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Apr 2, 2003 16:01:25 GMT -5
Post by En on Apr 2, 2003 16:01:25 GMT -5
Any time you mess with people's ideas about what happens after death, you are stepping in religious territory I can't think of a religion that doesn't have a very particular answer to the question, except for Unitarian Universalists.
On the mood-colour thing: see, there you go. US paper currency is green, but currency in other nations is multi-coloured, or the different denominations are different colours. So what if red is the money colour in another country... and they live in a desert? Then they'd really notice green because that would be the rare colour there.
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Apr 3, 2003 10:42:16 GMT -5
Post by Sphi on Apr 3, 2003 10:42:16 GMT -5
But then wouldn't there be a lot of controversy over the ghosts, too? I mean, not all religions believe that people have "second chances", especially if they lived in sin. ...Is there already a controversy over that?
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Apr 3, 2003 11:52:08 GMT -5
Post by En on Apr 3, 2003 11:52:08 GMT -5
Yeah, probably, but fortunately for the ghosts Harry rides a broomstick, so he is getting the brunt of the bad press
It drives me crazy when people who say they live their lives based on ideas (which is what religion is) criticise other people's ideas because of little details. Bad rhetoric, that. They're all, "Harry rides a broom -- that means JKR is trying to make all our kids into witches which means she is teaching them to hate G'd!" That's like me saying "I'm human!" and one of them answering "No you're not, because you have lint in your navel and that's not human tissue, therefore you aren't all human, therefore you aren't human!" Guhhh, I hate poor logic.
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Calantha
Gryffindor Alumni
My name is Luck, this is my song, I happened by when you were gone
Posts: 4,493
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Apr 6, 2003 12:49:32 GMT -5
Post by Calantha on Apr 6, 2003 12:49:32 GMT -5
But hasn't it always sort of been like that? I mean, I'm not making excuses for it, but it's sort of what I've come to expect. People have problems with accepting other's ideas...because I think you will find poor logic everywhere.
Eh, I don't think ghosts are that big of a problem because we see ghosts in so many aspects of life and it hasn't been taught really that they are bad...you know what I'm saying? Like history tells us, and other pieces tell us that witches go against god or whatever, but I think ghosts aren't as focused on. Plus, then what would happen to Casper?
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Apr 6, 2003 14:31:50 GMT -5
Post by En on Apr 6, 2003 14:31:50 GMT -5
Yes, I know that bad logic is everywhere, but that doesn't mean I like it; sort of like Kevin Costner.
Yeah, I guess ghosts do seem to be pretty nebulous territory, religionwise. Some of the more orthodox religions just don't comment. On the other hand, reincarnation is a big subject for them. I think this is because if you get reincarnated, it messes with their ideas of a soul having one life and one destination, while ghosts can at least be reconciled as souls in some kind of purgatory. To sum up: ghosts can be rationalised. Reincarnation can't, or at least not to Christian fundamentalists.
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Apr 7, 2003 11:32:50 GMT -5
Post by coldmercurywitch on Apr 7, 2003 11:32:50 GMT -5
We have some Christians who live up the road. They're nice people in general, but they won't let their kids watch the Harry Potter movies or read the books. They say it's because it's all written and created to look cool and inviting and that it corrupts children and makes them turn away from their God and Christ and turn to the ways of the devil. They told my mum that she should stop any of us from seeing it so that she could save us from it's evilness.
For once, mum was on my side, but then mum says she believe in God, then turns around and casts spells on her Ex to keep him away rom her and us.
But it's those sorts of religious beliefs that really piss me off. If they are saying that sort of thing to their children then those kids are going to grow up thinking that imagining anything like that will condem them. Their parents are killing their imaginations and THAT is a one of the worst crimes I think someone can commit.
Anyway, the ghosts in the Harry Potter books help to portray JKRowlings beliefs in what happens when you die as far as I'm concerned. If people are going to freak about it, that's their problem. They don't know what they're missing out on.
