Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Evangelical War On Holloween


Bedouin

Recommended Posts

Goodbye Jesus

The suggested reason for the "war" is novel.

 

The fact of the "war" is undeniable and has been a clear annual phenomenon for years.  Nothing new under the sun...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even Kirk is on the bandwagon, although it sounds like he is trying to turn it into Easter 2.0.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/22/kirk-cameron-halloween_n_6026056.html

 

My ex MIL wraps religious tracts around the candy at Halloween and has been doing it for years.  But at least she still includes the candy!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Attention whores will often do silly things to get......attention.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mericans, always need a war on something. I find the whole halloween thing completely ridiculous, but then I feel the same way about all our commercially driven celebration days.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even Kirk is on the bandwagon, although it sounds like he is trying to turn it into Easter 2.0.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/22/kirk-cameron-halloween_n_6026056.html

 

My ex MIL wraps religious tracts around the candy at Halloween and has been doing it for years.  But at least she still includes the candy!

 

I can't wait until he launches his "saving christmas" campaign.  Because it's getting to be that time when Faux News starts running their "war on christmas" pablum.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mericans, always need a war on something. I find the whole halloween thing completely ridiculous, but then I feel the same way about all our commercially driven celebration days.

 

I agree Galien.  And by the by, anyone that's an RHCP fan is cool with me.

 

 

WIN_20141025_201406 (2).JPG

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

They lobby in PUBLIC schools to ban costumes? What?! Those are other people's kids. None of their business. (I'm preaching to the choir, I know. Had to rant.)

 

Holy Bloody Mary, I hate people like this.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My wife has a pre-school and every year there's one or two tots that can't participate in the halloween related school activities. This year one refused to color the ghost on his coloring assignment and his mom came in to give her views on the matter.

 

I don't know what I find more disturbing, adults that let ignorance override their rationale or parents that brainwash their 5 year old into thinking they'll burn in hell for eternity if they color a paper ghost.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mericans, always need a war on something.

Of course, we're pretty fucked and it's getting worse fast. It's getting to where people are leaving the country who've never even traveled outside of it before.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My fundy sister deprived her kids from experiencing the fun of Halloween because the day "celebrates Satan".  Funny, I never celebrated any such individual on Halloween or any other day, nor do I remember anyone else doing this.  Are Chrisitians so open to suggestion that hordes of their kids are going to become automatic devil-worshippers just by wearing an Ariel costume and joyfully yelling "trick or treat"?

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh god there once yearly crusade against imaginary evil and child protection. If only the church would be so interested in the lonely in its pews, the poor, the mentally ill..... nah its easier to freak out over Halloween.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My fundy sister deprived her kids from experiencing the fun of Halloween because the day "celebrates Satan".  Funny, I never celebrated any such individual on Halloween or any other day, nor do I remember anyone else doing this.  Are Chrisitians so open to suggestion that hordes of their kids are going to become automatic devil-worshippers just by wearing an Ariel costume and joyfully yelling "trick or treat"?

 

You and those you remember never knowingly celebrated Satan, but you've got to remember, everything that is fun or forbidden represents Satan and enjoying those things is celebrating Satan.

 

You're not supposed to be having fun; you're supposed to be miserable and persecuted for Jesus, while praising Jesus for being so, like a good, little Christian. jesus.gif

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember spending a few Halloweens praying against the imagined witch covens that we just knew were invoking Satan that night. The spiritual warfare that we imagined all the time, the lies we told ourselves about angels and demons, the lies about witch covens and satanic cults, the many many hours spent early in the morning walking the city and binding demons and loosing the power of god. Criminy! What a colossal waste of life energy. None of it is real, but we could "feel" it, that much we were sure of. I remember my boss telling me to get into the spirit of Halloween, and telling her that me and that spirit didn't get along.

