_Harry Potter and the Bible_

[ourobouros_1999 at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 17523


> ::enthusiastic thumbs-up:: Precisely. I have no bones about 
Christianity. In
> fact, it's rather nice that early Christians felt that they should 
celebrate
> their own holidays at the same time as us Pagans -- Christmas falls 
soon
> after Yule, Easter falls around Beltane time, Hallowe'en is Samhain
> (pronounced SOW-inn [sow as in pig, not as in reap]), Candlemas is 
Imbolc,
> and so on throughout the year.

You know, going by what JKR seems to be intending (this isn't 
intended as a response to the book itself, but to the whole relation 
of HP and morality in general)...HP isn't supposed to represent any 
religion in particular, any particular sect. It isn't meant to 
promote actual occult acts. It isn't meant to promote Wicca or 
Satanism, and indeed most people rightly do not see it as so. The 
occult things are presented as part of a fantasy world. 

The main moral message of HP seems to be about prejudice and good 
behavior in a secular sense. It seems somewhat off the mark to 
criticize the books polemically for things which the author did not 
intend to promote. The books strike me as taking a very secular tone 
in general. 

But in general I think this "censorship" issue is overblown. If 
several people in the US don't want to read HP, that's their loss. 
And I even think it's good for children to read things that may not 
reflect their cultural background, like world mythology. But those 
are my beliefs. 

I'm not sure discussion is even really possible, because the 
differences in ground values, assumptions about the world, the role 
of the state vis-a-vis religion, literary criticism, and beliefs 
about the cosmological order or what have you are so vast that we may 
mostly end up agreeing to disagree or realizing that the argument of 
the other side is nonsensical within our worldview or vice versa. 

Charmian
(who would also like to note that speaking in all caps is considered 
bad manners online)