Posted on 10/20/2005 11:09:48 AM PDT by Millee
An Ellettsville family whose home is decorated for Halloween contacted police after someone placed on its porch a flier that suggests Halloween praises the devil.
Dalene Gully told Indianapolis television station WRTV that she took offense to the flier, which was placed outside her home by the House of Prayer Church of Bloomington.
"I started reading it, and I was very, very upset by it. I found it very accusatory and very threatening," Gully said.
The church's pastor, Larry Mitchell, said the people who left the flier would have preferred to talk with Gully, but she wasn't there.
Mitchell said the church didn't intend to upset the Gully family, but rather tell people that Halloween isn't harmless fun.
"Halloween is not fantasy," Mitchell said. "We're training up our children, and obviously this lady was trained up in this. Halloween seems like it is taking just as much prominence as Christmas."
The Gully family filed a complaint with the Ellettsville Police Department. The incident also prompted the family to install an alarm system at the home, the station reported.
"This is my home, and I like Halloween. If I want to decorate my home, I have every right to decorate my home," Gully said.
Then we may have some agreement here. I just don’t necessarily see other religions as “disadvantaged”. If God is a fair god, he wouldn’t be putting anyone at an advantage or disadvantage with regards to religion. Not sure what you mean by willfully ignorant. If a Hindu is happy being a Hindu, you can’t expect him to convert to Christianity just because he heard about it on TV. Human nature doesn’t work that way. The vast majority of us stay in the religion we are born in (disregarding those who switch denominations). God, being well aware of human nature, would not expect mass conversions
SD
You too, Dave.
Yes, I wrote an editorial in the Rome News Tribune, to the general approval of the community. The church has since toned down their rhetoric.
Where did I say I believed in such a thing???
Aleister Crowley loved them both... Are we to assume that the only "good" witches in the world were European witches?
Can you guess my source for the follwing???
Controversy over the origin of the word witch is valid when one considers the etymology of the term in other languages: venifica (Latin), hexe (German), streghe (Italian), etc. Only in it's English form has the word assumed a benign origin: wicca, purportedly meaning "wise."Any debate must center on recent claims that advance a positive and socially acceptable meaning for a term that has in all ages and most languages meant "poisoner," "frightener," "enchanter," "spell-caster," or "evil woman."
Anthropologists have shown that even in primitive societies, notably the Azande, the definition of witch carries malevolent connotations. Therefore, are we to assume that the only "good" witches in the world were English witches? This, however, becomes difficult to accept when one considers the term wizard, which stems from the Middle English wysard = wise, versus the Old English wican = to bend, from whence witch is supposedly derived. All in all, it seems to be an unsuccessful attempt to legitimize a word that probably originated by onomatopoeia - the formation of a word that sounds like what it is intended to mean!
More or less agreed, but they were much less prominent 40-50 years ago than they are now.
The sidewalk is largely considered the right-of-way path used to reach the door in order to ask permission. The way the courts seem to see it is that by denying the passage uniformly one is denying the right to request permission, thus until they have been rejected, generally people have the right to come knock on your door within reasonable parameters.
Easter is more about Resurrection than Crucification, or about both together. Jewish Passover is about miraculous rescue of Jewish people from the Egyptian servitude. Easter or Christian Passover is about freeing of believing people from the servitude to the prince of the world.
Jews were promised the Holy Land "the land of milk and honey". Christians are promised the Eternal Kingdom of God. Jews passed through the waters of Red Sea to be freed. Christian are washed by the water of Holy Baptism to be cleansed from sins. Moses parted the waters of the sea with his wooden rod, he closed them for the Egyptians so he made a sign of cross. The houses of the faithful Jews were marked with the blood of sacrificial lamb so they would be saved. Christian are saved by the sacrificial blood of Christ.
Etc, etc. The Jewish Passover indeed is a prefiguration of the Christian Paskha. As Easter is perfecting of the former one.
Passover IS when Yeshua was crucified and Passover can be as much a s a month different than easter. Passover is celebrated by the Jewish calender, not the Roman one.
Study some more. The reason why there are some variations in calendar timing is that after the split between those who recognized Jesus as Christ and those who decided to wait for the another one, the first made connecting the the calendar to movements of Sun. Still Christian calendar contains the elements of Jewish lunar one in relation to the so called movable holidays, Easter being the key.
To make it clearer to you, recall the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. In Christian calendar it is STILL celebrated under the name of Pentecost! And it is seven weeks and one day after the Easter. A thing to ponder.
Passover is the "pre-figuration" of Yeshua
In a sense, it is a prefiguration of His Death and Resurrection and about freeing His people from the spiritual Egypt.
