Would Anyone Like To Explain What The Fuck This Is?!

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Hah, silly people. What's next? Are the christians gonna make a christian alternative to Christmas too?

Oh yeah, I went there.

Speaking as a Christian, a Christian alternative to Christmas (placed somewhere in the Spring, which is what the descriptions of the Nativity in the bible would suggest, instead of in the Winter, which only happened because the Roman feast of Saturnalia was held on December 25th, and the early Catholic church needed an easy way to change the meaning of that holiday, because there was no stopping people from celebrating it) would not be amiss. Easter could use one too; instead of being connected to Passover, which again is what is Biblically supported, it's connected to the Spring equinox -- same reason, this time for the festival of Eostre. Did you know that the Puritans were aware of this (or at least the part about Christmas; I've never heard anything about the Puritans and Easter), and it was originally illegal to celebrate Christmas in their colonies in the US?

The Christians took over every Pagan holiday they could in an effort to covert as many as they could before killing the rest. The majority of them are arrogant in their faith, ignorant of their faith's history, selfish, severely intolerant, and engage in idolatry. Given their history, does this honestly surprise you?

wow, generalization much? Man, sure glad that I'm not a Christian like Martin Luther King Jr, or Thomas Beckett, because they were just assholes, apparently. Hating a religion because of a rushed understanding of its history is also arrogant and selfish

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was Baptist.....


and Thomas Becket was Catholic.



Don't ask me what the difference between a Catholic and a Christan is though, fuck all if I know.

Southern Baptist is a sect of Christianity...as is Catholicism....you can be Christian in many different ways:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

Technically, I'm pretty sure Dr. King was an American Baptist; there's quite a few ways to be a baptist, too. Christianity has more denominations than any other religion I've ever heard of -- except maybe Hinduism, which if I understand it as well as I think I do, could feasibly have every individual Hindu having their own version of the faith, but if they accept some basic tenets, still qualify as Hindu.

Halloween is a sacred holiday. Pagan New Year, my friends. And this bullshit is what makes me hate America.

Not quite
Pagan refers to a belief system outside the major doctrines
Discordians are technically pagan, but All hallow's isn't their new year
(Just being pedantic)
Next up, I may only be a dabbling occultist, but I was under the impression that "Halloween" wasn't sacred to anyone, as it's a corruption of "Hallowe'en" which is from "All hallow's eve" (AkA All Saint's day) which is the christianisation of the first day of good old fashioned Samhain
Which isn't anything like new year, it's not a time for celebration, it's for contemplation and preparing your rites for the darker portion of the year
No-offense to your particular form of neo-wicca but if you're going to complain about America corrupting your belief system it would be nice to give a little more information about your belief system

I guess my point is
Yeah - I hate commercialised halloween too, but religion is constantly being corrupted; your beliefs are probably about as a far removed from the origin of wicca as halloween is from All Saint's, that's not an insult, simply a statement of fact, like comparing the new testament to the crusader's mindset, or the Crusaders to the modern catholics
Times change and culture changes with them, if you want to complain about Haloween disrepcting your beliefs then you should cut down on your excesses during lent and force all religions to reorganise their holidays so as to have no double bookings

Thank you for posting this. I really don't understand why so many (fundamentalist) Christians freak out about Halloween, calling it "the Devil's holiday" and so on. Have they never heard of All Hallow's Eve? It's no less Christian of a holiday than Christmas, which is itself celebrated at completely the wrong part of the year, and happens to coincide perfectly with the ancient Roman feast of Saturnalia. I vividly remember seeing a church proudly proclaiming that they were having a "harvest festival" instead of Halloween; I didn't have the heart to walk up and tell them that that was an infinitely more pagan celebration than the one it was replacing.

A pagan? I thought pagan was just a catch all term used to describe pretty much anybody who worships nature in anyway. I didn't think it was an specific set of beliefs. So uhh, can you tell me a little more about it?

pagn means more tan one god dont it???

Pagan (as defined by Webster's dictionary):

• [li]1) heathen 1; especially : a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)[/li][li]2) one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods : an irreligious or hedonistic person.[/li]

A related term is Neo-pagan

Neo-pagan (as defined by Webster's dictionary):

• [li]a person who practices a contemporary form of paganism (as Wicca)[/li]

Link to Pagan definition [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pagan]
Link to Neo-pagan definition [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neo-pagan?show=0&t=1318309423]

If you want to get technical about it, it's Latin (or Greek or something; some language related to the Roman empire) for "Farmer." It picked up its modern meaning because farmers tended to be pretty far from the center of things, and it took a while for Christianity to get to Rome's hillbilly cousins, so they held on to the old beliefs longer than anyone else, and eventually said beliefs started to be referred to as "pagan beliefs," and the old gods as "the old Pagan gods."

