I didn't think I was having a religious argument with you Dave - more of a "throw my hands up in the air, what kind of craziness have the fundamentalists presented us with now?" kind of thing.
I know there are many people of my age out there that are devoted to their Christianity - I didn't mean to suggest that Christianity was altogether irrelevant, just an odd context for any potential Potter-backlash in the UK, considering the relative decline in its importance for daily life. I am not just saying this - there are facts and figures to back this up (of course I can't find them right now - I tried and can't pin down the poll data that I came across last month). Over and above the membership crisis you mention, I think there is more than a little disillusionment with organised religion, but not necessarily with the beliefs that underlie it. As I said, I would definitely describe myself as atheist, but do try to live my life according to basic principles are far from incompatible with Christianity.
The thing about Potter and religion - and I am saying this from only a casual acquaintance with the source material - is surely that Potter promotes fairly good ideals even while the backdrop is fantastical adventure. The heroic children central to the plotlines are essentially perfect and 'good'. Not demon-worshipping, goat-sacrificing and 'evil'. As you mentioned in your first post, Rowling's stories are very much in the vein of C S Lewis' Narnia books, that are based on christian ideals. I wonder was there any kind of anti-Narnia response when those books were first published?
Yep, I just took the Christian Fundamentalist angle and ran with it - and that isn't what the article was about at all, sorry for diverting the thread.
Quote:
| That was my point, the fact that even my seven year old son is well aware that Harry Potter is fiction. (As in not the real world.) And the people who believe that reading Harry Potter to children will make them Pagans, are the same people who think that telling children that homosexuals exist will make them all homosexual. This is the kind of bigotry we need to get rid of. |
I might not have said anything very clearly in my last post, but this is pretty much exactly how I feel.
Quote:
Originally posted by Dave
And the friends that I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with didn't turn into devil worshipping, leaders of an evil empire. At least not the last time I telephoned them. Some of them are still Christians too! |
:lol:
And I am sure all those that read Lady Chatterly's Lover, or watched The Exorcist or A Clockwork Orange didn't become deviants, either. At least I hope not...