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3 Reasons Why Halloween Is Stupid – Part 1
Charting Course ^ | 10/16/14 | Steve Berman

Posted on 10/16/2014 11:34:54 AM PDT by lifeofgrace

ban-halloween

Halloween is my least favorite time of year.  Every year, I get tired of telling people why I don’t observe Halloween, why my kids don’t dress up and go trick-or-treating, and why our porch light is dark on October 31st.  I am then accused of being a grinch, or a humbug, or a kid hater, or some religious nut, or a prude.  I am none of these things.  I simply see no useful reason why there’s a holiday called Halloween, or why anyone should celebrate it.

Halloween is a celebration of fear, secrecy, darkness, death, and mayhem.  It ruins children and coats the poison with candy.  Halloween is a holiday for the ignorant, a day set aside to honor a lack of knowledge, by people who don’t care enough to gain it.  Halloween is a feast of stupid self-indulgence.  There’s nothing positive I can say about that day, no matter how much fun it may be to dress up, join a bunch of other people, walk door to door demanding candy, then go home and gorge yourself on it while watching horror movies.

Before you shoot the messenger, let me clear up a few things.

I grew up with Halloween like most American children.  We went out trick-or-treating every year.  I remember wearing some kind of costume and knocking on doors, asking for candy.  It was a somewhat simpler time—the late 60’s and the 70’s.  We didn’t worry so much about gang violence or child abductions.  We went out carrying little orange plastic pails decorated like jack-o-lanterns, dressed in store-bought Bugs Bunny or Hong Kong Phooey costumes, or a homemade ghost or vampire with plastic fangs.  We feasted on Pez, Bubblicious, M&M’s, and the coveted Reese’s Cups until we were sugar-buzzed and sick to our stomachs.

I was never abused as a child, or scared witless by some stranger.  I have no fear of clowns or costumes.  My biggest fear as a kid was X-rays; I could never watch the title sequence of the Six Million Dollar Man because there was an X-ray of a skull in it.  That just freaked me out.  I’ve never recovered—to this day I can’t watch House without getting nightmares.  You don’t see too many kids walking around on Halloween dressed up as X-rays so I think that’s safe.

I am also not a dentist or the child of one (I couldn’t handle being regularly bitten by children anyway).  I have no bias against sugary treats.  My kids can chow down on candy as much as any privileged American children.  I’m also not against dressing up in costumes.

About now is when you ask me “so why do you hate Halloween if none of those things bother you?”  Obviously I’m not ruined and I celebrated Halloween, you say.  I’m not ruined because I possess some truth of what Halloween really is.

This would be the point where you think I’m going to tell you that Satanists bounce out of the woods, kidnap your children and perform blood sacrifice on them before killing them and burning their bodies.  No, those would be insane murderers, and if there were any chance of it happening on Halloween, the authorities would be all over it.  Let me debunk the typical myths.  Strangers don’t poison candy, put razor blades in apples, or abduct children on Halloween.  The biggest safety hazard during trick-or-treat is being hit by a car.  If you do it during the daylight, that cuts the risk significantly.

There.  Now we can be reasonable and throw out all the nutty stories and stick to facts.

You may know a bit about the origins of Halloween.  Back before much of recorded history, in what historians call “antiquity”, the Celtics and druids celebrated a Pagan holiday called Samhain (SOW-in), as the end of summer, halfway between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice.  They believed that the shortening of the days, and the advent of cold weather (it’s northern Europe, nasty climate and all) signified the dying of the world each year, and that evil spirits would walk the earth looking to possess or consume the living.  They would dance around bonfires and dress up in various costumes to “entertain the spirits”, to avoid being possessed.

But that’s not the Halloween we celebrate today.  It’s short for All Hallows Eve, which is the day before All Hallows Day.  A bonus question:  isn’t there another day called All Souls Day?  Yes, there is, and if you knew that, you’re probably Roman Catholic.  Here’s the progression:  All Saints Day is a Catholic Feast day commemorating the saints who have entered Heaven.  It’s followed by All Souls Day, which commends us to pray for souls who are being purified in purgatory or have entered Heaven to commune with us who are still living on the Earth.

