I swear, if I hear those words from JUST ONE MORE Fundie Idiot, I'm gonna have to strangle 'em. For the sake of Humanity.
Kiddies.
1. Halloween started its existence as a harvest/equinox festival. It was called Samhain, in honor of the God of Death and Darkness. (PLEASE note that to these people, Death and Darkness were not EVIL things, just natural parts of life,which the year just happened to mimic. "It's the cirrrcle of liiiiife...") They were headed into the days of longer night and cold, and it seemed the whole world was dying off.
MY guess, although I could be wrong about this bit, is that it was originally AT the equinox, but was moved later in order to be on a single day on the new calendar, or to become All-Hallows Eve ( precursor to the very Christian All-Saints Day, Nov.1 )
2. These same folks had NO concept of the Christian "Satan." It didn't exist to them. Saying otherwise is false, libelous, and just plain ignorant.
3. The practice of dressing up came about due to the belief that the spirits of the dead could return on this day. Now, the spirits of the dead were not always unwelcome. Many sought to honor their ancestors (much as the Chinese do,) and welcomed their return any any advice they might give. However, some spirits were just plain NASTY, and the belief was that if you could fool these spirits into thinking you were one of them, they would let you be. Alternatively, if you were scary enough, they would FLEE from you. Hence, the meaning of dressing up is to SCARE the evil spirits, NOT to JOIN them.
4. Halloween today is no more a "pagan holiday" than are Christmas and Easter (which, as anyone moderately intelligent knows, were ALSO originally pagan festivals, and co-opted by Christianity. "Eostre" was a goddess.) Truthfully, they are all now just massive consumer orgies of buying and overindulgence. But we'll let that one go.
There, now I've vented, which will hopefully keep me from blasting all thout at the next Fundie Idiot I meet in the library who goes off about my decorations or my letting the kids dress up for story hour.
ANYONE who believes all that Halloween = Satanism crap is LIVING IN AN UNREAL WORLD. And they should crawl inside and seal the door shut after them.
*pant* *pant*
That's better.
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"We shall not yield to you, nor to any man." -- Freak, The Mighty.
O you mean is the date evil, errr no, there isn't anything worst than Christmas or Easter. Except for the "scary" costums.
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HMS White Star (your local friendly agent of Chaos and a d*mn lucky b*st*rd:-) )
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My mind wanders, but don't worry. It's weak and can't get very far.
--Steve Allen
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
Post-edit P.S: Besides. This is the only time of the year (or so it seems) that you can actually find FRESH Tootsie Rolls. The rest of the year they're just petrified sticks of Chocolate.
[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited October 10, 1999).]
Ignore me.
And don't say that's too easy, Lee.
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Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")
What? Some people do call me Lee y'know. ::
Besides, Haloween was just an attempt to draw attentin away from Bonfire Night.
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Cordellia: "Well, does looking at guns make you wanna have sex?"
Xander: "I'm seventeen. Looking at linoleum makes me wanna have sex."
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--Then, said Cranly, do you not intend to become a protestant?
--I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
one might argue that the idea of a mind-reading trespasser in a red suit whose name is an anagram for 'satan' might perhaps be a little more evil that greedy extortionists demanding protection payments to feed their sugar jones. but not by much.
Samhain doesn't commemorate the God of Death and Darkness. It's a harvest holiday in which we honor the sacrifice of the God of Wheat and Sun so that we will have food over the winter. It is also a celebration of rebirth, as we know the God will be born again at Yule.
"MY guess, although I could be wrong about this bit, is that it was originally AT the equinox, but was moved later in order to be on a single day on the new calendar"
Nope, Samhain has always been around this date. The Equinox holiday is "Mabon". You will notice that the Spanish tradition has their "Day of the Dead" the day after Samhain night. This is not a coincidence.
"These same folks had NO concept of the Christian "Satan." It didn't exist to them. Saying otherwise is false, libelous, and just plain ignorant."
