Contemporary fantasy fiction and representations of religion: playing with reality, myth and magic inHis Dark MaterialsandHarry Potter

Lego religion in the classroom. The potential use of children’s popular culture in the teaching of religion in kindergarten and primary school

“…4 Combining bricks, video games and visuals familiar from movies as well as Lego's own animated movies and TV series, the game combines playfulness, rule breaking and fun with a number of different fantasy universes at once (Undheim, 2017). 5 Many of these fictional worlds featured in Lego Dimensions have also caught the interest of many religion scholars, such as Star Wars (Possamai, 2012), The Lord of the Ring (Davidsen, 2012) and Harry Potter (Feldt, 2016a(Feldt, , 2016bcf. also Cusack, 2010cf.…”

“…I will not enter that discussion here, but merely underline that most contemporary scholars consider the distinction between "religion" and "magic" to be very artificial from a religious studies point of view, cf Benavides (2006). andFeldt (2016aFeldt ( , 2016b.8 See alsoWeiss (2014), who suggests that a number of religious themes underlie the blockbuster Lego Movie, spanning from details such as names to allegories. Also, there is the Hollywood message that "all you need to be special is to believe", as well as the theme song from DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt, with the chorus affirming that "there will be miracles, when you believe" (cf Endsjø & Lied, 2011)…”

The Truth of Religion: Toward New Dynamics in the Scientific Study of Religion

“…See also the resonant criticism of the modern Western episteme in Chakrabarty (2000). One nice example of continuities between religious and other contents is the discussion by Laura Feldt (2016) or even that these are the best way to articulate religious truth. Rather, I begin with a bracketing of ontology on both sides of the debate -both materialists and believers will hold their ink and allow us to ask in what way the social life of religion is in touch with true life events, what we call reality.…”