Apparently, the success of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows “renews concerns that children are being lured to Satan.” After “concerns” they left out “…among dumbshits…”
Nov 30 2010
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Patrick
November 30, 2010 at 6:38 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Fictional mutant lifting a chair with her telekinetic super-powers: perfectly wholesome science fiction.Fictional witch lifting a chair with her magic powers: THE EVIL THAT IS CORRUPTING OUR YOUTH
Cafeeine Addicted
November 30, 2010 at 7:00 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
And don't forget… Divine progeny mimicking a water strider is a herald of eternal asskissing.
optifaster
November 30, 2010 at 7:12 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
At least it isn't headline network news with discussion panels any more, which I vaugley recall it was in the early naughties.Retired to a single priest promoting a book on WND… that's about where it belongs.
JAFisher44
November 30, 2010 at 7:32 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Oh noes! Someone wrote some fiction that will desensitize our children to the evils of our fiction!!!You wanna know what my problem with this is? If these people believe Harry Potter is evil why are they letting their kids read or watch it?Of course I am probably missing the point. This guy is probably advocating some sort of national censorship so that even people who don't share the guy's faith aren't corrupted.
Kerri
November 30, 2010 at 7:34 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I'm actually having that discussion with one of the mom's at my son's school who INSISTS that evil is a physical entity that inhabits people and witchcraft is real, thus we should shun HP and never let our children read about it or see the movies. Made me want to rent the entire theater for a showing just for the school. SO frustrating!
Harrod
November 30, 2010 at 8:00 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I was just watching the fifth film, and when the nefarious Professor Umbridge glares at Harry while saying "Deep down, you KNOW you deserve to be punished," I was reminded of countless episodes of the Atheist Experience expertly calling out Christianity for their reflexive de-emphasizing of identity and human rights.
GMpilot
November 30, 2010 at 8:37 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Let me get this straight: a "practicing exorcist" thinks Harry Potter points the way to hell? He should be happy, because it means more business for him! I can't imagine he gets more than 3 or 4 calls per year.My indifference to all thing Potter is immeasurable, but I have to wonder: The Wizard of Oz has been around for a century, and the movie has been on TV for decades, and these same people have been silent. Why?
Ricky
November 30, 2010 at 9:55 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
GMpilot, apparently you haven't been paying attention to your Catholic news (and why the hell would you?). There is a shortage of exorcists to deal with the growing scourge, so they are having to train even more exorcists. (I would give my left testicle to be able to sit in on the home-ec course on what removes split-pea soup from a collar and robe.)http://www.cathnewsphil.com/2010/11/18/us-trains-over-100-new-exorcists/As to HP, I didn't start reading them until churches in the Mid-West began burning them. I figured there had to be something good in them for that kind of reaction. And, I would like to thank those churches for leading me to Harry Potter – the books were fantastic!
David McNerney
December 1, 2010 at 3:33 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I don't get the problem.Why don't they just use magic against Satan?Or is their magic not as strong a Harry Potter's?Reveliat Ignoramus!
Mauricio Duque
December 1, 2010 at 4:33 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
If you dont like something just say its evil and that it leads to satan XD
Sorien
December 1, 2010 at 5:33 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
This site is an affiliate of the Onion, right?
Plain Simple
December 1, 2010 at 9:33 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
@GMpilot: To be fair, they do address the Wizard of Oz in the article.@Sorien: It might be affiliated to an onion: If you even scratch the surface it makes you cry, and if you swallow it you stink.
Thomas
December 1, 2010 at 9:33 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
This guy says that the number of demonic possessions are on the rise, and he claims __the children__ are impressionable. He also claimed that there is an official Harry Potter website that encourages children to worship pagan gods? I want to see this!
Thomas
December 1, 2010 at 9:47 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
@Plain SimpleWhen they mentioned how that the witch or wizard is always either a villain or a conman, I was thinking "Merlin", but who knows? They may consider him a pagan influence as well.
Afterthought_btw
December 1, 2010 at 9:48 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
LOL!Very few things on the net get me to Laugh Out Loud, (as opposed to giving a mildly amused smirk), but that article is definitely one of them.Why no outrage about Terry Pratchett, Raymond E Feist, Janny Wurts, Terry Brooks, Brandon Sanderson, or any of the other excellent Fantasy authors that have magicians as main characters (and magicians as heroes!)?
heinzccc0
December 1, 2010 at 10:04 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Best line from the article: Rev. Gabriele Amorth said: "You start off with Harry Potter, who comes across as a likeable wizard, but you end up with the devil. There is no doubt that the signature of the Prince of Darkness is clearly within these books."Got to love that kind of simplistic logic. And the church/religious folk wonder why no one takes them seriously anymore?
Martin
December 1, 2010 at 11:10 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
@Afterthought_btw: I know your question isn't entirely serious
but of course, the reason is these people don't actually read anything that isn't their Bible or books by Ray Comfort or Lee Strobel. For them even to have heard of any of those authors they'd have to have a pretty solid foundation as inveterate fantasy readers. They only know of HP and Twilight because those are impossible to miss bestsellers made into movies. And then, they don't even go see those, if they think their plot summaries are remotely accurate.
