Monday, October 15, 2012

A Mainstream Take on Halloween...


I’d been sidelined last week by a nasty little viral infection and had spent the bulk of my time in bed. I got up long enough to go to see my doctor a couple days in, and while I was checking out, my husband picked up a flyer and started to chuckle. My husband leans more toward the Pagan persuasion than anything else, as he abhors organized religion. The title of this tri-fold piece of literature (read: misinformed garbage) is titled “Halloween” and when I read the first paragraph I knew I had to slip it into my handbag and take it with me for a good laugh. Especially since the first paragraph reads, “Millions of Christians will allow and even encourage their children to pay respect to the devil on October 31.” Do WHAT? Oh, my Goddess, I thought to myself.
So we got home, and I opened this pamphlet and began reading in earnest. To paraphrase, this “essay” (or pure fiction) states that churches will fully sanction this event with parties that are decorated with traditional Halloween-related images. It goes on to talk about how Halloween came to be from the Roman festival of Druids. Roman Druids?  Now, while ancient history (or any history, for that matter) has never been my strong suit, I went out and re-googled the origin of Halloween just to make sure I was correct. Samhain, apparently, originated with the Celts, and I’m fairly sure that the Celts weren’t hanging out in ancient Rome. From what I’ve read, the Romans only became involved around 43 AD, when they occupied much of the Celtic territories. So right off the bat I guess I knew I was in for an interesting read.
After a couple more columns of what seems to be ancient history, the pamphlet goes on to explain how Christianity offered up All Saints Day as a suitable substitution for the night the Druids celebrated their God of the Dead. Then it goes on to explain how witches celebrate Sabbaths, which made me giggle, as I’ve always known them as “sabbats,” but what do I know? It goes on to explain that Halloween is the most important Sabbath, when we all gather to work our arts; that is to put into effect one of the basic tenets in witchcraft, and from this text, I quote, “One of the basic tenets in witchcraft is to force or control others in their behavior to come under control of the one practicing witchcraft.” C’mon. Really? Obviously this Einstein has never bothered to read the Wiccan Reed, or do any other type of research, unless it comes from his/her Bible, and even still, scripture is taken out of context, and bent to the will of the author.
The final two paragraphs read as follows: 
”The reply may be, ‘But we only do this at Halloween in fun.’ One is never to handle the things of Satan ‘in fun’ as he takes you seriously and since you are in forbidden territory you can get hurt.
“Halloween is a Satanic celebration of Satanic origin and has no place in the life or the church of the Christian."
It was upon reading those final two paragraphs that I almost spit orange juice out of my nose. I didn’t know whether to laugh, or simply feel sorry for such narrow-minded foolery. Even before I entered the world of Pagans and witchcraft, my Catholic-trained mind knew that the devil/Satan was a conjuration of the Christians to scare the ancient Pagans into believing in their faith. I mean, it makes sense. All my religious upbringing ever did for me was scare the *ahem* bejesus out of me. Samhain was around LONG before their concept of the scary ol’ devil was. I mean, let’s be real, here. They had such a hard time getting Pagans to jump on their bandwagon that they even had to borrow off of our holidays. Anyone looked up the origins of Christmas and Easter lately? You should. It’s almost funny.
Have these holier than thou “experts” ever bothered to pick up a book that wasn’t a Bible and do ANY research on their own? Probably not. These poor sheep have all been brainwashed since birth. I can safely assume that, as I, too, was brainwashed to think that any religion that isn’t Christian is wrong, and that anyone following such a religion is going straight to hell when they die. As I mentioned in another article, I live smack dab in the middle of the Southeastern Bible Belt, which is why I haven’t come out of the broom closet, if you will. It floors me that these mainstreamers, whose book does state, in their New Testament, Matthew, Chapter 7, verse 1: Judge not lest ye be judged.  Apparently it only applies to us heathens, and not to them, huh?
On the very last page of the flyer is the offending church’s name and address. I guess it would be wrong to egg them on October 31, huh? Trick or treat, Baby!

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