church condemning harry potter

Apparently it's loosely based on Paradise Lost. I dunno, it's one of those things I feel like I should read but... can't be arsed with kids' books, basically!

 

well I just read a synopsis that stated that God was absent throughout the entire plot. I was just wondering where you all saw that they killed God.

 

In the third book.

 

Or they atleast defeat his armies, or something along those lines.

 

I notice that someone called "The Authority" indirectly dies, and was also explicitly stated to not be God, but that is all I saw.

But w/e I haven't even read the books so I really dont know.

 

From what I remember, while he is explicitly stated to not be God, he is a higher being worshiped by the Magesterium (essentially the Catholic Church)

 

I don't see any other religions comdemning the book... hmmm. Just a thought...
And if I'm not mistaken, isn't the Harry Potters the first book to beat the bible as a best seller or something?

 

personally living in the bible belt, I've never seen many, if any, christians/churches condemning the books.

 

Perhaps, but you do see other religions condemning other books, to the extent of issuing fatwas on the authors and forcing them into hiding. This stuff is mild by comparison, but I'm guessing you still think Christianity is the worst religion in the world, right?

 

I'm talking about this book specifically; don't think I don't think the same thing about Catholicism and Islam. But it does raise a good point. The Bible is so full of rules and hate and ignorance. I've yet to see Buddhists protest this book. What about Pagans? Wiccans?

 

Derailing the thread....

Anywho. About Catholics "banning" things, they do have their fair share as well.. Last Temptation, and they were the ones who drove the force to not have children see The Golden Compass. They really only seem to go after the film versions though.

About why a church would go after something as silly as Harry Potter, maybe it is because they are afraid that the children will get into something other then church and it will begin to take time away from the church. Maybe it is because it doesn't fit into their narrow view of what Christianity is (some churches even protest Christian rock music, like Jack Chick). Maybe because they are truly afraid it will convert children to Wicca or Satanism (like Jack Chick thinks D&D will do).

Reading the entire series, I think that Harry Potter is 100% agreeable with Christianity. First it is a fiction book (insert joke here about the bible being fiction). Second good defeats evil. The NT talks about how only good things can defeat evil things (a house divided...). If Harry Potter (the character) was evil, he could not defeat Voldemort.

Also to put things into perspective, a number of Christian Churches have also denounced CS Lewis' Narnia collections for "paganism". http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils in America/Hellivision/narnia.htm
http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/narnia_chronicles.html

I mean, come on...CS Lewis?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books#List_of_best-selling_book_series

The bible is the #1 best seller of all time apparently. Deathly Hallows was somewhere in between 30 and 50 Mill. The whole series though is #1 of book series bestsellers...

 

I have never read any of the books but i do not agree with banning of any literature.

 

I guess there's less people out to piss off Buddhists, but in terms of their capacity to be offended, I've found most of the Wiccans I've encountered to be way more touchy about their religion than the average Christian. So while I can't think of any specific book that has angered Wiccans, I don't consider it beyond the realms of possibility that one could be written.

 

but didn't church realize that what's banned is more precious? i mean when church condemns rowling, lewis, d.brown - most people will check what's wrong with it and won't probably see the crualty, but simply nice stories.

it's like in my coutnry since new government came - they're trying to find something wrong in any fairytale or popular book, or even in eposes...
some examples:
- bad sexuality of moomins (finnish cartoon) because there's friendship between female and male and dialogues between them are 'ambiguous'
- extremaly bad sexuality of smurfs (there's only one female, big group of males and some smurf-kids, so the prime minister found the males have regular group sex with one female...)
- teletubies (some kind of film for babies in the age of3 about coulorous creatures living in peacy land) - where there's one male owning BAG so he's probably a gay (...)
- winnie the pooh - little kangaroo has only the mother but no father so she's probably a lesbian and had in vitro
- dun mongrel' (extremaly beautiful example - it's a song for kids, quite popular)- its really bad and sexual because of a verse: (trying to translate it properly...) (...) dun mongrel penetrating all the holes (...) dun mongrel is a nice dog (...).
by the time of the statement that all above is quite unproper for little children, all parents and even children started to find more and more 'sexual premises' of any cartoon. before they wouldn't have even thought of that. harry potter may be a paralel example - church condemning so there has to be something in. so watching/reading you are noticing things that in fact aren't there...

 

kinda old news but dont cartoons like pokeman teach magic crap? idk. just bumping the thread cause its active.

 

See, the problem is that, in being this strict, authority practically guarantees a reaction against it. There's a certain percentage of people who won't watch/read/do something just because the government says it's bad... but then there's a corresponding percentage of people who'll do it if the government says it's bad. Same with religion. Certainly music very rarely does any worse for being condemned by the church.

And that Teletubbies/gay thing was buzzing around over here a few years ago. It was hilarious. I mean, it's really weird when you think: someone's actually gone through these shows looking for deviant sexual subtext. Is that someone's job, to do that?!

 

isn't it a little bemusing? sb tells you not to do something, explain you why in some elaborate ways... to make you feel that if you do it, you'll be lost? isn't it better even to tell you to read - you'll know how bad it is?
or - what is the point to have weak people praying to your god, people who HAVE to be warned not to read/believe/act the way it's shown in a book or a film? some years ago (approximately 2000) there were christians who didn't leave the beleief in god even facing death from romans. who's wrong now? christian authorities who are afraid of loosing prayers (in my opinion: weak and bemused) or rowling (or whoever writting fantasy) who intend just to show worth of friendship in a telling example?

 

I get the sense that the church has given up trying to control the civilised world by direct edict. They try and work their influence through lobbying and other political means in Europe, but they've more or less given up telling us what to do and decided to focus their attentions on America and Africa.

 

Hahahahahaha bloody hell, cheers for that first link. Laughed my everloving tits off. I swear those people are proving their own sexual repression by the fact they seem to ACTIVELY look for 'sexual pervesion' at every angle. I mean, come on, secret sex scenes in the rescuers and a cock in Neptune's castle in the Little Mermaid? I also love the fact they linked to the word phallus. That's just brilliant.