> My opinion on the books? Just because they don't preach Christianity, it doesn't mean conservative parents should blacklist them. Is Mr. Rogers also bad because he takes children into a land of make believe? I bet a lot of the vocal Christian leaders who condemn Harry Potter have either never read the books, or they read them after being told by peers that the books were of the devil. It's amazing how many people will accept the word of another imperfect human as gospel, just because they claim to follow the same beliefs. They blindly accept Biblical reasonings for things that should not be judged as "good" or "evil" simply by quoting a few Bible verses and calling it sufficient research. And if, after reading the Harry Potter books, a child rejects Christian beliefs and starts worshipping the devil, I highly doubt the books would be the sole reason for the child's conversion. There are such things as family and peers.
>
> ~Kathleen

If I might be allowed to veer off on a slight tangent...

I came across the philosophy of the Big Lie in Mick Foley's second book, Foley Is Good. It states (and no, I can't remember who it was that developed it or first said it, but he was around in the fifties) that if you have a lie that is big enough, and you tell it often enough, then people will start to believe it.

I think this is a slightly adapted version. Someone sees the word "magic" and has a brain overdrive. A few people begin banging on and on about evil and witchcraft and sorcery and paganism and Hell and eventually, people start to believe it without checking the evidence for whatever reason.

I believe exactly the opposite of the view that Harry condones Satanism, the occult etc. - for me, the charm of Harry Potter and his stories is that the series is basically your average British school story about a boy and his friends who, with a certain disregard for rules, set about the business of surviving school and having a generally ripping and adventurous time of it. It's just that they do Potions instead of Chemistry, and there's always a subplot of some sort of evil that rapidly turns into the plot at the end, when Harry does the obligatory climactic cliffhanger bit and sets up the next book very nicely, thankyou very much.

If you don't believe that analysis, just get a copy of Harry Potter + the Stone, eliminate all reference to Voldemort and the Stone, switch the subject names about, remove the use of magic, replace Quidditch with rugby, and remove some of the non-teaching staff, and you have a story about a boy who goes to public school.

Zarn"not quite sure where he ended up there..."iwoop