Sad indeed.

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Sad indeed.

Forum: Messageboard
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Could someone shed some light on... (simpleman)
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It is all in the mind. (Interested )
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Wrong! (prophet)
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If you are scared of something then you should do something about it. Fear is a bondage. n/t. (Interested )
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Truth (prophet)
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Sorry, don't agree with you. (Interested )
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A word of caution -Fro Interrested (John Doe 666)
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Fear of the Devil (from the Net). (Interested )
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maybe word use is NOT FEAR EVIL BUT TO SHUN & AVOID EVIL (Little Man of God)
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Well, the Lord by His Spirit is speaking to us to have no fellowship with the demons promoted thru' whatever form.eom. (Ivan)
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Most amusing thread (Eveline How)
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Thread 648-3 (Joe)
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"H Potter" is fit for the potty, no matter how many accolades and box office records set (Ivan)
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Untitled
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On the contrary..... (John Doe 666)
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Please (Eveline How)
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Casting down every imagination (Ivan)
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So (Eveline How)
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It's all about choices, knowing the difference and doing what's right (Ivan)
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If (Eveline How)
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Of (Ivan)
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Untitled (Eveline How)
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To Ivan/Eveline (John Doe 666)
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Adults and Children are different (Christopher Yip)
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A new category: RA(BAD) (Ivan)
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Which category of reader are you? (Christopher Yip)
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Almost persuaded (Ivan)
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Read and meditate (Ivan)
Date: 2001, Dec 14
From: Christopher Yip CKHY

YOU: I am really disappointed that you tried to challenge what the men of God said re the evil of HP books and movies and unworthy of our reading and meditating upon according to Phil 4:8. ME: The feeling of disappointment is mutual. It's unfortunate that you don't see that you are also challenging equally competent and equally godly Christian men and women who feel that reading (NB: not meditating) all sorts of literature will help a person mature in his thinking, and to understand things from many angles before he makes up his mind.
Perhaps some men of God are "more" men of God than other men of God.
You seem to equate my position as approving the teachings of the offensive materials. I hope you do not go on to argue this strawman. We are to read all sorts of materials in order to increase our understanding of both good and evil, NOT so that we approve both good and evil, but in order to meditate on and love the good while rejecting and debunking the evil. You cannot debunk and reject what you don't know - that would be irrational frenzy and superstition.
YOU: Of course, if these things are worthy, by all means read and meditate on these things. You just don't seem to sense the seriousness of plunging yourself into something that God abhors. Sorry, I have to disagree with you for suggesting that the Bible is be treated like HP books.
ME: I don't think you caught what I said with regards to this. It's not read and meditate, it's read, judge, divide then meditate on what is good. This is the art of reading.
To say I am "plunging (myself) into something that God abhors", is to misrepresent my position. Just because I read Harry Potter in order to understand what it is all about, the spells, the incantations, the practices, etc. does not mean I buy it hook, sinker and line, that I will now start a coven, train witches and change the world. Your use of "plunging into" seems to indicate this is what I am going to do by reading Harry Potter. This is quite wrong.
You should not equate the mere reading of Harry Potter with full acceptance of what it espouses. That is a strawman and you should not go any further with this.
YOU: Far be from it, the Bible with all its revelations of good, bad and ugly are given for our learning and worthy of our reading and meditating. For eg, the Bible's mentioning of witchcraft comes with God's judgment against it; but not so with HP books which promote the goodness of witchcraft and fail to pass judgment on such evil practices. According to Ps 1:1-3, you will be blessed if you meditate on God's word but the ungodly will perish according to Ps 1:4-6.
ME: You haven't answered my earlier query, how do you use Phil 4:8 to justify going to school in Singapore and learning all the curriculum? If all that is read must always be worthy of meditation, then certainly we must read only what is good and acceptable in God's sight. But that is not the case in school.
So your justification for reading the bad and ugly in the Bible lies in the lessons such reading can teach us. That's a good start. So materials that can teach us greater understanding of what is good and evil should be worthy of our reading.
