In another thread a very good satire was posted, supposedly showing that Star Wars was a tool of the Devil. It was a joke, of course, but this is not.
Mr. A says: “This is EVIL. This is FORBIDDEN by the Eternal Creator God. This is WITCHCRAFT! Do not go near it, and do not allow your children to go near it! Avoid it like you would an office or building in which ANTHRAX has been detected!”
I don’t suppose he means the rock group, but he’d probably feel the same way about them.
So what do you think? Is Harry Potter evil? Is J. K. Rowling in league with Satan? Or is Garner Ted in league with Jerry Falwell and others of his ilk?
Yes, I confess it! I have led scores - nay, hundreds! - of children to our Dark Master by encouraging them to read Harry Potter! I have revelled in the corruption of innocence! Because I have read the books, I know how to do real magic! I have bolstered my power with the blood of innocents (and goats, mustn’t forget the goats) and I now stand poised to challenge God Himself! Because of Harry Potter I have become evil and will now, with my magic and thorough evilness, overthrow God and rule the universe, with JK Rowling at my left hand!
If Harry Potter really led kids to witchcraft, and witchcraft really worked the way these, ahem, concerned citizens think it does, we’d have an epidemic of gym teachers turning into newts.
Or shows that they were bad parents. Gee, the way spin works makes my head…well…spin.
And what’s with all the (sic) in the letter–a couple of these look pretty grammatically correct to me. I admit that using the plural “them” to refer to “person” is questionable, though it’s acceptable, but here’s the siced (sicked?) section:
Dante had a special (not so blisteringly hot) circle of Hell – the 1st one, I believe – for all the great pagan poets and philosophers; so Homer isn’t such a bad guy. Poor ol’ Odysseus didn’t get off so easily though, landing plop in the 8th circle.
Remember that church in New Mexico that had a Harry Potter book burning, right around Christmas time? They burned Shakespeare plays, too. This really pissed me off.
Of course Harry Potter is evil; it says so right in the Good Book - Leviticus 13:9, “And thou shalt read no novels yea nor enjoy any tales that do tell of children from England who do partake of improbably magic, [sup]10[/sup]and thou shalt burn all evidence of he with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, yea for he is of Satan. [sup]11[/sup]And let not they children develop an imagination, lest they someday learn to think for themselves.”
Sad to say, the parody was presented as fact in an e-mail that circulated in conservative Christian circles. Here’s the link from an urban legends web site:
Not even. I believe Dante put the (rightious) pagans just outside of Hell. The first circle is for those driven by lust (which I checked on, since I want to know what I have to look foward to).
But somehow, I don’t think Mr. Armstong has much regard for …or knowledge of…the works of Dante. I don’t think he’d ahve any problem putting Rowling, Homer AND Dante in hell if he could (and it does kind of sound like he thinks he can.)
Actually, a point of doctrine with Armstrong is that people don’t “go to Hell” in the sense that most professing Christians believe they do. They are simply cast into the lake of fire, there to be consumed once and for all. There is no eternal damnation for them because, Armstrong believes that people do not have an immortal soul, rather that each can achieve immortality with God on Earth if he/she measures up. No eternal punishment. Either eternal reward on Earth, or eternal death. He wouldn’t consign anyone to hell.
The point of the OP was that some organizations (probably more than we imagine) take seriously the “threat” of anything fantastic. They see the Devil in Harry Potter, and anything else that speaks of wizardry and witchcraft, no matter in how fantastical a way. I don’t agree with them on that, or much of anything, which is why I never joined that church voluntarily (that church being the Radio Church of God/Worldwide Church of God, and GTA’s offshoot Church of God International, which, I understand has undergone yet another transformation fairly recently). My parents were members of the old Radio Church until I was about thirteen, by which time they, and I, had seen enough.
Oh, that’s great! Jack Chick is going to have a field day with that one! It should come in very handy in debates with my father, though, who calls himself a Catholic.
Not quite, betenoir. Lust is the 2nd Circle. Dante’s 1st circle of Hell was in fact Limbo, where you find “all the blameless but unbaptized; old testament patriarchs rescued by Christ; great pagan poets and philosophers comfortable but separate forever from God.” (Cite, if you want a quick outline of all the circles).
As Dante describes it in the 4th Canto, “'Tis not enough, because they had not baptism/Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest”. Which is why there you’ll find Moses hangin’ out with Homer, Ovid, and Saladin. But there’s no real suffering going on there (except that they’re not in tight with the Big Guy) so it’s not such a bad place, since Dante makes a point of noting that darkness didn’t appear until he left the 1st circle.