The Evils of Harry Potter and our Kids today

December 12, 2002 @ 3:32 pm by Pressed

I was going to leave a comment on What in Tarnation’s post about Harry Potter, but it got to be so long that I decided to just post it on my site.

It is amazing that some Christians have taken a strong stance against the Harry Potter books claiming them to be evil and yet they don’t bat an eye at the other stuff that is being broadcasted into their homes. Yes the Bible does say that witchcraft is a sin and we should avoid witchcraft, but you know the Bible also speaks against sin and sin is promoted and glorified on just about every television, radio station, newspaper, magazine and even video game in the world. If you are going to declare war on Harry Potter because it is about wizards and witches then you need to toss out your TV, your VCR, your DVD Player, any Gaming systems, your magazines, your newspapers, your computers, your radio’s (including in your car), and any other thing that may contain something that the Bible speaks against. You will also need to close your eyes while you are driving to work so that you don’t accidentally see a billboard or bumper sticker that is Evil. I think the real reason there is such a controversy over Harry Potter is not as much about the witchcraft as it is about jumping on the bandwagon that someone has created.

The other thing that I have a problem with is the fact that almost all of the people who are haters of Harry Potter do not have a problem with Lord of the Rings. HELLO! There are a couple wizards in Lord of the Ring and the Elves perform magic! WIZARDS! EVIL! WITCHCRAFT! KNOCK KNOCK, IS ANYONE HOME? WAKE UP people and get some consistency in your lives for crying out loud! And you know what there excuse is? “Well Lord of the Rings is written by a Christian author.” Uhhhh, SO WHAT. Let me get this straight. Harry Potter is a wizard and the movies and books about him are evil and from the fiery pit, and yet Lord of the Rings also contains some wizards and hints of magic and yet because it is written by a Christian author it isn’t evil… Yes, lets band together as Christians and be a little more inconsistent so the world will see what a true Christian is, a walking contradiction.

In my lifetime I have watched so many children’s shows that contain some form of magic, violence, or other things that we like to blame for our children’s problems, and there was never a big fuss over it. No one ever spoke up and declared poor Merlin the WIZARD from the sword and the stone to be evil incarnate. Yes, as a small child I watched such retched filth as Wizard of Oz, The Sword and the Stone, and I even watched Wile E. Coyote trying to blow up the Roadrunner BEEP! BEEP! and not to mention bugs bunny dressing up like a girl. But funny thing is, I never wanted to grow up and be a wizard, watching Merlin the wizard never put the thought in my mind that I too can become a wizard, watching bugs bunny never made me want to dress up like a girl and try to blow up my enemies. Why? Because I knew it was fantasy, it’s make believe, IT’S A CHILDRENS STORY, DUH! Never once did I learn karate and kick booty like the teenage mutant ninja turtles, nor did I ever run off into the forest looking for the Smurfs to protect them from the WIZARD Gargamel, because even as a child I knew that they don’t exist. Harry Potter is fantasy, just like these other cartoons and shows that I watched, and it won’t take long for your child to figure out that their broomstick does not really fly and their pet owl will not really deliver any mail so the movie must be just a fairytale.

Being a Youth Minister and being a youth not to long ago, I know that there are far greater things, other than Harry potter, that we should be worried about. Our kids don’t need as much protection from Harry Potter as they do from the things they are getting ready to get into as they go through school. It’s the drugs, the alcohol, and the sex that is killing our kids, not Harry Potter. When these children who have read Harry Potter reach High School they will not be trying to ride to school on their broomstick, but instead they will be riding to school with their friend who just stopped off in the alley to buy a bag of weed so that they can smoke it before class. While they are smokin their pot they will be listening to the latest song on the pop station that is basically about having wild sex. This is real life. I get the privilege of seeing kids in Jr high who get stoned and drunk and are involved in some disgusting sexual conduct and their parents are so clueless that it isn’t even funny. Young kids smokin pot and even growing their own weed in the back yard as they listen to their latest CD that basically tells them that the world sucks and they should *bleepin* hate everyone and *bleepin* hate everything and their main motto in life should be to tell everyone to *bleep* off cause they are going to do whatever they want regardless of what the *bleepin* world says. This is the environment kids live in today. Why don’t we quit wasting our time arguing over such a futile thing and start preparing our kids for the nasty world they are forced to live in. I have lived almost 24 years now and not once have I meet a wizard and not once have I been pulled into some witchcraft group that glorifies evil, but I can’t count the number of times I have been in contact with drugs, alcohol, and a number of other harmful and evil things.

