Books burnt in Germany too!!

[Sarah Waggott]

No: HPFGUIDX 15516

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., tobeybickle at a... wrote:
> In a message dated 3/29/01 3:50:29 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
> catherine at c... writes:
> 
> 
> > My friend's husband works in a Christian bookshop, which sells CS 
> > Lewis, and other allegorical fairytales.  It makes me  so sad 
that so 
> > many people are jumping on a bandwagon without having the 
gumption to 
> > pick up the books for themselves.  Do they think that they are 
going 
> > to be corrupted by them?

Personally I think they are using the HP books as a scapegoat. People 
want to blame someone/something for the "bad behaviour of young 
people in this world today". Though I have to say, most of the badly 
behaved children I know don't even read HP!

> > Catherine
> > PS. My friend doesn't believe evolution or that dinosaurs existed 
> > either - church doctrine again.  Why???!
> > 

This is from the bible. In Genesis it says that God created the world 
and everything on it on different days. Adam and Eve were created 
from scratch, they didn't evolve. Dinosaurs weren't even mentioned. 
However, now it is widely accepted that the creation story was a way 
of explaining something that could not be understood easily. Same 
goes for Noah's Ark. I am Catholic and I believe in evolution and 
dinosaurs. 

>I think Tolkien is a better example. The man was a hard-core 
Catholic, and he 
> viewed his books as entirely moral, and yet they're full of  
witchcraft and 
> stark depections of evil. 

This shows that not all Christians are the same. From what I 
understand, it is a handful of Christian denominations who have 
publicly denounced HP, many have not mentioned it. Many of the 
younger members of our Church have read and enjoyed HP with their 
parents' approval. 

> But there are two issues here.. 1) In order to show 
> the value of good, you must be honest about evil and 2) depicting 
something 
> is a lot different than condoning it.
> 
I had this very discussion in Religious Studies yesterday! We were 
talking about how there could be no good without evil and vice versa 
as people need comparisons. But I am going OT. 
Many young people (and older ones too, but HP *is* aimed at the 
younger ones!) do not go to church or know about God so they have to 
learn about good and evil in other ways. Books like HP, far from 
convincing everybody to become a witch/wizard help children to 
understand not only the difference between good and evil but also 
many grey areas in between. For example, unjust punishment (Potions 
classes), bullying, fighting, racism (to a certain extent 
with 'Mudblood' and 'Pureblood') and also that sometimes rules should 
be broken if they get in the way of doing good. Not sure if this is a 
good lesson to learn at such a young age or not, but never mind.

Burning books seems like an enormous waste of money and I hope this 
was not done or condoned by any churches or there will be accusations 
of hypocrisy again.

Sarah