Another rant :-), was Harry Potter and the Bible

[Becca]

No: HPFGUIDX 17620

To further clarify these proper meanings, I looked them up.

witch (wch) 
n. 

A woman popularly believed to have supernatural powers and practice 
sorcery, and often believed to be aided by spirits. 
A believer or follower of Wicca; a Wiccan. 
A hag. 
Informal. A woman or girl considered bewitching. 
One particularly skilled or competent at one's craft: "A witch of a 
writer, [she] is capable of developing an intensity that verges on 
ferocity" (Peter S. Prescott). 

In Harry Potter, this has the meaning of a person with magical 
abililties, and is in a very positive connotation.

pa·gan (pgn) 
n. 

One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew; a heathen.
A wiccan, or modern witch
One who has no religion. 
A non-Christian. 
A hedonist. 

he·don·ism (hdn-zm) 
n. 

Pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of 
the senses. 
Philosophy. The ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant 
or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good. 
Psychology. The doctrine holding that behavior is motivated by the 
desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. 

oc·cult (-klt, klt) 
adj. 

Of, relating to, or dealing with supernatural influences, agencies, 
or phenomena. 
Beyond the realm of human comprehension; inscrutable. 
Available only to the initiate; secret: occult lore. See Synonyms at 
mysterious. 
Hidden from view; concealed. 

In the above, from http://www.dictionary.com, it says nothing about 
evil.  In fact, it states that paganism is about good and only good. 
As is the Good Side of Harry Potter witchcraft.  Well, the Evil Side 
*is* evil, but in this series, the Good triumps over Evil...not 
setting an influence for children to become bad people. There is no 
link to teenage violence from Paganism, and any studies that show 
that it does must either be fabricated or very biased.  I see no 
proof, and Paganism has moral ideals as well.  Not that it would 
matter, in the United States there is freedom of religion, so if some 
people wanted to worship hate and death then they bloody well could.  
But that is a completely different topic.

Harry Potter is a magic and witchcraft centric book.  But, it has a 
very classical fussion of Good v. Evil.  Some people on this list 
seem to be mistaken.

Lord Voldemort is the evil antagonist. He shows no mercy for anyone 
and wants nothing but absolute power and the destruction of non-
magical beings.  He is also a hypocrit, since he is in fact a half-
born wizard.  Voldemort seems to show no vision or understanding of 
love or good, and has no pity.  There is one psychological theory 
that I cannot place at the moment, where it states that when a child 
grows up with a lack of a certain emotion, he cannot see that in 
other people.  Voldemort grew up blocking out pity and mercy and 
love, so he is ultimatly evil.

Harry Potter was the quasi-downfall of Voldemort.  His mother died 
for him, and preforming ancient magic, placed a sheild on him.  This 
sheild was made of her love for him, and that sheild reflected a 
death curse onto Voldemort.  Love saved Harry, and there could be no 
foul play in that. There is most likely another sheild protecting 
Harry, and it is my theory that the other peice of protection is the 
twinkle in Dumbledore's eye at the end of GoF.  But that is steering 
off topic.  ^_~.  

Harry is the protagonist, and he is loved by all characters except 
for the Slytherins, who usually end up as dark wizards and witches.  
Although Harry can be cheeky and breaks rules, he does this all for 
good causes in his opinion, since he is a young boy.  You can't 
expect a boy who's in his teen and pre-teen years to have perfect 
judgement; they're developing a sense of right and wrong.  Yet, Harry 
has thus far made most of the right decisions.  

Nobody can say that waiting for the other champion's "wheezy" was a 
bad thing to do...in fact, saving Gabrielle was a very heroic and 
righteous thing to do. As for Peter, do you really expect it to be in 
better morals to say, "Oh fuck it, kill him.  He betrayed my parents 
so he's dead.  Muwaha."? Didn't think so.  The reason that JKR 
portrayed negative consequences to this action is simply because she 
wanted to say that evil people do evil things, but that good people 
shouldn't stoop to their level for petty vengance.  I'm sure that's 
in the Bible.  Harry isn't immoral, and neither is his book series.

<snip>

The books also contain positive presentations of occult
> techniques and practices (astrology, numerology, channeling,
> etc). That cannot be denied.

<unsnip>

as·trol·o·gy (-strl-j) 
n. Abbr. astrol. 

The study of the positions and aspects of celestial bodies in the 
belief that they have an influence on the course of natural earthly 
occurrences and human affairs

chan·nel·ing (chn-lng) 
n. 
Purported communication by a disembodied entity through a living 
person, as by voice during a trance.

nu·mer·ol·o·gy (nm-rl-j, ny-) 
n. 

The study of the occult meanings of numbers and their supposed 
influence on human life.


Astrology, numerology, and channeling are not negative.  There is 
nothing wrong with looking at stars, and studying numbers.  
Channeling has been proven to be acting, and I have a documented 
study that I forgot the name of, again, that was presented in my 
Science class in a video, "Psuedo-Science".  It was that one man, a 
retired magician, offered $1,000,000 to anyone who could provide 
solid proof that they could do any supernatural act.  It has been 25 
years, and nobody has been able to fly, predict the future, or cure 
diseases by the touch of a finger.  I believe in miracles, but these 
acts are just imagination.  People like believing that there are cool 
things to do...like talk to dead people in their workplace.  It's 
fun, and it brings out a very valuable tool. Imagination.  
Imagination is everywhere...including politics, but that is yet 
another topic. ;-) Magic's a thrill ride, and it's not evil.

If evil is what some people are suggesting exists in the books of 
Harry Potter, then I suggest they take a look at their Bible.  The 
Bible denounces evil as well, as does Harry Potter.  There is nothing 
wrong with the Harry Potter books or the Bible, and frankly, the 
people that see something wrong with these books are conspiring to 
create a disturbance.  If you see something wrong with the Harry 
Potter books, then there is something wrong with Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, 
Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and most Science Fiction or Fantasy 
writers.  In fact, if there is a problem with the morality of Harry 
Potter, then there is a problem with the morality of every single 
book that has a good against evil plot.  Want to debate with the 
readers of the world?  You'll lose miserably.

Wandering off to finish Calc homework after a really long and mostly 
off-topic post...

*Becca*