Pressed

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The “DUH” Files

December 4, 2002 @ 3:20 pm by Pressed

Have you heard the latest news? In New York two teenagers with rather large midsections are suing McDonalds’s for making them fat. WHAT IN TARNATION? Apparently on behalf of the teens their parents are filing a class-action lawsuit against McDonalds claiming that the unhealthy meals have made them obese, which caused them to develop health problems. Give me a break…”break me off a piece of that kit Kat bar”…in fact give me the whole dang box and then I can sue Nestle because I am 400 pounds overweight!

While we are looking at stupid logic lets look at the statements of a George Washington University law professor named John Banzhaf. He says that the children are unable to resist the chain’s playgrounds, and Happy Meals because of the toys. “Children clearly are not capable of making health-related decisions.” DUH! That is why they have parents. People will not take any responsibility for their own actions and it makes me sick. According to Mr. Wright, “The teens should be suing their parents, not McDonalds.” How true is that! The parents are the ones giving these kids money and taking them to McDonalds, shouldn’t it be their job to take care of their own child and teach them how to eat instead of allowing them to shovel forty five loads of McDonald’s hamburgers down their throat. You can blame McDonalds and any other fast food place in the nation all you want but when it comes down to it, if your child is eating 7 happy meals a day, its your own fault! It’s time people realize that you reap what you sow and then take responsibility for their own actions. We are not in kindergarten anymore people. If you eat at McDonalds 5 times a week then you are going to be unhealthy, its not their fault, it’s yours.

Another man named Caesar Barber is also suing after he developed diabetes from eating at McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and Wendy’s five times a week. This law suit is still bouncing around in the court system but the teenager’s attorney Samuel Hirsch is focusing on the suit involving children, “since children can’t be expected to be personally responsible for their health.” Once again we have a “DUH” moment. In fact let’s have a short moment of silence to meditate on the stupidity of this whole lawsuit… The children can’t be responsible for their own health, neither can McDonalds, Wal-Mart, the Easter bunny, or any other person we want to blame except for their parents! If your child is unhealthy and fat due to an excessive amount of McDonalds food then it sounds like a classic case of faulty parenting and lets punish the real criminals, the parents.

“The notion that there’s no parental authority over these children is ridiculous,’ says Mike Burita, a spokesman for the Center for Consumer Freedom, and I say AMEN to that! Burita also asked the question, “Do little kids steal their parent’s car keys and drive themselves to McDonald’s?” The thought is preposterous. These two overweight teenagers have been allowed to stuff their face with unhealthy fast-food several times a week for years and now they want to get paid for it because they are having health problems. Yes, lets reward people for their own inability to control their selfish desires. There are no consequences due to poor decisions on both the parents and the teenager’s parts; instead there is money in it. What a plan!

The teens have asked the jury to decide how much they should be compensated for the harm they have suffered. Hey I have a great idea, instead of giving them a bunch of money so that they can buy more unhealthy food why don’t we get them a life-time membership to the closest health club and get their butt’s on a treadmill for crying out loud.

I am not complaining about the fact that these people are obese, I don’t necessarily discriminate against fat people because I have a large amount of blub hanging over my belt buckle as well, but I am not out blaming everyone else for my own actions. We can chalk this one up to another classic case of the spread of our humanistic, relativistic, selfish tendencies. It is about time parents started to act like parents and raise their kids right instead of raising up a nation of spoiled, lazy, brats with no desire to work on their own but with the thought that they deserve to have everything from everyone and if something happens then it is someone else’s fault and not theirs.

