Margaret Thatcher wrote:So magic, violence, coarse language, sexual references, drug or alcohol use can be noble, right, good, lovely, and commendable in some circumstances? Because to me if they're present then whatever other messages might be there are corrupted. If those things aren't noble, right etc. then their presence means we shouldn't think on those stories.
So...if violence used by the good guys is bad, does this mean that Moses, Joshua, Caleb, David, and temple-cleansing!/Revelation!Jesus are bad, too, and we should never think on those stories because the good guys use violence?
If that sort of thing is going to prevent you from enjoying the creativity and work of another person that is overall communicating noble, right, good, lovely, and commendable truth, more power to you. But to most people, magic, violence, coarse language, sexual references, and drug/alcohol use does not distract or detract from the overall point of the work. They know it's wrong to use witchcraft (which, I state again, differs entirely from the magic in CoN and HP), be violent, use profanity, behave in a sexually immoral manner, and to abuse drugs and alcohol. There's a difference between not being bothered by something because you think it's okay and not being bothered by something because you know it's wrong and you wouldn't do it. People do exist who can actually look at a work as a whole and not cherrypick the less pleasant parts of it and only look at those things.
Margaret Thatcher wrote:So Lewis is infallible? He can never make mistakes?
Point well made. Intelligent and respectable though Lewis was as a theologian, he is a human being, and just because his name is on something doesn't automatically make it good.
Margaret Thatcher wrote:So God uses magic now? Also when a books says something is Deeper Magic it doesn't mean magic? That seems an odd way of phrasing it if he didn't mean magic, to use the actual word magic and mean something else.
Mmm...the thing about this, though, is the last sentence--Lewis meant a lot of "something elses" when he wrote the books. It's all allegorical. I agree with both of you--while it is true that the Deeper Magic is representative of divine, Godly power, the fact remains that on the surface, it is still magic.
Mr. Sunnys wrote:The tree "spirits" as you said were not spirits. They were tree people. In the series, that is mentioned many times. The same with water PEOPLE.
Those are actually pagan entities, called, respectively, dryads and naiads, which are tree and water nymphs--spirits.
(Edited because having factual information instead of simply relying on a fuzzy knowledge of the Percy Jackson mythology helps.)
Mr. Sunnys wrote:CoN had no coarse language whatsoever. Again, have you actually read this book?
It had no sexual references. But the Bible did. Should we not read it?
CoN had no drug use. The Bible did, should we not read it?
Alcohol is not evil or wrong. Like with many things in life, it depends how you use it.
MT was not speaking solely of CoN when he posted that; I believe he was speaking of the points of my argument on media as a whole.
When were drugs used in the Bible? I'm not being argumentative in this case; I'm actually curious. Where and in what passage?
Also, props to you for stating that drinking in and of itself is not sinful. Few people seem to differentiate between "drinking" and "drunken".