In short, Catholics believe that we can pray for the dead and the dead will pray for us.

Over time, as Catholicism moved into northern Europe, they started evangelizing the Celtics and druids.  Pope Gregory IV moved the traditional May celebrations of All Hallows Day and All Souls Day to November 1-2, to coincide with Samhain.  You see, Bibles were rare back then, and it was simply much easier to give the heathens a new holiday to celebrate than the actually teach them Biblical truth.  In those days the Catholic Church in 846 A.D. was not a particularly Bible-focused organization—it was more like the Cosa Nostra than the Sisters of Mercy.

The two holidays merged:  the Catholic belief in communion with the dead, and the pagan belief in evil spirits, and gave birth to Halloween.  Today, modern druids (the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids) celebrate Samhain much as the ancients did.  If you’re one of these, you have my blessing to carry on…you’re wrong about many things, but at least you’re not a hypocrite.

In Part 2 we’ll review how Halloween ruins kids and celebrates ignorance and death.


TOPICS: Religion; Society
KEYWORDS: almondjoy; candycorn; cbocolate; evil; halloween; harmlessfun; popcornballs; satan
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To: lifeofgrace

We did not celebrate Halloweeen. Not for us. It helped the children learn to live out being different from their peers and wasn’t much to give up.

We went to a film or a harvest party on Halloween.


61 posted on 10/16/2014 1:32:05 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: tacticalogic

What does that make those nasty orange “circus peanut” things?

______________

The poop of the Devil?


62 posted on 10/16/2014 1:35:19 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: lifeofgrace
I grew up with Halloween like most American children. We went out trick-or-treating every year. I remember wearing some kind of costume and knocking on doors, asking for candy. It was a somewhat simpler time—the late 60’s and the 70’s. We didn’t worry so much about gang violence or child abductions. We went out carrying little orange plastic pails decorated like jack-o-lanterns, dressed in store-bought Bugs Bunny or Hong Kong Phooey costumes, or a homemade ghost or vampire with plastic fangs. We feasted on Pez, Bubblicious, M&M’s, and the coveted Reese’s Cups until we were sugar-buzzed and sick to our stomachs.

Yet you'll deny this generation's children the same American tradition that you, yourself, enjoyed.

Every year at this time, we get the same, stick-in-mud, type of anti-Halloween spewage from someone with some sort of axe (religious, political, or otherwise) to grind.

Generations of Americans have grown up with Halloween. It is a uniquely American tradition. It creates great memories for kids.

Go be miserable someplace else.

63 posted on 10/16/2014 1:36:27 PM PDT by Washi
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To: lifeofgrace

I like Halloween even more than I used to because it is a “socially encouraged” event that forces smothering parents to open the door of the padded pastel prisons in which they have confined their children, to prevent them from ever experiencing “bad”.

The same kind of parents that don’t want grades given in schools, or scores kept in children’s sports, and who give “participation prizes” to all the kids, stealing their children’s victories and defeats because the parents live in a state of fear and neurosis.

But Halloween means that their children will see *strangers* who live in ways different from their parents, with nothing sanitized or denatured to prevent them from being traumatized and scarred for life.

Which is precisely why children love Halloween, because for once in a year their imaginations are free, they can see new and unexpected things, and how tragic it is for their parents to be so frightened of life.


64 posted on 10/16/2014 1:58:44 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: lifeofgrace
Halloween is a feast of stupid self-indulgence.

So you're saying Halloween is like the posted article?

65 posted on 10/16/2014 2:10:14 PM PDT by Moltke ("The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution if you only know how to use it.")
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To: lifeofgrace

"You're not yourself when you're hungry."

66 posted on 10/16/2014 2:24:26 PM PDT by mikrofon (*SNICKERS*)
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To: dfwgator

I keep forgetting that’s Louie Anderson on the right. We hardly see him in anything these days.


67 posted on 10/16/2014 5:30:17 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: Claud
"Remember what Tertullian famously said as he scoffed paganism"

Isn't that the guy who was married to Carla on "Cheers" ?

