Sunspots 410

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor: (or something) A truly amazing card trick. (A video, lasting 90 seconds or so.)

Health: (or something) I have learned a new term, benevolent sexism, from an article in Prevention.

Science: The Independent reports on the great variety of planets orbiting stars other than our own sun. A couple of them apparently have a density less than that of styrofoam, to name one bizarre possibility.

Sports: Congratulations to Vivian Stringer, coach of the Rutgers Women's Basketball team, on her 900th win.

Politics:  (and computing) Wired takes on the thorny issue of who owns devices such as a cell phone. Legally, it usually isn't the person paying for it.

Computing: Google Reader has announced that it's going away. (I have used it a lot for several years.) Gizmo's Freeware has an article on 6 free alternatives. I'm going with Feedly, but there are others. (P. S. I can't seem to get Blogger to remove the bold from this item, no matter what I do to the HTML. Sigh.)

Christianity: Ken Schenck, who ought to know, posted "Ten Common Mistakes about the New Testament." He then got rebutted, by Weekend Fisher. A most interesting conversation.

An interesting post -- a Bible study -- on the question "Can The Devil Influence The Spirit Through Music?"

Image source (public domain)

Why did Jesus use "dry places" when He was speaking of an evil spirit?

The World English Bible renders Luke 11:24 thus: The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of the man, passes through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none, he says, ‘I will turn back to my house from which I came out.’ (All Bible quotations are from the World English Bible, which is public domain. Matthew 12:43 is similar.)

Why did Jesus use the word "dry" there? The simple answer is that I don't know. However, I'll guess.

Here's Psalm 63:1 God, you are my God.

    I will earnestly seek you.

My soul thirsts for you.

    My flesh longs for you,

    in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

We may see here the idea that a person who does not have God's presence is like one in a dry area. It should be remembered, though, that the text also has a heading for this Psalm: "A Psalm by David, when he was in the desert of Judah." David may have literally been in the desert when he wrote this.

There's Psalm 68:6 God sets the lonely in families.

He brings out the prisoners with singing,

    but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land. (Some versions use "dry," rather than "sun-scorched.")

Isaiah 44:3 says: For I will pour water on him who is thirsty,

    and streams on the dry ground.

I will pour my Spirit on your seed,

    and my blessing on your offspring:

Ezekiel 30:12 and Hosea 2:3 speak about God abandoning Israel to the desert.

The Greek word translated as "wilderness" in some versions of Matthew 4 (and Mark 1 and Luke 4) is also translated as "desert" in other places. Probably Jesus met Satan in a dry place. The Blueletter Bible gives all of these occurrences, here.

So there are positive associations, related to God's presence, with being watered, in the Bible. And there are negative associations connected with being in a dry land. Probably that's why Jesus used the words He did in this case. But that's just a maybe.

Thanks for reading!

John Bunyan on how our own mind can deceive us

{162} One thing I would not let slip. I took notice that now poor Christian was so confounded, that he did not know his own voice; and thus I perceived it. Just when he was come over against the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind. This put Christian more to it than anything that he met with before, even to think that he should now blaspheme him that he loved so much before; yet, if he could have helped it, he would not have done it; but he had not the discretion either to stop his ears, or to know from whence these blasphemies came.

This is an extract from Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678, public domain. One version gives paragraph numbers.) Bunyan included the scriptural references in the book. Pilgrim's Progress, though little read now, was important enough to have been considered, for a century or two, the most important writing in English, except for the Bible.

This is not meant as an April Fool's joke, although it shows how Satan can deceive us, even through our own minds, if Bunyan is correct on this matter (and I believe that he is).

Thanks for reading.

Is Harry Potter a bad influence? Part I

Katie Couric: I'm not sure if we should bite this off, but I'm going to. Tammy in Kansas was wondering: "What would encourage you to write books for children that are supporting the devil, witchcraft and anything that has to do with Satan?" You've heard that before.
J.K. Rowling: Well nothing would encourage me to do that because I haven't done it so far, so why would I start doing it now?
Katie Couric: You have heard criticism along those lines ever since the beginning, and I think it also grew since more and more books came out.
J.K. Rowling: A very famous writer once said: "A book is like a mirror. If a fool looks in, you can't expect a genius to look out." People tend to find in books what they want to find, and I think my books are very moral. I know they have absolutely nothing to do with what this lady's writing about. So, can't give her much help there.from the transcript of a "Today Show" interview, October 20, 2000.

