The only effect religion seems to have had on the magical world is the naming of a hospital, or entertainment - it was said that some witches enjoyed being burned at the stake IIRC.

 

They seem to celebrate Christian holidays, but it seems to have little to do with actual religion, especially since a lot of those holidays have elements of paganism anyway from when the Church was busy assimilating everything it possibly could into itself. IMO, after dealing with something as mysterious, powerful, and versatile as magic for so long, they wouldn't be trying to classify the world around them in terms of personal gods and religious duty. I'd imagine there would be magical concepts weirder/more complex than any religious texts.

As for the family giving up their beliefs in the face of actual magic, not likely. That would be like them choosing to see reason rather than being raving fundamentalists. Their whole thing is being illogical to the point of stupidity, even in the face of evidence or reason. In such a case, I think the wizards would just leave the child. They seem to defer to the parents as to what should be done with the child. The only reason they probably went to such lengths for Harry is that they needed him.

 

However, one can argue that a number of wizards holds a greater prejudice towards muggles as compared to muggleborns. This can be a motivation for wizards to remove the child from their parents.

Also, another intresting point will be how people like Dumbledore would deal with those kind of fundamentalist. After all, he used to support the idea that wizards should rule over Muggles.

 

As far as I know, it would be very difficult to argue that. Wizards hold very little prejudice against muggles as they simply do not think about them. This works on lines very similar to racism in the real world. Around two hundred years ago when racism against blacks was rampant in the west most westerners didm't know much about brown people. Currently more racism (prejudice) is centred on browns than blacks. Simply put, not in sight not in mind.

It would be fair to say that most wizards look down upon muggles and some even pity them - but they don't care either way. They are prejudiced against muggleborns because they come into the magical society and disrupt their lives.

People like Dumbledore? People change, what someone thought when they were more than sixty years younger is totally irrelevant. His reaction would not be interesting, it would be predictable. He wouldn't know what was going on (or even if he did, he would underestimate it). If he did know what was going on he would pity the child and toe the line between removing him whilst also trying to be kind to the parents.

 

The wizards can't just obliviate the parents' memory of the conversation about magic. The child is still prone to acts of accidental magic. However, if we take the students of Hogwarts from canon as an example, they begin showing signs of magic before the age of eleven, when they receive their letters.

That gives the parents years of witnessing first-hand evidence, again and again and again. No belief stands against that kind of refutation, prolonged over such a length of time.

Either the fundamentalist parents kill the kid believing he's satanic, or they're reasonable enough to listen to the wizard representative when they arrive.

 

The problem is not the family's belief in magic. They would witness the acts and think it was either an act of God or Satan (most likely Satan). Depending on how fanatical they are their views on religion would crystallize either way. Should they eventually think their child is possessed they would do anything in their power to exorcise him (the child believing he/she was possessed would likely help them). When a wizard shows up they could easily think he/she was just another demon and try their best to combat it.

The wizard then has two options. He could either obliviate them and inform the ministry so every few years/months wizards come back and habitually obliviate the family and anyone else who might have witnessed the magic or just ignore the whole thing. He could leave the family thinking the child was possessed (either underestimating or not caring about the pain he would endure). The family would still know little about magic, but would now believe they had solid proof in the existence of the supernatural (I'm talking about Gods and religion here)

 

I dunno. Dumbledore was an advocate of muggle rights, and he toed the line on many occasions, but most of those toe-ings revolved around Harry, who Dumbledore believed to be the chosen savior of the magical world. If he met Joe Plumber the fundamentalist muggleborn, he'd be sad and outraged and would propose new legislation, but he would also do the best thing in the situation and obliviate the parents, the child or, likely, both.

Really, there's only so many things a person could do in that situation. They could; a) remove the memories of the people involved which, as Andromalius stated, is a bad option; b) abduct the child and teach them magic after removing the memories of the parents and/or child, which could be interesting, but would be a moot point because if Harry was reprogrammed he would be the same as in every other piece of fiction; or c) leave and let the parents kill/ritually kill their child, which could be interesting if done well.

It might make for an intriguing oneshot, but would fail as a story, because not only is it a concept that allows for very limited reaction, but it would conflict so utterly with elements of Harry Potter that anything past a few thousand words would be pointless.

 

Agreed. This doesn't have to be a full length story at all, but can be written as some sort of social commentary on how wizards deal with fundamentalist.

The discussion about Muggleborn being unable to attend Hogwarts has make me think about a certain question. Just how dangerous can a person be, if he was not trained to use magic?

If Muggleborns are given a choice to study in Hogwarts, it would seems that the dangers of accidental and uncontrolled magic isn't too high.

 

Just a few things to point out.

Uncontrolled magic isn't dangerous. At all, at best it changes the way people look in minor ways. There's no evidence that repeated, uncontrolled bursts make them stronger in any way, and that an untrained magic user would suffer greater (and more dangerous) bursts of uncontrolled magic.

My DH may be a little rusty, but when do we hear about a muggle-born choosing NOT to attend Hogwarts? And once again, you imply that leaving a magic user untrained can cause problems. This isn't X-men, or any other number of series in which there is 'magic energy'. Magic happens because you fulfill A,B, and C requirements. After that, the spell is cast and there is not draining sensation on your 'mana pool'. An exception being Ariana, but I was under the assumption she was mentally deficient.

 

So every thing we are discussing here must result in a story being written?

So what happens if we are not writting a story?

Wait, you are asking me to convince you to continue posting in this thread? If mods thinks this thread does not warrent a discussion, they are free to close it. From what I know, you are not a mod.

Who the hell is even talking about your religious preferences to begin with? The focus of this discussion is not about whether a wizard will believe in religion.

That is not what everyone here is discussing.

Who the hell is talking about a bunch of fundamentalist wizards to begin with?

What I'm asking is how wizarding authorities would deal with the fundamentalistic parents of muggleborns.

 

No, but its not interesting enough to be included in a story, and therefore doesn't really merit consideration.

He probably thought you were when you said this:

You probably meant this, though:

To summarize:

A. Fundamentalist parents = largely a Non-issue in England. But if it were, then...

B. Parents would kill/abandon the demon child

C. Parents would change their beliefs in the face of evidence of magic or a magical world .

D. Parents would rationalize their child's abilities with their beliefs (i.e. magic = gift from God)

E. Wizards would not care about muggleborns. But if they did...

F. Wizards would confront parents, hoping for C or D, or...

G. Wizards would modify parents' memories, forcing C or D or...

H. Wizards would modify parents' memories to forget they had a magical child.

I. Wizards, if prejudiced against muggles, intimidate/maim/kill muggle parents and muggleborn child.

None of these would make for a very deep story, IMO

 

I'm undoubtedly going to get flamed for this, but what does IMO stand for?

 

In My Opinion. You should try Wikipedia* or Urban Dictionary before asking that kind of thing, by the way. Saves time.

*The list of internet acronyms, specifically.

 

Didn't come to mind. Sorry and thanks.