Demons are using TV to recruit your kids!!! XD

Shadow Wolf said:

It is entirely baseless. It's no different than saying the Lord of the Rings, Sword in the Stone, or Wizard's First Rule is going to draw people into the occult. And I think it's pretty much understood and accepting by everyone except the Conservatives saying otherwise that Harry Potter is nothing more than a fantasy that brings in creatures and settings and character archetypes that have been a part of our cultural stories for hundreds or even thousands of years into a modern age (modern at least when they came out - the world has changed much since then).

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It is not the fantasy that's dangerous. I'm not saying people shouldn't read Harry Potter, or that they're going to become possessed for enjoying it. But if you really can't see how exposing children to fiction which explicitly paints the occult in a good light can't possibly open minds to dabbling in the occult later down the track then I'm sorry, but you're being wilfully blind. The entire premise of the story is the occult (a fictional and fantastic idea of it albeit) in ways that is simply not the case in Lord of the Rings.

I don't share some of the more fantastical concerns about Harry Potter, or pop-culture in general. But I perfectly understand a Christian parent not wanting their children being exposed to stories which explicitly paints the violation of the first commandment in a good light. I also understand parents not wanting their children exposed to music and artists whose themes are overwhelmingly negative and in some cases explicitly anti-Christian. An open arms embrace of pop-culture as being utterly benign is naive, (especially for Christians) as is an unreasonable and exaggerated fear of it.

Revoltingest said:

Old enuf to call you sonny, sonny!

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Yet you didn't know what those are, grandpa? Everyone knew them in the old days!

SomeRandom said:

Unless you count shouting random sentences in Ancient Greek, Latin and Aramaic whilst waving around a fake wand occult practices I'm not sure how impressionable minds would even make the connection.

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No, but the notion that one can obtain various magical powers, that one can divine the future and communicate with spirits is an attractive proposition. The problem is that we have stories going around now which are explicitly predicated on the notion of obtaining personal supernatural power. (To fight evil of course). The Christian tradition is crystal clear that not only are such attempts usually futile, but that are always profoundly immoral and potentially dangerous. You may not believe, but what you may or may not believe doesn't change that hundreds a year come to the Catholic Chruch asking to be bailed out of the spiritual messes the occult has put them in. (Which can range from anything from mental health issues to demonic oppression/possession at the most extreme).

Smart_Guy said:

Yet you didn't know what those are, grandpa? Everyone knew them in the old days!

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Back in my day, TVs had gears.
(Really!)

Musing Bassist said:

But if you really can't see how exposing children to fiction which explicitly paints the occult in a good light can't possibly open minds to dabbling in the occult later down the track then I'm sorry, but you're being wilfully blind.

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It's not painting the occult as anything. They say a Greekish-Lantish phrase, wave a wand, and something happens. No differently really than the Sorcerer's Apprentice waving his wand to animate the mops.
And what is wrong with exposing kids to the occult? It is, after all, it does encompass many religions throughout many cultures. You may call it the occult, but some call it their heritage and ancestral ways.

Musing Bassist said:

that is simply not the case in Lord of the Rings.

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The Wizards such as Gandalf and Saruman are essentially god-like in the Wizardry, and in principle it has the same lights and "poofs" as Harry Potter.

Musing Bassist said:

No, but the notion that one can obtain various magical powers, that one can divine the future and communicate with spirits is an attractive proposition.

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It's not real though. It's pure fantasy. If someone cannot understand that they should probably seek psychiatric care.

Shadow Wolf said:

It's not painting the occult as anything. They say a Greekish-Lantish phrase, wave a wand, and something happens. No differently really than the Sorcerer's Apprentice waving his wand to animate the mops.

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What it does is openly define the idea of personal supernatural power as something that can be obtained, and obtained as a good.

Shadow Wolf said:

And what is wrong with exposing kids to the occult? It is, after all, it does encompass many religions throughout many cultures. You may call it the occult, but some call it their heritage and ancestral ways.

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My maternal side of the family hails from Mauritius and Reunion, where "heritage and ancestral ways" for some of the population included a tradition of spirit worship, animal sacrifices and dabbling in potions and curses. And if you think dabbling in such things is harmless, especially for clueless westerners who think its all just a bit of fun, then I suggest you start talking to Catholic and Orthodox priests who spend much time bailing out the unfortunate who get burned by fires they had no business playing with.

Shadow Wolf said:

The Wizards such as Gandalf and Saruman are essentially god-like in the Wizardry, and in principle it has the same lights and "poofs" as Harry Potter.