Let us look for an example in Ecclesiastes:
"In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness. Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise-- why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool-- why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all [extremes]". (Ecclesiastes 7:15-18 NIV)
"It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other .. avoid all extremes" - huh? Is the Teacher saying that the man who fears God should grasp righteousness without letting go of wickedness? That people should live their lives with a balance of modest righteousness and modest wickedness?
And what about this advice:
"There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 8:14-15 NIV)
The Teacher appears to be commending a self-indulgent lifestyle of Epicurean hedonism. He laments the absolute futility of life and the lack of eternal retribution.
Now, surely these are not things that are "true, noble, just, praiseworthy,.." etc, are they? Even the concluding remarks of Ecclesiastes does not overturn these teachings.
"Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13 NIV)
Sure, we are to fear God but didn't the Teacher say that it is not good to be too righteous? That we should have a balance of wickedness too? And what about the futility of life?
Are you sure you want the children to meditate on these things?
If you put the book of Ecclesiastes into the hands of a child and let him read it WITHOUT GUIDANCE and ask him what he has learnt, should it surprise us that the above are his conclusions as well? Then isn't it dangerous to read Ecclesiastes?
The point is that ALL reading by an incompetent or immature reader must be GUIDED in order that he learns properly. I called it supervised thinking.
In the same way, one CAN read Harry Potter and STILL learn that witchcraft and magick are abominations to God. One can ENJOY the boy's adventures and STILL know that lying is wrong. You seem to be saying that this is not possible; if one reads Harry Potter, one would mindlessly be zapped into witchcraft. Period.
Now, wouldn't one become a hedonist or antinomianic if one reads Ecclesiastes?
What's the difference? Isn't it GUIDANCE, COACHING, supervised thinking?
Adler quoted an article about the failure of the schools in teaching reading:
"The average high-school graduate has done a great deal of reading, and if he goes on to college he will do a great deal more; but he is likely to be a poor and incompetent reader... He can follow a piece of fiction and enjoy it. But put him up against a closely written exposition, a carefully and economically stated argument, or a passage requiring critical consideration, and he is at a loss. It has been shown, for instance, that the average high-school student is amazingly inept at indicating the central thought of a passage, or the levels of emphasis and subordination in an argument or exposition. To all intents and purposes he remains a sixth-grade reader till well along in college." (ibid., Preface xi)
That is the whole problem with the approach of avoidance. Instead of teaching them how to read, judge, divide and then conquer, you say, "Don't touch!"
The point is that we must encourage our children to read critically rather than not to read at all what we deem is "dangerous" or "evil".
Instead of taking out parts of Ecclesiastes that might cause our children to misunderstand the message, why not guide them to interpret the book? Why not teach them how to identify the central thought of the book, the various themes, the background, and help him to understand the frustrations yet piety of the Teacher? Isn't that better?
We must not teach our children to blindly accept someone else's opinion.
Your very own example of taking someone else's opinion and repeating it in greater vehemence without your own investigation, your own wrestling with the text, is not learning. And I don't think our children should be encouraged to do this - accepting what someone else puts into our minds, be it pro or anti-Harry Potter material.
Mortimer Adler explains this well in his book. What he says applies to one and all - to both camps:
"There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.
One of the reasons for this situation is that the very media we have mentioned (Chris: TV and radio) are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines (Chris: and if I may add, the reader of reviews :-)), is presented with a whole complex of elements - all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics - to make it easy for him "to make up his own mind" with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and "plays back" the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think" (Mortimer J Adler and Charles van Doren, How to Read a Book, NY:Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1972, p 4)
What you have done is to take the opinion of the reviewer (be it 12 Reasons or whatever else), plug it into your mind and replay it whenever the subject is brought up. Or perhaps rather, what has happened to you is that you have fallen victim to media propaganda. (Sure, it can happen to me too)
This is no good. This is not learning. Learning must begin with you yourself tackling the material yourself. And this is what we must teach our children - to learn to discern, and not stick their heads into the sand and hope that all is well or that it will go away. No, even if they don't need to face it at home, they will face in school, at the playground, at the childcare, in the library, etc. You cannot protect them forever and you should not aim for that.