Maybe. I am not sure. But please explain me, what is the spiritual or moral significance for the small children of the Treat or Trick routine? What idea do they get from it?
There is another way. You can treat them friendly, thank them for their desire to help you spiritually and invite them for for a discussion at the more convenient time. (You must sleep late, they never woke me up :) )
Who knows, maybe they will learn something from you.
What about goddess Kali or Allah?
You have your dates so mixed I can't really follow you, but ALL Jewish holidays are celebrated by the Jewish calendar. It's always different from the Roman calender. And the roman calender wasn't instituded by those believing in Meshiach, but by romans that believed in a number of gods. Perhaps I'm not the one that needs to study more.
Of course your point all along has been that one religion is just as good as another, or more specifically, Christianity is not better than say, Hinduism. That is what you were trying to say; and you chose as your justification what your think is a contradiction from some who are monotheists.
Back to my original post, your logic does indeed say that if God allows....that means he approves. Most Christians disagree, the Bible certainly doesn't teach that.
Do you think one religion is as good as another? Which one or ones are the best and why?
No I do not. I don't know much about the history of the Eastern church after after the schism of East and West, but I do know a little about the pre-325 ad struggles and the Arianism heresies. We are talking about THE church. At that time there was no east/west split. Being western, I know more about my own stream than the Orthodox branch. I freely and openly acknowledge that the same insular ignorance that affects Western Christians in their knowledge of our own history also makes us unaware of our Eastern brothers as if we were "the Church" here in our western branch of it. If that is your point, it is well taken.
* The Church supported Athanasius at Nicaea and indeed the Patriarchate of Rome supported him throughout the controversy.
That statment is only selectively true. Those who had held to the true faith throughout the Arian controversy OF COURSE supported him. However, the fact is that Eusebius, Basilina, Leontius, Stephanus, George of Laodicea, Theodosius, Eudoxius, and Eustathius, all church prelates- were extremely hostile. Admittedly, they were political appointees (most of them), and took office after the heresy arose, but that is the point. The church was corrupt, filled with unbelievers (or at least speaking with a divided voice), and making "official" pronouncements of heresy against a good man. By 325 at Nicaae, orthodoxy was ascendant, if not triumphal, and we got a good confession from the council. The myth of a "pure" church (eastern or western) in a official visible form is just that...., a myth. You can rewrite history to find support for a prefabricated theology of the church, but that is exactly what you will have to do to find support for the idea that the pronouncements of any branch of the visible church are the unsullied voice of God.
God will damn "those folks" to hell on the same basis that He will damn "these folks" in the west to hell. God never judges a person for "how much" light they have as to His being, attributes, actions, and activities. Some people have more, and some have less. Romans is VERY clear on the point that God judges mankind on WHAT THEY DO WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM THAT THEY DO POSSESS. You take one man and put him in front of the banks of lights at Madison Square Garden, and another in front of a guy with flashlight with weak batteries and it is obvious who has "more light." However, if both men flee the light they have, we can assume both of the hate the light. That is the picture we have of mankind and God, and that picture is not pretty. The UNIVERSAL condition of the human heart is such that although man is incurably "religious," we actually hate the true God and our "religions" are usually contstructs that allow us to ameliorate the religious impulse within us while desperately fleeing any true contact with a just and holy God. That is why every religion in the world (including much of Christianity) is predicated on the notion of being good enough, trying hard enough, working long enough, etc. Religions are man's attempt to construct his own God who will allow men to save themselves. The idea that all men are cosmic rebels who hate and defy God, deserve nothing but punishment, and are wholly dependent on His mercy to pardon them is so offensive and hateful to us that it is astounding to me when I hear that it is made up. NO ONE would come up with such a crazyass religion. One theological wag said "I believe because it is absurd." That concept won't stand on its own, of course, but it is a powerful argument to me that the gospel is, in fact, true.
Back, then, to your question. God judges men for how they respond to what they know of Him, and has not left Himself without witness of some sort, either in the moral impulses of men or the observations of creation. All of humanity consistently has turned and does at present turn away from Him, so that all are justly under a sentence of cosmic death and exile. Any attempt to understand the message of Christianity which does not begin there just leads to a mess.
In essence, the 'anti-Hallowe'en crusade' is a Puritan/Fundamentalist campaign. This 'celebration of the Devil' stuff is over the top--and granted, some H'een stuff IS over the top.
But to deny the existence of devils and Purgatory-bound souls who cry for prayers and sacrifice---is also to deny the reality of Hell, and the Communion of Saints, celebrated by the Church on November 1 and November 2.
Oddly enough, some "uber-Catholic" types are also demanding that typical Hall'een decorations be banned.
Like hell they didn't!
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