I completely agree with you that Harry Potter is harmless fun. They are great books that, if a child wants to read, they absolutely should.
I disagree with the notion that all Christians feel Harry Potter is demonic or evil. This is simply untrue. Below are some links to two very popular Christian sites that show pro Harry Potter articles.
Pros and Cons of Harry Potter
http://www.cbn.com/special/HarryPotter/
Pro Harry Potter -from a Christian magazine (They had more pro articles than just this one too.)
http://www.christianitytoday.com/cpt/2000/005/4.44.html
While supposedly atheists are above so many things, they are obviously not above stereotyping when it comes to Christians. There are so many types of Christians. Christianity has hundreds of different denominations (fairly creative if I do say so, myself), and many are very different from the others. Amish, fundamentalists, Methodists, Mormons and Unitarian Universalists. All of these are so different. I very often see that atheists accuse all Christians of things that only a few of them do, as if I am guilty by association. Is this really fair? Because few very vocal, crazy Christians writing garbage on the internet, I have to defend my religion?
Just because some atheists want to freeze there heads to be revived, or cloned in the future, should I assume that all atheists want to do that (as if that is part of what they are whispering about in the dark corners)? Should I make atheists defend the actions of Nazis, who were atheists? Of course I wouldn't, that wouldn't be fair. No athiest thinks like the Nazi's right? Wrong! Ofcourse, some do but not all, right? Not you! So why should you have to defend yourself?
It is not fair to be judged by the actions of a few. Christianity is sadly getting judged in that way and for many this is acceptable. It clearly shouldn't be.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Banning Harry Potter
Polly, Mar,
The lady who runs this site has had a long running legal battle trying to get Harry Potter banned from her local library. She says that writing about "witchcraft" will convert children to Wicca. This is absurd because:
Why does she feel threatened that her views and the views of her ilk could so easily be overturned by an imaginative book? Are her views and values that fragile that they can't compete with anything imaginative?
Imagination is the lost virtue. Imagination and our ability to communicate is the only thing that differentiates us from other animals (and yes Virgina, we are Animals, with a capital A. It's written in our DNA. We ARE unequivocally ANIMALS). Sorry, that's another vent entirely. Other species have language, others have tools, others have thumbs. Surely, others have imaginations (dolphins have bigger brains than us, and more importantly, bigger neocortexes (neocortices?) than us. Their capacity for imagination and thinking must surely be greater than for us, but alas, not a thumb among them. No dolphin technology, and we are probably the poorer for it. No dolphin stories are recorded).
Our recorded imaginations give us life after life. Our recorded imaginations let us share our innermost inner worlds with others. We can build and change and manipulate them. If you believe in God, then this is God's greatest gift to mankind, but it seems we have yet to understand that fully (well, maybe John Lennon did).
If you don't believe in god, you are probably already on the imagination bandwagon (I can imagine it as a brightly painted barge (hey, my imagination), with lots of lights, floating lazily down a river. There's a huge raucous party, everyone is pleasantly drunk, and everyone is any kind of being imaginable. There's upbeat fantastic music, dancing, and other sorts of carrousing. Tall tales are being told to the young ones, listening with keen ears and fascination, aft and stern. There are fireflies in the warm air, and a pleasant scent of lilacs drifting in from shore. It is a perfect evening). Imagination, more than any other human trait, is what makes us special.
To remove Harry Potter would be to remove all fiction from a child's life (it's the slippery slope thing). It is a human tradition to tell tales to children. Tell me that "Little Red Riding Hood" or "Cinderella" don't have a deeply dark side. We do not shelter children from darkness in literature simply because they need to practice how to react to darkness when they encounter it later in their life. Fiction is a gentle way of teaching children about the greater world around them, the joys and the tragedies alike. Fiction is like Cliff Notes for life.
I wonder what this lady would approve of for reading instead. Clearly she wants the Bible shoved down everyone's throats. But beyond that, what fiction would she approve of? Is there anything that doesn't have a little darkness to it? Should 8 year olds be reading Caillou still? If Rowling is off the list, so is Blume, or Tolkien, or Keene, or Lewis, or (Beatrix) Potter (talking bunnies? Gotta be demonic possession), or essentially any author. Well, maybe Max Lucado would be on the list. He's creepy in his own way though. And what becomes of us as adults? Are we to have an abrupt transition to the good stuff? Bland pap, then the tough, tasty meat of Pynchon? It would be a huge and disastrous cultural shift.
