Monday, July 30, 2007

Those Muggle Atheists

I can't help writing another post about Harry Potter. B's comment in the last one started me wondering if there are any atheists in the Potterverse. I could understand being a muggle atheist, but could you be an atheist wizard? I imagine those old invisible pink unicorn arguments falling flat when you have a bunch of thestrals running around. And uh, real unicorns too. Plus a whole slew of other supernatural creatures.

Jesus Christ: Liar, Lunatic, or... Leprechaun?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally think you could be an atheist wizard... in the strict sense that atheist is a person lacking god (i.e. You don't believe an an all powerful omnipotent diety who can control everything in the universe sans potions or charms or whatever you like).

You would just believe that people themselves could have supernatural powers.

However, I think it would be mutually exclusive to be a bright and a wizard.....

maybe Jesus was schizophrenic....

that atheist guy said...

"Schizophrenic" doesn't start with "L".

To be serious, it all depends on the nature of the magic. The wizarding world magic of Harry Potter seems to follow rules like a magical physics. In that case I agree with you. But if we see it as an anything goes kind of supernaturalism, then, well, anything goes!

The main idea though is that if magic was an everyday event then miracle stories from revelational texts would certainly be more believable. A whole society of wizards teleporting daily around the world is certainly more extraordinary than one guy walking on water. First year students at Hogwarts do things more amazing than turn water into wine.

Andrew Gilbaugh said...

so, you are an atheist, someone who doesn't believe in a god, but you love God? is it the one true God, Jesus Christ, or some other god?

that atheist guy said...

Definitely not that god.