Strangelove
December 1, 2010 at 1:46 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
To take an argument from the creationist's textbook: Show us the warlocks. No seriously, if there is such an obvious and easy to fall for pathway from reading fiction to worshipping the devil, where are all the cases of exorcised former witches.Harry Potter has been around for a few years, so it should be easy to support their asinine claims with a few testimonies of actual witches. Show me the kids who read the books or saw Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and ended up as minions of the lord of darkness because of it.
Raymond
December 1, 2010 at 3:21 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
If you can credulously believe that the hero of one fictional book is real and can perform good magic (miracles), then I suppose its not too big a leap to believe that bad magic (witchcraft) from another fictional work really exists.Mind you, at least the atheists can't be blamed for HP. JK Rowling claims to be Christian and based purely on the demographics, a majority people in the US who indulge in the franchise are probably christians of some flavour.
Guillaume
December 1, 2010 at 3:22 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
But isn't Voldemort the character more akin to Satan? And isn't he the nemesis of Potter? If anything, Harry Potter is a Messianic figure.
Afterthought_btw
December 1, 2010 at 3:23 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
But.. but… Martin, they have a habitual Fantasy background! True, it's just one compendium of stories, and they seem unable to differentiate between fact and fiction, but…(Sorry, it was too tempting to resist!
)It's just such a shame that the work of these other authors to bring people over to the dark side doesn't get the credit it deserves! 
Mark
December 1, 2010 at 3:26 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
@ Patrick"Fictional mutant lifting a chair with her telekinetic super-powers: perfectly wholesome science fiction.Fictional witch lifting a chair with her magic powers: THE EVIL THAT IS CORRUPTING OUR YOUTH"HILARIOUS!! Personally, I think the point that should be brought up (and I'm sure it has been) is that it's all FICTION. I'm a Christian, a Children's Pastor even, and I've seen all the movies, and am planning on reading the books soon. I don't take a public stance on the books from a "pastor" stand point, because it's not my job to say whether or not someone should allow their kids to read the books. I think that should be a personal conviction that they decide on for themselves.
Sydney Arnau
December 1, 2010 at 4:33 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I agree with Guillaume…Harry's life has a striking similarity to a certain prominent Christian figure: escapes death as an infant (starring Voldemort as King Herod), performs miracles during his young adulthood, is chastised by the authorities even though he did the right thing, saves the world from evil (starring Voldemort as the Devil; he's a versatile character), and so on… Messianic figure, indeed.
Afterthought_btw
December 1, 2010 at 4:46 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Guillaume and Sydney Arnau – Voldemort kills a lot of people though, I haven't read the Bible for a while but I'm pretty sure Satan doesn't kill all that many people. A little like Harry, actually – he doesn't kill many people, either.So maybe Harry actually is a depiction of Satan! *gasps* They're right!Voldemort… Voldemort… arch enemy of Satan… I guess he'd be Yahweh then…
Ryan V
December 2, 2010 at 8:11 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Odd that this Catholic priest is making such a stink about Harry Potter. I had two separate priests as teachers in high school (yes, I went to a Catholic high school) who enjoyed reading the Harry Potter books and watching the movies. I guess even the people who study the religion in-depth at seminary can't agree on dogma.
Sydney Arnau
December 2, 2010 at 9:36 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Afterthought – the Bible doesn't really say much specifically about the actions of Satan, but definitely implies that evil is the cause of much death…how that is reconciled with the death caused by God, I'll never know, but I'd say in HP Voldemort is the allegorical "ultimate evil" but the books aren't perfectly symmetrical to the Christ story. The similarities are interesting, though. But in general, humans love a good messiah story; we've fetishized suffering for the greater good. That's why comic book heroes are so popular. Maybe that's why we got the Christ story in the first place.
Thomas
December 2, 2010 at 12:41 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
The devil was supposed to have killed Job's family, but but god only allowed it because the two of them needed to settle a bet.
Afterthought_btw
December 3, 2010 at 5:46 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Sydney – like the question Martin replied to, I wasn't being entirely serious!
(Although I do happen to think the Yahweh is more evil than Satan judging by their actions in the Bible.)
John K.
December 3, 2010 at 1:11 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I had a FaceBook war with someone that swore the spells in Harry Potter were real satanic curses. How do even respond to statements like this with anything but stunned silence?If you can not convince someone their magic god is not real I have no idea how to convince them the magic spells in Harry Potter are not real either. Talk about fractal wrongness.
magx01
December 3, 2010 at 7:22 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
"Although it may be argued that the Harry Potter books and movies are just fantasy stories having nothing to do with reality, they still entice impressionable young children, teenagers and even adults with an elitist worldview full of occultism and paganism," he writes."Man, they dragged out ALL of the boogeymen in this one….oh no, wait, they didn't drag 'liberals' into it….a miracle?
Winston
April 3, 2011 at 7:55 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Couldn't agree more, Martin. Couldn't agree more.
Any chance of "Molotov" Mitchell getting some blogtime here? 