[CS-FSLUG] OT: Don't Buy Harry Potter

[Timothy Butler]

> You may have built the foundation upon which
> they will easily justify reading (and believing)
> the Koran, the Da Vinci Code, and worse.  It is,
> IMO, time to start worrying.

	Nah. Perhaps they should read those too -- once they have a mature  
faith. Different levels of material are appropriate at different  
times. I own a Qu'ran. I own the Book of Mormon. (I don't own the Tao  
Te Ching, but wouldn't hesitate.) I have a collection of materials  
from Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. I've spent time  
reading Unitarian propaganda. I don't consider them sacred, but it is  
useful to know them. Faith that is too weak to be tested needs to be  
developed to the point that it can withstand testing. If faith will  
fail after reading the Qu'ran, it wasn't really faith at all, but  
simply a comfort with the status quo. Probably just as well to do  
away with it than live with a false sense of security.

	I agree with Josh McDowell on the Da Vinci Code. It is an absolutely  
engrossing *fictional* book. It is one of the best novels I've read.  
It is fiction, utterly and totally. Like good fiction, it uses  
realistic situations and real places, people, and so on... but its  
fiction! McDowell recommends everyone read the book and see the  
movie... and then read his book that explains how exactly it is  
fiction. I think that sounds like a brilliant idea.

	Most people commenting on the Da Vinci Code haven't read it. Again,  
that means you're judging the book by the words of a few people that  
like getting on soap boxes. Challenge its historicity to those who  
think it is a good overview of the Church... but most of us read it  
for what it is. (And, the characters associated with the CC don't  
come out looking evil -- you actually feel bad for them at the end of  
the book, for in the attempt to protect the Faith they love they have  
been pulled into a con by a nasty guy who wants to destroy the  
Church. The "bad guy" fails to do anything to the Church, btw.)

	What shall we as Christians ban? Shall we throw out Shakespeare? He  
has magic, sex, cursing, violence and so on. Shall we throw out  
Homer? He has pagan gods! Shall we throw away Wordsworth and Keats?  
They weren't Christian and their poetry sounds more deistic than  
Christian. Lewis saw much of the Old Testament as myth. Luther was a  
bigot, and Aquinas had some questionable areas too. The Constitution  
was written by a bunch of Deists... and the Declaration of  
Independence seems to lean too heavily on Deistic ideas of  
revelation. Where do we draw the line?

> They watch Veggie Tales, Prayer Bear, the Donut
> Man, Bob the Builder, Dr Seuss, Beginners Bible,
> some selected Thomas the Train, Winnie the Pooh,
> and a variety of carefully screened videos from
> the public library, etc.

	And what does that accomplish? I mean that seriously and  
respectfully. Now, I'm not suggesting you take your children out to  
Brokeback Mountain. Based on your selections, they probably aren't  
old enough for Harry Potter either. But let's say five years from  
now... will you still be carefully selecting prescreened videos?  
Those who live an entirely sheltered life away from anything that  
makes them think have no reason to build up a defense... a strong  
faith that can weather the occasional time when "facts" seem to argue  
against belief. I'm not saying facts ever do -- notice the scare  
quotes in the last line -- but sometimes something will *seem* like  
it does, and during that time before one sees why it is otherwise,  
faith needs to be strong enough to "seek truth knowing there can be  
no conflict between God and truth."

	Quick digression (let's not discuss this topic in and of itself,  
just consider it as an example). Let's say someone invents a time  
machine and goes back 65 million years and finds dinosaurs, and goes  
back further and further... and Darwin turns out to be right on  
target. Suddenly millions would lose their faith. But, that wasn't  
faith at all -- it was all just a comfortable status quo of  
attributing mystery to some god. My God is not a "god of the gaps,"  
I'm not endorsing evolution, but if somehow someway it could be  
proven absolutely and certainly true, that would not change my faith.  
Do you see what I mean? We must build a strong faith, and not hide  
potential challenges out of fear they might hurt faith.

	Faith is like a oyster. If it never receives an irritant, it is just  
an oyster. If you drop a bolder on it, you smash it. But if you  
carefully supply just a little drop of irritant in a measured way,  
you instead get a beautiful pearl.

> The Bible is very clear about the difference and
> saves particularly strong words about the consequences
> of tolerating the latter.

	What you read and what you believe are not the same. Knowing and  
understanding something is very different from agreeing with it and  
condoning it. I spent some time last year reading an excellent series  
of essays by utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer. I disagree with  
him strongly, yet I benefited from the experience. Nietzsche may have  
been mad, but he says some worthwhile things too (including the quote  
in my signature).

	Ignorance is not the key to faith, knowledge is.

	-Tim

---
Timothy R. Butler | "Not  every end  is the  goal.  The end  of a
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                                            -- Friedrich Nietzsche