Thank you so much for posting this! So many christians believe the holiday is all about Satan, but that’s never been true. Samhain traditions were practiced centuries before the birth of christianity, and I’m so glad they’ve continued to survive and thrive in spite of christianity’s best efforts to either wipe it out or completely ruin it by christianizing it.
Though there’s not a single christian tradition that wasn’t taken from pre-exisiting Pagan beliefs and traditions, Halloween is the one they are most intent upon destroying. Probably because it’s so much fun, and as you know, much of christianity is based upon the horrible, soul-numbing terror that someone, somewhere may be having a good time. Can’t be having that, now can we?
Have you seen the film Hell House? I guarantee you, you’ll spend half the film laughing uproariously and the other half training for the olympic facepalming competition. These are people who paint the Star of David on things, thinking it’s a Pagan symbol. Pretty easy to tell that from a Pentacle with less than a minute of research. The film shows everything from the assembly and post-production phase all the way through to the show on halloween night. Crazy stuff.
Great podcast, and he’s right on about the history of Halloween. I could go on and on about my bad experiences with churches in the past regarding Halloween when I was a Christian, but I won’t right now. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and always has been. It’s just plain fun to me and my family . We decorate the house, we carve pumpkins, we dress up, the kids trick or treat and we watch old classic horror movies late into the night. It annoys me when I hear the anti-Halloween rhetoric and lies from churches, but I realize that they always have to demonize whatever people enjoy doing in order to keep control of their “flock”. Fear is a great means of control, and they have it down.
I’m excited to be able to wear my ninja shirt to work, and to pass out candies to the trick or treaters this year. When I was growing up, Halloween was not allowed. There is only one year the entire time I was growing up that I got to celebrate, and I remember it vividly–probably because it was so rare. My dad built me a knight costume out of tinfoil and took my siblings and I to a pancake feed at the firehouse. After my parents split up, I started working full time and scraped together the money to buy my littlest brother and sister costumes and took them trick-or-treating, ignoring my mom’s distaste for the holiday. Last year was the first year I got to pass out candy, and I rediscovered the joy of getting to be whoever I wanted, one night a year.
Comments (3)
Thank you so much for posting this! So many christians believe the holiday is all about Satan, but that’s never been true. Samhain traditions were practiced centuries before the birth of christianity, and I’m so glad they’ve continued to survive and thrive in spite of christianity’s best efforts to either wipe it out or completely ruin it by christianizing it.
Though there’s not a single christian tradition that wasn’t taken from pre-exisiting Pagan beliefs and traditions, Halloween is the one they are most intent upon destroying. Probably because it’s so much fun, and as you know, much of christianity is based upon the horrible, soul-numbing terror that someone, somewhere may be having a good time. Can’t be having that, now can we?
Have you seen the film Hell House? I guarantee you, you’ll spend half the film laughing uproariously and the other half training for the olympic facepalming competition. These are people who paint the Star of David on things, thinking it’s a Pagan symbol. Pretty easy to tell that from a Pentacle with less than a minute of research. The film shows everything from the assembly and post-production phase all the way through to the show on halloween night. Crazy stuff.
Great podcast, and he’s right on about the history of Halloween. I could go on and on about my bad experiences with churches in the past regarding Halloween when I was a Christian, but I won’t right now. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and always has been. It’s just plain fun to me and my family . We decorate the house, we carve pumpkins, we dress up, the kids trick or treat and we watch old classic horror movies late into the night. It annoys me when I hear the anti-Halloween rhetoric and lies from churches, but I realize that they always have to demonize whatever people enjoy doing in order to keep control of their “flock”. Fear is a great means of control, and they have it down.
I’m excited to be able to wear my ninja shirt to work, and to pass out candies to the trick or treaters this year. When I was growing up, Halloween was not allowed. There is only one year the entire time I was growing up that I got to celebrate, and I remember it vividly–probably because it was so rare. My dad built me a knight costume out of tinfoil and took my siblings and I to a pancake feed at the firehouse. After my parents split up, I started working full time and scraped together the money to buy my littlest brother and sister costumes and took them trick-or-treating, ignoring my mom’s distaste for the holiday. Last year was the first year I got to pass out candy, and I rediscovered the joy of getting to be whoever I wanted, one night a year.