Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

To be annoyed with the Church this time of Year?

109 replies

Emprexia · 31/10/2007 22:08

Halloween is nothing to do with Christianity and it REALLY bugs me that every year without fail you get some bishop or other moaning about people celebrating it.. and how its leading our children astray, or the extremists banging on about it being satanic and encouraging children away from the christian faith!

Hello!!!

Its Halloween, which is infact AKA Samhain to the Pagan population of the country. ITs not evil, its nothing to do with the devil or satan... its Pagan New Year!!!

OP posts:

ExplosiveScienceT · 31/10/2007 22:10

It's right for the church to stand up against it - it is worship of the dark. Why on earth would a church stay silent?

bluejelly · 31/10/2007 22:10

Maybe that's why christians don't like it (because it's pagan and therefore pre-christian)

ExplosiveScienceT · 31/10/2007 22:11

It's the night before All Saints' Day...the opposite of Saints. Not quite pagan.

NineUnlikelyTales · 31/10/2007 22:15

Hello to you too!!

All Hallows Eve means All Saints Eve. It is possible for a day to mean one thing to one group and another to a different group.

80sMum · 31/10/2007 22:27

All Saints Day was moved from its original date in May to November 1st in order to to 'counteract' as it were, the Pagan traditional celebration of the end of Summer, known in the Celtic/Gaelic language as Samhain.

The Christian church at the time was anxious to stamp out Pagan practices and placed its own festivals to coincide with the more ancient Pagan ones.

Christmas is another example, placed to coincide with Yule.

SatanGeorge · 31/10/2007 23:00

Halloween is NOT Samhain and is not Pagan.

It is a Christian holiday, like it or not.

Neither Halloween or Samhain are celebrations or any form of worship of the dark or evil.

Are you pagan Kaishay? You seem to be defending the holiday (which makes me think you are) yet you misunderstand the origins of the name (which makes me think you aren't). I'm puzzled.

Original poster

Emprexia · 01/11/2007 00:23

I'm pagan. An Eclectic Hedge Witch to be specific.. and i know all the history.

"Halloween" as we celebrate it today, has nothing to do with christianity. Little kids running around in costumes asking for sweets, has nothing to do with All Saints Day.

Just like little kids running around in costumes asking for sweets does not = worshipping everything dark and ebil.

I know Halloween isn't Samhain, but is seems the vast majority of Christians don't understand that and have melded the two together.

OP posts:

EricL · 01/11/2007 00:31

I really don't care.

My kids celebrate Halloween and i have never listened to anyone who says we shouldn't.

You are making it out as if a bishop has accosted you in the street and berated you.

At most - you have scanned the papers and seen an article on it.

Get over it - go out and enjoy Halloween and don't give a moments thought to the sad bastarts who are sat in their houses thinkig of Satan and other such negative nonsense!

SatanGeorge · 01/11/2007 00:44

Which is why as a Pagan I have been trying to reeducate people.

Please, educate people about Samhain by all means but use the right name to do so. You are doing Pagans no favours by continuing the confusion and saying Halloween is not Christian when it clearly is.

Original poster

Emprexia · 01/11/2007 00:54

Sorry, its my own autistic pedant nature.

"All Hallows Eve", is christian, lol.

"Halloween" isn't... the word Halloween represents the whole americanized costume wearing, pumpkin carving, begging for sweets thing.

The only good thing about Halloween this year was buying a huge tub of swizzels sweets for half price, and getting my 14mo old a cute pair of orange slippers with "boo" written on them.

OP posts:

SatanGeorge · 01/11/2007 00:59

Halloween is simply an abbreviation of All Hallows Eve, it is the same thing!

I think you need to look a little further into the history if you think all the festivities are American. They may have commercialised it a lot, but a lot of the traditions crossed the ocean in the other direction first.

nappyaddict · 01/11/2007 07:42

so halloween and samhain are different holidays but on the same day??

is samhain the end of the summer one?

MaryBS · 01/11/2007 08:03

Am I allowed to find it amusing that you say "but is seems the vast majority of Christians don't understand that", and it appears you don't understand either?

This is an emotive subject every year, but as is often the case SG, you are talking sense.

nappyaddict · 01/11/2007 08:13

oooooh samhain is on the same day as all saints day - gotcha now

persephonesnape · 01/11/2007 08:45

well thats confused me (even further,...) because i thought samhain was the autumn equinox, roughly around the 22nd october - (midsummers = 21/22 July, yule - 21/22 december, the longest and shortest days respectively) so spring equinox would be roughly around easter..

i need to ask wikipedia now...

nappyaddict · 01/11/2007 08:46

midsummer is june not july isn't it?

TheApprentice · 01/11/2007 08:54

I don't think the ins and outs of whose festival it is and why really matters. Surely its the intent behind things that really matters? So, I don't agree with Bishops or anyone else saying children are celebrating the devil or the dark side when it won't have even entered their heads.By far the majority of kids are just dressing up and having a bit of fun - how can that be evil?

amidaiwish · 01/11/2007 08:57

to me it's a bit like the priest who was on TV saying he couldn't let the parish hall be used for yoga, because, wait for it... it was about finding spiritual enlightenment on another plain and not Christian!

helllooooooo

i think for most people it's about having a good stretch!

TheApprentice · 01/11/2007 09:00

LOL! Oh, the evils of yoga!

ExplosiveScienceT · 01/11/2007 09:02

Thin end of the wedge...

Original poster

Emprexia · 01/11/2007 09:18

Mabon is around 21st September.

Samhain is 1st November, but the celebration starts at sundown on the 31st October.

And Satangeorge, i'm well aware of which way the trads went, but whichever way it went, todays Halloween is becoming more and more the american style of it as the retail industry muscles in and las nothing to do with the christian "All Hallows Eve"

When i was little you wore a home-made cardboard mask and your mums shawl and took a paper bag around your own streets and were happy if someone gave you a swizzel lolly. These days its all about who's got the most expensive costume and who can get the most expensive haul of chocolate.

OP posts:

kekouan · 01/11/2007 10:04

Halloween is NOT worship of the dark.

bookofthedeadmum · 01/11/2007 10:17

Shouldn't we all be down at our local graveyards now visiting the dead as it's All Saints Day?

I always understood that people dressed up as ghosts ghouls on the 31st October etc so they could either 'hide' from the undead roaming the streets or scare them away from them. Anyone like to enlighten me?

LoveAngel · 01/11/2007 10:19

I wouldn't bother about it, to be honest, Any priest that thinks it's an important enough a subject to talk about in his sermon clearly needs to straighten up his priorities.

bookofthedeadmum · 01/11/2007 10:22

I wonder how many churches are going to have christmas trees in them this year? They're also a pagan item. In fact most of the church festivities are based around pagan tradition .

Flip

1 2 3 4 5