The origin of halloween is brutal and inhumane. Do you know where the jack-o-lantern originated? I'll tell you. It was originally a hollowed out pumpkin that was fueled with fat from humans(sacrificed one of course). Nasty.
Okay, I don't feel threatened by a bunch of kids dressed as Superman going door to door trading jokes for candy. But, I do think it is appropriate for a God fearing church to say to it's parishoners that celebrating a Satanic/Pagan holiday might be unwise and disfavorable. Said churches are hardly "sorely deluded"-they are being responsible.
What about Christmas, which is clearly a reworked winter solstice festival? Or Easter, a spring fertility festival (rabbits, eggs)?
And do you have a source for the jack-o-lantern human sacrifice fat thing? Not doubting you (well, maybe a bit), but I've never heard that one before. Everything I find in a quick search talks about an Irish 18th Century tradition (and I think they'd given up human sacrifice by then), or an older pagan tradition of carrying home an ember of the Samhain bonfire in a hollowed out turnip.
And you know someone that actually fueled their jack-o-lantern that way....or did you read it somewhere?
That's absolutely ridiculous.
The pumpkin was introduced into Europe inn the 1600s. The vegetable is native to South America.
The practice of carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns didn't start until the late 1600s or early 1700s in the British Isles.
It started out as a variation on the practice of carving cheap candleholders out of turnips.
By the mid-1700s they became purely decorative and associated with Halloween.
That would be kind of hard as at the time human sacrifices were going on the pumpkin would have been completely unknown.
No, Halloween comes from pagan traditions celebrated in ancient Ireland and Northern Europe. That they practiced human sacrifice is highly doubtful. Pumpkins come from the New World, so no pagan in ancient Ireland would have seen one at the time Christianity first arrived there. However, you might want to look up the Jack 'O Lantern legend, about a devilish Irish farmer doomed to wander the earth with a hollowed out TURNIP.
I don't know that that is true, but regardless, Halloween's name is derived from a contradiction of All Saints Day. It was a direct opposition to a celebration of Christian saints, and a celebration of the time of darkness.
That said, as a silly carnival it is harmless - the perceived harm comes from those who take it seriously. Unfortunately, there is a sizable number of people who do so.
Oh c'mon. As a "god-fearing Christian" I have no problem with my kids dressing up and going trick-or-treating. And I would have a problem with a church knocking on my door to tell me I'm going to hell for doing so. Halloween (like every other holiday) is what you make it. I don't tell my 2 & 4 year olds that pumpkins were used to scare away demons or that they're dressing up to confuse spirits. All they know is at the end of the night their pumpkins are filled with so much candy they'll be hyper till Thanksgiving. Sheesh!