# What would Harry Potter's religion be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 12, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448 "2003-06-12T21:48:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2003, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/21 "2003-06-15T11:03:28Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by Windwalker_ > To not have any reference to religion whatsoever is a deliberate evasion by Rowling. Not at all. As I and others have said, England is a secular society. Religion, on the whole, isn’t that important. ---
**Author:** ![richardb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@richardb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/richardb)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2003, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/22 "2003-06-15T23:21:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Windwalker \* > **Sorry, I don’t buy that. Rowling tends to show any event that has significance in Harry’s life, and religion would certainly be significant, even if he were only a lipstick Anglican;** It may have been a while since I read the first four books, but I really don’t believe this is true. Can you point out a single “event that has significance in Harry’s life” that doesn’t directly relate to the mechanations of the plot? No matter how seemingly unrelated an event or episode may appear to be to the plot on initial reading, I’m sure eventually we discover that it either set up a later plot development or at the very least exposed us to some seemingly trivial aspect of the Harry Potter universe that later becomes crucial to the plot, but would have seemed arbitrary and capricious if we had not been introduced to the concept earlier. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2003, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/23 "2003-06-16T11:59:00Z")
I’m pretty sure there were some oblique references to religion, but now I can’t… Ah well, I have no time to search through four books to find some reference, which may or may not exist. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2003, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/24 "2003-06-16T12:04:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by gex gex \* > \*\*Not at all. As I and others have said, England is a secular society. Religion, on the whole, isn’t that important. \*\* However, don’t most UK boarding schools have regular religious assemblies (Chapel)? Or at least a chaplain? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2003, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/25 "2003-06-16T12:09:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*All the silly fundamentalist flap about the _Harry Potter_ novels promoting New Age religion got me to thinking: What exactly would be the religion of Rowling’s wizards and witches? \*\* Atheist. The phrase “good book” has nothing to do with Harry Potter. ---
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/26 "2003-06-16T14:06:31Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by richardb_ > Can you point out a single “event that has significance in Harry’s life” that doesn’t directly relate to the mechanations of the plot? No matter how seemingly unrelated an event or episode may appear to be to the plot on initial reading, I’m sure eventually we discover that it either set up a later plot development or at the very least exposed us to some seemingly trivial aspect of the Harry Potter universe that later becomes crucial to the plot, but would have seemed arbitrary and capricious if we had not been introduced to the concept earlier. The introduction of the Quidditch players moving in posters. And Ron (?) poking the soccer players because they didn’t move - or something like that. It’s all to add colour to the world. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/27 "2003-06-16T14:13:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by smiling bandit \* > **I’m pretty sure there were some oblique references to religion, but now I can’t…** Well, they celebrate Christmas, but that holiday has become so secularized anyway that it doesn’t mean anything. And I guess Harry Potter is sort of a Christ figure, it could be argued. ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2003, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/28 "2003-06-16T14:33:31Z")
Hogwarts is based in Great Britain, which as many posters have said here is a mostly secular society. Seamus Finnegan and Parvati Patil are Hogwarts students. To my mind, Seamus would be nominally a Catholic and Parvati nominally a Hindu. As both of these children were offered places in Hogwarts, we can only assume that the school has no overriding religious affiliation, barring children from divergent Muggle religions. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/29 "2003-06-16T17:08:33Z")
There’s another fantasy writter who has something similar going on in some of his stories which could be a very similar approach. In many of Terry Pratchett’s stories, the main action involves wizards, which live in a huge school that teaches them, well, how to be wizards. It mentions many times their lack of interest in religion due to the fact that, they know gods exist, they deal with them on a daily basis, sometimes often on a personal basis, and therefore, they really see no need to pay them any more attention than necessary. The concept of going to church, or any other structured form of worship for one god is seen as silly and a waste of time. It could be something like that in Harry’s world. When dealing with a plot device surrounded by supernatural forces of both a good and evil variety, the concept of a single organized religion begins to seem rather silly. I mean, once you recognize that God, Yahwe, Allah, Vishnu and Buddha all DO exist, along with a slew of other gods and the like, why bother going to church every Sunday? Again, another point where spirituality and religion go their separate ways. I could be wrong, though. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/30 "2003-06-17T01:34:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Windwalker \* > \*\*Sorry, I don’t buy that. Rowling tends to show any event that has significance in Harry’s life \ \*\* Fortunately that’s not true, or we’d be bogged down with a few chapters worth of Harry’s fanasies about Cho and, um, self-discovery. Some significant things are highly private, so maybe in this series religion is one of them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448/31 "2003-06-24T04:54:33Z")
I just finished _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,_ and, without spoiling any plot points, I can state that once again Rowling steers wide and clear of religious matters. There is one point when Harry asks some questions about the nature of the afterlife – but not even a ghost can tell him anything about it! And, as in previous volumes, there is no hint of any wizard engaging in any kind of religious worship, or discussing any religious belief-system, or even taking any god’s name in vain. Sometimes they swear “By Merlin’s beard!” And I don’t think it’s because they revere Merlin as a god. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-harry-potters-religion-be/181448.md?page=1)