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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
Why should that make any difference to whether one or the other is banned?
I first read LotR at age 11. I had no inkling (  ) that it was "fundamentally Christian". Having read it, I soon moved onto other fantasy books and Dungeons & Dragons and also developed an interest in what might loosely be termed the "supernatural". Had the Harry Potter books been available back then and I had read them instead of LotR, I can imagine them having much the same effect.
In my view the books stand or fall together on this issue. I most certainly don't think that either should be banned. But I just don't get these distinctions based on one being "fundamentally Christian" and the other not being so, or on the portrayal of the nature of magic being different. Such distinctions would most certainly not have been apparent to me age 11. |
Yes, but you, as an 11-year old, were hardly the one in charge of banning the books, now were you?
I'm not saying the censors who ban books are necessarily wise, discerning, or particularly thoughtful, but they are also not 11 years old. Which is perhaps an important point to remember.
And while it might be discriminatory to ban books based on only one faith system, the fact of the matter is that in the United States (more so than any other country today), fundamentalist Christians ARE perhaps the dominant force in the censoring of art and literature.
So perhaps it isn't fair or just. Whether it's fair or just isn't really the issue here...