I advise anyone with a sense of humour to check out this site:

http://www.chick.com/catalog/videos/0127.asp

For me the killer line is "Christian parents have faced a similar problem for years with the teaching of evolution in their public schools."

How many Christians would seriously bar their children from reading the books, fearing they will become satanic worshippers? Would you be happy if your child's school branded you an occultist?

LMAO! I would seriously LOVE to see that video if it's half as good as that little summary!

It's funny that they should bring evolution into this. My brother spent the whole of last year defending evolution in his English class. The teacher used to slip in creationist bits and pieces in everything they did, and even turned a few boys in the class against my brother. Most of the kids (well, all them of really) were Christians, and when they heard my brother was a Harry Potter fan and a vocal evolutionist, quite a few of them started calling him a satanist. He once tried to defend the German people of today, and was subsequently dubbed Hitler as well. Satanist Hitler... When in fact, he's more of a Christian liberal.

Aiaiai. These fundamentalists never get it right, do they? May I never have as little imagination left as that. Sure, protect yourself from evil, and protect your kids from evil.

That's not what you're doing when you wall out knowledge, curiosity and imagination though.

I think the answer is that most Christian parents would NOT ban their children from reading the Harry Pooter books, but the vocal extremists get all the press...isn't that always the case? It's no fun writing or reading about boring normal people - lunatics always make for a better story - that's why we see so many of them even though they are hardly expressive of the majority!

I had to chuckle at your evolution line. I live in Cobb County, GA where in 2002 the school board actually took all the science books that mentioned evolution and put stickers that said this on the inside cover:

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

Then a federal judge ruled that this was unconstitutional and they had to remove all the stickers. What a waste of time and money!!! A good article can be found at this link:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/13/evolutio...xtbooks.ruling/

Most Christians (though obviously not the ones on this school board) believe that the creation theory expressed in the Bible and the theory of evolution can exist peacefully without cancelling out each other.

Dogmatic fundementalists just crack me up!

*sigh* Jack Chick. Man. I am a Christian, and I can think that I am biblically backed in stating that I hate the work of Jack Chick (not the man, but the work). In the past 40 years, Chick tracks have done more damage to the work of Christ than anyone else I can think of. His sinfully arrogant portrayals of the things he is attempting to critique only serve to comment back upon himself and all of the christian community. Even which Chick writes about something I agree with, I find his portrayal of the situation insulting and repulsive. It's ironic, isn't it, that Chick's claim is that children aren't able to understand the difference between fantasy and reality, and it seems chick isn't ever able to either?

-Fish

Yeah, Fish, I agree. He's insulting none as bad as Christians who have two grains of common sense.



It saddens me. I realise that Christianity has a lot to answer for, in a way. Way too much bloodshed and oppression have occured in the name of Christ, and the mistrust towards the faith is very reasonable. The last thing we as thinking Christians need is to have our values twisted by weirdos who want to force their medieval opinions onto everyone else.

Hope, faith and love. What's so repulsive about that? Where does fascism, anger, force, fear and propaganda fit into that? Those are the things I associate with censorship, and that is exactly the image that Christianity gets when these people behave like idiots.

It really is embarrassing.

Indeed, I guess I'm only fanning the flames of their press, but was so tickled by the ridiculousness of it that I had to share!

Horrendous aetheist as I am, I nonetheless know and like lots of moderate Christians and I genuinely fear that lunatics like this damage their reputation; it's the same way that Muslims or Jews tend to get tarred with the brush wielded by fundamentallists

Fundamentallists, eh? That's great. It reminds me of the band Bad Religion. They have a great song called Materialist, but throughout the song, he pronounces it Materealist. Implication: if you are a realist, you are a materialist. very clever! off topic on my part, but clever.

Anyway, yeah, you're right. There are exremists in any religion, and it is only by the extremists that the party is known. Atheists have them too. Atheists get reputations in religious circles as close-minded and blah blah blah because of a select few that damage the reputation of the whole.

