Hobbes might be a classic philosopher, but as most upper class brits of his day, he was an anti papist. He also was lacking in much of the knowledge of history now known to modern scholars but not known in his time.
So what does the anti papest bigot lacking in historical knowledge have to do with the history of Haloween, a celtic festival that was "baptized" because of it's positive aspects into a Christian feast?
Or do you (a proclaimed athiest) still believe in leprechauns? Or Devils? Or are you posting because you are trying to provoke people?
From a sociological and psychological point of view, Halloween can be very positive for children, if they are encouraged to dress up like heroes (to emulate) or as villans and ghosts (as a way of learning to control the subconscious fear of the unknown. Like laughing in the dark when you are scared.
If there is a devil, he has no sense of humor. So dressing as a humerous fake devil by children is not going to harm them. And allowing little kids to dress up and "scare" their neighbors in exchange for food can be and has been a positive way of getting to know one's neighbors and letting the kids have a good time. (two more things that an evil being would not benefit from)
However, in areas where evil is glamourized as "fun", Haloween may indeed be separated from it's positive side and descend into a true night of evil....
1668 - not medieval.
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Hobbes might be a classic philosopher, but as most upper class brits of his day, he was an anti papist.
Jesuits attempted to assassinate King James I when he had the Bible translated into the common language. Hobbes was loyal to the monarchy and the Bible, not the ecclesiastical dominium of the Papacy.
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From a sociological and psychological point of view,...
Søren Kierkegaard from The Sickness Unto Death:
The fantastic is, of course, most closely related to the imagination [Phantasien], but the imagination is related in it’s turn to feeling, understanding, and will, so that a person’s feelings, understanding and will may be fantastic. Fantasy is, in general the medium of infinitization…The fantastic is generally speaking what carries a person into the infinite in such a way that it only leads him away from himself and thus prevents him from coming back to himself.
Problem: Children are so constantly bombarded with fantasy by the stupid adults, they can't tell the difference anymore between that and reality...
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From the Satanic Bible, by Anton Szandor LaVey:
Originally, All Hallows' Eve was one of the great fire festivals of Britain at the time of the Druids. In Scotland it was associated with the time when the spirits of the dead, the demons, witches, and sorcerers were usually active and propitious. Paradoxically, All Hallows' Eve was also a night when young people performed magical rituals to determine their future marriage partners. The youth of the villages carried on with much merry-making and sensual revelry, but the older people took great care to safeguard their homes from the evil spirits, witches, and demons who had exceptional power that night...
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And allowing little kids to dress up and "scare" their neighbors in exchange for food...
"Food," you say? Sugar? Tooth decay? Behavioral irregularities, abnormal blood sugar, obesity in children, and the host of other problems related to high concentrations of sugar in the modern diet???
This is positive?
There is most assuredly not...
Set, Satan, and Shaitan are the same. "Satan" is a Hebrew word for the pagan Egyptian Set. Satan, Shaitan, Set or Seth ("Set-hn" as spoken in the ancient Hebrew) is a pagan entity, the "adversary" of Judaic theology. (A "pagan" is anyone not Judaic, Christian or Muslim.)
The Greeks called Set "Typhon," who was the war god assigned to Upper Egypt. This also represents another contravention to the "accepted" etymologies of words like "typhoon" in English, which is erroneously listed as the Cantonese "tai fung" in many dictionaries. English has more commonalties with Greek and Latin.
The Egyptian priest Manetho associated the Jews with the Hyksos and Moses with the Egyptian priest Osarsiph. It was at this time that the belief the Jews worshipped an ass – an animal holy to the Egyptian god Set was established. Both the Jews and the pagan Egyptians used the labels (i.e., Satan, Set, Seth, or "Set-hn" as spoken in the ancient Hebrew) to defame each other. How fitting that amidst this epic struggle and bloody conflict, the entity known as Satan was born into the World. Such conflict continued through the Maccabean period (with Antiochus Epiphanes), and continues into modern times on several fronts.
There is a recurring theme that alludes to the hostility between the pagan Egyptians and the Judaic. Often it is claimed by the Neo-Pagans that Satan is only found in Christianity. How can this be if Satan is undeniably a Hebrew word adapted from the name of the pagan Egyptian god Set? The Jewish synod of rabbinical authority will deny that Satan even exists. This cannot be reconciled with the fact that it is a Hebrew word...
Again, Thomas Hobbes, having been fluent in both Greek and Latin by age 9, has this to support my assertions:
Part III. Of a Christian Commonwealth.
Chap. xxxviii. Of Eternal Life, Hell, Salvation, and Redemption.
[12] And first, for the tormentors, we have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of the Enemy (or Satan), the Accuser (or Diabolus), the Destroyer (or Abaddon). Which significant names (Satan, Devil, Abaddon) set not forth to us any individual person, as proper names do, but only an office or quality, and are therefore appellatives, which ought not to have been left untranslated (as they are in the Latin and modern Bibles), because thereby they seem to be the proper names of demons, and men are the more easily seduced to believe the doctrine of devils, which at that time was the religion of the Gentiles, and contrary to that of Moses, and of Christ.
[13] And because by the Enemy, the Accuser, and Destroyer, is meant the enemy of them that shall be in the kingdom of God, therefore if the kingdom of God after the resurrection be upon the earth (as in the former Chapter I have shewn by Scripture it seems to be), the Enemy and his kingdom must be on earth also. For so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God. For God's kingdom was in Palestine, and the nations round about were the kingdoms of the Enemy; and consequently, by Satan is meant any earthly enemy of the Church.