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

How is one religious group's decision to have and promote a separate, sanitized (i.e. boring) version of a holiday violating Freedom of Religion?

Oh right, it isn't. Either you posted the wrong article, or I've slipped into an alternate reality where "Freedom of Religion" means "everyone has to respect my religion".

Or maybe it's opposite day? It's either one of those or you're exactly what you seem to be angry about. Either way, the U.S. Constitution says you can "QQ MOAR PLZ", because it's their right to have, promote, and observe boring holidays.

Because it's violating the pagan holiday and replacing it with a christian one. That's like me changing Cinco-de-Mayo to Cinco-de-Jesus and having everyone walk around in sandals and a toga. Or removing ALL the december holidays and creating a spliced holiday called Chrikwansakuh.

Also it's ruining my childhood which I hold as sacred to a religious sense. It hurts my soul.
Additionally, it's stupid enough that it will catch on. I can see it now, walking down the street on a dark October 31st watching all the little kids parade around in white before dusk so they don't get beaten up by the High School assholes. Knocking on a door in a pirate suit calling out "Trick or Treat" and getting a bible. Being dragged away by the cops for assault with battery and a bloodstained bible lying on the cold cement.

You know what, let it happen. Because there WILL be assaults and the weapon will be bibles so the masses will FINALLY have to acknowledge that religion causes violent behavior, not video games.

Have you been reading the thread? Halloween is the christianized holiday. It replaced a Pagan holiday called Samhain over 1000 years ago. The real problem with this is that some Christians are apparently as ignorant of this fact as the Pagans they think they're saving the holiday from.

Edit: By the way, what exactly do you think freedom of religion is? It's the right to personally hold whatever religious belief (or lack thereof) that you so desire. If someone were to come up to me saying they believe that Jesus was not the son of God but in fact the devil himself, I might be offended, but the only thing I could legally do about it is talk to him and try to get him to come around. In this country, there's no such thing as an illegal religion.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Bhahahaha. Either the OP is hilariously stupid, or a somewhat clever troll. Either way, this is fuckin' funny. Let me go ahead and list the things wrong with this:

1. The story is from Canada, not the US.

2. They aren't violating Freedom of Religion....at all. Not even close. In fact, the only reason I bring it up is because...

3. The OP seems to think they shouldn't have THEIR freedom of religion.

Yeah, the irony is just too perfect. Well played, OP. Unless you're just a giant idiot. In that case....No, I don't believe that. It's just too perfect. And if you WERE trolling (which you totally were), then KUDOS on revealing just how pathetically stupid the Escapist community is when it comes to the United States.

My response to the morons saying "Lol, Americans", thus assuming that my entire country is involved in this Canadian "Jesus Ween":

Lol, Escapists.

 

[Chrishu]

If you're a pagan you should be way more pissed about the hijacking of Saturnalia.

 

[KeyMaster45]

If you want to get technical about it, it's Latin (or Greek or something; some language related to the Roman empire) for "Farmer." It picked up its modern meaning because farmers tended to be pretty far from the center of things, and it took a while for Christianity to get to Rome's hillbilly cousins, so they held on to the old beliefs longer than anyone else, and eventually said beliefs started to be referred to as "pagan beliefs," and the old gods as "the old Pagan gods."

And now I have the image of a hillbilly in a toga, which is funny as hell for some reason. I always have liked the terms "old gods" and "old pagan gods". For some reason whenever they crop up in a story they're always ten times more powerful than whatever rules the cosmos. So I like to imagine that after being deposed by the Christian god, Zeus and the other members of the Greek pantheon (yeah I know it was Rome when Christianity cropped up, but the pantheon was basically the same just different names) started plotting his downfall legion of doom style.

I've always felt that Christianity sorta took the fun out of religion when it came along. I mean let's face it, most of the Christian mythos is pretty god damned boring. (save those few times where someone kicks some serious ass) Everything else before that just seems to have more awesome stories.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

If you're a pagan you should be way more pissed about the hijacking of Saturnalia.

