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.

I was brought up a Catholic and we used to dress up at Halloween as witches etc, sometimes there were family parties combined with firework night etc, apple bobbing. mum always explained that it was hallows eve, the night before All Saints Day so that we had an understanding.I never once took it seriously or thought it was celebrating the devil. It was just harmless fun. Even my very holy ,Irish nanny joined in.
I think what the churches are doing now is making chn think too deeply about it.
What I don't like is the move towards horror rather than spooky. Chn dressed as murdered school girls for example!!!

Dont know much about religion but my fb has loads of photos of friends children dressed as witches etc yesterday. Some look amazing. Strangely the ones who are religious are the ones who seemed to have embraced halloween most!

The inconsistencies with the Bible usually arise when OT is quoted. Because NT superseded it*

That doesn't wash. If you found out your gentle husband used to order people to stab babies and set wild animals on people who took the piss out of him, would you honestly just say, "well that was in his 20's". When you justify the OT this way you are not using the same system of morals that you use every other time you judge the morality of something.

It's not just the OT. Jesus commanded his disciples to sell their coats to buy a sword. How many Christians here have swords?

Yes. You are merely repeating a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Jesus's message.

To use secular examples, it's like ignoring prison reform, or the introduction of the welfare state.

Me. Well, actually it really belongs to my daughter and it's made of plastic. Your point?

NB: European Christianity is very syncretistic. It picked up all manner of things from the beliefs that preceded it. Those who say Christianity is a Middle Eastern import have no clue what they're talking about.

(and those who interpret the Bible literally do make me want to put my head in my hands, be they religious or otherwise).

The inconsistencies with the Bible usually arise when OT is quoted. Because NT supersedes it

How convenient. It's the "pick and choose" bible. When Christians are engaging in their favourite sport of homophobic bigotry Leviticus is quoted; when people point out all the bits of Leviticus they aren't following, it's superseded.

https://vimeo.com/75045602?utmcontent=buffer3067c&utmmmedium=social&utmsource=twitter.com&utmmcampaign=buffer

This has been doing the rounds, apologies if it's already on

(and those who interpret the Bible literally do make me want to put my head in my hands, be they religious or otherwise).

Jesus took the OT literally and referred to the flood, does Jesus make you want to put your head in your hands? All Christians cherry pick what is literal and what isn't, and there is no concensus. The point is, when you say, that bit is clearly not meant to be taken as literal (because God is portrayed as horrible) then you have no grounds outside of your own human reasoning to decide what is literal.

Our vicar was trick or treating in a skeleton costume with three zombie cheerleader daughters. Culturally, when I was growing up Catholic in a very devout household in a very observant country, there was no issue at all with Halloween. It was the allowed pagan night before a holiday of obligation (All Souls) and a month of masses for the dead. Like say the Day of the Dead in Mexico.

Lucia82

I am pagan and consider myself a witch. For the people that say witchcraft is evil...its not. Its a nature based religion and we dont worship a devil we dont even believe in the devil.

I enjoy halloween and celebrated by both dressing up and trick or treatimg and by lighting a candle to honour the dead. I may sometines do a ritual but usually dont have the time at the moment.

Halloween like most festivals originates from paganism. Most christian practices, holidays and rituals originate in pagan practices. Even stories from the bible such as jesus have mirror images from pagam beliefs that were around centuries before jesus.

I believe that all religion is man made. I also believe that what ever gods/goddesses may be out there they are immortal and probably care very little for individual human lives especially as our lufe spabs are so insignificant to them. O certainly doubt they care about dressing up for one night of a year.

Why on earth is Christianity allowed to be torn to shreds on here, yet any other religion is discussed/debated with respect?

Anyway - I'm Catholic, as is my daughter. She attends Catholic school, as did I.

Last week at school she dressed up as the grim reaper (lots of other classmates were witches, devils, Scream, Chucky dolls, etc) for the Halloween disco (which the priest attended and gave out prizes for the best costumes - among the winners was a shark from Sharknado, Frankenstein monster and zombie teacher).

Also at school, they spent lots of classroom time decorating the walls with pictures of vampires and witches. They carved pumpkins. Their homework last week was based on Halloween activities: wordsearches of Halloween words like vampire, ghoul, zombie etc.

i think a lot of people on here who criticise Christianity so heavily are perhaps so scared of it that they have made it out to be something dark and menacing, where children aren't allowed to have any fun.

