Christmas at Hogwarts (Was Re: Faith Education)

[Martha]

Ms Tattersall:

<snippage>
Looks like they've decorated for 
> a traditional Christmas celebration at Hogwarts. Is that because 
the 
> majority of students at Hogwarts are of the Christian persuasion or 
> of the pagan persuasion? An interesting puzzle, since the Christmas 
> tree is part of both traditions in the modern world. Obviously 
(house 
> rivalries aside), they all seem to get along.

A few thoughts from Martha:

I always got the impression that magic in the JKR sense is 
unconnected with religion - it's something concrete, you can conjure 
up a chair or turn a hedgehog into a pincushion or make a potion to 
make you look like someone else, etc. There is ritual involved (for 
example, having to say certain words for certain spells, using a 
particular wand movement, stirring a potion however many times) but 
the end result is very specific. If you like, it's a measureable 
quantity. It's not the same as what we might call pagan magic in the 
real world, which is much closer to prayer in, say, Christianity. 
Students at Hogwarts are being instructed in magic as school age 
students in the real world (well, in Western society at least) are 
taught chemistry or maths or physics. So the religion of students is 
unconnected with their magical training. (Is this making sense?)

Ms Tattersall:

> What, then, of the students who might not be of either persuasion? 
> I'm not an HP scholar--don't really feel comfortable participating 
on 
> the main list--but JKR has obviously created a WW student 
population 
> that represents the diverse population of the RW. The two students 
> who come to mind are Parvati and Padma Patil, whom I would guess to 
> be Indian or Pakistani. How do they feel about the Christmas tree 
if 
> they come from, say, a Hindu culture?

Martha:

Agreed. Anthony Goldstein also springs to mind (correct me if I'm 
wrong, but "Goldstein" sounds Jewish to me). However, the ritual of 
Christmas - trees and advent calendars and Father Christmas and all - 
has become, I think, fairly far removed from actually going to church 
and so on, at least in Britain. I'm an atheist through and through 
and the majority of my friends are either non-religious or non-
Christian and we all still have Christmas trees with angels on top, 
and at school there were Christmas decorations and a Christmas dinner 
with karaoke and tinsel. My sister's husband is Sikh and they are 
bringing up their children without religion, but they still have a 
Christmas tree and stockings and things. It's like how the holidays 
are still called the Christmas/Easter holidays regardless of what you 
actually do with them. Hogwarts, as far as we know, follows this 
tradition. In any case, there may well be services for students of 
all religions at Hogwarts, but we haven't heard of them, because 
Harry hasn't gone to them.

On another note - and to keep this off-topic ;-) - there was me 
thinking the US constitution referred to the separation of church and 
*skate*. Skateboarding in church - all that kickflipping and ollying 
could ruin the ornate features of Catholic churches in particular. 
Either that or skate, as in the fish, isn't allowed to perform 
services because... OK, I'm kidding. Apologies. :-)

~ Martha