Posted on 10/22/2002 5:11:40 AM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood
It never ceases to amaze me that most Christians would criticize me for being an atheist, yet they will "celebrate" a macabre pagan holiday. They inculcate their children into the practice of it and feed them the most unhealthful things you could give a child to eat.
Likewise, many atheists criticize me for being a "right-winger." Most atheists are so caught up in their polemics, they have become nothing more than anti-Christians - or what I call the Religious Left (a collaboration of the Marxist religion, neo-pagan animal/tree/earth worshipper eco-fascists and general technophobes).
Why do you "celebrate" on certain "holidays," what are you celebrating, do you really know? Or have you been so lost in the conformity of it all to really take a look at what you partake in?
As you ponder this, two noted Christian philosophers support my secular argument...
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… (emphasis mine)
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.
Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan:
Part IV. Of the Kingdom of DarknessChap. xlv. Of Demonology and other Relics of the Religion of the Gentiles.
[14] An image, in the most strict signification of the word, is the resemblance of something visible: in which sense the fantastical forms, apparitions, or seemings of visible bodies to the sight, are only images; such as are the show of a man or other thing in the water, by reflection or refraction; or of the sun or stars by direct vision in the air; which are nothing real in the things seen, nor in the place where they seem to be; nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object, but changeable, by the variation of the organs of sight, or by glasses; and are present oftentimes in our imagination, and in our dreams, when the object is absent; or changed into other colours, and shapes, as things that depend only upon the fancy. And these are the images which are originally and most properly called ideas and idols, and derived from the language of the Grecians, with whom the word eido signifieth to see. They are also called phantasms, which is in the same language, apparitions. And from these images it is that one of the faculties of man's nature is called the imagination. And from hence it is manifest that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing invisible.
[15] It is also evident that there can be no image of a thing infinite: for all the images and phantasms that are made by the impression of things visible are figured. But figure is quantity every way determined, and therefore there can be no image of God, nor of the soul of man, nor of spirits; but only of bodies visible, that is, bodies that have light in themselves, or are by such enlightened.
[16] And whereas a man can fancy shapes he never saw, making up a figure out of the parts of divers creatures, as the poets make their centaurs, chimeras and other monsters never seen, so can he also give matter to those shapes, and make them in wood, clay or metal. And these are also called images, not for the resemblance of any corporeal thing, but for the resemblance of some phantastical inhabitants of the brain of the maker. But in these idols, as they are originally in the brain, and as they are painted, carved moulded or molten in matter, there is a similitude of one to the other, for which the material body made by art may be said to be the image of the fantastical idol made by nature.
As you think further, exactly what is Halloween?
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...
Can you guess my source here???
Beautiful!
Does this mean I can't go to any more Super Bowl parties?
George Will recently wrote a column concerning our current problem with terrorism, in which he describes a book written about the National Socialist horror and how it is congruent to the Palestinian suicide bombings of Israelis. One part of this book describes a German soldier with a one year old child impaled on his bayonet, still crying weakly. This is how I see abortion - - a revived practice of ritual murder.
Likewise, I see Halloween as a revived practice that has such esoteric parts and idolatry attached. All the elements of drama are a ritualization of the pagan idolatries. You can go to this thread: Ethereal Explorations, where I desribe it in detail, with scholarly references you can investigate...
Consider this:
When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise. You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it. (Deuteronomy 12.29-32)I thought it very instructive about Christian practice.51 posted on 10/23/02 7:32 PM Pacific by DouglasKC
Loyalist, those folks will turn you into a humorless crank. Please avoid them<>
Yes Dashwood, cite your source! LOL!
I don't agree with that. A day is being celebrated that stands for something that God is against. How an individual celebrates it doesn't matter. The fact that it's being celebrated is enough. Celebrating or observing it in any way only strengthens and promulagates it.
Are you saying that God is against us celebrating the day Jesus rose from the dead on a day that used to be a pagan holiday?
"George Will recently wrote a column concerning our current problem with terrorism, in which he describes a book written about the National Socialist horror and how it is congruent to the Palestinian suicide bombings of Israelis. One part of this book describes a German soldier with a one year old child impaled on his bayonet, still crying weakly. This is how I see abortion - - a revived practice of ritual murder."
As do we. My family teases me about transforming the living room into the entire Holy Land at the time of the Lord's birth. We have the 3 Kings and their caravan moving around the house and the room until Epiphany when they make it to the Holy Family. We did that in my home growing up -- although it was three kings and only a forlorn looking camel - but we thought it was wonderful.
First: 1 Thessalonians 5:22, “Abstain from every form of evil.”
Second: In life, the life that God intended His people to live, there is a line that we draw, and that line is called sin. There are things that are very specific in regards to this. Lying is sin. Stealing is sin. Sex with someone other than your spouse, is sin. That’s the division. On the other side of that line is freedom. Those things that are specifically sinful should be cut off and separated from the rest of life, but everything else comes under the heading of freedom. Freedom for us to enjoy and delight in. This would obviously include being able to dress up in a costume one night a year and collect candy from other houses, right? Sure but, before we go further, we need to look at 1 Corinthians 10:23
“All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.”
Paul, here, is wrapping up a discourse he started in Chapter 8. He starts with verse 1, “Now, concerning things sacrificed to idols…” and has continued on discussing an issue that had been brought up in the Church at Corinth. Most of the meat that was sold in the meat markets in Corinth came from sacrificial animals that had been slaughtered at pagan temple ceremonies. However, part of the problem was that it was the best meat in town. The immediate concern of these Christians was this: If a Christian ate meat offered to an idol, were they somehow participating in the worship of that idol? Did these rituals somehow automatically taint the food? Some of the younger Christians in the church said it was sinful to eat that meat. The meat was tainted by its idolatrous identification. But other Christians in the church said it wasn't a sin to eat it. Well, first, Paul sides with the people who want to eat this food. Chapter 8, Verse 7-8. Paul tells these Christians that he agreed with their theology of freedom, but the problem was that they had become arrogant and selfish. (vs 9-13).
The real evidence of spiritual maturity was not knowledge but love, the willingness to live sacrificially for other people in the body of Christ. Paul asked these more mature believers in Corinth to exercise the freedom they had in Christ in a loving and sensitive way. They ought to be concerned for the brothers and sisters in the body who had a weaker conscience with regard to eating food sacrificed to idols and attending events in the pagan temples. So the call to these Christians was to give up their legitimate rights for the sake of the gospel that was at work in the body and in their community.
Edification is more important than our personal gratification.
As Christians we have freedom in matters of morally neutral things, such as celebrating All Hallows Eve. Contrary to what Janis Joplin sings, freedom is far more than merely “nothing left to lose”. Freedom means enjoying and developing our gifts and skills as the Lord has given them to us. Christ didn’t die to redeem half of our actions. When we received Christ, we were either redeemed in whole, nor nothing was. Christ died that we might have life and life abundantly. John 15:15, “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is dong; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you”. We need to realize that we have so much more freedom that we ever even think of reaching out for. But, if we are going to reach out for freedom, and I honestly hope that we can try, our behavior must be tempered with concern for others in the body of Christ, as well as those who are outside.
If our freedom is going to be properly expressed through our Christian life, it has got to be concerned with the spiritual benefit of others. It is really for this reason, more than any other, that me and my family choose to opt out of celebrating Halloween.
Yes, but only in the years the Detroit Lions are in the Super Bown....
God tells us in the bible which days he considers holy and sanctified. Easter isn't one of them no matter how good your intentions.
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