68 posted on 10/16/2014 5:33:45 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: lifeofgrace
You see, Bibles were rare back then, and it was simply much easier to give the heathens a new holiday to celebrate than the actually teach them Biblical truth.

You're sure that this is why we have Halloween?

69 posted on 10/16/2014 5:46:24 PM PDT by APatientMan (Pick a side)
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To: lifeofgrace
For those who can't wait to dig in to Part 2, here's the link:

http://www.sgberman.com/2014/10/17/3-reasons-halloween-stupid-part-2/
70 posted on 10/16/2014 6:35:09 PM PDT by lifeofgrace (Follow me on Twitter @lifeofgrace224)
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To: Claud

Actually they don’t come from protestant countries, they come from countries with a heavy concentration of Germans. All of the traditions I cited date to pre-reformation German. Austria and the German, Czech and Polish territories all have these traditions in one form or another. They became popular in England only during the Victorian era. Christmas wasn’t popular in the United States until immigration brought us millions of Catholics and didn’t really become popular until the Northeastern WASP’s followed the Victorians and began celebrating.

The fact is the Dutch Reformed, Geneva Calvinists, Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians eliminated Christmas and Easter as unbiblical Catholic holy days. The celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Massachusetts for around a century. It isn’t the protestants that are responsible for Christmas.


71 posted on 10/17/2014 4:16:04 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
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To: LeoMcNeil

I know well the history of Christmas in this country, and I find the Puritan outlawing of it to be reprehensibly reckless and a symptom of their bald historical and theological ignorance.

Partly because of their insanity on this point, assorted folk traditions of Northern Europe which used to have a profound Christian meaning were forced underground and out of the Church’s motherly embrace and into a kind of secular netherworld, where it was a short leap to full-on paganism. So St. Nicholas became Santa Claus. Collecting soul-cakes on All Hallows’ Eve became a day of dress-up and Candy Quest.

The “Northeastern WASPs” who revived Christmas did so out of a sense of restoring beauty and joy to an Anglicanism that the Puritans and their ilk had entirely bled out of parish life. The Victorian Christmas at its best was a beautiful and moving tribute to the Birth of Our Savior—one that even my non-Christian relatives deeply appreciate. That the Puritans’ descendants still don’t get it does not reflect well on them.


72 posted on 10/18/2014 6:10:43 AM PDT by Claud
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To: Claud

Northeaster WASP’s only revived Christmas because it was popular with their counterparts in England. Frankly, the Victorian Christmas revival was a desperate attempt to make religion important in places where its importance had been on a steady decline for a century. It’s hardly surprising that the New England states, which embraced Victorian Christmas the most in the US, were the first to fully break free of Christianity. New England is a cesspool of godless secularism and has been for half a century or more.

England isn’t any better. The decline of the English church dates to the early 19th century and accelerated during and after both 20th century world wars. By the early 60’s, the Christian faith had no foothold in England. Oh but they do love their Victorian Christmas don’t they? Even today it’s the most important holiday in England. Unfortunately few actually believe in Jesus Christ. Christmas is nothing more than a festive event remembering what never really was in England. After all, Victorian Christmas is German, brought to England by Victoria’s German husband Albert and popularized by the Royal Family. It was embraced by a culture that was fleeing Christ and is still embraced by a culture that has long since abandoned Christ. I would hardly hold Victorian Christmas, or Christmas of any sort, on some sort of pedestal.


73 posted on 10/20/2014 4:22:06 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
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To: lifeofgrace

So All Hallows Eve is not Catholic?

Trying to figure out where you got this erroneous information.


74 posted on 10/29/2014 1:04:08 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: lifeofgrace

Just one person’s blog. He doesn’t even mention his religion; he just brags about himself.

About This Blog

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Apathy is the enemy. If you don’t care and don’t know what you do care about, then you are probably rotting your brain in front of the TV all day.

________________________________________

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I’ve found that leading is serving.
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75 posted on 10/29/2014 1:10:57 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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