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Apr 9, 2003 14:43:18 GMT -5
Post by En on Apr 9, 2003 14:43:18 GMT -5
What's so sad is that those people probably don't realise that all they are teaching their children is that parents have to control kids because kids can't be trusted to think about beliefs. Which will do one of two things to the kids: make them grow up unable to think about their beliefs, therefore causing them to live automatic, pointless, depthless lives; or make them grow up hating people who don't trust them to think through things. And neither of those two things will make the kids feel closer to G'd.
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Apr 17, 2003 16:09:38 GMT -5
Post by j.s.p. on Apr 17, 2003 16:09:38 GMT -5
That's a hard question: how much can you trust a kid that doesn't have the rational development of an adult. Had this conversation the other night: can you say to a kid, "Now, Johnny, stealing is wrong, except in cases of emergency, or need, or revenge, or if you are the president and want to invade another country." I don't know. I see ageing as the change between a black-and-white mentality to a shaded gray existence.
Remove the argument from religion or morals and then rephrase the discussion: Most would agree that parents should treat their child "healthy" living...eating vegetables, not smoking, etc. Should parents not teach their children this and let them find out on their own? I'm torn, because I agree that children, in religious and moral terms, should figure out what they believe independent of any outside coercive force. But do you allow a five year old to smoke, just so they can come to their own conlcusion?
=Jack
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Apr 17, 2003 22:51:24 GMT -5
Post by En on Apr 17, 2003 22:51:24 GMT -5
...Or do you just show the kid your two coworkers who smoke, and let them look in the window of a bar at night, and point out that some smokers leave butts on the road but some don't, and tell them what the health risks are...
A book is not real. Letting a kid read a book is not like allowing them to do something that will damage their bodies, although some books might damage their minds, which would be an individual judgment call since all kids are so different. And in those cases, why not tell the kid, "I don't think you should read this book until after you've read that one. They're not sequels exactly, but this one will be more interesting after you've read that one." Or something like that. Or if they read it anyway, talk to them about it; which is more like finding out the kid has tried smoking and then talking to them about smoking in culture, and smoking and health.
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Apr 17, 2003 23:50:53 GMT -5
Post by j.s.p. on Apr 17, 2003 23:50:53 GMT -5
That is what I was going for: I know enough people with the over-protective mind set, especially the religious kind, to know that they would say that damaging a kid's mind is worse. You and I can agree that reading most books won't scar most kids. But if we believed in, for example, a fundamentalist Christian structure, then those books would be scarring. It's a matter of degrees and you and I are on one side and there are others on the other side. I mean, I read de Sade when I was 15. My parents didn't know. I'm not proud of this fact, but I was reading some stuff about it and wanted to know what it was about. Honestly, I didn't like it...thought the prose style a bit boring and the misogyny a bit much. Now, am I scarred by this? I would say no, but I won't say that it hasn't effected me. Now some of my fundamentalist friends would say that it did scar me.
In the end, I can see the fundamentalist side, and while I don't agree with it, I don't know where to draw the line between what is good and what is bad.
=Jack
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Apr 18, 2003 0:00:50 GMT -5
Post by En on Apr 18, 2003 0:00:50 GMT -5
Well... fundamentalists believe there is A Good and A Bad. And therein lies the problem. I don't buy that. I think that there are some lives, and some people, and some experiences; and the more you discuss and learn, the more sense (and nobility/virtue or whatever) you can find in-the-world.
I really think that talking to your kid about books helps the kid to evaluate it, and to see where it fits or doesn't in the value system you have, and to think about Goodness and Badness and see that part of thinking maturely is recognizing that pretty much everything is on the borderline.
And I think that any mindset that holds that having an experience irreversibly damages a human, as opposed to inducing an action that necessitates a reaction, is the saddest thing about fundamentalism. It is tragic that there really are people who think that one twist of fate, or one book, or one action, can make a person unredeemable.
