'Evil' Harry Potter day cancelled
Ok, as much as I like to bash Harry Potter and the overblown Harry Potter Hype Machine, this is just ridiculous. This school tries to do something fun to encourage its students to read, and parents get upset because they may be led into "areas of evil". Are you kidding me? Do people not understand the concept of fiction anymore? It's pretty simple, it means it's not real. And anyway, what is this evil? I'm not too up on the story, but I thought Harry Potter was a good guy. But if they're just complaining that magic itself is somehow evil, well, then that's just completely insane. I mean, maybe I could see how you could believe any magic was evil...if it was real. But since it's not, I don't really see where it would be an issue.
Let's see, right now I'm reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but surprisingly, it hasn't made me either believe that there is such a restaurant or want to hitchhike around the galaxy or believe that there are robots that suffer from chronic depression. Because, much like Harry Potter, it's fiction. And if you're kids are too stupid to understand that, then frankly, they should be going to some kind of special school.
11 comments:
I read the chronicles of narnia as a child and loved them, I also loved the wizard of oz growing up, but then I turned out staying Jewish (despite some hard core proselytizing and attempts at converting me to Christianity). Maybe that's what they're afraid of. If we see an upsurge in the Jewish population in 20 years, we'll know it was JK Rowling's doing.
Paul, that's exactly the argument that exposes the hypocrisy. There are unlimited examples. Do they let their kids watch Disney movies like Cinderella, Snow White etc...? What about Casper the friendly ghost and Wendy? I think the fundamentalists were secretly pissed off that Harry Potter outsold the Left Behind books.
Left Behind, now there's a great series...
But seriously, if The Rapture ever actually came, my theory is we wouldn't even know about it, since so few people would actually get taken. We'd have a slight upsurge in the number of missing people, but nothing like in that ridiculous book.
Monkey's (my 8 year old daughter) best friend is not only not allowed to read or watch any Harry Potter, she isn't allowed to go trick or treating because it's satanic.
Loki gave Jordan's mom an excruciatingly detailed history of Halloween and its Catholic roots, but she wasn't buying it.
I don't know what the origins of Halloween are. But people need to use some common sense. The only thing Halloween is about these days is putting on a costume and getting free candy. Unless there's something satanic about that, then I don't understand the objection.
"Common sense" is an even bigger oxymoron than "jumbo shrimp", or "intelligent current President". If good sense were even somewhat common, stupid fucking stories like this would never exist.
Although I guess in that case, this blog wouldn't be nearly as entertaining.
I think people look for too many things to be offended by. The bottom line for me is that the school was trying to encourage kids to read, which in my opinion is one of the best ways for them to learn, which is the school's job, so I think complaining about that is a little silly.
If the parents don;t like it, they should do what you suggest, talk to their kids about it and tell them why. You can't shield kids from everything you don't like. If it's something that could hurt them, I can see the objection, but this is harmless.
Oh, and "REAL sorcery"? I hope you're kidding. If not, then maybe you could clarify exactly what you mean.
ah, this answers my other comment. :)
Oh, and for the record, Halloween is actually a um... modern variation of an ancient pagan celebration of the ending of summer.
Samhain (Irish samhain, Scots Gaelic samhuinn, pronounced [sāvīn]) is the word for November in the Gaelic. The same word was used for the first month of the ancient Celtic calendar, and in particular the first three nights of this month, the festival marking the beginning of the winter season. Elements of the festival are continued in the traditions of All Souls Day and Halloween.
I believe they did that basically because, the people (who were mostly "pagans" once upon a time) were going to celebrate the seasons anyway, so when they were trying to convert everyone, it was easier to just give the days christian significance than take them away altogether.
Christmas was originally celebrated as Yule, (Dontcha wonder what the tree, yule log, and santa have to do with the birth of christ?)
Look into the origins of easter, as well.It was originally a "pagan" FERTILITY FESTIVAL because, well, thats what spring is for. Eggs=fertility, and well, we all know what rabbits do.
I won't argue the validity of honoring Jesus's birthday, but, there is no evidence that it was even in the winter. The powers that be just decided to make it easier to convert the people by letting them " keep" their holidays.
Gee, way to get me going on a topic. lol
Yeah, I knew about most of the holidays and their pagan roots. I say we should just abolish all holidays, and make up our own new ones from scratch. We can start with Festivus.
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