posted
Hey, everybody needs some social events every now and then, even I like a good christmas mood. Can we say that such rituals transcend religious beliefs? Am I on drugs or do I make sense after all? Did I take my prozac this morning?
posted
Well, I'm taking a week's vacation in honor of my turning 28 this Thursday, so I can put off worrying about having to slay any Fundies at work until at least the 19th.
Baloo: Not be allowed to party?? Certainly not! Party hearty, come Christmastime, Easter, or whatever. Just leave me Halloween. That's all.
------------------ '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
posted
Sol, a bit of information to flesh out your wise argument.
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.
------------------ 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.
------------------ "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?! )
------------------ "FOOLS! Will I have to kill them ALL?!?!"
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.)
------------------ '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
posted
and I hope you all know that Jesus wasn't born on Christmas right!!!! He was born in the spring!!! X-Mas in Pagan, Easter is Pagan,and so's Halloweeen. But just because you celebrate them doesn't mean you are worshiping Satan. Just as evil twists good things to make them bad, good can take evil things and twist them into good.
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."
------------------ and I, I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the diference.
posted
I'll give this a try since I'm not speaking for myself.
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.
------------------ With 17 hours of class, guess what I'm doing.
posted
I'm calling for an end to Halloween too. Ever since I started getting those damned pears. I mean, please. Pears? I don't care if you are three days away from 98 and you think your house is being assaulted by marauding robots out to steal your pills, you could at least hand out sugar cubes or something.
But not mung. Mung kills. I hate mung.
------------------ "Quadrilateral I was, now I warp like a smile." -- Soul Coughing
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...
------------------ '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
posted
It is unfortunate that the most holy and solemn day of the year for my religion has become a scapegoat for these things. However, as First of Two has stated, "satanic" things happen on more than just THIS day of the year, and the same holds true for crime and all sorts of evil and wrongdoing. It just so happens that Halloween has gotten a bad name simply because it was once only a pagan holiday. Because the older christians feared and didn't understand it, they considered it to be of satan, and shunned it. But lets not take it away simply because of a few bad things. There is lots of fun to be had on halloween, when it's treated responsibly. For instance, bobbing for apples, decorating/carving pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds, dressing up and eating candy. These are harmless and fun activities that celebrate the season without being "satanic". Instead of shunning things, why not teach your children to behave like this, and have a healthy, happy, fun holiday?
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.
------------------ "...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?"
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