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The Lord of the Rings has an overwhelmingly Christian message. The issue isn't so much the use of magic as a fictional trope, but the explicit promotion of sorcery. The Lord of the Rings simply doesn't do that. Harry Potter and stuff like it does.

Shadow Wolf said:

It's not real though. It's pure fantasy. If someone cannot understand that they should probably seek psychiatric care.

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Demon worship, curses, fortune telling, necromancy and the like are all quite real. "Ghost-hunting" is even a genre of TV show these days. The question isn't the reality of the occult, but its efficaciousness. It may be by-in-large nonsense, but even nonsense has a potential for danger.

Musing Bassist said:

No, but the notion that one can obtain various magical powers, that one can divine the future and communicate with spirits is an attractive proposition. The problem is that we have stories going around now which are explicitly predicated on the notion of obtaining personal supernatural power. (To fight evil of course). The Christian tradition is crystal clear that not only are such attempts usually futile, but that are always profoundly immoral and potentially dangerous. You may not believe, but what you may or may not believe doesn't change that hundreds a year come to the Catholic Chruch asking to be bailed out of the spiritual messes the occult has put them in. (Which can range from anything from mental health issues to demonic oppression/possession at the most extreme).

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What kid doesn't know that's all make believe? I read the series at aged 10 and even I knew such things were fantasy. Christ my 6 year old nephew knows it's pretend. A 6 year old can look at HP and call it "silly make believe." Like y'all need to chill out and not take everything you read as Gospel.

Also Harry Potter is an obvious allegory of Christianity. Harry is a Jesus trope, the themes are all Christ's messages and it advocates forgiveness in life.
Like if you're going to read something literally at least read it on a deeper level than the setting!

Like lol are the old Arthurian legends going to turn kids towards witchcraft too? How about Chronicles of Narnia?

Hell why stop at just demons and evil witchcraft!?
Roald Dahl's The Witches teaching kids to kill bald ladies?
The Giver teaching kids to overthrow the Government?
Peter Pan teaching kids to fly without planes?

Revoltingest said:

Back in my day, TVs had gears.
(Really!)

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And they had to warm up.
(Really!)

Musing Bassist said:

The Lord of the Rings has an overwhelmingly Christian message. The issue isn't so much the use of magic as a fictional trope, but the explicit promotion of sorcery. The Lord of the Rings simply doesn't do that. Harry Potter and stuff like it does.

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Wait? Metaphorical Angels in LotR (Gandalf) using magic often in triumph and being one of the most beloved fictional characters of all time in modern Fantasy is not promoting Sorcery but Harry Potter routinely throughout the series pointing out the glaring faults, limitations and potential detrimental consequences for using sorcery is promoting Sorcery??? Have you even read Harry Potter?

SomeRandom said:

What kid doesn't know that's all make believe? I read the series at aged 10 and even I knew such things were fantasy. Christ my 6 year old nephew knows it's pretend. A 6 year old can look at HP and call it "silly make believe." Like y'all need to chill out and not take everything you read as Gospel.

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How is it that people can continuously miss the point? (I'm tempted to suspect it's on purpose too). I'm not arguing that Harry Potter is anything more than fiction, nor am I saying that Harry Potter is at all dangerous. I'm saying that fiction predicated on learning sorcery as its main plot device is shaky ground for any discerning Christian. The danger is that it can (not will) plant the seeds of curiosity in things that aren't fiction.

Musing Bassist said:

How is it that people can continuously miss the point? (I'm tempted to suspect it's on purpose too). I'm not arguing that Harry Potter is anything more than fiction, nor am I saying that Harry Potter is at all dangerous. I'm saying that fiction predicated on learning sorcery as its main plot device is shaky ground for any discerning Christian. The danger is that it can (not will) plant the seeds of curiosity in things that aren't fiction.

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So is the worst witch. That was 30 years ago with far more books (and later a crappy movie and decent 90s TV series) aimed at a slightly younger audience. I don't recall my peers running out to try the occult because of it though.
The ponderings among the HP fanbase have always been Snape's real feelings, whether or not the prologue was good or bad, how stupid the next gen names are, which house you would be in, what wand is the best, who is the most evil (almost unanimously Umbrage), the real relationship nuances and arguing over lore.

The people who actually give kids ideas about the occult are Christians! I had never even heard of the occult until Religious Education.

Musing Bassist said:

What it does is openly define the idea of personal supernatural power as something that can be obtained, and obtained as a good.

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It is impossible to get such powers. It cannot be done. It is a fantasy. Most people get that with Harry Potter. Conservative Christians seem to be the only group that thinks Harry Potter is some sort of "trap" or "lure" into the Occult.

Musing Bassist said:

Demon worship, curses, fortune telling, necromancy and the like are all quite real.

