njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011 Status: offline
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Halloween has its roots in ancient pagan traditions that go back well before the time of Christ. Samhein is just one name given to it, and it represents many things in those traditions, it is at the time of the last harvest (things like pumpkins, for example, and root vegetables are harvested), and being agricultural communities, this represented an end of year for them. It is also a so called "thin time" when the spirit and living world are closest, which is why we have images of ghosts and goblins as part of it. At this time the meal often woud include a plate for ancestors, especially recently passed ones, since their spirit was thought to be around. In some traditions I have read about the spirits would be mischievous, and to keep them from playing tricks on them, people would have offerings of dried fruit and candied stuff to appease them (sound familiar? Wonder why kids say trick or treat?). Modern Halloween came about in the 19th century in the US (think the story of Icabod Crane), when it became a time of parties and so forth, and grew from there. Halloween, like Christmas, may once have been religious, but like the secular holiday portion of Christmas (ya know, the shopping sprees, eat till you bloat, etc, etc) is divorced from any religious meaning for many people, maybe most (yes, of course Christmas is celebrated as a religious holiday by many people, Christmas is really two holidays, advent and nativity of Christ are obviously one of them, the secular the other, which is what I am talking about). The guy is a jerk, and like those religious right types who wanted to get Harry Potter banned from public libraries for 'promoting witchcraft', it is just plain stupidity. Among other things, Halloween never had anything to do with the Devil, no pagan religion had such a figure. Christians claimed devil worship for the ancient festivals to have an excuse to suppress them, and this toad is no different. BTW, "All Saints Day" was another example of the church taking an existing "day of the dead" and turning it into a Christian festival to further attempt to get people to convert, the day existed long before Christ even existed. Like Christmas on December 25th and other things taken from the old pagan traditions, it was taking over older festivals to get people to feel comfortable.
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