True. Satan is a Christian creation that only exists inside the Christian religion. Gee, I wonder why that is?
"3. The practice of dressing up came about due to the belief that the spirits of the dead could return on this day...."
Yup on this one as well. Also, food was left out to honor the spirits of the ancestors who came to visit, and the Jack O Lanterns were to lead these dead ancestor spirits to your house, to make them feel welcome.
"4. Halloween today is no more a "pagan holiday" than are Christmas and Easter (which, as anyone moderately intelligent knows, were ALSO originally pagan festivals, and co-opted by Christianity. "Eostre" was a goddess.)
Indeed. Halloween has turned into a MOCKERY of the very sacred and holy holiday that my religion consideres it to be. That's why I don't take part in it. Samhain was a very special time before, and now it's been taken over by candy salespeople and the media. *sighs*. As with Christmas, which now doesn't even have as much CHRISTIAN importance as it used to..
I'm not so sure about Eostre though. It's also called Ostara, and a few other things. Vernal Equinox. Not necessarily VERY connected to the Catholic faith.
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"...when all that is driving my heart forward
is you, thoughts of you, hopes for you,
and a fading dream with a Mona Lisa smile
that whispers "are you thinking of me too?"
41 days till the dreams become reality...
[This message has been edited by Jubilee McGann (edited October 11, 1999).]
Trust Jube's interpretation, though. She knows more about it.
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'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson
Zoroasterism, for instance, though I'll be durned if I can remember the name. Something interesting, though.
Norse traditions have the trickster god Loki, who is chained to a rock by his fellows one day for taking things a bit too far and killing a fellow god. (Balder, I think.) One day Loki will escape his bonds and command the ship from Hel that will assist in the destruction of the world.
Egyptain mythology contains Set, whose motivations are a bit trickier to recall, but I believe he was the one who chopped up Osirus and scattered him to the winds.
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I do indeed and shall continue
Dispatch the shiftless man to points beyond
--
Soul Coughing
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"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep. . ."
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"...when all that is driving my heart forward
is you, thoughts of you, hopes for you,
and a fading dream with a Mona Lisa smile
that whispers "are you thinking of me too?"
41 days till the dreams become reality...
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HMS White Star (your local friendly agent of Chaos and a d*mn lucky b*st*rd:-) )
OOPS, I see white Star pointed that out already!!(10/14/99)
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"One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor". George Carlin
[This message has been edited by Kosh (edited October 14, 1999).]
Pbpbpbppbpbbpbpthhhht! [Translation: Bronx Cheer.]
I'll party any time I like, but it's important that there are recognized times to gather together with friends and party. Otherwise all those "type A" personalities would be a real drag 365 days a year.
And howcome no-one picked up on Arbor day?
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My mind wanders, but don't worry. It's weak and can't get very far.
--Steve Allen
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
Um.. I did.
er..
I'm back, and so is my vagueness :]
--Baloo
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My mind wanders, but don't worry. It's weak and can't get very far.
--Steve Allen
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
Baloo: Not be allowed to party?? Certainly not! Party hearty, come Christmastime, Easter, or whatever. Just leave me Halloween. That's all.
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'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson
Zoroastrianism has Ahura Mazda or Ormuzd (the good and wise god) and Angra Mainyu or Ahriman (the evil god) are always in conflict, but Ormuzd is assured eventual victory.
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Oh, meltdown. It's one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus.
~C. Mongomery Burns
[This message has been edited by Jay (edited October 12, 1999).]
At any rate Jubilee, I think you read too much into the word trickster.
In many traditions, the trickster god isn't really a bad guy. He's often on the side of the humans, anyway. (Coyote, for instance.)
This is not how it goes in, say, Norse mythology. Loki, their trickster, gets fed up with the whole deal and helps burn the entire universe to a cinder. That seems suitably evil to me.
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"Quadrilateral I was, now I warp like a smile."
