checking out the library book / Love

[Amy Z]

Kneasy wrote:

> Nuns. They were considered worse  than the monks. A Nunnery was a 
> dumping ground for unwanted female relatives that couldn't be 
married 
> off

and

> Medieval knights were soldiers. That was their raison d'etre. 

You're employing a little trick of defining religion so narrowly 
that the terms that are usually associated with it are now not about 
religion, but about something else, I don't know what you want to 
call it--"bartlefidget"?  Go right ahead, but bartlefidget is all 
over these books.

Surely nunneries do not cease to be instruments of the Catholic 
Church just because their social function is as much to have a place 
to stow one's excess daughters as anything else.  Surely Christian 
soldiers do not cease to be a part of Christendom just because 
their "real" purpose is to expand the Empire's hegemony eastward.  
What you have done is point out that the structures of religion 
overlap with those of economics, the military, government, secular 
culture, etc.  This is very true, but doesn't contradict Pippin's 
point that JKR's world is rife with religion.

Perhaps what you meant by "religion" is "mention of a creator God"?  
Or you are looking for evidence that witches and wizards have 
clearly defined spiritual practices?  The thing is, religion goes 
far beyond those things.  It has a sneaky way of defining itself so 
broadly that it is a part of just about every human endeavor, 
including those of humans who claim to have no religion.  Very 
underhanded of it.  But if a realm of human experience deals with 
death, rebirth, redemption, ethics, mythology, and ritual, then it 
does tend to seep into everything.  

Amy Z Curmudgeon

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Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work.
--Philosopher's Stone
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