Muggle Practices/Religion/Weasley practices

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 78898

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:
> Why is it so hard to believe that wizards might have heard about 
it?
> True Christmas and Easter were ancient pagan holidays that EVOLVED
> into the current Christian holidays, but why can't you believe the
> wizards evolved their tradition too. 
> 
> For what it's worth in the mid-1600's the Christmas celebration was
> banned by law, and it was Christians who were pushing that law. 
Also,
> many other Christian religious groups over history have fought to 
ban
> the celebration of Christmas for a variety of reasons.
> 
> I see no reason why the ancient pagen rites of wizards and witches
> would not have evolved with the advent, introduction, and wide 
spread
> acceptance of Christianity. Remember that wizards and witches have 
not
> always been separated from Muggles. They have gone through cycles 
of
> being integrated and separated. Certainly, a 1650 year old 
tradition
> could have easily crept into their culture. 
> 
> And let's not forget that as the pure wizard families died out or 
more
> accurately, diminished, there has been more inter-marriage between
> muggle/muggle-borns and wizards. So, again, I see no reason why the
> wizards and witches would not have adopted the ancient tradition of
> Christmas.
> 
I think that it is absolutely FATAL to the whole suspension of 
disbelief thing in the HP books to seriously introduce Christianity 
in any way. I think that's why Rowling has kept it out of her books 
in all but a superficial way.  People put up Christmas trees, go on 
holidays and sing songs, and that's fine, but you can't fit any more 
religion than that into the story, because the whole question of God 
is too big for the framework.  It will lead to all kinds of 
questions about authority and purpose, not to mention the knotty 
problem of what to make of Jesus, and it will just end up lifting 
the roof off the fictional world Rowling has created.  I have no 
problem with the small amount of "decorative" Christian influence 
she's introduced so far; "God bless you, merry Hippogriffs" just 
struck me as a joke, and the references to Christmas and Easter 
vacations, it seems to me, are just methods of carrying over Muggle 
normality into the WW.  If she called them "Solstice Holidays", we'd 
notice it too much and think that she was making some serious point 
about wizard beliefs and worship; this way, it just points up the 
similarity between the two worlds.  They have holidays just like we 
do.  C.S. Lewis did this in 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe', 
where Narnia was a land imprisoned by a witch so that it was always 
winter, "but never Christmas".  One just accepts this; if you try to 
figure out how a world that doesn't know Christ can have Christmas, 
the whole story just comes to a stop.

Wanda