* * * * * *

With the release of the first "Harry Potter" movie, the debate among Christians over the books, and the movie, intensified. Should Christians read/watch these? Some say "No!--Scripture forbids dabbling in wizardry." Others say "Yes! This is great stuff! It entertains kids, and gets them to read." My own view, certainly not original with me, is that both these views are too simple. Here are a few ideas that may be helpful, with brief annotations.
1. Our mind should be the temple of the Holy Spirit. (I Corinthians 3:16) That being true, we should be careful what we put in it.
2. Philippians 4:8 exhorts us to think on what is good, beautiful, true, etc. Literature can present the good, beautiful and true.
3. Scripture does have exhortations to avoid witchcraft (Galatians 5:19-20, Revelation 21:8)
4. My time is not mine, but God's, and I should be careful how I use it. Reading for recreation, if not overdone, or reading for inspiration, can be good use of time.
5. Some things may tempt one person, because of that person's particular personality or background, that are not serious temptations for others.
6. There are some things that I personally have decided that I am not going to do (and some that I have decided that I will do) because I think I should avoid them (or do them.) There are, for instance, some sorts of TV that I won't watch, some kinds of books and magazines that I won't read. My choices are not binding on others, although if I were a parent of young children, I would have responsibility to guide them in making choices. One of the things that I have decided to do is to frequently read fantastic literature. I believe that I have been spiritually uplifted by such reading, including Watership Down, the Narnia books, and some of Tolkien. I believe that I have been entertained wholesomely by the Harry Potter books.
7. It is usually foolish to condemn things that we know little about. ("I haven't read the Harry Potter books, but . . .") This doesn't mean that there aren't some things that I can condemn without having personal knowledge of them (murder and child pornography, for example), but usually, if I am ignorant, I should keep my mouth shut.

I have read the first five Harry Potter books, some more than once. I saw the first movie, only once. I'm not an expert. The books, nor the movie, didn't tempt me into dabbling in witchcraft. They do present conflicts between good and evil, and Harry and his friends are clearly presented as good. The powers that they are learning at the Hogwarts School for Wizards are used to try to achieve clearly good ends. Two events in the first movie that particularly struck me as resonating with the Christian story were:
1) The statement, made by a person, Voldemort, who is clearly evil, in just about every way, throughout the books, that "there is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it1" No Christian, of course, would make a statement like that about good and evil, but the blurring of the two by the Lord of Evil and his servants goes back at least as far as the Garden of Eden, and the movie makes clear that this is an evil suggestion. Harry rejects the idea.
2) Harry's friend, Ron Weasley, sacrifices himself for others, for all he knew, to death, in a wizard's chess game.

There are a number of other ideas in the books that are compatible with Christianity. Here are some:
One of the conflicts, in all the books, is over how wizards should treat muggles--non-wizards. The good wizards treat them with special care. The evil ones, or those that are tending toward evil, do not. They even hate, and try to hurt, not just muggles, but wizards born to muggles.

Another conflict is over how wizards should treat other magical creatures, such as house-elves. Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, says "We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and are reaping our reward.2"

Throughout the books, one character, Severus Snape, the potions professor, is portrayed as having repented of his association, probably even worship, of Voldemort, before the books begin, although I don't believe that the word "repented" is used. In the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry learns that his now-dead father treated Snape very badly when they were both students at Hogwarts, which is why Snape has treated Harry badly throughout the books. ". . . at the sight of him Harry felt a great rush of hatred . . . Whatever Dumbledore said, he would never forgive Snape . . . never.3" My guess is that Rowling is setting up a scene in a later book where the two of them will forgive each other, and repent of their attitudes.

The fifth book presents many of the characters, in particular Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, and most of those under him, as having deliberately ignored the existence of evil--they refuse to believe that Voldemort, clearly a very evil wizard, has come back to power.

Harry has some crises of conscience in the fifth book. For example, he debates with a voice in his own head about Ron having been made a prefect, when he hasn't been.4

Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, the school for wizardry, confronts Voldemort, and tells him that "Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness--" To the Christian, there are things more important than death, and dying for a righteous cause is not nearly as bad as living for a wrong one.

Dumbledore follows the theme of I Corinthians 13:13 when he tells Harry that the greatest power of all is the one in his heart, that Voldemort has none of. Clearly, although he does not name it, he is speaking of unselfish (agape) Love.6

None of these are peripheral matters. The books show a conflict between good and evil, both on a wide scale, and within the hearts and minds of the characters. It is clear which side Rowling is on, and it's not evil.

1- J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. (New York: Scholastic, 1997, p. 291) I believe that the movie used the very same dialog at this point.

2- Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (New York, Scholastic, 2003, p. 834)

3- Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (New York, Scholastic, 2003, p. 851)

4- Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (New York, Scholastic, 2003, pp. 166-7)

5- Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (New York, Scholastic, 2003, p. 814)

6- Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (New York, Scholastic, 2003, pp. 843-4)

Thanks for reading.

I re-analyzed the Harry Potter series, in a post in early 2015, here.