The evil of Magic - Sparlock the Warrior Wizard

My wife believes in Sparlock the warrior wizard - or The evil of magic. 

She had me turn off the Frog Prince the other night because 'there's voodoo in it'.  So per request I changed it to the Lion King, you know the movie with Rafiki the magic monkey in it. Oh and guess what ,  Cinderella,Aladdin, and some others are probably ok to watch too!.

So, why is magic 'bad'? I'd prefer an answer besides 'because the bilble/god says so'. An answer which any religious person should have if they ask themselves 'Why does god say so'?  How do you draw the magic line on which ones are watchable? Is there good/bad magic? Could it maybe be more important as to the lessons being taught? Define magic........

Those are just a few of the questions I wanted to ask, but it was bad timing, so I am shelving the conversation for later. I just said 'you know it's not real'. 

But back to the DVD that is magically ridiculous

If only I'd had me Lucky Charms to eat while watching it might not have gotten such a bad review. Emotionally manipulative, it pulls the 'it makes god sad' card and the you know what happens to those that are disobedient/stick card. Yup I sure do.... a psycho magic using god kills them. You are splitting hairs if you call the holy spirit something other than magic.

I can't blame my wife's reactions to much. She had a strict childhood in that area, with stories that left scars of fear about naughty angels/demons.

When I grew up my family wasn't that strict and I was able to wear a smurf shirt, read Tolken/Chronicles of Narnia/etc..., and see movies that contained magic. I came out the experience still able to consider them pieces of fiction. It wasn't tell later that I figured out that the big black book had bits of magic in it that might just be fictional as well.

I feel like putting that dvd in the trash, it seems like something a dodgy friend would give you. My little 2 year old will learn over the next few years what fiction, fantasy, and reality are. There shouldn't be any reason to make them feel bad or freak them out about this kind of thing, but of course I don't believe in a Satan that is out to get my child via a little purple toy wizard or a god that will smite them because of it.



update: Ooops , I spelled Tolkien wrong

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The Good:
Group-community support(mostly as long as you are in line with group think)
The usual basic good values directions (don't steal, kill, harm others, etc...)
A comfortable feeling you get from this notion you have all the answers(?)

The Bad: 

An anti stance on
-extra curricular activities and association. cuts you off from people. an us versus them mentality.
-science,further learning, and education
-free thought, dissenting opinions, criticism, and interpretations. our way or the highway.
A lets wait for god to fix things approach.

The Ugly:
Shunning
Blood transfusions
There must be two witness, non reporting to the police
Basically things that can cause death or irrevocably change someones life and their family.

Views on things from years past to present have changed, so there is hope the shunning and blood transfusions stance will change. Without the force of possible legal repercussions it probably wouldn't/wont happen as soon as it should have. There are a few who hold a more a personal conscious matter and interpretation way of things, one can hope they get more influence.

Sex, Satan, and Saimin

So it's been another year and another assembly.

The Assembly notes:
Sex:
We learn god is still interested in our sexual lives and how,whom, and where we do it.
Gods porno flicks are only to be of a particular straight missionary sex variety.
So bad on you homosexuals because the bible says so.
They still haven't figured out who you are hurting yet but you are not to do it and they are to be proud to have this stance.

Satan:
The Twilight movies were eluded to, and it wasn't because of bad acting,plot, and writing. They didn't talk about any particular bad lessons being taught but rather because it had blood sucking demon-ism in it. Prior years it was Harry Potter, etc.... I guess when one has a hard time telling fact from fiction it's not a surprise.

Saimin:
Can't recall actually hearing anything about that, maybe I was just craving it. A third S just seemed needed.

Thank God the assembly is over

bat shit crazy.

Excellent story

I am glad there are people out there like this.

http://watchtowerletters.com

Been listening to the book Nonsense on stilts during the work commute.

Overall it is worth it. Mostly good with some annoyances. He was able to recap some history of science in better form than other history-science books I'd read which surprised me as this wasn't really his goal. He brought up good points on demarcation and deduction and induction which made me think. He mentioned a few times something about how we are just human so can't look outside the box, this got me annoyed a bit but I'll have to go back and re-listen to get the details correct and see why,(ie we as humans use things-tools 'inside the box' to see a bigger picture of what we normally see in the box, we might not know for sure but maybe we can get a picture of the box) Or perhaps he was going into , maybe it was Nietzsche's, observator-participator problem viewpoint. I re-wrote the last two sentences here because I shouldn't dismiss or invoke that objection with an ad hominem bias attack like I was, of that that is what one can expect from a professor of philosophy, but should understand it more fully why it annoyed me. I did re-listen a bit but hadn't found that section my beef was with yet.

A nice blog series that goes over the JW anti science stance

"the smoking gun of intellectual dishonesty" has been detailed out at this sight and I am thankful he felt like taking the time to deconstruct things.

http://viewfromreality.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/a-guide-to-jehovahs-witness-anti-science-propaganda-part-1/

It's to bad JWs can't seperate their views of science from their religion, they'd be better off.