Best deleted scene EVER.
Reading Harry Potter books will turn you to the Dark Side. When you read the entire set, you get a light sabre.
::::::::Cue sinister asthmatic breathing::::::::::
Harry…I am your father…
Could you explain to me why this is a problem? Naked is fun! 
Two words:
Mosquito bites. 
Yeah, it’s probably better to wait until Hermione’s a big girl.
Uh… what?
Actually, I was discussing the Catholic liturgical calendar with a Catholic theologian the other day, and she says this is mistaken. (Seriously. Research for work.)
She says that that portion of the calendar developed out of some early Catholic theologians obsession with the perfection of Jesus. It goes something like this:
Jesus was perfect in every way. Therefore he must have spent exactly nine months in the womb, and lived exactly a round number of years (which under the system they were using indicated that Good Friday fell on the anniversary of his conception, rather than the anniversary of his birth).
They went through the numerical calculations to work out the birth and death dates they presumed (we now believe they were a bit off, for what it’s worth), and worked out where things were in accord with where the Passover fell in each of the relevant years. The result they came up with was that the first Good Friday was 25 March, which was declared the festival of the Annunciation (by the above logic).
And, of course, that whole ‘perfect nine months’ thing meant that the appropriate time to celebrate the Nativity was 25 December. It didn’t originally fall quite as near the solstice; that’s an artifact of calendar reform.
Personally, I’m inclined to suspect that the festivals falling around that time of the year in the Roman Empire had more of an influence on the liturgical calendar codification than she’s willing to allow, but this is at least a differing interpretation from someone who knows a bit about the subject.
Also, it’s, y’know, mundane pointless knowledge I must share.
Pssst. Wrong forum.
I’m sure you meant to say that was mundane pointless knowledge that you must share * about a goat felcher*.
I suspect you’ve mostly seen what the pagan community tends to call the “fluffy bunnies”, as they’re the ones most prone to “Jesus with tits” religion. The basic worldviews of the religions are in principle very different; in practice, well, in practice humans get involved and everything gets muddy.
Wicca is largely an outgrowth of English folk tradition, Victorian romanticism, and secret esoteric societies. To the OP (and for that matter anyone else who’s interested), an actual legitimate history of Wicca is in Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon, which doesn’t buy into any of the bunny-theories of ancient traditions or manufactured persecutions. (Hutton himself may or may not be Wiccan; I have encountered a number of conflicting rumours as to whether or not he was initiated in the course of his research for TotM and whether he subsequently practiced if he was.) Very few scholarly pagans dispute his basic overview.
(Credibility note: I’m not Wiccan, though I’m broadly familiar with Wicca in general as well as several forms and relatives thereof. I do consider myself in the class “scholarly pagans”.)
You have no idea how funny that is to me, but it has to do with an ex girlfriend and it wouldn’t be funny to anybody else. Suffice it to say, you made me laugh and I appreciate it.
They can be.
Then again, there’s no one defining ideology of christianity, nor paganism.
Some of the ‘sweetness and light’ schools do tend to converge…
It seems to me as if Wicca differs substantially from the celtic/english practices as enumerated in The Golden Bough. I could be wrong, of course… as for Victorianism, I think that would be the influence of Dee upon the Craft and not the period in general…
And, simply a quibble, the esoteric societies were secret only in their inner teachings, they might as well have advertised. Especially the masons in England.
“… always conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts…”
Welcome to the club.
Pull up a chair, sit a spell. (no pun intended)
It’s things like this that makes me wish I knew some fundies so that I could argue with them. I suppose I just don’t look hard enough on campus…
Ok, I just remembered that I have gotten in random arguments with fundies on campus several times. Never about Harry Potter though. Ok, nothing to see here, carry on.
Christianity at least has the advantage of being a single family of religions, as opposed to a loose and somewhat uneasily lumped-together category. :}
The Golden Bough was originally written in what, 1890? A lot of the scholarship of that period is pretty questionable by modern standards. I mean, the soundly debunked (but oft-cited by neopagan revisionist historians) Murray’s The Witch Cult in Western Europe is 1921.
The images of the divine that Wicca uses are strongly influenced by (or even derived from) a romanticisation of the mostly-Greek mythos in Victorian poetry. (I don’t remember much more of Hutton’s argument on this account, but it’s quite convincing, as that’s the first we see those interpretations and images.)
Scholarly pagans? I’m moderately used to that particular club; I mostly hang out with recons. 
This is some damn hijack, huh?
Lilairen:
Thanks, I’ll do some digging.
If ignorance were cornflakes, John, you’d be General Mills. 
Has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but it’s among the greatest bon mots in human history if you ask me. The other things Cecil might say is “Subscribe, you might learn something.” I say that not because I’m a shill for the reader but because you sound like you’d fit in well around here.
Welcome, dare devil007, I hope you can scrape up the bucks to subscribe – I think you’d be an asset to our community.
The next time your friend drops that “Don’t I have a right to my opinion” stuff on you, reply with this: “There are two kinds of opinions – informed opinions and uninformed opinions. While you have every right to hold an uninformed opinion, don’t expect me to respect it. An uninformed opinion is worthless. Do some research and come to me with an informed opinion and I will respect it – even if we disagree.”
Wow, thanks, I feel so welcomed here. Maybe I really should subscribe.
In my case, I had no interest at all in reading the HArry Potter books- my arrogant attitude had always been that anything so popular couldn’t possibly be good.
As it turned out, during a period a few years back when my wife was in the hospital, our pastor brought her the first Harry Potter book. She read it and passed it on to me. I read it, and I was poretty much hooked.
For what it’s worth, I’m a Catholic Republican. I’ve read all five of the Harry Potter books, I’ve enjoyed them all, and I have yet to see anything in any of them that I found offensive or inappropriate for kids.
Indeed, if you take away the magical element, the Harry Potter series isn’t so different from Enid Blyton’s “hijinks at boarding school” stories that British kids have been reading for decades.
Even with the magic, the HP books aren’t that different from dozens of other books kids have been reading for years. They just struck a chord with kids and are much more popular.
Two more: Poison Ivy. :eek:
Yup, I agree. If you think about it, Harry Potter couldn’t really exist without the magic. The main focus of it is really Harry vs. Voldemort. It’s not a chronicles of the adventures Harry has at Hogwarts with his friends. Harry learns the magic so that it can help him in fighting Voldemort.
It’s even less different than Anthony Horowitz’ Groosham Grange, the first volume of which was published a little while before Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone.*
Groosham Grange is a little darker than Harry Potter. (The style is quite similar to Roald Dahl.) The violence in his home is a bit more explicit, for example. Paraphrased conversation between father and mother: “That boy needs a good caning. My father caned me regularly when I was a boy, and look at the good it did me!” “Well, you are in a wheelchair, dear…”
Anyway, the parents’ desire for a more disciplined child is met by a mysterious invitation to a strange boarding school… On the special train to get there, the protagonist meets two new chums-- a bookish, hyper-intelligent girl, and thick but steadfast boy. When they arrive at the school, it seems as though the teachers have all the students under a strange spell, and they resolve to stick together. (Imagine if Slytherin had the run of Hogwarts. At Groosham Grange, it’s all about the dark arts.)
I shouldn’t like to spoil the book much beyond that, but if anyone who’s liable to get worked up over a fantastic morality tale like Harry Potter ever got wind of Groosham Grange, they’d shave Mr. Horowitz’ head and light him up like it were Guy Fawkes’ day.
*Not to suggest that Rowling plagiarized her story – just that both authors hit on something strikingly similar at the same time.