inquisition. Church...pfft...lets get some freakin perspective here! I dont care what kind of reward I get, if God tells me to kill my son, I\'ll tell him to shove it and most likely take a swing at him. Killing your son is WRONG. Now lets all read the wee story about Isac (sp) and promote that as a good illustration of what to do. Yeah, God was all \"nice\" after he decided to kill his son but how can you justify making someone make that sort of decision? If someone tells you to do something that\'s wrong, like telling minors to touch you down there, you have to be able to think for yourself and say \"NO YOU SICK F**K\". Blind faith is stupidity, welcome to evil town. Can I buy you a drink?:innocent:
 
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Wolf_Fang

Guest
another pope or bishop or something also said that pokemon was evil.... i really dont care.... i dont like ether of the 2 to begin with but hey
 
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philologus

Subgenius
Sure are a lot of Christian haters here.

@QuietiManes

RE: The story of Abraham and Isaac. God doesn\'t ask for human sacrifice. The point was that God wanted Abraham to understand how far Abraham would go to be obedient to God. A careful reading of the entire Bible will reveal that This story is the first time the word Love is mentioned in the Bible. \"Take now thine son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.\" God\'s idea of Love is that it equals sacrifice. The location of Abraham\'s \"sacrifice\" was Mt. Moriah. Before he could complete the sacrifice the angel stayed his hand and a ram was provided down the mount to serve as surrogate. Mt. Moriah is where the Temple of Solomon was later built in Jerusalem. It was where ritual sacrifice was carried out by the Hebrews. Down the hill from the temple was a hill where Christ, the only son of God whom he loved made a surrogate sacrifice for us. The story comes full circle and once again Love=Sacrifice.
 
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beowulfthehunter

New member
I agree books should be banned. I mean do we realy want our children reading about fathers sacrficing thier children, naked people in a garden, crusifixion, some guy performing magic and then bringing him self back from the dead.

Oh we are talking about potter, my bad.
 
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philologus

Subgenius
It\'s a good rule of thumb to comment on a book only when you\'ve read the entire thing.

I have read all of potter. Therefore I can comment upon it. What potter readers do is not necessarily consistent with what potter said. I once saw an adult dressed as Harry Potter riding a bike down the sidewalk talking to himself. Does his behavior mean that the book is rubbish? Perhaps; but I\'ll read the whole thing and judge for myself.
 
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dauber22

New member
Originally posted by QuietiManes
Blind faith is stupidity, welcome to evil town.
Click to expand...

I would definately agree wiwth that particular statement. However, it applies not only to religion, but to all things. Blind faith in science, medicine, a political cause, your tax accountant, government, human nature, your union, your employer, the press, anything you want to name is a recipe for disaster. Let us not limit it to religion.
 
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supervike

Super Moderator
It\'s funny to think how what may have began as an innocent comment by a man (before he was even elected Pope) about a book that explores the Good or Evil of Harry Potter turns into a Pope-bashing, anti-religion thread.

I think most of the anger should be directed at the blatent misrepresentation and lack of journalistic integrity that was present when the hack wrote that story.

That would be the case if the so called journalist\'s real goal was to write an interesting blurb to hit the wireservices.

Of course, the true goal was to incite anti-papal and anti-religious sentiments, and that seems to have been very successful...

Chalk one up for the \'unbiased\' media.

:(
 
airhead

airhead

Coffin Dodger / Keymaster
@vikey,

You know the media is always right - and that Christians are evil.

All else is just conspiracy theories.
 
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Sturmhalo

Guest
Originally posted by airhead
@vikey,

You know the media is always right - and that Christians are evil.

All else is just conspiracy theories.
Click to expand...

Evil too damn right! Give me the warm love of Satan any time... he\'ll see me right... won\'t he?!
 
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Drake Farstrider

New member
Thank you Markus for for starting this \"thinny disguised\" Harry Potter thread. Which has unfortunatly turned into an anit-pope thread. Personally and religiously I could care less what the Pope thinks or says.

Well I have not read any of the Harry Potter books, I might have to now, but I have seen and enjoyed the movies.

I do agree with Vike that that artical was crap. I had to read it several times just to try and make out what the author was trying to say. I still don\'t really get it. He/she jumps around way too much. It could also be because I have not fully woken up yet too. :D

So how are the books? Do they hold up against other works of fantasy? Would they keep my attention? FYI I have been reading the War of the Spider Queen series.
 
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Ritual

New member
I am not very religious and I don\'t read the Harry Potter books. That probably means I should stay away from this thread, doesn\'t it? :duh:
 
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tzor

New member
First of all, I want to be clear that I believe in the freedom to express ones thoughts, that boys and girls will be boys and girls and that sometimes you have to get your inward frustration out of the system as it were.

But, I think we once again face the problem of distortion and exaggeration.

The Pope has not said that the Harry Potter series is “evil.” Before he was Pope, he had expressed his support of some people who complained about certain features of the Harry Potter series but that in and of itself did not concern with evil. Nor is this in and of itself a generalization of the fantasy genre, but concerns specific points within the literary universe of Harry Potter itself.

Simply put Harry Potter is not Gandalf. One can point to a number of elements in Rowling’s works that are not in Lewis’ or Tolkien’s works. There is a Gnostic theme in the series, both in terms of secret knowledge and secret lives. There is the amoral nature of both magic and Harry in the series where on several occasions the end justifies the means.

Just as you have a number of types of “Christians” who hate to be associated with the Pope, you have a number of types of “Christians” who hate to be associated with those other “Christians,” and here we have no exception. The blanket association of anything related with the word “magic” with devil worship is completely absent from Roman Catholic teaching. Fiction is good as fiction as long as it is not taken as fact. And that includes the underlying principles that surround that fiction. Unfortunately it is sometimes harder to separate the underlying principles fact from fiction.
 
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Katana_Angel

Guest
Amusingly enough, this was brought up at the office today, and was quite interesting for a bit.

I said, \"Jeez, people sure do get uptight about things like this, saying that these books are \'evil\' and whatnot.\" A fellow worker, very religious but a nice fellow, responded, \"Well, you\'ve got to be careful with those kinds of things, because it\'s a doorway. It would be like a story about a kid going school where all the children wear swastikas, and so the kids that read the book decide to actually wear swatstikas too.\" I\'m really not sure if that\'s a fair comparison on his part though.

And, so what if kids start running around with twigs in their hands, waving wildly and saying, \"Ridiculoso!\" Some people really forget that playing make believe means just what it is. Because you\'re using your imagination... playing pretend. Just like kids playing cops and robbers... the \'robbers\' aren\'t going to grow up and think, \"Yeah, all those games in my youth led me to my path of destruction today\".

Me, I\'m Christian. But I have no problems with D&D, White Wolf games, Fantasy in general, and especially not Harry Potter. I think parents just need to take responsibility (gasp! Anything but that! :rolleyes: ), and tell their kids, \"this is all just make-believe, you know\". (\'s another gripe I have with parents and video games. I love the violent stuff, always have, my parents just always reminded me about the line between reality and make-believe.
Anyways. Wasn\'t C.S. Lewis\'s narnia series banned for awhile due to the \'magic\' in it? I know some famous series of books was.
I\'m not sure. Just my two yen\'s worth. Maybe I\'m just naive.
 
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