Personally, I'm kind of bothered by all of the modern "pagans" who don't realize just how inauthentic their beliefs are. I'm not saying that they don't honestly believe them, but the church brutally destroyed any direct line of European polytheism, to the point that all modern "Pagan" religions are modern re-constructions, and none of them are particularly historically accurate. If you want a polytheistic faith that actually has a connection to ancient times, look into Hinduism. I don't want to belittle anyone's faith, but this really is the truth.

 

[blank0000]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/10/jesus-ween-christian-halloween_n_1003395.html?1318270211

Okay. So let me get on the rant now.

I am a Pagan. And I for one find this to be bullshit.

Halloween is a sacred holiday. Pagan New Year, my friends. And this bullshit is what makes me hate America.

Let me tell you, I'm done defending the intelligence of this country if no one can follow our own Freedom of Religion bit. Fucking hell, I can't even think straight right now in regards to this. Someone, please post a better rant. I don't even have words. There ARE no words....

Ranting and yelling do not reflect well on you or the pagan religion. Freedom of religion allows a person to practice their faith. Some people want to celebrate a different faith then you, to demonize that practice is demonizing the laws you want to defend.

I can see people taking offense to this particular holiday on the grounds that it is designed to counter another religious outing. But according to it's description, it's non-violent and does not attack other religions.

I personally think it makes little sense, and don't see myself celebrating "Jesus ween", but I can understand the logic behind wanting to celebrate during an energetic time of the year, and wanting that celebration to be a more personal one.


I myself plan on dressing as shuffle-bot and having a wicked good time >. I advise everyone to do the same. Provided that's what they are into

 

[Risingblade]

I think that those Americans are actually kind of cute, in a way.

It was the Canadians this time xD

 

[RN7]

Eh. Christians are dumb, but then again most religious people are dumb nowadays. Just because you have "Freedom of Religion" doesn't mean everyone has to respect your religion. You can just practice it without repercussions. Just ignore these idiots and move on with your life and your religious views.

 

[Treefingers]

I suggest that first you get over it, and then get over yourself.

 

[dagens24]

If somebody gave my child a bible as a holloween treat I'd punch them right in their mouth hole.

 

[OrokuSaki]

Have you been reading the thread? Halloween is the christianized holiday. It replaced a Pagan holiday called Samhain over 1000 years ago. The real problem with this is that some Christians are apparently as ignorant of this fact as the Pagans they think they're saving the holiday from.

Edit: By the way, what exactly do you think freedom of religion is? It's the right to personally hold whatever religious belief (or lack thereof) that you so desire. If someone were to come up to me saying they believe that Jesus was not the son of God but in fact the devil himself, I might be offended, but the only thing I could legally do about it is talk to him and try to get him to come around. In this country, there's no such thing as an illegal religion.

I believe that freedom of religion is a respect for those both of the same religion as you and those of different religion. Meaning that one should not judge another by the ignorance of their beliefs, but by the ignorance which they demonstrate while defending them. Meaning that creationists aren't stupid because they believe in god, but because they don't believe in dinosaurs.

And I understand that this is the "Christianized" version of the holiday, but defiling it removes the last vestiges of the pagan holiday that ever existed. Also I wouldn't say it's "Christianized" more "Americanized" like Christmas and Valentines Day. I don't believe that something has been "Made Christian (My spell check hates Christianized, probably because it doesn't exist)" until the holiday actually relates to Jesus. Like it's attempting to do now.

 

[Treblaine]

As a yank, thank you for your kind words. I suppose I can't come up with as well worded a reason for appreciating the culture of the U.K., but here's a list of things that I appreciate from across the Atlantic:

-damn that accent is sexy.
-i will always spell it "Theatre" not "Theater"
-Patrick Stewart and Hugh Laurie
-English theatre staying away from the neoclassical style around the time of Shakespeare while mainland Europe was homogenizing theatre as much as possible
-the creation of "Father Christmas"
-the simple delight that is "Fish and Chips"...it's so simple, yet satisfying
-...oh, and the creation of the language that I currently speak...that's pretty helpful

(also, I think we like to dress up in costume more because our fantasies are way cooler than our realities)

And yet as a Brit I am curious why Hugh Laurie and Patrick Steward have to go to America to find work.

You can use the spelling "theatre" and be accepted as a quaint eccentricity. Yet if I spell it "theater" I am labelled an "Americanized" dolt, a cultural traitor and a fool.

 

[Uszi]

Since when is Halloween a pagan holiday?

