Halloween

Davey Gaga

Davey Gaga

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I'm watching the BBC News at the moment and I was struck with a report, which, personally, I find to be of a ridiculous nature.

One church has written a letter to its local newsagents, asking the owner to remove his display of skeletons and similar Halloween attire. Why? They believe that advertising Halloween is a form of promoting "dark arts" and "occult practices", which could result in a danger to children's safety.

Creating this topic hopefully implies my distaste for the claims. What about you?
 
Yeah, I really don't see how Halloween is dark-sided. Halloween is celebrated in Mexican culture as a day to celebrate and honor their ancestors, and Halloween is also the Wiccan new year.

Wicca isn't dark-sided. It's more about getting in touch with nature and the planet, not to worship the devil.

Halloween isn't going to ruin the children's lives. That's just a stupid remark. Of course, these kinds of issues come up nearly every year around Halloween.
 
Urgh. That's pathetic. Halloween is a time of year for small children to dress in fun costumes and demand sweets.

Or, for older kids to have amazing parties :monster:

Nothing "evil" or "Satanic" about it -__-
 
I can believe this easily...
Sadly my parents were always like that. I was banned from celebrating Halloween when I was a child as such was "devil worship"... My parents used to be deeply religious like that and were against anything that would resemble evil. They aren't anymore... Crappy experiences have led them question (well, I'm almost certain that they disregard most of it now) their faith... My Mom is still very anti-Halloween though.

The thing is.. I've always been very interested in it. It isn't the celebration of dark arts or satan, it's a time where people get to have fun, give each other candy and pretend to be monsters for a day... It's fun more than anything. I love anything involving monsters and always looked at my freinds pumpkins with envy wishing I could make my own. I couldn't even watch my favourite film, the Nightmare Before Christmas, without my Mom feeling all uncomfortable... So now that I'm older, I'll just sod off and watch it alone. :D

So what I'm getting at is, yes sadly a lot of people who have faith in God are against Halloween because they believe that it is the celebration of evil, and don't agree with it. I find it very sad that a church has actually wrote in a letter to try and stop it though... Not everyone sees Halloween as evil, most people see it as a time of kindness and family fun... Kids running around the streets with sheets on their heads aren't exactly going to run off to a stone circle and summon Beelzebub...
 
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Artemis said:
Urgh. That's pathetic. Halloween is a time of year for small children to dress in fun costumes and demand sweets.

Or, for older kids to have amazing parties :monster:

Nothing "evil" or "Satanic" about it -__-
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Indeed, its just fun now. People need to stop taking holidays this damn serious. I mean yeah they do mean something, but marketing sales have basically taken over that meaning now.
 
Dear Church,

Thanks for your concern, but spend your time worrying about something that actually matters. If children are so easily swayed by the "dark arts" that a newspaper advertisement can push them to behave in a manner that could harm themselves or others, then they require more help than just removing some Halloween ad. No need to ruin things for everyone, right?

Pray harder for their safety or something. In the meantime, we'll continue thinking rationally while promoting a holiday that's fun for children and their family.

Sincerely,

Random news agent

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I'm tired of hearing stories like this EVERY stinking Halloween.
 
Not really. Halloween is just something you do for fun. It's a time of the year where you get to eat lots of candy, dress-up and not be called strange for doing so, and just have fun in general. It's not like we're paying homage to Satan; or if you just dress up in a devil suit--I guess they don't know how to take a joke. Originally, it might have been some pagan ritual, but it being pagan doesn't mean it has anything to do with Satan or that it's necessarily evil--otherwise you'll have to concede to religious intolerance for not letting other people practice their religion or beliefs. But either way, it no longer matters because Halloween has just become some event that people, regardless of religion or belief, just attend for the fun of it, and nothing more.

Furthermore, if you think it's evil, then tell all your Catholic or Christian chums not to participate--for everyone else, it's none of your business. You're free to remove any decorations (or not have any) from the church if you don't want to celebrate Halloween, and put up a sign saying you don't want trick-or-treaters around, or at your house if you don't celebrate it; that's perfectly fine. But for everyone else who isn't Christian or don't agree with you, it's not any of your business. The streets are public, and not made so that one religion gets its say as to what can and can't go on it.

But then there's that same problem of censorship all over again, which is that if you don't expose children to these things, they'll always be curious about it, and never learn to deal with it adequately. They'll just end up being pampered for their entire lives, and probably freak out at even the slightest glance at a vampire poster.

The only thing dangerous to children's safety during Halloween is getting poisoned candy, not dressing warmly enough if it's too cold, or going alone. And that's got nothing to do with what some guy decides to decorate his house or shop with.
 
Thats silly lol. Halloween is just a little bit of fun. Its not real for a start and its not gonna hurt anyone. The priest should stop being so silly. We don't complain about their religion, so they should stop moaning at a fun day that happens once a year.

The only thing i don't like about it is Trick or treating...its like begging and though fun...not my idea.
 
VoN said:
Dear Church,

Thanks for your concern, but spend your time worrying about something that actually matters. If children are so easily swayed by the "dark arts" that a newspaper advertisement can push them to behave in a manner that could harm themselves or others, then they require more help than just removing some Halloween ad. No need to ruin things for everyone, right?

Pray harder for their safety or something. In the meantime, we'll continue thinking rationally while promoting a holiday that's fun for children and their family.

Sincerely,

Random news agent

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I'm tired of hearing stories like this EVERY stinking Halloween.
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Haha, well said! I couldn't agree more. I find it ridiculous that celebrating a day when children can go out and ask their neighbors for sweets and dress up in a (generally) cute little costume could even be considered worshiping something satanic or evil, give us a break.

