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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[TD1]

Me, playfully: Expelliarmus!

Priest: Pater noster, qui es in cœlis; sanctificatur nomen tuum: Adveniat regnum tuum; fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cœlo, et in terra. Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie: Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris: et ne nos inducas in tentationem: sed libera nos a malo.

Me, confused: Av...avada kedavra?

Priest: 

[Teneb]

that the books are heresy or that the banning of the books is heresy?

Because those people actually believe that reading the pseudolatin aloud summons literal demons and bad spirits.

According to Catholic dogma, only their god is capable of doing magic. So if a Catholic says someone other than their god can do magic, it's heresy.

[smjjames]

that the books are heresy or that the banning of the books is heresy?

Because those people actually believe that reading the pseudolatin aloud summons literal demons and bad spirits.

According to Catholic dogma, only their god is capable of doing magic. So if a Catholic says someone other than their god can do magic, it's heresy.

Who says those in Harry Potter books aren’t channeling gods magic?

[wierd]

that the books are heresy or that the banning of the books is heresy?

Because those people actually believe that reading the pseudolatin aloud summons literal demons and bad spirits.

According to Catholic dogma, only their god is capable of doing magic. So if a Catholic says someone other than their god can do magic, it's heresy.

Who says those in Harry Potter books aren’t channeling gods magic?

Nonsense!  Those spells are all murdered latin and greek. I never ONCE saw the tetragrammaton! Not even a passing mention of the merkava!

Old testament mysticism would have melted poor harry's brains!  The closest they had was the "Arithmancy" class, and that would have only barely scraped the surface. Ancient Hebrew numerology, Kabbalah, and co are things I doubt JK Rowling would have wanted to even touch with a 100 foot pole in her books.



 

[TD1]

Also Arabic I think, in the case of Avada Kedavra - to unmake.

[smjjames]

Maybe the pseudolatin is just a weakened form of the more potent magic.

Seriously though, she wouldn’t have touched the stuff that people would consider really serious because it’s not actually serious magic, and if she did, they’d be calling out misuse. I mean, do Catholics cry for the heads of magicians who use words like hocus pocus, alakazam, and abracadabra or use stage magic? Probably not.

It’s really just idiots being idiots.

Edit while typing: You know, I can’t help but wonder if the reaction would be different if JK Rowling was a man

[TD1]

I can't imagine that it would? Except that people would link it more with the traditional evil magician image.

[wierd]

That and because thematically, it's harder to use an already well established core body of mystical mumbo-jumbo.  The ONLY people that would have been interested in that, would have been people who have already studied those things. From a perspective of "I just want to tell a fucking story goddamit!", being able to shape that clay any way you want has definite advantages. That would be the real reason Rowling avoided the things I mentioned, if you ask me.

She wanted to create a setting that could be both light-hearted and fun, sufficiently similar to the daily grind of modern children so that the characters were relatable, and still be able to mature into a dark and dramatic work of fiction later.  You don't get that with dusty and well-trodden magical traditions.

(EG, waxing philosophically about the numerological meaning behind Lord Voldermort's chosen name, and on the seferical construct, and how it relates to the creation of a horcrux, would not be interesting to anyone except somebody who is just really fucking into studying realworld mysticism. It would get in the way of "Voldermort hated his own heritage, could not experience or feel love, and the exact mechanics of the spell he used to make the horcrux is only important in that he had to murder somebody to make it work." Doing the latter pretty much requires one to abandon actual examples of magic from our real world, and invent a new magic from whole cloth, and only convey narratively meaningful information.)

[Egan_BW]

Well see, it doesn't make sense to base your fictional magic system on real world magical practices because we already know that none of those work~

[wierd]

Well duh--- We're muggles!

She pointedly demonstrates this in her books with the references to 'Tales of Beedle the Bard', which have muggle nobles trying to force captured witches and wizards to teach them magic. (It never works.)

So, while we might have access to stuff that would blow us all up super duper good if we actually had magic, since we DONT, it doesn't do a damn thing for us.

[Egan_BW]

Well in that case by DnD terminology you don't have wizards, you have sorcerers. And if it's innate and not based on an understanding of the world and its rules, I'd call it "powers", not "spells".

If there were a magic system out there, I don't doubt that we muggles would have figured out how to use it. By which I mean it's called electricity and we have figured it out.

[wierd]

The whole "Haves" and "Have nots" angle is crucial to the structure of the narrative.  Without it, Voldermort would have no reason to hate his muggle father, and would never have embarked down the road of evil his life unfolded as.


AND-- things like electricity confound the magical world. (Ron weesely's dad has quite the collection of electrical plugs and appliances, and muses impotently about how they actually work. Magic is more of a "impose your will onto reality" thing, rather than an "exploit the rules of reality to get a desired effect" thing.)

[Egan_BW]

If imposing your will on reality works, then reality must have rules which accommodate imposing one's will upon it under specific circumstances. If said rules and circumstances are understood, they can be exploited. With the aid of the proper technology, most likely even exploited by "have-nots".

[smjjames]

It sounds sort of like ‘technology so advanced it seems like magic’, just flipped for the magic users.

[wierd]

Amusingly, Rowling did touch on that kind of thing, with "Self spelling wands" for squibs, being a theoretical, and innovative area of research. (that had never gotten anywhere)

(link fixed. Damnit, I hate technology some times. Would never be a problem if magic were fucking real. )