Dave,

Precisely my point. There are two reasons given - the disputed
translation ('poisoner' vrs 'witch'), and the belief that a witch must
also be a Satanist.

What I find most revealing is that the book does not even deal with
witchcraft. JK Rowling uses Wizard and Scorcery.

PlainBill

On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 20:36:30 -0700, Dave Bell
wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, PlainBill wrote:

I beg to disagree. I challenge anyone to READ any of the Harry Potter
books and point out any passages that are anti-religion OR promote
disrespect for competent authority.

If a 30 year old believes the books are anti-religious, and a bad
influence on children, he has either not read them (the usual cause),
or is so rigidly locked into his religion that he feels anything that
does not pay homage to God is bad. In either case, he fits MY
definition of 'BAD'.

Note that I do not criticize anyone who has read (or tried to read)
the books and put them down because they found them uninteresting, nor
anyone who has not even bothered to try to read them, and has no
opinion on them. Tastes vary, and to each his own.

PlainBill

Yeah, all that is perfectly correct, EXCEPT you are overlooking the
fundamentalist belief that (Ooohhh!) SORCERY is, prima facie, associated
with satanism and also expressly forbidden by the Bible. Well, at least in
oneor some translations into modern English, it is. If I recall, the
relevany passage (and I'm sure I'll be corrected, if not!) is to the
effect of, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Some scholars prefer
the translation "poisoner" to "witch", perhaps referring to one who
poisons wells, something Christians have at times accused Jews of...

Dave