--
Soul Coughing
To me it's always just been about dressing up. Until I got a bit too big for the Batman costume and became irritated by kids arriving at the door demanding goodies. Still, it allows me to nurture my crancky-old-guy routine for later life, when I intend to get myself a deck, rocking chair, wild stare and pump-action shotgun.
As for it being all eeevil (bites pinkie-finger), I think it's greatest sin is the omnipresent threat of another Paul Daniels Halloween Special....eeesh!
(Anyone remember Ghostwatch?! )
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"FOOLS! Will I have to kill them ALL?!?!"
I don't believe the whole Halloween bit, but that arguement is a bit weak. I know people here at school that could pick that apart.
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With 17 hours of class, guess what I'm doing.
Welcome to try, although not being a practitioner of Druidic religion myself, I may have to take extra time to check my facts.
Basically, my argument was this:
Halloween is not and is in no way "evil." Virtually everything that the Fundies say about it is a lie, a misinterpretation, or a distortion of the truth (some things I've come to expect from Fundies.)
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'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson
my two cents,
Marc Valcarenghi
"Yeah. Well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. But I think I may have a better one. How about, I give you the finger... and you give me my phone call."
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and I, I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the diference.
1. Satan is known today and people do "Satanic" things on Halloween now.
2. Halloween seems to make everyone (esp. kids) think they should go out and committ petty crimes, ect.
Again, I don't prescribe to this myself, but I think the idea is that what is done today is more important than the history of the event. I would even say if Christmas (or any other holiday) caused the same kind of stuff as Halloween that people would be calling to end Christmas, too. Especially when Easter is the more important Christian holiday.
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With 17 hours of class, guess what I'm doing.
But not mung. Mung kills. I hate mung.
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"Quadrilateral I was, now I warp like a smile."
--
Soul Coughing
-Marc
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and I, I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the diference.
Actually, Satan is PRESUMED to exist today, by an apparent majority of the vocal population... a large number of whom ALSO believe that Astrology and the crap in the Enquirer and the Weekly World News is also real.
"and people do "Satanic" things on Halloween now."
Irrelevant. The fact that a few people do stupid things on a day is no reason to cancel the day. Besides, crime is committed on Christmas, too.
2. Halloween seems to make everyone (esp. kids) think they should go out and committ petty crimes, ect.
Like I said, crime is committed on Christmas, too (and half the time its the retail companies doing it) And no, I still don't equate the crime with the holiday. Just as many things are blown up or damaged around the 4th of July...
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'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson
For those of you who say you can't celebrate halloween because of what might happen on this day, you might as well not celebrate christmas, or new years, or the fourth of july, or thanksgiving, etc. My mother didn't let us dress up or go trick-or-treating on halloween night. We weren't allowed to celebrate that at all. However... the one thing she DID do that i'm gratefull for is instead she created "harvest festival" that night for us. We bobbed for apples, tried to bite donuts off strings hung from the ceiling, carved pumpkins, drank apple cider, and one year we made cornbread and pumpkin cookies. We still gave out candy to the children who came. I never thought of this holiday as evil BECAUSE of this, and now that I'm pagan I suppose I never will. There are alternatives here besides telling your children "it's an evil holiday and we can't celebrate it because it's full of satan". Then all your children learn is fear and hatred of the unkown. The circle has to be broken sometime.
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"...when all that is driving my heart forward
is you, thoughts of you, hopes for you,
and a fading dream with a Mona Lisa smile
that whispers "are you thinking of me too?"
34 days till the dreams become reality...
------------------
With 17 hours of class, guess what I'm doing.
Of course, December is Mi na Nollaig, the Month of Christmas.
And as for Hallowe'en being evil and satanic, nowadays over here it passes with nary a whimper. A few kids turn up in bin-liners with crappy plastic masks and play a song or sing for a bit, and they'd consider it a priviledge to get more than 50p per house.
