Halloween. A fun time or a celebration for the devil?

If this is correct, who was the Anglo whiz that decided the spelling???

BTW, the Druids didn't worship Satan, so how could anyone think this is a devil holiday?

 

It is the theory in some circles that religions that compete with the one true religion were inspired by the devil to confound men and ensure their perdition. So, worshiping a god that is not the true god is an indirect devil-worship. Of course, whether it is in fact devil-worship or not, you're still going to hell for simply not worshiping the one true God. So, really why not worship the devil if that's the pickle you're in?

What I don't think the article mentioned sufficiently was that the Catholic church had a policy off and on of integrating other religions' holy places and holy days into their own to make conversions in the heathen-lands easier on the locals. I believe this is why All-Saints Day correlates with the druidic holiday. The druids picked the day, but the Catholics decided to adopt it so I don't know how satanic it could be (unless you want to get into a debate about the papacy).

 

I'm not sure why the two have to be mutually exclusive. Can't you have a fun time while celebrating the devil?

 

It's the same reason why Christmas is so close to the Winter Solstice and Easter is so near the Vernal Equinox. The Winter Solstice was a pagan holiday and the Vernal Equinox correlated with Beltane, the pagan fertility celebration. Why do you think they used rabbits as part of the holidy? Fertility and all.

Of course, Jesus birthday was actually in the summer and his death/resurrection was closer to early fall, but, as you said, the Catholics tried to usurp the holidays away from European pagans in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries as a way to scare people into the religion and exert control over the current membership.

Seems like the same tactic continues today although it isn't quite as widespread or as cruel.

 

yeah, what Jeff said!

 

Exactly because we all know that the "devil's day" is Bud Adams' Birthday.

 

So who's going to dress their kids up like KT this year? Scary.

 

Halloween is the best holiday. Its the only day you can really dress like you feel. It ain't nothing but a party. Fun. Fun. Fun.

 

What is even scarier is the Al Gore costumes that I see the kids buying at Fun city time stores...You all know Al Gore is really the devil...and his attempt was to gain power near the turn of the millenium where the sanctity of the paralleled nature of the effectiveness of religion is greatly diminshed due to the vortex of a spiritual wave which acsends at a time like this.

Of course, Al Gore, otherwise known as the devil realized Nostradamus's noteworthy latest prediction was that the next anti-christ would arise from the middle east and a great war would follow...This prohecy seems to be following course unfortunately and the ultimate tandem would be to unite east and West in what would amount to be the Apocalypse of all we now.

It seems we are'nt yet out of the woods yet as the Devil, a.k.a Al Gore (underscore the word: Gore) is up to his lastest and usual tactics to trip/trick righteousness.

 

I think there's also a competeing viewpoint that the process was done to blend the holiday into the Roman winter festival so that they wouldn't be as obvious.

I think if you look, for instance, at the whole 'San Pedro' cactus ritual in Peru, you might find that many of these intigrations are done by accident, as local populations try to integrate new religious beliefs with old, familiar ones. Not in any attempt to 'exert control' or any other sinister reason.

 

What will Yao Ming Dress up as?

 

And you complain about your neighbors?!
We on for this year again Head? I'm bringin' the goat.

 

Hey! I don't chant THAT loud... thank Satan himself, you got my goat!

 

That's true that there are/were other traditions that were blended, however, the predominant changes in the holidays were made in Europe where, at the time, the second most popular religion was paganism.

While many groups had winter festivals, there were very few that did anything with the passage of spring. There are even writings from the time of Martin Luther documenting the church's attempts to enlarge or wholly create holiday celebrations as a way to take emphasis away from paganism, which was actually beginning to gain some strength throughout Europe prior to the early formation of the church of Rome and the Crusades.