To each their own. Believe what you want. Don't agree with what you want, but don't push it on others! I'm not a religious person, and I won't dislike someone for being religious. I won't judge someone based on their beliefs. As I said, to each their own. But the moment someone starts pushing their beliefs or religion upon others is the moment I choose to dislike them, ignore them, and get annoyed. Halloween is a harmless celebration. Though, I'll admit, many evil, wrong, disgusting things/acts have stemmed from it, but that's bound to happen with anything. There's a world full of people, and there's always going to be that person, or those people who ruin something for everyone else, who cross that line, does something wrong, illegal, or unforgivable. Taking Halloween away, not celebrating it, will not change anything. And putting up comical and cartoon-like skeletons on a house will certainly not provoke any demon/Satan worshiping in anyone...

Don't participate in Halloween if you don't agree with it, but don't expect the rest of the world to not celebrate it, or agree with you.
 
Decado said:
I vote we find the address of said church, and say we take offence to their blatant relgious symbolism. saying that convincing teenagers to follow a religion whose holy book calls for non believers to be murdered along with their children and partners is dangerous.

Also that displaying the image of a man with nailts through his limbs bleeding and slowly dying is both morbid and unsuitable for under 18s.
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Then we must also do the same for Islam, Judaism and any other religion that we can find. They all have negative aspects of their doctrines or histories. So we can't just target Christianity, that would be unfair.
Also the last time I went to church, the Reverend wasn't advocating the slaughter of non-believers.

Being part of a democracy, this church has the right to express their mind, however stupid we may find what they are saying. Halloween is not in anyway sinister or 'evil' etc, it's just a holiday where children dress up in scary clothes.
 
Everyone says it's a harmless bit of fun, and obviously at such young ages, it might not really affect kids, they'd go grow out of the tradition soon enough. But the idea behind it is to do with the concept of Black Magic, and evil imagery etc. Something that's not looked well upon in Christianity, and I can understand why. They've got their reasons for believing this, and I think people need to find out more about it instead of repeating the same old thing.

Too many seemingly harmless things these days often have bad press behind them, regardless of whether or not religious people are against them. Some reasons for being against them might seem ridiculous, but there's more to Halloween then people think.

That being said, noone has the right to impose their beliefs on the removal of such a display, unless it causes great offense to the majority of the community that live near it. If it's just a small group of people who don't like the event, stay away from said place until it's over, and find somewhere else to shop.

Otherwise, expect the same sort of treatment in return.
 
Kasabian said:
Being part of a democracy, this church has the right to express their mind, however stupid we may find what they are saying. Halloween is not in anyway sinister or 'evil' etc, it's just a holiday where children dress up in scary clothes.
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Nobody's saying they're not allowed to write that letter, just as no one's saying you don't have any right to call somebody an asshole, but then that also means that whoever receives that letter has the right to ignore it, decline it, or not do anything about the decorations on their buildings, maybe because they have that right to decorate that building.

And those priests are probably all just cherry picking verses. That's one of the reasons I wouldn't go to church, even if I were religious.
 
Ludicrous. Devil worship? More like "dress up as something scary/weird/funny and have fun night". If you make such things taboo, then kids will be drawn to them even more. Silly. I wonder how they'd respond to Dia De Los Muertos.
 
ok people theres the thing people usually catloics and chirstains think the halloween is the devil's birthday and that his demons come on that day to scare the heck outta of people personally i dont believe in that because halloween is just a time of year to dress up but back in the day people would dress up in those scary costumes for a good reason they would dress up in coustumes to scare away evil spirits or thats what they believed then after awhile people just dressed up for candy.
 
When I worked in Retail there was a girl who ran the cashier area. She is about as religious as one can get without just becoming a Nun or something. She is scared of things like Halloween Decorations (which she promptly removed from her area when she got in to work one time) and movies like Harry Potter because it has Witches and Wizards.
Really, I think she is silly but that is just my opinion. I actually put the decorations back because she is not the only cashier and the other girls liked it. It is a couple of days out of the year, I don't think the other girls should NOT get to decorate the area because she is scared of a few plastic spiders and cobwebs and a holiday she obviously knows Nothing historically about. She just based it on the fact that kids like to dress up like Witches and she is scared of witches.

That is my experience with that anyway. It's just people being people. If there is one thing you can almost guarantee in life it is that if some people really like something, there is always someone out there who will not like it. And they will throw a fit about it too.
 
did you know that Halloween actually comes from a catholic day of celebration, but just like christmas it has been turned into something else. As you know the word Halloween comes from the phrase All Hallows Eve, which basically means the day before the day for all things holy. and if yo know anything about Catholicism then you know that all souls day and all saints day follow it.
The idea of costumes comes from how it used to be celebrated where the poor and rich all came together to have major parties and were dress in ways were yo couldn't tell the difference between those with or without wealth.
Trick or treating comes from when those people would leave their houses, they would leave various "gifts" outside their homes for Gypsies to take, cuz if they didn't leave the "gifts," the Gypsies would raid their homes, trash them, and steal waever they could carry. The reasoning beind this is that Gypsies woud no harm or steal from anyone that give them gifts.
so basically anyone who says that Haloween is an unholy day, is a complete idiot that doesn't even know the meaning of the word, and should shut their mouth.
 
That's not quite right though. Halloween was originally a Celtic tradition and was also celebrated by other pagans. The giving away of gifts and treats at this time also originated with them. Of course, as with Christmas, Christians like to hijack pagan rituals to make a bigger name for themselves. Don't be surprised if you didn't know that though.
 
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