-Fish

...I could cry, really. I mean, why is magic always connected with the devil? witches don't believe in any devil!!! it's too funny...

No, really. The problem here is that Satan, devils and hell pertain to a certain Christianism, not even all of its branches, and Christian leaders like Mr Chick try to attribute their own symbols and beliefs to other religions. It's very sad, because again, pagans and wiccans, who are the categories most attacked by these extremists, don't believe in hell, Satan or devils!
Isn't it strange?
I feel sick and tired of this automatic pairing of magic=evil, or witch=satanist. Ignorance is not justifiable today, not with all the chances to get informed by several kinds of media.

Luckily, Mr Chick isn't the only Christian opinionist on earth.

Is that really serious? Like. . .seriously serious?

How can anyone believe that? I nearly died laughing! These people really give Christians a bad name.

Yeah, Harry Potter is an occult. . .it sure brainwashed me! Lord, i had better go and try to summon the devil right now. . .maybe some magic will do the trick! Satan rules my life! He is my hero!

It's just shocking!!! There are far far worse things that kids, and people, are exposed to than Harry Potter in the media and popular culture, and as an Auntie to an 8 year old girl, I would say that rubbish on TV presenting teenage attitude (see Lizzie Maguire, Tracey Beaker and the like) is much worse for young people to be watching, and reading...

Also, as someone who would say they were a christian, surley the fact that one of the main points of the storyline of Harry Potter is the strength of love over hatred and fear, isn't that what Jesus himself taught??

I noticed that Harry Potter series has several references to Christmas and Easter. The characters have been shown celebrating those events. Does it mean that witches and wizards in JKRs universe are much aligned with Christianity? Then what are these guys complaining about?

This is really ticking me off! I'm a young teenager, I was about eight when I read SS/PS. I have never had a "desire" to join an occult or anything like that. All these parents are doing when they prevent their kids from reading Harry Potter, is restricting them from a great story. If they have a problem with this, maybe they should read the books for themselves, THEN make a decsion based on that. I would put a lot of money to say that these parents haven't even read the books.

The Harry Potter books are Christian based. JK Rowling has recently came out and said so, search for "JK Rowling reveals Christian basis for 'Harry Potter'" and you will be able to read what she said.

I am a Christian - I would say the majority of Harry Potter readers are Christians - and far from luring me to anthing, Harry Potter, with it's Christian theme and message, has helped me better understand my religion and faith.


"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

This is a quote from the Bible! 1 Cor 15:26, were Paul writes of the significance of the resurrection of Jesus.

Oh My...Isnt the world a funny place?

Its kind of tragic that people like this once ran the christian world on fear. and 200 years ago the first Harry Potter book would have be burned before it could "corrupt a young mind".

I find it so hard to comprehend that some people still believe in "Creationism", these people are living in the dark ages.

I have to laugh at these people, otherwise I would start crying.

oh my oh my oh my....
are you kidding me?
this is sooo sad ... I mean I know a lot of Christians (I myself am a Muslim) and none of them talks such a heavy nonsense like them... i dont know maybe its just a certain group of christians that talks like that but I am living in germany and thats why I can honestly say that none of those people corssed my way and said this
there are lunatics all over the world trying to damage the reputation of a religion or anything.... (best example= look at what Hitler said about the jews so all germans would hate them) therefore I would be really catious before I would believe everything...
I mean it is riddiculous to think that Harry Potter leads to an occult or anything...
and that children believe in a very young age in fantasy stuff is even healthy...
or do you want to tell me its leading to a desire to set fires or something just because christian kids believe in a man that comes down the chimney and gives you presents?

there are mad people all over the world...the most important thing is not to forget that there are also those who can use their brains

Edit: I edited out a little bit of your post that could have given offence. Be careful of generalising groups of people, because you never know who could read your post and feel offended.