 

But as a kid, I enjoyed it. Had a great time once using an orange garbage bag inflated with paper eyes and mouth glued on as a fake head on top of a cardboard tube that concealed my real head, and ran a flashlight bulb inside with a battery and button that would light up the head when I'd say "trick or treat". A Japanese family loved it and all got pictures of me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reminds me of the moral panic about satanic groups in the 1980s, many people falsely accused, many people's lives totally ruined for good. Clearly there was, and is, a monetary and political motivation for keeping people hysterical.

And I remember thinking I felt and observed things in my early 20s. Makes me sick to think about it now. Fortunately for the last 15 or so years of My XInsanity I didn't really buy any of it, gradually being further and further away from the whole drivel. But it's pretty sad what crowd / groupthink will do to people.

Anyone remember the PBS documentary on the Hell Houses? Pretty sad stuff, really.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reading this, I realize how fortunate I was that my mother was determined not to subject my brother and I to religious legalism.  Her parents wouldn't let her go to movies or school dances and such, so she promised herself not to do the same to my brother and I.  The hell doctrine was bad enough.  Legalism probably would have really done a number on me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IMHO, any Christian who does not celebrate All Saints Day has no right to rant about Halloween. And since Evangelicals do not in fact celebrate the holy-day, they should shut up about the holiday.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator

The Russian community down here held a Halloween party on Saturday.  Saturday morning all the kids at the Russian school were all excited about it.  They couldn't wait to get out of school and go to the party.  They all talked endlessly about how long they were going to play in the bouncy house, how much candy they were going to get, all the ghost stories they were going to hear, the meat pies, the cakes, the pastries.  The kids went on and on...

 

Except for one little girl.  She sat in the corner, crying.

 

Later on, I overheard her talking to her mother, begging her mother to take her to the Halloween party.  She was in tears.  Her mother just kept telling her that it was a "pagan" holiday, a holiday to celebrate evil, and jesus didn't want her going to the party.  The guilt... The fear...

 

The painful memories from my own childhood.

 

All that little girl wanted was to be like the other kids.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I need a fake beard, long nose, and a banana for my Ray Comfort costume.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mericans, always need a war on something. I find the whole halloween thing completely ridiculous, but then I feel the same way about all our commercially driven celebration days.

 

I find the constant "mericans" comments ridiculous and unfounded. The government and the people are not the same thing no matter how it looks.

 

I hate war and would rather they stop doing what they are doing. Millions of my countrymen agree but what can you do when politicians are the secret majority of the minority? We don't make decisions anymore than you as a citizen do in your own country.

 

You know when war will stop?????? when people stop seeing the lines in the sand called borders and start feeling connected as human beings on the same planet.

 

If you meant it as a sarcasim or a joke I get it but at this point have stopped finding it even funny at a cliche level.

 

MERICA spreads just as much peace as it does war and I can say we do both better than anyplace else I have seen or read about in history. War is all around us and we are no more at fault than anyone other group that can't seem to sit down and talk. mostly we are fightin other peoples wars that simply would have been beaten out of existence by their dicator or king or ruler overlord if we had done nothing. It really sucks this rock and hard place and when you lead I guess more people will complain even when you are doing more harm than good.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My former church was divided about Halloween.

 

Some people celebrated it and some didn't. The reasons varied from family to family. It wasn't that big of a deal until 2010, when the church decided to hold a trunk or treat event for the community. The area where the church was located was in a working class area and there wasn't anything available to the local kids since the neighborhood association had banned trick or treating in the area of heavy thru traffic due to a construction project.

 

So some of the families in the church decided that it would be a good thing to host an event so that those kids could have something to do on Halloween. Well, some of the non-celebrators got their panties in a twist and voted against it in the community meetings. Eventually, it won by a narrow vote and we ended up hosting a trunk or treat. Some parents were happy and some were pissed. Some families handed out tracts instead of candy, but most were decent and handed out candy and small toys. There was a bouncy house and hot cocoa available inside, along with "The Great Pumpkin" being shown on the projection screen in the youth room.

