Christianity and Halloween: is heaven really going to be full of "true Christians" moaning about how wrong Halloween is....

[m0therofdragons]

ISIS is wrong, Halloween is just kids having fun. It really doesn't matter where it originates from. Currently people seem to enjoy popping on a costume, spending time with the family carving pumpkins and eating sweets.

I'm Christian although it seems I'm a terrible one as dc aren't attending a "light party"- which appears to be many churches' way of making money out of Halloween, and we'll be giving trick or treaters sweets when they knock.
I can't help feeling heaven is going to be full of dull kill joys.

[StarkyTheDirewolf]

Judgey pants not, lest ye be judgey pantsed by others.

[capsium]

I am a Christian and think people can take what they want from celebrations. There are Christian origins with All Hallow's Eve and more pagan elements too. Just as with Christmas / Yule, Easter etc. Thinking about it, Guy Fawkes burning the Guy is not very pleasant but you don't hear many complaining about this origin. There is also Maypole dancing, Wassailing, Morris dancing which people don't talk about much either.

Not everyone believes the same and I think we have to accept difference. My DC's not very keen on the more gruesome costumes, never has been. So we just give out sweets. However what I don't believe in is letting it bother me and be a cause for strife because the bad feeling is where the real dark side lies, IMO.

[AshleyWilkes]

Ricardian
I know plenty of kind, decent and humble Christians, maybe you've just had some bad experiences with some! Remember on the Internet too people tend to be nastier, more aggressive, sadly...

[cruikshank]

The origins aren't Xtian. They are Celtic. Xtians hijacked it, which makes it the opposite of having Xtian origins. Same as Xmas and Easter. Meh. It just depends on who's in charge at the time. In another couple of thousand years it'll have changed again.

[ProudAS]

I'm a Christian and don't celebrate Halloween. Don't think there's any harm in kids dressing up and having fun though.

Halloween apparently started out as a pagan festival (end of the harvest) but so did Easter. Of course, churches generally celebrate harvest too!

I seem to remember hearing that it was supposed to be a night when the gates between this world and the spirit world opened allowing spirits to cross over. I don't quite know how that fits in with the end of the harvest but I can see how it would be a problem to the church.

The word Halloween comes from the fact that it is the night before all saints day (another Christian festival).

I'm all in favour of the light parties but people should make up their own minds.

[TiredButFineODFOJ]

I find bonfire night more offensive. Gloating over the defeat of a "catholic" plot and burning the effigy of the Catholic plotter...how many christians, non-catholic christians will be taking part in that?

[capsium]

What is Xtian cruik?

As for who is in charge of what is celebrated by us, we are...

[cruikshank]

No, I mean what it's called/what it symbolises changes according to who has influence. Used to be one thing, now it's something else, twenty generations down the line it'll be something else again (maybe when some unsuspecting savage living after the rapture discovers Michael Myers DVDs in a time capsule). Xtian = Christian.

[capsium]

Ah, I'm Christian and don't identify with Xtian not seen this on any churches either, why not just write Christian?

All Hallow's does refer to All Saint's though, the Pagan is Samhain, which is the same time of year thus I would refer to origins of Halloween referring to All Saint's but of course someone could celebrate Samhain instead. What exactly is being celebrated really depends on a person's belief or lack of it really..

[SlaggyIsland]

AshleyWilkes if you no longer follow Mosaic law why are you quoting Deuteronomy as a justification for why Halloween isn't permissible?

[GlitteryRollerGirl]

I just feel so sorry for the kids who get excluded from all the fun. You dont have to dress your kids as zombies or blood covered monsters if it doesn't sit comfortable with you, they can be pumpkins or cats instead. I think it's only the really happy clappy, speaking in tongues evangelical types who dislike halloween anyway, when I was a kid I used to go to a Halloween disco in a church hall which was also attended by the vicars kids!

[Dollymixtureyumyum]

Ah we dressed my 3 year old up and took him trick a treating (but only to houses that display and pumpkin or decoration of some sort)
Bad bad bad Catholic girl

[redgoldandgreen]

You're making some huge assumptions about our household based on the fact that we don't celebrate Halloween, Kacie123! They're not accurate, either. Your home life as a child sounds very, very different from our home.

Cutteduppear, it must be wonderful to actually know that for a fact, to know the answer to the questions that have troubled mankind for thousands of years.

[redgoldandgreen]

We're not Evangelical. We don't do Halloween.

[cruikshank]

It's a traditional abbreviation, capsium. And Samhainn is not Xtian. As I said, the Xtians took it over in order to assert their beliefs and cement their influence - quite a powerful tool, telling people that they would burn in eternity if they celebrate x on one particular day and therefore should celebrate y instead.

[redgoldandgreen]

Why are you assuming moral superiority because someone makes a different choice, Ricardian?

[capsium]

cruik whose tradition? I know Samhainn is not Christian but All Hallow's is. I didn't know that there was that much known about how exactly the Celts celebrated, apart from what appear to be ritual sacrifices. As I said people celebrate according to their own beliefs.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Just to confuse things further my DC carved pumpkins and handed out cakes to trick or treaters. My DC are Muslim.

The meaning of these festivals have changed so much in 2000 years so people don't see them as religiously significant now. They have been secularised for many people.

[SilverOldie2]

Since there's no such thing as heaven I wouldn't worry about it.

[TimeToMuskUp]

My MIL is an incredibly devout Christian and does Halloween every year. The Vicar at her church dressed up this year as a cat and went trick or treating with her Neices. I hardly think her afterlife experience will be marred by such behaviour; if there is a God and a Heaven, I'd hazard a guess that stuff like being a good person, helping those in need, not being an asshat are the general things they'll be judged on rather than "Did you wear a witches hat on 31st October 1984? I'm afraid you're going to have to burn in purgatory for an eternity, then. Cheerio, fucker".

[ReallyTired]

We tell our children not to take sweets from strangers, yet people allow their children to knock on strangers doors on Halloween. I prefer to give sweets than gave my children demand sweets. I do give sweets to children who trick or treat, but my children don't go out trick or treating.

Why do you care whether my children celebrate Halloween? They have fun in other ways. I'm not stopping you from celebrating Halloween if you choose to.

I have no idea quite what heaven will be. I believe that salvation is given/ offered rather than earnt through good works. We are all sinners and none of us would be able to earn a place in heaven by good works. Dressing up on Halloween is not going to condem you to hell. (Hell is an existence without God rather than a place as such.) If you don't want to be with God then that choice is respected.

[PunkrockerGirl]

Since there's no such thing as heaven
You may be wrong, I don't know.
What I do see, often, is patients accepting chaplaincy support at the end of their lives when previously they were adamant they didn't want it.

[headinhands]

I believe they are in fact quite dangerous

What evidence do you have to support such a belief?