Religion in HP

[vinnygp]

No: HPFGUIDX 40532

JKR was wise, I think in skirting the question of religion in the HP 
series.  If some groups object to HP because of the extensive and 
central role of magic, imagine how much bigger a can of worms would 
have been opened if JKR had combined it with religion.

I have formulated a few theories in my spare time concerning the role 
of religion in HP.  First, the observance of Cristmas and Easter 
vacation.  The festival seasons of the Winter Solstice and Vernal 
Equinox have existed for thousands of years.  Perhaps the British 
magical community is simply celebrating the changing of seasons in 
the tradition of their Celtic forebears.

Secondly, I have from time to time entertained the thought that magic 
and the magical world is somehow inscrutably connected with 
Christianity.  While I have not fully developed this yet, I based it 
initailly on the sign above Ollivander's shop: "Makers of Fine Wands 
since 382 B.C."

Aha! I thought.  So wizards use the Christian calendar.  Ollivander 
obviously took the trouble to update his sign to comply with the 
dating scheme, which wasn't introduced until about 527 A.D., when it 
was devised by Dinonysius Exiguus.  As we all know, Dionysiostrove to 
make year 1 of his calendar correspond with the year of Jesus 
Christ's birth, on the principle that His Nativity was the pivotal 
event in human history.  I think it reasonable to believe that the 
Wizarding World is also of this opinion.

Consider this.  The Wizarding World predates the Christian World by 
at least a good 2,500 years;  Ron Weasley spoke of the magic used by 
ancient Egyptian wizards on the pyramids, and the Pyramids of Cheops 
at Giza, the oldest of the "Great Pyramids", to which I assume Ron 
referred, was built around 2560 BC.  One could reasonably assume that 
Egyptian wizardry, such as that mentioned in the Bible, reached as 
far back as the Egyptian empire, which arrived on the scene about 
4500 BC.  And if wizards go back that far, whay not even further, to 
the ancient Sumerian and Mesopotamian cultures of the sixth 
millennium BC?  I think I remember a wizard or two in the Sumerian 
Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known written story.  Who is to say 
that Wizardry doesn't find its roots in Central Africa with the 
emergence of the first sapient Humans?

This in mind, we must take into account Wizards' general attitude 
toward Muggles; that is, one of haughty disdain toward an inferior 
community.  The best of them find us and our ways a curiosity or as a 
source of occassional novelty in the form of the periodic lemon drop 
or electrical outlet collection.  But nothing we do is really of any 
great use to wizards.  Why, then, do they use our calendar?  
Especially Ollivander, whose business out dates it by about 909 
years?  Why doesn't he reckon the opening of his shop in some wizard 
calendar or in a Muggle calendar that was in use at the time?  He 
could just as easily have billed his shop as opening in 371 A.U.C., 
the Roman calendar that counted years from the foundation of Rome 
(Anno Urbis Conditae).  He could have reckoned it as the second year 
of the 98th Greek Olympiad, a calendar which was used extensively in 
the Western World at the time.

I'll tell you why.  Wizards recognize Jesus Christ as their Lord and 
Savior.  That's why they use the Christian Calendar, which places 
Christ at its center.  They might even have used it before the Muggle 
abott Dionysius Exiguus devised it, since Wizards are usually more in 
tune with the world around them.  They might even have a more 
accurate version.  There is a discrepancy of as much as ten years 
between year 1 of Exiguus' calendar and Christ's actual year of 
birth.  Maybe the Wizards, being more accurate, are ahead or behind 
us slightly in their years, which would explain why it's sometimes 
difficult to determine exactly what year it is in the HP books.

It's just a thought.  She might have just said 382 B.C. to avoid 
confusion.

Maybe magic is a heretofore undiscovered piece of the Jungian concept 
of the Collective Unconcious.

Vince

P.S.  There is no such word as "deific".

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Leon Adato" <adatole at y...> wrote:
> reincineier said:
> ************
> Something that has been bothering me for a while: what is everyone's
> take on religion in the HP wizarding world?
> *************
> 
> It seems pretty clear that JKR has steered clear of ALL religion - 
no
> mention of J.C., Vishnu, Hashem, Allah or any other deific entity. 
Yes,
> Christmas and Easter are mentioned as holidays (meaning "vacations" 
in US
> terminology) but that could just be the less-PC way of 
saying "winter
> holiday" and "spring break".
> 
> My understanding from friends who grew up in the UK is that this is 
very
> common. Christmass is seen by many to be a non-religious holiday 
(strange as
> it may sound).
> 
> Aside from those two vacation-events, there is no other mention of a
> religious occurance - nothing Jewish, Hindu (despite having Indian
> students), Muslim, Buddhist, or otherwise.
> 
> While this originally bothered me, someone pointed out that this 
would steal
> focus from the *conflict*. It is harder to make a metaphorical 
comparison
> when the real elements are also present. To say that another way, 
it's hard
> to use the treatment of half-giants (and the half-giant hiding his 
status)
> as an allegory of (for example) Jewish persecution if you clearly 
have
> Jewish people (persecuted or not) in the story. People tend to miss 
the
> point then.
> 
> So my assumption is that JKR is only showing "religion" if it is a 
social
> event, not a truly theological one.
> 
> $.02 debit cheerfully recorded.
> 
> Leon Adato
> --------------
> I have suffered from being misunderstood,
> but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been 
understood.
>          -Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (1857-1938)