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Apr 18, 2003 0:10:47 GMT -5
Post by j.s.p. on Apr 18, 2003 0:10:47 GMT -5
It's not so much that one thing causes a person to be unreedemable (for then what is the good of Christ's sacrifice?), but it's that it starts them on the path of unreedemability. They way I've had it explained to me: Take two people, one a believer, one not. They start at the same point and they try and reach another point. Now the believer, doing righteous actions, takes two steps forward to the goal (heaven?). The non-believer takes one step forward (good thing) and one step to the left. Now, he's not moving backwards, but he's not any closer. Imagine that this continues...so it forms sort of a triangle. Yes, the non-believer may still reach the end, but it takes long and is at an angle. But he may never reach the end---thus, he's not redeemed. I'm just being the devil's advocate (perhaps law is a good profession for that... ) ... I do agree with you, En, but I have a hard time completely faulting the fundamentalist world view because, if you do, you have to redraw that line somewhere else. And it has to be done...because we can agree that some things are inherrently bad, and some that are inherrently good. So where do you draw the line? =Jack
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Apr 18, 2003 9:37:26 GMT -5
Post by En on Apr 18, 2003 9:37:26 GMT -5
We could talk for hours about where the line is, and who draws it, and what to do when someone crosses it.
But hang on here. We were talking about the fundamentalists not wanting their kids to read Harry Potter. And now you tell me that the fundamentalists don't believe that there are unforgiveable sins. So... if there are no unforgiveable sins, why is reading a book so bad? Especially when just talking it through can make the book a learning experience, in whatever educational / value structure the talkers share?
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Apr 19, 2003 18:30:48 GMT -5
Post by j.s.p. on Apr 19, 2003 18:30:48 GMT -5
I don't know about most fundamentalists, but the ones I am acquainted with believe that there is one and only one unforgivable sin: being a son (or daughter) of perdition. (This is knowing for absoute certainty that the religion is true and denying it.)
Then again, a sin is only forgivable if the person asks for forgiveness, which implies (1) knowing that it was wrong (2) wanting it to stop. So, if I believed that HP was really "of the Devil," I would argue that HP starts children down the wrong path (thinking that the occult is acceptable) which leads (if not already) to a non-belief status in which they don't want forgiveness or see that it is wrong.
=Jack
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Apr 22, 2003 13:18:48 GMT -5
Post by En on Apr 22, 2003 13:18:48 GMT -5
Most of the history of medicine (from Ancient Greece through the eighteenth century) has been one of people making great scientific discoveries and then getting condemned for heresy for even looking into the matter. For example, there is currently a witch hunt in certain hoity-toity medical circles for people who want to try herbal remedies instead of always and only using prepackaged pharmaceuticals. Several people got executed just prior to the Italian Renaissance for suggesting that medicine might have more to do with the physical processes and medicines than with prayer. And we all know the rumours that got spread round about those scary dudes Leonardo and Michaelangelo because they were so curious about the body (Mikey actually did unauthorised autopsies to improve his understanding of the human form).
The word "pharmacy" itself is a poignant reminder of this, for it comes from the Greek word for "death" and means "the poison that cures." Imagine if those who learned how to use radioactive rays and chemicals to stop the growth of new cells had never been allowed to try giving these things to suffering humans in small doses, monitoring them and modifying dosages as they went.
Likewise, what if an adult allows a child to read Harry Potter, helping that child to understand that when Hagrid says it's bad to rely on magic to solve your problems, JKR means that we all need to take the talents we have and invest them according to our values? And what if, by helping that child to evaluate the literature properly, the adult helps the book stop one child from using the power of fantasy to hurt people? What if -- what if that adult gets the kid to see the parts of the book that help the kid to be a better person? What if the book stops one child from thinking that people of certain bloodlines are better than another? What if the book convinces one child to think about whether something is brave or just reckless? What if the book is the poison that cures?
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