Man I am hungry…. Did somebody say McDonalds?

Pressed

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Wisdom from an old dead Theologian

December 3, 2002 @ 3:18 pm by Pressed

What a precious gift is the Bible! Who will prize it? Who will not bind it to his heart? We stand on the narrow isthmus of life, between two oceans, the boundless past and the boundless future. The records of eternity past are beyond our reach, but the Ancient of Days has opened them, and has revealed to us in the Bible whatever it is necessary that we should know. The vanishing present is all important to us, because on it depends our everlasting all, but who will instruct us how to use the swiftly passing moments as we ought? The only wise God has condescended to speak to us in the Bible, and to teach us how to order our steps in life’s short way, so as to insure life eternal. The future world is just before us. For myself, I realize that I am standing on the shore of the boundless ocean, with but an inch of crumbling sand remaining. I hear the shrieks of the dying infidel at my side, to whose view all is covered with impenetrable darkness. He, too, has come to the brink, and would gladly refuse to proceed, but he cannot. Perplexed, terrified, shuddering, he plunges in and sinks, he knows not whither. How precious, at this trying moment, is the Book of God! How cheering this Light from heaven! Before it I see the shades retiring. The Bible lifts its torch-nay, not a feeble torch, such as reason may rise, to shine on the darkness and render it visible; the Bible sheds the light of the noonday sun on the vast prospect before me, and enables me, tranquil and joyful, to launch into eternity with the full assurance of hope. Mortals, hastening to the retribution of eternity, be wise; receive the revelation from heaven presented to you in the Bible; attend diligently to its instructions, and reverence its authority, as the word of the final Judge before whom you will soon appear.

- John Dagg “A Manual of Theology (1857)

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For the Birds

December 2, 2002 @ 3:15 pm by Pressed

I was so excited today because when I went to get gas it was $1.16 a gallon, which is the cheapest gas has been in a long time. On my way to the gas station I realized that they must be filming the new remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds, because when I looked up into the sky I saw nothing but a big dark form of birds flying around. In fact I have never seen so many birds in my life. It didn’t matter which window or mirror I looked out of in my car, you could not see the sky, all you could see was thousands of birds. And then it hit me… literally. Large white piles of bird dung came tumbling out of the sky like I had never seen before. Splat.. splat…splat…splat… splat…splat…splat, all over my front window, my hood, and just about everywhere else on my car. It was like the 11th plague that God forgot to do to the Egyptians so he thought he would just let it go on Fenton today while I was driving. It looked like I had just drove through the bird exhibit at the St. Louis Zoo. What a mess.

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Ok, slightly changing the subject, tonight I went out to grab me something to eat before I went to the Church to do some work. I went to sonic because they take credit card and I had no cash. While I was there I pulled up and another person was parked next to me, and lo and behold when I got my food and was ready to pay the bill the lady told me that the person who was parked next to me had paid for my meal before they left. How awesome is that, what a wonderful way to show kindness and love to people. It really brings home to me the fact that we are to love people, and one of the ways to show that is just a random act of kindness. This has happened to me once before when me and two other friends went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant and the guy that was sitting next to us paid for all of our meals on his way out. It is a wonderful feeling to know that there are people who truly show the love and kindness of Christ to others. What amazes me the most is that I am around more people who gripe, complain, and have negative attitudes so much that when some act of kindness happens to me I am utterly shocked at it, and I work in a Church. *sigh*

The thing is, for me it is God who gets the glory for what this person has done for me. I praise and thank God that there are kind loving people who love him and love others out there in the world. God deserves the praise for all good things that happen in our lives, because all good gifts are from the Lord. When you have an opportunity just take the time to show someone that you care about them, or just do a random act of kindness to someone. Pay for their meal, buy their groceries at Wal-Mart, hand someone an encouraging card, or anything that just loves people. What a wonderful way to share the warmth and love of Christ, especially during this time of year.

Have you ever done something like this, or has someone ever done it to you? Please share your experience and how it made you feel in the comments section below.

Pressed
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