Basically, they have to intentionally cause harm to another (in this case, the child) to gain attention. So making up an excuse for why, instead of blaming themselves, is just regular denial.
There’re social stigma against a lot of things that don’t make a lot of sense, and it sucks, but I actually don’t think D&D gets off that bad, really.
D&D wasn’t affected too bad by the whole 80’s satanism scandal mostly because it was obscure even in geek circles. Had it been as well-known then as it is today it might have been a bigger deal.
True, but the scandal would’ve been a bigger deal in America, culturally, then than it is now; Harry Potter has its share of satanism scandal and remains entirely mainstream.
A lot of the controversy probably stemmed from things like demons and summon spells. These usually made sense within context, but self-appointed moral crusaders don’t usually bother with such things. It didn’t help that a lot of the people who played D&D were sometimes pretty far from the societal mainstream.
Harry Potter had the good fortune of receiving THE VATICAN’S vote of confidence. Of course that was back when John Paul II was alive…
Yeah, but a lot of the people who said D&D was evil also insinuated that the Catholic church was founded by Satan. See: Jack T. Chick.
John Paul II was respected even among non-Catholics. Jack T. Chick on the other hand… 
I’ll be damned if I’m going to listen to what some… PAPIST has to say about some godless books.
My point was that the sort of people who make the really ridiculous, inflammatory condemnations of things like D&D tend towards the fringes, anyway, at least from what I can tell.
Sadly, there’s still many people good who are being mislead by religious fanatics, Arac. I can’t believe my own older sister - a Doctor, and one of the persons I admire most- is against letting kids celebrate Halloween because it’s a pagan holiday.:thud: I had to inform her that in that case, children shouldn’t celebrate Christmas either, since it started as a pagan winter festival! The Church just inserted the date of Jesus’ birth (which is not really known) into the celebrations to co-opt them for their own.
To be fair to your sister, there is a big difference between co-opting the date of a pagan holiday and replacing it with a wholly Christian celebration. Now, if you focused on secular side of Christmas with the trees and all that, you would have a point. However, taking over the date is not the same as taking over the aspects of celebration.
Her problem is that Halloween started as a pagan celebration and so should not be celebrated regardless of how we do it to day (I doubt the old Celts put on costumes and went door to door asking for candy, did they?) Thus my example: it shouldn’t then matter how we celebrate Christmas today, if it started as Yuletide or the Saturnalia.
But what really bothers me is that this is not a notion she held previously. I’m pretty sure she got it from local preachers, who have been going on about this around here in recent times. Which given the facts above is really ironic. :noway: Oh btw the Church also hijacked Halloween, since they turned the pagan homage-to-the-dead rituals into “All Hallow’s Eve” another Christian Holiday.
I would still say that Christmas is less of a continuation of older pagan holidays and more of just an usurpation of the date. With the regular Halloween, no, I doubt the Celts of old went around dressed up as Witches, Red Rangers, or Recently Shot Abraham Lincolns. However, you can’t deny that a large portion of the dressing up for Halloween centers around typically Hellish icons. There’s a rather large difference between such celebrations on one old pagan holiday and the religious celebrations on the other (or, in the alternative, the decidedly non-hellish secular version of Christmas).
I’m not endorsing your sister’s parenting methods. I’m just stating that there is a distinct difference between turning one old pagan holiday into pretty much a wholly secular one with what some people term hellish imagery and another holiday whose date was merely co-opted for an entirely different, and originally wholly, religious celebration.
Also, I don’t care about All Hallow’s Eve. As stated before, I’m not a papist. I don’t care for none of that saint worship.
I don’t think people dress up on Halloween for the sake of looking evil. It’s what people find scary. In some cases, it’s pretty much dressing up for the sake of dressing up. It’s all part of the ‘fun’, in the same way that it’s almost a tradition to watch scary movies.
In that respect, Tradition affects all people, regardless of belief or society. I don’t technically celebrate Halloween anymore because I seem to have lost interest in parties and other things that take place on the day. What I do nowadays is go out of my way to pick up a scary game and play it until midnight, just to keep in the spirit of things.
And perhaps there is a contradiction in what various religions believe when it comes to halloween. Whether you’re religious or not, you should still be able to celebrate the holiday in the same way Athiests will celebrate Christmas. They won’t pay homage to God or the Birth of Jesus, but they’ll celebrate it none the less. I think religious members of society should be able to celebrate a holiday without diverting their faith, right?
They probably should’ve changed the name of Easter, though.
I think the problem with that, Acenra, is that Atheism doesn’t have as one of its central conceits that fucking up can get you sent to hell. Celebrating another deity’s holiday isn’t okay by many interpretations of Christianity or most other types of monotheism. If an Atheist celebrates Christmas, with a nativity and everything, the worst punishment is someone pointing out the hypocrisy. If a Christian celebrates Halloween, the worst punishment is an eternity of torment.
Um, no. Oh sure, many people take that view, but most modern, right-thinking Christians allow for more than the “Christianity or damnation!” philosophy. It’s precisely the people who take that hateful stance that piss me off, for example with the Halloween thing. Religion should be a matter of faith, not fear.
All I’m saying is that it doesn’t work the same way atheism and holidays to, essentially since atheism really has no stake in holidays, either way, the way they might in a religious tradition.
The difference between classical drama and D&D is that one involves the main character selling his soul, ordering demons around to do his bidding, torturing religious people, laughing at and scorning science and study, dressing up in dark, flowing robes, muttering evil incantations, cheerfully seducing a succubus, and playing tricks on the Pope.
That’s Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe.