This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Large Blunt Object: Cut both quotes, because neither are related to this page, and pulled this from the War On Straw index, for reasons stated in the discussion there.
Rutee: Cut the following: "* Star Ocean has magic called "Heraldry". In one scene, space captain Ronixis sees Staff Chick Milly praying and explains to her that it seems weird seeing someone pray because the Terrans have Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions. Milly persuades Ronixis to try it, just once, and the next time you meet them, sure enough, Ronixis has become a Heraldry Mage." The condensed version is that Heraldry has literally nothing to do with religion. Like, at all. Milly personally is spiritual, but no other mage is. Granted, no real reason is given for his taking up Heraldry on their arrival. You could make a case for the religious, spiritual nation being the one with all the mages, in Star Ocean 3, and it'd hover somewhere between inverted and justified. The magic has nothing to do with the religion (And indeed is the same magic used by the Federation) but the religious country /is/ the one with the monopoly on it. Either way, seems a bit overlong to explain, so I'll just remove the incorrect example.
Large Blunt Object: Hey, Rutee! Didn't know you were troping too.
Sharysa: Is anyone else Wiccan on here? If so, were you also disappointed in Willow after she said the mentioned line? I'm not saying that's the only thing I focus on, and it only sunk in after I started seriously studying Wicca, but still—it was kind of a shock to realize that someone as adorable and nice as her could blow off other people's faith so casually.
In what way does this apply to Christianity? The Bible in Mark 16:17-18 specifically names Healing Hands, poison immunity, exorcism, Translator Microbes, and possibly wild animal taming as abilities bestowed upon Christians, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to confuse those things with magic.
Saciel: As I got my degree in religion studies, I want to give some thought on this topic. Basically prayer IS a kind of magic. It depends on the prayer. For example, if you pray "Please make my mother survive her terminal illness" it is magic, because the praying person wants to influence the present- although through another being, but that doesn't matter. There is no magic without religion, just very new types of television-marketing-magic are without and stem themselves on willpower- but even that belief roots from the belief in the free will. Simply said, atm the defintion of magic is somewhat "When X tries to influence Y", Y being mostly the course of nature. Magic can be a gesture, a chant, a prayer, wearing something special, eating certain things or not etc. etc. Magic doesn't NEED spellcasting. And technically spoken, a prayer can be a spell to, depending if it is a plea-prayer or a praise-prayer, i.e. the Lords Prayer is a prayer that can be counted as magic, while the Ave Maria is more of a praise-prayer, although one pleas for forgivenness of the sins- that is not the course of nature, it's not present or the course of nature. But also the sign of the cross is magic, which can be especially well seen in early christian writers like John Chrysostomus the Martyr ("If you go to the jews, there waits the devil. But if you make the sign of the cross, the devil will jump away" roughly translated, in the context that early christians went to jewish ceremonies to receive medical services). A strict separation of religion and magic is not possible, but the point is valid in exaggarations like showing a christian prayer with immediate results or the several buddhist priests with their pearls of prayer as a weapon or used for wonders (one pearl = one wonder aso.). Sorry this got that long, tl;dr: Please think over the wording of the definition here.
I don't expect this to be scientifical but this: "Generally, the more well known religions see this less, as most people will have met a rabbi, a priest or a minister (walking into a bar optional), and noticed the lack of spellcasting" is just wrong, rabbis as priests are masters of spellcasting in their realm and especially in earlier centuries, they just don't call it that way. I won't say something on the protestant religious specialists as I don't know them well enough.
