[HPforGrownups] Re: Funerals are for the living

[MadameSSnape at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 128300

 
In a message dated 4/30/2005 1:21:48 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
tonks_op at yahoo.com writes:

I think  that religion is very quitely in the background. They 
observe Christmas  and Easter. Pagan wizards would not do that.


 
=============
Sherrie here:
 
What?  Not observe Yule and Ostara????  Never happen.
 
Yes, the Hogwarts school calendar has "holidays" (vacations, to us Yanks  & 
Rebs) over those two particular time frames - but IMHO, it's more to keep  them 
in synch with the "normal" school calendar in the UK.  After all, it  might 
raise awkward questions in a community if it were noticed that a  child who is 
supposedly merely away at a boarding school didn't appear at home  during the 
"normal" school breaks.  
 
We never see any sort of religious ceremony or display - everything we see  
is secular rather than sectarian in nature.  Yes, gifts are exchanged at  
Christmas, but that happens at Yule and Chanukah, too; and many of the symbols  we 
see (trees, eggs, &c., e.g.) are, if not universal, at least shared  between 
Paganism and Christianity, and have basically passed completely into the  
secular realm.  
 
IMHO, JKR isn't "smuggling" any sort of religion into US or any other  
schools - the holidays we see are patently secular observances of the  holidays, not 
religious observances of the holy days.
 
Just my 2 Knuts - as always, YMMV.
 
Sherrie
(who's had this discussion with a professor of comparative religion who  also 
happens to be a Lutheran minister with ties to Pagan, Buddhist, Jewish,  
Muslim and Longhouse faith communities - and a Potterite)
 


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