Scapegoat
Ever have those days when you don't know what to blog about, and then something happens and BLAM! you're blogging furiously until your fingers smoke? Well that's me right now.I just read an article in which the pope's chief exoricist, Rev. Gabriele Amorth, compared the Harry Potter characters to dictators Stalin and Hitler, saying they were possessed by the devil. He has called fictional wizard-in-training Harry Potter the "king of darkness, the devil" and stated that JK Rowling's works of magic promote the satanic acts. He said that the books are misleading when they differentiate between "white" magic and "black" magic---because ALL magic is a turn towards the devil.
*Sigh*.
Okay, screw that.
ARGHHHHHHHH! Fucking ignorant blind sex-deprived sadistic pompous shit-headed morons!!!!!!!!
Ok, that's better.
I know, this is not a well-thought out argument. I am not adding to the debate by getting all bitchy and spiteful and swearing up a storm. Sure, I could go on about what f-i-c-t-i-o-n is and all the real, NON-fiction atrocities committed by the Catholic church, all the real, NON-fiction evidence of evil in the world, not to mention all the real NON-fiction good these books and their author has brought to the world and to our culture at large (Eg: literacy, positive female role models, JKR's charity works, etc).
Think of all the depravity and violence that has NOT occurred while people were reading Harry Potter! In fact, I was GOING to maim, pillage and steal the weekend Half-Blood Prince came out, but I was too busy reading!
For me, this is not just a philosophical debate. It's a more of a "boyfriend/girlfriend fighting in a public place" kinda debate. I was born and raised Catholic, but I have refused to be lead blindly and I now have massive issues with the rights/expectations of women in the church, birth control, and stem-cell research, to name a few. It's like finding out that your boyfriend and his sister are sleeping together. Makes you mad, but its also so very creepy...
My point, and I do have one, is that this is personal.
And now they are going after my JKR. And you don't touch JKR.
So, if Harry Potter is a turn towards the devil, well then slap me in a red dress and hand me that pitchfork kids, I've got cities to burn!
posted by Franny @ 9:44 AM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
I was (was)also raised catholic, but I'm with you on this one Franny.
They say that ignorance is bliss, but I doubt that this idiot is in Seventh Heaven. His assertions probably accompany the Catholic Church's rhetoric about the DaVinci Code, also FICTION but taken as FACT!!! From my point of view, I love the HP books and movies. I have watched them over and over and have enoyed them for what they are -- entertainment. I agree that what you can say about these books is that millions of kids are EAGERLY reading again. They aren't doing black or white magic, they are reading FICTION. Not one kid's head has spun around and subsequently vomited green pea soup all over their bed from reading these books.
What I think of the Catholic church? I think they need to come out of the Dark Ages.
I feel your pain.
The church is just an institution, corrupt, greedy. The teaching that magic of any kind is evil comes from the definition of magic as manipulating your environment to meet your own ends, instead of humbly admitting the laws of phsyics and attributing miracles to love. You forget about your own personal power when you use magic, and you forget about love. You think you can't receive when you ask, that you have to demand and command and manipulate, however subtly. The ancient druids claimed that self-mastery - which includes getting what you want by admitting your own responsibility in every situation you encounter, instead of being a victim and blaming - was the only true magic.
Wicked! I mean, brilliant!
The Catholic church has also reinforced the thought that you have to suffer to deserve love and attention, that good people suffer, that people love you and take care of you if you get their attention by suffering (God too), and did I mention, SUFFERING??? Remember the first Chrsitians were Jews, and we all know how good the Jews are at suffering (not a judgement, just an observation. I mean, thousands and thousands of years of living somewhere where someone else is trying to kick them out, as far back as the ancient Israelite tribal commuities. Talk about shitty karma!) Catholics perpetuate the suffering mentality with guilt guilt guilt. Jesus died on the cross . . . over and over and over we hear about it. But what about the teaching he gave us that we DON"T have to go through that? That suffering is actually totally useless unless it teaches us that we don't need to suffer? That we are free? Some things I learned from the Catholic church, ass-backwards, are that I am good enough to receive love at any time even if I already feel great. That "godisnowhere" (ha! What did you read? Look again!)That I am wanted and loved as a woman and as such do NOT need to suffer to get attention or atone for some kind of guilt for being alive. That suppressing anger, fear and sadness only leads to degeneration of the physical body and crying, screaming, shaking into a good old pillow can change your life (and your back pain.). Thoughts create. If you believe you have to suffer to receieve love, to punish yourself for not being good enough to deserve an easy life, well, you will. If you believe a good, loving life is easy and receiving abindance is easy, you will. Best of luck to you Franny! Thanks for the time on your blog. I am a friendly blog-surfer and will not take up more space.
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