Like all other religious scriptures, the bible can be interpreted - and therefore misinterpreted - in many different ways. You only have to look to Isis to see an example of extreme misinterpretation of their religion's book.

'Why on earth is Christianity allowed to be torn to shreds on here, yet any other religion is discussed/debated with respect? '

You are aware that there are many anti-Islam posts on MN?
Christianity and Islam are both evangelical religions who actively seek converts. In Your Face Faiths. That's often why they tend to attract vociferous opposition, if they were lower profile and less keen on telling others what to do and how they should live, there's be less of a response I think.

Halloween like most festivals originates from paganism. Most christian practices, holidays and rituals originate in pagan practices. Even stories from the bible such as jesus have mirror images from pagam beliefs that were around centuries before jesus.

How do you know, Pinapple how the Celts celebrated Samhein, for example? As far as I am aware there are very (very) few Celtic writings and all we have is what appear to be remains of some ritualistic sacrifices and burials. How do you know what the Celts or what Druids believed?

Yes, there are examples of other Pagan societies such as those in Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt, that did have forms of writing - so we know more concerning their beliefs, but how do they link into Halloween?

As far as I am concerned, people celebrate according to their own beliefs. Ultimately, exactly what is celebrated can only be individually defined, in what the celebration means to the individual participating. Though, of course the celebrations can take on greater meaning in a mutually participant group, who believe the same on, at least, some level.

^sorry Pineapple

Armchair

I would surmise that all people share beliefs, regardless of their particular belief system. Our beliefs affect what we do and say, how we perceive the world and respond to it. So in this way everyone is an evangelist.

I know that not all Christians would define themselves as Evangelist, so in this way you could be spreading your own belief concerning them, so you, in effect are attempting to evangelise, in your own way.

www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween

Theres plenty of information on samhain practices and rituals. As for other practices take mass for example there was an ancient roman ceremony for soldiers where they worshiped a pagan god and they drank wine ate bread at an altar. Things such as the virgin birth had already been told in ancient egypt. Barely anything in Christianity is unique to christianity.

pinapple just because the practises of Christianity are not unique, to Christianity, does not mean that there is no deeper spiritual truth within the Christian Faith.

Evidence that there are common themes across different societies only strengthens my belief, my faith. This just suggests there a spiritual language implicit within humanity. Something of this language remained and something was lost between pagan and Christian believers IMO.

Why on earth is Christianity allowed to be torn to shreds on here,

Torn to shreds? You mean pointing out the obvious flaws in logic behind the beliefs. I invite people to point out obvious flaws in my own model of logic because it's how we learn, by sharing and comparing with other people. If I felt someone's opinion tore my belief to shreds I would want to know why it felt like it was torn to shreds, why it was possible to tear it to shreds. By its very definition you should not be able to 'pull to shreds' a well thought out belief.

yet any other religion is discussed/debated with respect?

The most familiar religion to your average mumsnetter is Christianity. Skeptics who are as familiar with the doctrines of Islam make equally as robust criticism of that religion too.

^ pineapple the article you linked to does not point to any historical evidence concerning Celtic beliefs.

I think the connection was lost when christians took over pagan holidays called pagans evil and began torturing and killing not only pagans but any innocent person they didnt like by calling them a witch.

Christianity has tainted witchcraft and paganism and some people still believe that we worship the devil and sacrifice animals.

I am respectful of others beliefs and everyone should believe what they like but i find it hard to respect any religion that preaches peace love and forgiveness yet has murdered thousands whilst saying it.

I just don't see why its such a big deal. I'm a bit about people who feel sorry for the children not allowed to take part.... Personally the children I feel sorry for are those who are neglected and have shit parents, the lucky ones have parents who set rules that sometimes they don't like.

We had a party and one family declined because they don't celebrate halloween for religious reasons, not pious more a bit awkward telling me. People are allowed in my opinion to think differently and have views that dont correspond to the majority.

I'm a Christian and my DCs both went to the local church school. We also do fun stuff for Halloween and see it as a bit of harmless fun, my DCs know enough about their faith and feel secure in it to have fun at Halloween without it tempting them to the dark side.
I used to be a Pagan so there is also an appreciation of Samhain as well just to make life really interesting.

Pineapple all the archeology and historical evidence does point to Pagan ritual involving animal and human sacrifice. Most of what we know about Pagan societies also points to brutal practises within warfare too. So just you cannot legitimately say Pagans are in any way more peace loving than Christians.