Polly, Mar, what do you think?
The lady who runs this site has had a long running legal battle trying to get Harry Potter banned from her local library. She says that writing about "witchcraft" will convert children to Wicca. This is absurd because:
- Harry Potter isn't about Wicca
- Children who can read generally know the different between fiction and nonfiction
- What's so bad about Wicca?
- She hasn't read any of the Harry Potter books (I'd doubt it if she even read the Bible she thumps so vociferously) probably can't read at all (Okay, that was a tad mean).
Why does she feel threatened that her views and the views of her ilk could so easily be overturned by an imaginative book? Are her views and values that fragile that they can't compete with anything imaginative?
Imagination is the lost virtue. Imagination and our ability to communicate is the only thing that differentiates us from other animals (and yes Virgina, we are Animals, with a capital A. It's written in our DNA. We ARE unequivocally ANIMALS). Sorry, that's another vent entirely. Other species have language, others have tools, others have thumbs. Surely, others have imaginations (dolphins have bigger brains than us, and more importantly, bigger neocortexes (neocortices?) than us. Their capacity for imagination and thinking must surely be greater than for us, but alas, not a thumb among them. No dolphin technology, and we are probably the poorer for it. No dolphin stories are recorded).
Our recorded imaginations give us life after life. Our recorded imaginations let us share our innermost inner worlds with others. We can build and change and manipulate them. If you believe in God, then this is God's greatest gift to mankind, but it seems we have yet to understand that fully (well, maybe John Lennon did).
If you don't believe in god, you are probably already on the imagination bandwagon (I can imagine it as a brightly painted barge (hey, my imagination), with lots of lights, floating lazily down a river. There's a huge raucous party, everyone is pleasantly drunk, and everyone is any kind of being imaginable. There's upbeat fantastic music, dancing, and other sorts of carrousing. Tall tales are being told to the young ones, listening with keen ears and fascination, aft and stern. There are fireflies in the warm air, and a pleasant scent of lilacs drifting in from shore. It is a perfect evening). Imagination, more than any other human trait, is what makes us special.
To remove Harry Potter would be to remove all fiction from a child's life (it's the slippery slope thing). It is a human tradition to tell tales to children. Tell me that "Little Red Riding Hood" or "Cinderella" don't have a deeply dark side. We do not shelter children from darkness in literature simply because they need to practice how to react to darkness when they encounter it later in their life. Fiction is a gentle way of teaching children about the greater world around them, the joys and the tragedies alike. Fiction is like Cliff Notes for life.
I wonder what this lady would approve of for reading instead. Clearly she wants the Bible shoved down everyone's throats. But beyond that, what fiction would she approve of? Is there anything that doesn't have a little darkness to it? Should 8 year olds be reading Caillou still? If Rowling is off the list, so is Blume, or Tolkien, or Keene, or Lewis, or (Beatrix) Potter (talking bunnies? Gotta be demonic possession), or essentially any author. Well, maybe Max Lucado would be on the list. He's creepy in his own way though. And what becomes of us as adults? Are we to have an abrupt transition to the good stuff? Bland pap, then the tough, tasty meat of Pynchon? It would be a huge and disastrous cultural shift.
Polly, Mar, what do you think?
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Open discussions and let me introduce myself.
This blog is about open discussions on interesting topics between me (Polly), Gertie and Mar. Hopefully our discussions will be informative, thought provoking, controversial and provocative.
I think that all of us have strong opinions on which we might all agree on or not. Sometimes one of us will play devils advocate. Hopefully we can keep the tone fun and not take what is said here personally.
I am Polly.:) Enjoy our blog.
I think that all of us have strong opinions on which we might all agree on or not. Sometimes one of us will play devils advocate. Hopefully we can keep the tone fun and not take what is said here personally.
I am Polly.:) Enjoy our blog.
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