Ciao!

Amen to that.

One of the problems we used to have at our local library was that books kept either disappearing or being destroyed, mostly books on the Confederacy or the KKK.

I happened upon one of the culprits while I was there... a little black kid with a razor blade was cutting pages out of an encyclopedia.

I asked him why he was doing that, and he replied, "Because I hate the KKK."

I tried to explain to him how destroying the books on the Klan would strengthen it rather than weaken it. He didn't want to hear any of it, and threw what was left of the book at me and ran out of the library.

There's all kinds of reasons to destroy books, but none of them ever really accomplish anything, except depriving people of valuable sources of information or entertainment.

Actually, a thought just occurred to me. Those book burners must've paid some ammount for the books, right? I wonder how much in royalties J. K. Rowling received from them? How utterly counterproductive! I mean, the logical thing would've been to NOT buy any Harry Potter books and protest w/ a boycott. That would be the logical thing to do.

@miguel: I completely agree with your point of view on book burning. In reaction to your last reaction: of course J.K. Rowling received royalties for those books. It is just like those Americans that publicly threw French red wine down the gutter as a form of economical boycot of France because of the whole Iraq thing. Those people first spent their hard-earned money to buy expensive French wine and then throw it away. So instead of boycotting the French they actually supported them by buying their wine. Seems a bit illogical to me.

Apostates are always most bitterly reviled... and French wine washing the streets isn't being restocked.

I too saw a piece about this on the local news. I don't think anyone is going to argue in favor of book burning (anyone reading this anyway).

However, you go a bit far in your argument against the book burners.

See, the "preachers" of this group argued that Harry Potter is heretical. But I fail to see how offering a burnt sacrifice of heretical materials is pleasing to God. And gathering around a fire (fueled by "satanic" writings) seems a bit like idolatry to me. I mean, idolatry is essentially the deification of things, material objects. Obsessing over pop literature certainly seems like a form of deification to me.

I didn't see the whole ceremony, but I thought the burning was more a public signal to people, not an offering to God. Also, while I understand the deification argument, I don't think that quite encapsulates their feelings.

Again, I don't support their actions, I find them to be disgusting. However, I think your argument just went a bit too far in those regards.

-Josh

Josh:

Yeah, I was being mostly sarcastic in that last part. I was trying to make the point that if one wants to interpret the Bible to argue that book burning pleases God, one could equally make the argument from Biblical interpretations that book burning would offend God.

Hey Miguel have you actually read the series? They truly are great books and do teach children the values that you mentioned in your original post. They are great books to analyze from every imaginable viewpoint be it from a religious, feminist, Marxist, political, psychological, etc. And yes, I have looked at the books through all of these angles.

In fact in the fourth book, Harry ducks behind an angel statue in the graveyard, which J. K. Rowling did not put there arbitrarily. She could have chosen another shape or form, but chose not too. The books also mention Christmas, rebirth, and many other Christian and religious symbols. Those who see a book that gets children to read as horrible, truly have their priorities backwards.

Just to clarify:

Burning books is symbolically offensive as well as futile. Ideas survive such pettiness. Even if it's not Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek translated through Latin into 17th century King's English.

But pouring out French wine is in the best tradition of American 'independence' and the best use for that particular product considering it's origins... again... provided it is not 'restocked'.

Perhaps we might even recycle the bottles refilled for return with Iraqi petroleum pumped from beneath the mass graves of those innocents the French so profitably and enthusiastically helped Saddam to slaughter as now that the neo-colonialist relationship has been... terminated... perhaps the French might be running a bit short? Oui?

@DANEgerus: by your reasoning of why it is o.k. to boycot french wine, you should certainly boycot products that come from un-democratic regimes with continuous oppression of minorities and human rights violations, like Saudi-Arabia. Since a considerable part of the gasoline sold in the USA originates in Saudi-Arabia I suggest you start boycotting gasoline right now.

Actually, very little of our gasoline comes from overseas. This is a common misconception. Most of our gasoline comes from the USA itself, Canada, and Mexico. The other major importers of oil to the US are Venezuela, the UK, and Nigeria. The only major Arab oil importer to the US is Kuwait (which is liberalizing, though slowly). The only reason Saudi Arabia and the other countries are important, is because they control a large enough chunk of international oil. They can either flood the market (which is bad) or hike up production (which is also bad). We don't really import much of their oil, but we certainly want to keep their production stable.

Well, Nigeria has a very bad human rights rap too. So in my earlier post just change "saudi arabia" to "nigeria" and the argument is still valid.

I agree. The burning of any book is just stupid, and can only help the author because how do they get the books? They buy them. Where does the money go? To the author, who is in this case J.K.Rowling. Also, there has to be some reason that they burn HP but not any other book like Narnia, LotR, or Artemis Fowl. They never say anything about Bewitched or Alice in Wonderland or the Wizard of Oz. They seem to focas only on the one book that more people seem to enjoy, not all the books in that genre. They need to stop burning the books and maybe sit down and read a few of them.

I am doing a debate about Harry Potter. I need to know reasons why Harry Potter does not provoke witchcraft and this website has helped me thanx.

Harry Potter is the best book i have ever read. I dont care what ever they say about Harry Potter