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People may say they worship demons and call themselves necromancers, but those aren't real. Nor are curses and fortune telling. Cold reading is real (and is a technique that a number of "fortune tellers" rely on), but that involves interpreting subtle ques a person gives, and has absolutely nothing to do with supernatural powers or the occult.

Musing Bassist said:

"Ghost-hunting" is even a genre of TV show these days.

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You can't believe everything you see on TV. Even the History Channel gets things wrong on a regular basis.

Musing Bassist said:

The Lord of the Rings has an overwhelmingly Christian message.

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Not really, especially when you bring in the other Middle Earth stories. Though it does place a high value on friendship and placing faith in friends and even in the smallest and seemingly most unlikely of packages, there is no miracle-performing teacher Messiah, the religious mythologies are completely different, sorcery was crucial in victory, and they're basically a bunch of pot-heads the way they smoke Old Toby (but I've not heard complaints about how the books/movies will lead kids to trying drugs).

Musing Bassist said:

The issue isn't so much the use of magic as a fictional trope, but the explicit promotion of sorcery. The Lord of the Rings simply doesn't do that.

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Without the assistance of Gandalf's magic the Fellowship would have failed. There is no other way to look at it. Without the Wizard Gandalf, his magic, his depths of knowledge acquired over the eons, and the relations he has established with the various races across Middle Earth the Ring would not have been destroyed and Sauron would have returned to conquer Middle Earth.

Star trek was controversial because Spock had pointy ears. And we all know that the devil has pointy ears. Right?

Priestess of Lucifer said:

I have seen stuff about preachers saying that Pokemon is evil lmao.

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Horrendously annoying maybe, but evil is a stretch.

Shadow Wolf said:

It is impossible to get such powers. It cannot be done. It is a fantasy.

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How are you so sure?

Obviously the powers described in Harry Potter and the like are fantastic. But I do believe that there are people out there who do have the means to procure supernatural effects (always negative) upon others to various degrees.

Shadow Wolf said:

People may say they worship demons and call themselves necromancers, but those aren't real.

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I disagree.

Shadow Wolf said:

You can't believe everything you see on TV. Even the History Channel gets things wrong on a regular basis.

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My point wasn't about belief, those ghost hunter shows on television are clearly farcical. The point was about the normalisation of the occult in pop culture that has been getting more explicit as time goes on.

Shadow Wolf said:

Without the assistance of Gandalf's magic the Fellowship would have failed. There is no other way to look at it. Without the Wizard Gandalf, his magic, his depths of knowledge acquired over the eons, and the relations he has established with the various races across Middle Earth the Ring would not have been destroyed and Sauron would have returned to conquer Middle Earth.

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The problem isn't magic in fiction. The distinct difference between Harry Potter and LotR is the nature of how that magic is presented. Harry Potter is about sorcery (in a fantastic light albeit), LotR is not.

I'm not saying don't read Harry Potter or things like it. I read the first few when they were a thing (although my memory of them is fuzzy at this point). I'm not defending the paranoia of certain evangelical types. But I do think Christians should be careful not to naively embrace pop-culture with open arms either. What you eat has a major determining influence on the health of your body, and likewise what you fill your mind with has a major effect on your outlook. On that point I'd actually argue that much of the music out there is far more dangerous than Harry Potter, but that's an entirely different conversation.

Musing Bassist said:

How are you so sure?

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Because I know they aren't real. People who claim to have such powers, plenty have been proven to be a charlatan, but none have been proven to be real.

Musing Bassist said:

The point was about the normalisation of the occult in pop culture that has been getting more explicit as time goes on.

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For some, but clearly it's not getting many people interested Occult-based religions such as Wicca are still a slim minority, and it seems very unlikely that those who converted to Wicca did so because they watched some TV show.

Musing Bassist said:

The distinct difference between Harry Potter and LotR is the nature of how that magic is presented. Harry Potter is about sorcery, (in a fantastic light of course) LotR is not.

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It's presented the same way. They're both drawing on supernatural energies to produce supernatural results. Middle Earth even has numerous magical trinkets and incantations, enchantments, and drugs.

Musing Bassist said:

The problem isn't magic in fiction. The distinct difference between Harry Potter and LotR is the nature of how that magic is presented. Harry Potter is about sorcery (in a fantastic light albeit), LotR is not.

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Umm, LotR has numerous instances of sorcery. Even used as amusing parlor tricks. Now I'm starting to doubt if you've ever read Tolkien.

Shadow Wolf said:

Because I know they aren't real. People who claim to have such powers, plenty have been proven to be a charlatan, but none have been proven to be real.

