I also thought it was amusing that my mum has issues because of the "magic" in HP (anti-christianity). Yet she had no problem with "the force" in Star Wars.
People get thrown off by the semantics. The Force
is just magic with a different name. The Jedi are pretty much the equivelant of witches and wizards but nobody has an issue with them. What is the difference between Harry waving his wand to make an object float about, and a Jedi use "the Force" to make objects float about? Whats the difference between a Death Eater using the Cruccio cures and Darth Vader Force-choking someone? If anything, Star Wars should be interpreted as
more blashpemous than Harry Potter.
I can think of another series of films where children go to a school to learn how to use thier magical powers. The films also deal with the subject of evolution. It's called X-men.
As for similarities between the Star Wars and Harry Potter, if you look around JKR's website, you'll notice that she says a few times that she is trying to avoid being too much like Star Wars. For example she says that she will
not be doing a prequal series and that Voldermort is not Harry's father.
But there are still a few similarities, especially in the movies! Harry is an orphan, he gets tempted by "the dark lord", there are ghosts that give him advice and in the fourth book/movie Harry's wand emits a glowing beam of light!