 

I adore Halloween and I think the fundie asshats who are against Halloween are just doing it to prove that they are "in the world, but not of it". Also, it's worth noting that Westboro Baptist and a few other smaller fundie groups like to protest some of the higher profile Halloween events in the Kansas City area (where I live). I took my nephews to one such event in 2011 and a protestor made fun of my oldest nephew who was dressed as a mad doctor. His leg braces were visible from under his lab coat and some jackass holding a "Harry Potter Is In Hell!" sign pointed and laughed at him. Real classy, Jesus freaks...laughing at a handicapped 7 year old. glare.gif

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

let's vote for christian who wants to control people personal life:

1. churchianity

2. christinsanity

3. or simply "cult"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love Halloween. It's probably my favourite holiday. We get to revel in and pay due honour to the stuff that would be seen as morbid or weird if we didn't disguise it as an excuse for free candy. Given that Victorian mourning culture went out with WW I, it's pretty much the one day a year we get to openly acknowledge death. The other 364 days? It's something that happens to other people, out of public view, in hospitals or nursing facilities. You're not even really allowed to talk about it directly. On Halloween? We dress up like zombies. Memento mori. A holiday where the mascots are spiders, ravens and crows, owls, bats, snakes, and a lot of other incredibly cool critters? Count me in!

 

There's also the Jack-o-Lanterns. Toasted. Pumpkin. Seeds. Seriously - they're the most compelling argument for pumpkin jack-o-lanterns I can think of. They're that good. Also, apparently, pretty good for you, too.

 

Anyway, I think that maybe Evangelicals want to squash (eh heh) Halloween because it's got so little to do with religion. Not nothing at all, mind you - All Hallows' Eve and whatnot. But the modern Halloween is completely secular, and a lot of fun. Everybody can participate, and it's non-religious. I think they find this a huge threat, because it's proof that community and celebration don't have to be about their religion. It's also inclusive - which goes against the grain of their beliefs, too, which revolve around separating people into acceptable (saved) and unacceptable (Hell-bound and whatever) categories. That's why it goes hand-in-hand with other kinds of nasty prejudice. In their minds, opposing inclusiveness is being Godly. That's why they have such fits over a supposed "War on Christmas" when people say things like "Happy Holidays!" From their point of view, this is a War on Christmas because including people goes against their religion. It's honestly pretty sick. Far worse and more damaging than any of the scary decorations and costumes we have for Halloween.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When did the animosity towards this fun holiday start? I was raised in the conservative "Churches of Christ" -- during my childhood (In Middle Tennesse, near Nashville) in the 1960s and "teenage-hood" in the 1970s, I don't remember any of the Church people being that concerned about Halloween. It was just time to dress up, watch horror movies, and get some free candy. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Mericans, always need a war on something. I find the whole halloween thing completely ridiculous, but then I feel the same way about all our commercially driven celebration days.

I find the constant "mericans" comments ridiculous and unfounded. The government and the people are not the same thing no matter how it looks.

 

I hate war and would rather they stop doing what they are doing. Millions of my countrymen agree but what can you do when politicians are the secret majority of the minority? We don't make decisions anymore than you as a citizen do in your own country.

 

You know when war will stop?????? when people stop seeing the lines in the sand called borders and start feeling connected as human beings on the same planet.

 

If you meant it as a sarcasim or a joke I get it but at this point have stopped finding it even funny at a cliche level.

 

MERICA spreads just as much peace as it does war and I can say we do both better than anyplace else I have seen or read about in history. War is all around us and we are no more at fault than anyone other group that can't seem to sit down and talk. mostly we are fightin other peoples wars that simply would have been beaten out of existence by their dicator or king or ruler overlord if we had done nothing. It really sucks this rock and hard place and when you lead I guess more people will complain even when you are doing more harm than good.

It's not a good idea to make fun of other people's countries....just not nice. We are all Ex-C's here. (Many of us, including me, happen to live in "'Merica.")

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.