It's only been lately that they've dared make the dreaded "Trick or treat" implied threat commonplace.
And Happy Birthday, First of Two.
Knock yourself daft.
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"So, no room for Bender, huh? Well I'll build my own lunar lander, with blackjack, and hookers.
In fact, who needs a lander, or blackjack?
Ah, screw the whole lot o' ya!"
-- Bender, Futurama.
I think I stopped likeing Holloween when I started driveing, and had to move trees out of the road, because some dumb@$$ kid that lives on the same hollow(space between two mountains) that I live on, thought it would be funny to block the road.
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"One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor". George Carlin
As far as the razor blades and poisioned candy, I offer the following links:
Neither poisonings nor foreign objects in Halloween treats are very common. If you're not certain about something, don't eat it.
--Baloo
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A well-intentioned fool can get into more trouble than any number of rapscallions.
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
If you're talking more "petty" crime, yes, probably more takes place on Halloween. But actual serious crime? I doubt it. More probably takes place after school sporting events on weekends. (After all, statistics also show more wives are beaten during televised football games...)
I thought that Detroit's "Devil's Night" was the night BEFORE Halloween. In any case, you could point to it as an associated phenomenon, but not one caused by the existence of Halloween. That, in effect, is like blaming the Internet for the Columbine shootings.
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'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson
Baloo: Yep, it holler, I'd have said that, but I didn't think anyone would understand.
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"One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor". George Carlin
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"Quadrilateral I was, now I warp like a smile."
--
Soul Coughing
Just because you hear warnings doesn't mean it isn't chicken little. I'd be more worried about creepy neighbors and strangers.
--Baloo
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A well-intentioned fool can get into more trouble than any number of rapscallions.
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
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With 17 hours of class, guess what I'm doing.
[This message has been edited by Kosh (edited October 21, 1999).]
Gullible loonies.
"What fools these mortals be!"
Of course, it makes a kind of twisted sense.. most of the people who pretend to be "Satanists" and "sacrifice" cats (black or otherwise, whether its on Halloween or not) ARE moronic redneck types... but they're generally easy enough to identify. 'd be easier just to say that nobody who lives in a trailer or public housing or has a truck in their front yard can buy a cat. In which case, the morons will just find some other animal. Cats aren't special, except that some people think they're witches' "familiars" (except everybody knows you DON'T kill your familiar!)
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'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson
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A well-intentioned fool can get into more trouble than any number of rapscallions.
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
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"All you people, can't you see, can't you see
How your love's affecting our reality
Everytime we're down
You can make it right
And that makes you larger than life"
-Backstreet Boys
I don't know if there are more petty crimes during Halloween, but the largest number of SUICIDES happen around Christmas.
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--Then, said Cranly, do you not intend to become a protestant?
--I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
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Frank's Home Page
Noah Adams: "Well, some of them are really quite understandable. 'Montana is a leg.' is..."
John Linnell: "...it's grammatical. It's not true, and it doesn't strictly make sense, and..."
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"And I can't approach myself, skating over this perdition."
--
Soul Coughing
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Frank's Home Page
Noah Adams: "Well, some of them are really quite understandable. 'Montana is a leg.' is..."
John Linnell: "...it's grammatical. It's not true, and it doesn't strictly make sense, and..."
Though I came here to admit that I couldn't find any of them. I do know that depression peaks on the holidays, but depression and suicide are two different things.
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"And I can't approach myself, skating over this perdition."
--
Soul Coughing
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"One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor". George Carlin
-Brits rule! :]
I imagine that there are some suicides connected with almost any holiday you could name, but Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years are fraught with a great deal of universally recognized emotional baggage. The number of suicides prompted by Groundhog day angst, on the other hand, is probably not even measurable by ordinary statistical methods.
--Baloo
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Carpe Canem (Translation: Damn! The dog pooped on the carpet! AGAIN!!!)
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited October 25, 1999).]