[the_old_crowd] Re: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly

[Penny & Bryce]

Hi --

Kneasy:
> Religion presupposes belief in a god of some sort.
> No god, no worship. No worship, no religion. No religion, no
spiritual 
> practices. 
> And vice versa.
> Otherwise it's a moral philosophy instead. A set of social and moral
> standards that require no spirituality, no worship, no god, no
religion. 

Does it then follow though that absence of explicit reference to a god of some sort in the Potterverse means it absolutely doesn't exist therein?  Or, might it be the case that Rowling simply hasn't affirmatively displayed evidence of spirituality (Christian or otherwise) in the series *yet*??  Hmm?  After all, there is a graveyard at Hogwarts that was confirmed by Rowling to Cuaron (which is, of course, hearsay ...... but canon of a sort nonetheless I think).  Might there not also be a related abbey or village church or some such?  Seems quite possible to me, Goat's Law notwithstanding.  

<<<<<<<But back to Harry Potter, although the nuns, knights and
cathedrals appear incidental, they nonetheless establish that
wizards and Muggles share a past in which the Christian
religion was important. They set the story  firmly in a
Christian or post-Christian milieu, and establish a Christian 
context for interpreting symbols like the unicorn and the serpent.>>>>>>>>>>>

*nods*  Yes, exactly.  That is, incidentally, a big point of John Granger's thesis -- that Rowling is a Christian author writing in the tradition of great classic English literature which is, by and large, Christian.  It seems to me that Rowling has created a wizarding world that developed alongside the British muggle world for centuries and shares many of the same traditions and history.  Part of that history is indisputably Christianity.  

Penny


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