checking out the library book / Love

[pippin_999]

Kneasy:
> Enlighten me please - where does it mention souls and cathedrals in 
> canon? Not being sarcastic, I genuinely can't remember - or nuns,
> come to that.

Pippin:
Um, souls are what dementors eat. Lupin makes the first mention, I
think, in PoA, and is careful to state that one can lose one's 
soul and go on living. The cathedrals are in GoF ch 8 "Though Harry 
could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding
the pitch, he could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably
inside it." The nuns are guests at NHN's deathday party. 

Kneasy: 
> Ghosts and prophecies are pretty much  standard fare in fantasies
> from all cultures in all times; knights and chivalry (which in
reality only  applied to one's equals, the peasants were fair game, 
something glossed  over by the authors of the romance epics) aren't 
particularly associated  with religion either, except as a
justification for piling up the corpses.  "I'm doing it for God," 
they'd say while slitting a heretic/infidel throat.

Pippin:
Ghosts and prophecies are generally associated with the religion
of whatever culture they belong to. Those who believe in them
obviously do not consider them fantasy.

Medieval knights were specifically the product of a Christian
culture. They were vowed to serve Christ. The romances, far 
from glossing over, were often driven by the conflict  between 
earthly desires and the ideals of Christian service. That some 
people of those times considered piling  up infidel  corpses as
one of those ideals does not mean they were less than sincere
about it, I'm afraid. 

You're right that magic and organized religion  seem to be in
conflict. In fact, magic has been defined as religious practices 
not sanctioned by authority. How this plays out in the Potterverse 
I'm not sure.  I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that the 
wizarding attitude towards religion is exactly the same as the 
Muggle attitude toward magic, in other words the wizards 
think that  nowadays only a kook would believe that wizards
are  surrounded by an  invisible world peopled by beings with 
powers beyond their imagination and that in this world there's
a cosmic conflict between good and evil that affects
their daily lives.*
.

Kneasy:
> Interesting that you seem to class religion as a sub-set of
mythology.

Pippin:
You've put the cart before the thestral: Shorter OED 3rd edition 
revised (yeah, it's almost as old as I am): mythology 3. A body
of myths, esp. that belonging to the religious literature or
tradition of a country or people.
 
Pippin
* not my belief, but a prominent theme in Christian
writings