YOU: Yes, once you have determined the worthiness or unworthiness of these things according to Phil 4:8 and according to the godly men who are well-versed and in touch with such realities to be credible in their critiques, we do well to take heed and not fall into the devil's trap. Here you have already asked yourself and convince that the books are evil for these are manuals on witchcraft, you want to abstain from these books and not wanting to read them for if you are truly born again, you will hate what God hates. If you have judged that the books are evil or appear to be evil, then you will do well to obey God's word in 1 Thess 5:22(Amplified).
ME: "Once you have determined the worthiness or unworthiness" - how does this happen?
For you, it seems to me that you are content in accepting a secondary source of information. You are not at all concerned that you have just been given a packaged opinion which you simply replay over and over again here.
What I am suggesting is simply this - read the book yourself, make notes on the pages, write your rebuttals with BCV next to passages, write warnings by the side, raise red flags, THEN pass the book to your child. Ask him to read the text AND your comments, then DISCUSS with him what he thinks.
If you feel this is not a good way to go, you are entitled to your opinion. But if we feel, and this is the view of liberal education - the kind that a learning school and thinking nation is seeking after - that arming them with critical thinking skills is the way to go, we should be able to agree to disagree amicably.
You said, "you have already asked yourself and convince that the books are evil for these are manuals on witchcraft, you want to abstain from these books and not wanting to read them" is a complex statement. Again I ask, "How do you know you don't need it unless you have gone into it?"
I suppose I can now conclude that secondhand information is good enough for you. But is it that bad and evil for those who prefer firsthand information to read it for themselves to find out what the hoo-ha is? Are they committing a great sin because they wish to understand what is so evil about Harry Potter firsthand, rather than second?
Why must we understand firsthand? Because we want to be credible, we want to learn to wrestle with the text ourselves, we want to learn also the PROCESS of learning, not just the result. We don't want packaged opinion that we simply replay, we want to "test all things". Is it so bad?
YOU: Is there any hint in the above verse that we are to hold it in our hands and to read it or see it re such evil in print or on screen.
ME: Do you really think this is what the verse means? Absolute abstinence? You are interpreting this the same way you did with Phil 4:8. In that case, I'll still ask you the same question which you did not answer - how are we to justify going to school at all in view of Phil 4:8 and now, 1 Thess 5:22?
Again, I ask you to consider the impracticality and contradiction of absolute abstinence. I talked about that community, remember? How can the community KNOW that something is evil unless at least one member of that community has TOUCHED, READ, ANALYSED that offensive material? Then what do you do with such an individual - does he have to purify himself for seven days? Even then, can he forget what he has understood? Furthermore, who will this individual be in order that the entire community can believe him. He has got to be like Moses, shouldn't he? How practical is such a community?
Your position is inconsistent.
YOU: They are targetting the children with these HP books in TIMES bookstore under TIMES Bestseller(Children). Please don't place these books in the hands of our impressionable children. You are like placing "fire" in their lives which will destroy them.
ME: All the more you should teach them to rebut whatever it is you find offensive!
Warn them of media propaganda! Point out to them why the media blitz has misrepresented certain facts, why they have appealed fallaciously to authority, or to modesty, where they have massaged statistics, etc.
Don't just place "fire" in their lives, give them the EXTINGUISHER also!
Teach them to fish, they can have fish all their lives!
YOU: I would rather be creditable by obeying God's word than be credible in the sight of men and compromised God's principle. I seek not the approval of men but God's approval.
ME: Please do not introduce more strawman. By understanding what the other side is saying is not seeking men's approval. It's proper dialogue.
The problem with communication, especially cross-cultural evangelism, is that many don't listen actively. They pause not in order to hear what the other person is really saying, they pause to construct in their minds their next argument.
To be credible, you have to know in what way is the other side wrong, and to be able to back it up with good analysis and explanation. You can make use of what others have found out (I am not against this, we all need handbooks, commentaries, etc) but it must be only because they put it in a way better than you can, not because you didn't read the materials from the other side yourself.
This is learning and what we should be teaching our children.
Christopher