God in HP World/Folktales and Religion

[blpurdom]

No: HPFGUIDX 34119

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., John Walton <john at w...> wrote:
> Adana Robinson wrote:
> > But here's another question to add to this list:  In GoF, the 
> > suits of armor are bewitched to sing Christmas carols (not 
> > Midwinter Solstice carols, as in many fantasy worlds) and one is 
> > singing "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful".  Surely there are many non-
> > religious carols that could be mentioned if God were to be left 
> > entirely out.  What does this say to all the "HP is demonic" 
> > book-burners out there?  Does it mean anything at all?
> 
> The answer to your final question is basically "no". Britain tends 
> (he said, making a VERY sweeping generalisation) to go in much 
> more for the Christmas Carol singing than other countries, 
> particularly the USA, in schools. My school had a Christmas Carol 
> Service every year, for instance. I don't think we can draw many 
> conclusions from this apart from "Hogwarts is modelled on a 
> British school".

Further, from what I understand, even observances of Christmas and 
Easter tend to be far more secular in the UK than in the US.  
Compared to countries around the world, the US has an unusually high 
percentage of the population which is religiously observant 
(although it is declining) and I think many times people here assume 
that observance of what is by definition a religious holiday 
indicates some deep-seated religious feeling about it.  We're 
talking about a country where the queen is the head of the church 
(the Archbishop of Canterbury notwithstanding) and therefore our 
concept of church-state separation does not quite hold, although the 
sort of religious litmus tests that used to be de rigor for people 
seeking to hold public office no longer apply.  Hogwarts celebrates 
Christmas and Easter because it is in Britain, and at those times of 
year that's simply what you DO.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "jchutney" <jchutney at y...> wrote:
> IMO, HP is clearly an AU not meant to line up religiously with our 
> world.  But then again, what Fantasy series does?  Perhaps I'm 
> wrong (and I certainly don't mean to offend re:this Delicate 
> Topic) but HP reminds me of the Alladin and Arabian Nights 
> stories.  Magic is forbidden in Islam, just as it is in 
> Christianity, and yet Muslim children are able to read theses 
> stories of flying carpets, "friendly" genies, and sorcerers 
> without jeopardizing their faith.  (Of course, I'm sure there are 
> fanatical Mullahs out there ready to burn Sheherazade!).  In the 
> Arabian Nights, the characters exist in a Muslim world (just as 
> Harry exists in a "Christian world") and yet there are many AU 
> aspects to these stories.  Couldn't HP be an English version of 
> this type of story?

I could be wrong about this, but I thought that Arabian Nights 
predated the advent of Islam to the Middle East.  Plus, not every 
country in the Middle East converted at the same time or uniformly, 
and even after individual countries did covert large parts of the 
population, there were many nomads and isolated areas where old 
beliefs persisted for a long time.  And even after Islam was the 
rule rather than the exception in much of that part of the world, 
old tales were still told that would seem to contradict the new 
religion.  Most of China is Buddhist, yet old folk tales that 
predate that religion still persist in much of the country.  The 
advent of Christianity to much of Europe did not wipe out old myths, 
but some of them simply were converted into folk tales and fairy 
tales.  In "Italian Folktales," selected and retold by Italo 
Calvino, he includes an old story that is actually an "outtake" from 
the Odyssey (Odysseus fooling the Cyclops).  This bit of mythology 
was reborn as a folktale and continued to be part of an oral 
tradition long after Italy had become the home of the Roman Catholic 
Church.

--Barb