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I don't think "powers" exist per se, but just as one can invoke God, the angels and saints though prayer, it's also possible to invoke Satan (either explicitly or implicitly). Sometimes, just sometimes, if you knock hard and long enough, you may just get a response. You may not believe in any of that, but your belief has no basis in certainty.

Shadow Wolf said:

For some, but clearly it's not getting many people interested Occult-based religions such as Wicca are still a slim minority, and it seems very unlikely that those who converted to Wicca did so because they watched some TV show.

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But people are getting interested in that sort of thing, the New Age has done nothing but grow. How many people identified as neo-pagan a hundred years ago?

No one here is arguing that if you read a book or watch a cartoon with "witchcraft" you're then going to be on the road to dabbling in goetia. This is about influence. When the overall message of the pervading pop-culture is that occult practice is morally neutral (or even good) then that's going to influence the culture's opinion on things such as Ouija, Satanism, invocation and so on. And the people who get burned because of their curiosity often come crawling to the Church because they have a self-inflicted demonic attachment slowly wreaking escalating havoc in their lives. (As much as you don't want to believe that).

Again, I never said that Harry Potter is in and of itself dangerous. I said that the idea that it promotes witchcraft isn't baseless, because the very plot is predicated on witchcraft.

Musing Bassist said:

You may not believe in any of that, but your belief has no basis in certainty.

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Cannot the same be said of all religions and philosophical tenants?

Musing Bassist said:

But people are getting interested in that sort of thing, the New Age has done nothing but grow. How many people identified as neo-pagan a hundred years ago?

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How many were even "allowed" to be anything but a Christian and still be respected in their community? Even atheism has increased over the past 100 years, and a part of that is isn't people warming up to sin, or pop culture influence, but learning how to tolerate and accept others. Go back 300 and 400 years and it was pretty much required in some places. But, as a society, we're learning that it's better for a society if people are mostly free to choose their own actions, religions, ideologies, and so on. The American First Amendment, for examples, gives us "freedom of religion" by stating Congress won't abridge the free practice thereof, it gives us "freedom from religion" as Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion, and the result is people have more freedoms, including the religious, because legal tolerance allows for diversity and ability for people to choose. That is why things such as New Age and Atheism are increasing in numbers, is because they are freely allowed to choose, to speak of their positions, and expect to be treated with decency. And even religious people are not forced to adhere to on denomination over another, unlike the bulk of "AD" European history that required legal adherence to only one church, and then only the ones from a list of legal ones, to eventually the still fairly modern idea of "freedom of religion." It's even gave Christians more choices, more options, and allows them to spew venom-saturated hate or practice the love and peace that Jesus instructed, or anything in between.

Musing Bassist said:

When the overall message of the pervading pop-culture is that occult practice is morally neutral (or even good) then that's going to influence the culture's opinion on things such as Ouija, Satanism, invocation and so on.

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And if they get interested, what is to stop them from learning that Ouija boards are money making scam (basic psychology explains everything about them away) and Tarot cards started out as nothing more than a card game (and even as divination they are rather vague and open for interpretation and easily influenced). You can tell a lot about someone from only a handful of details, and predict a good amount of their future on it. You don't need cards for that, but know a good deal of human psychology. Cold readers, as they are called, seemed impressively supernaturally gifted, but their "power" comes from their understanding of the natural with nothing supernatural required. What is to stop people from learning of things such as that, unless you are telling them they have to stop learning at just what they see and never seeking an explanation?

SomeRandom said:

Umm, LotR has numerous instances of sorcery. Even used as amusing parlor tricks. Now I'm starting to doubt if you've ever read Tolkien.

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Surprisingly, the church I was going to at the time condemned Harry Potter on a rather regular basis, as did many Conservative churches, but criticisms of Lord of the Rings weren't as frequently, widely distributed, or known of. Some even try to say it has a Christian message, despite it being a high fantasy with deep roots in the Pagan Germanic mythos, and is a story of not saving the world from its self, but just saving it.

Shadow Wolf said:

Surprisingly, the church I was going to at the time condemned Harry Potter on a rather regular basis, as did many Conservative churches, but criticisms of Lord of the Rings weren't as frequently, widely distributed, or known of. Some even try to say it has a Christian message, despite it being a high fantasy with deep roots in the Pagan Germanic mythos, and is a story of not saving the world from its self, but just saving it.

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Same thing happens with Narnia. HP is teh ebbils but they bend over backwards to justify Narnia as Christian.
Yes Lewis is a famous Christian apologist and was good mates with Tolkien but all three stories can very easily be interpreted as Christian stories with themes and messages. Like double standards much?