I thought the Christians took it over back in the day, as All Hallows Eve, aka the eve of All Saints Day?

I mean, I never felt like I was celebrating a pagan holiday when I was a christian and went trick or treating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween#Religious_perspectives

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween#Origin_of_name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints

I mean, Halloween celebrates the occult about as much as Dungeons and Dragons or Harry Potter.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Have you been reading the thread? Halloween is the christianized holiday. It replaced a Pagan holiday called Samhain over 1000 years ago. The real problem with this is that some Christians are apparently as ignorant of this fact as the Pagans they think they're saving the holiday from.

Edit: By the way, what exactly do you think freedom of religion is? It's the right to personally hold whatever religious belief (or lack thereof) that you so desire. If someone were to come up to me saying they believe that Jesus was not the son of God but in fact the devil himself, I might be offended, but the only thing I could legally do about it is talk to him and try to get him to come around. In this country, there's no such thing as an illegal religion.

I believe that freedom of religion is a respect for those both of the same religion as you and those of different religion. Meaning that one should not judge another by the ignorance of their beliefs, but by the ignorance which they demonstrate while defending them. Meaning that creationists aren't stupid because they believe in god, but because they don't believe in dinosaurs.

And I understand that this is the "Christianized" version of the holiday, but defiling it removes the last vestiges of the pagan holiday that ever existed. Also I wouldn't say it's "Christianized" more "Americanized" like Christmas and Valentines Day. I don't believe that something has been "Made Christian (My spell check hates Christianized, probably because it doesn't exist)" until the holiday actually relates to Jesus. Like it's attempting to do now.

See, that's where you're wrong. Freedom of religion is the freedom to believe whatever you want no matter who it offends. The whole point of the bill of rights is to provide protections for ideas and beliefs that otherwise may be stamped out in the interest of keeping the majority happy. It's not the freedom to do that which we love that needs to be protected; nobody wants to take that away. It's the freedom to do that which we hate, because once that has been taken away, the legal precedent has been set, and absolutely anything else can be removed in the same fashion.

 

[OrokuSaki]

See, that's where you're wrong. Freedom of religion is the freedom to believe whatever you want no matter who it offends. The whole point of the bill of rights is to provide protections for ideas and beliefs that otherwise may be stamped out in the interest of keeping the majority happy. It's not the freedom to do that which we love that needs to be protected; nobody wants to take that away. It's the freedom to do that which we hate, because once that has been taken away, the legal precedent has been set, and absolutely anything else can be removed in the same fashion.

I can't think of a logical argument to beat that, probably because it really can't be beaten. But I still vote that it's wrong and that people shouldn't allow jesus-ween to overtake halloween.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

See, that's where you're wrong. Freedom of religion is the freedom to believe whatever you want no matter who it offends. The whole point of the bill of rights is to provide protections for ideas and beliefs that otherwise may be stamped out in the interest of keeping the majority happy. It's not the freedom to do that which we love that needs to be protected; nobody wants to take that away. It's the freedom to do that which we hate, because once that has been taken away, the legal precedent has been set, and absolutely anything else can be removed in the same fashion.

I can't think of a logical argument to beat that, probably because it really can't be beaten. But I still vote that it's wrong and that people shouldn't allow jesus-ween to overtake halloween.

The good news is that this whole "Jesus-ween" thing is not at all a mainstream Christian movement, nor is it likely to really take off anytime soon. It's a few fundamentalist churches being run by people who apparently don't know the history of their own faith well enough to know that Halloween is a Christian holiday to begin with. Most Christians just kind of look at these people and shrug their shoulders.

 

[RESURRECTION21]

jesusween really? that sounds like a sex act

 

[Zenthunder]

If you think bullshit like this is exclusive to America, even as an American, you're as blind as the idiots you're quoting. Stupidity knows no borders. Didn't EU recently ban children from blowing up balloons as a health risk or something? I know I saw that thread somewhere else around here.

Point is, take it for what it's worth to you: nothing.

i would not think in never happen anywhere either but it just comes from america alot

 

[Zenthunder]

If you think bullshit like this is exclusive to America, even as an American, you're as blind as the idiots you're quoting. Stupidity knows no borders. Didn't EU recently ban children from blowing up balloons as a health risk or something? I know I saw that thread somewhere else around here.

Point is, take it for what it's worth to you: nothing.

i would not think in never happen anywhere either but it just comes from america alot