Oh, the blasphemy potential in those…
Daniel
It always surprises me that so many people can get so uptight about a completely non-offensive holiday. And seem to feel it is part and parcel of their faith to be such buzzkills to the rest of the world.
The closest we get to Halloween in Greece, is the Apokries. People can dress anything they like, not just scary things like ghosts or demons. Still, the Greek Orthodox Church is not too fond of this event. They say that Apokries has its roots in ancient pagan rituals of Dionysus. :rolleyes: I guess the church is against having a good time in general. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Except the kids, getting hard candy on Halloween sucked! 
Mmm…chocolate…
Halloween sucks balls. It’s a public parading of modern Western man’s inability to deal with death in a psycho-philosophically tenable manner.
But I likes me some candy bars!
START, I’m so sorry you never got to experience the joys of Halloween as a kid-some of my fondest memories from childhood are going out with my cousins at their HUGE plan (I mean, this neighborhood is gigantic!), and getting sackloads of candy and picking out my costume months in advance.
As for your mom-what kind of tracts, are these? I hope they’re not Chick tracts, are they?
Stories like the OP’s make me sad. Between the ages of about six and…errm, I don’t remember exactly when I quit…Halloween was almost as much fun as Christmas. We always had the neighborhood party at our house, and then the younger kids would set off together to hit the houses nearby for candy. You got to wear a costume, you got to walk around the neighborhood after dark with a flashlight, and you got a ton of candy. How cool is that?
I grew up in a city and we t-o-ted like crazy, bringing home pillowcases full of candy. When I was 13 we moved to the country and it’s hard to go door to door without a car. Not very practical. The country churches did Trunk-r-Treat; everyone parked in the parking lot in a big circle and kids walked from trunk to decorated trunk gathering candy and showing off their costumes. Yes even witches and ghosts! My brother’s church still does this; It’s practical. He’s decorating his truck like an elephant.
But now so many southern churches in cities have gone to Fall Festivals or Harvest Festivals. No scary costumes. Everything sanitized for your protection. I think it’s a crock. All it does is emphasize to kids the stupidity that other people are bad. Don’t learn your neighbors names. Don’t actually interact with children that haven’t been picked out by your parents first. It’s wrong to be scared. How do you explain “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”? Oh those kids are satanists and evil and it’s wrong to get candy from neighbors??
It’s just so sad. Wearing a conical hat makes you a Witch about like seeing a statue of a naked man makes you pregnant. Not hardly.
I hate Halloween for completely non-religious reasons. It’s a “holiday” about dead things, for cripes sake! Also, besides the extortion angle, it contradicts the other stuff kids are supposed to learn. Think about it: 364 days a year we tell them not to eat too much junk, not to beg for stuff, and certainly not to take candy from strangers. And then on the 365th, they are encouraged to go out and beg candy from strangers. WTF?
Also, it’s the end of daylight savings time, and next week I will have to drive home from work in the dark. And the leaves will be gone, and it will be getting colder and darker for weeks. What’s to celebrate? Yeah, just to cheer us all up, let’s have an entire day about death!
They should at least put a sign on the door that says something like:
No candy here…but if you want bible material knock on you little heathens!
My parents keep a large sign on their door that reads, “Because of our beliefs and our love for the Lord Jesus Christ, we do not celebrate Halloween” complete with a large rendering of a cross.
They have somehow convinced my son that Halloween is an evil holiday, despite my best efforts to lure him to the “dark side” with candy (which he generally doesn’t like much) and spider man costumes (which he generally doesn’t care too much for either)
Talk about an uphill battle.
I’d never give the poor kid Chick tracts though. My mom and I had a Loooooong discussion about how scarred I am from a childhood filled with that godawful fear mongering.
Jack Chick and Bob Larson, AAAARGGGH.
Needless to say, she was none too pleased the year I decided to celebrate Samhain, which I feel is a much more constructive and symbolic way to celebrate death and endings.
Nowadays, I just wear furry ears to work and whine my way out of being dragged by my fiance’ to the latest horror flick that will ultimately give me nightmares for a week. Uurg.
I couldn’t agree more! It’s the one time of year that I can proudly be my morbid self.
When I was a kid, there were a few families on our block that didn’t celebrate Halloween, but they usually just turned off the lights to keep trick-or-treaters away. I always felt kinda sorry for the kids, though, since they had to sit out the school party and never got to go to the school carnival that featured costume contests and a haunted house.
I love Halloween, too. It’s my absolute favorite holiday, in fact. I didn’t get to celebrate it as a child, either, as we were a) too poor for costumes and the trimmings [so sayeth my drunken asshole parents – how much would a little cheap makeup cost, honestly? less than your Virginia Slims and Cutty Sark, I bet] and b) my parents were usually too busy fighting or passing out to be bothered with walking us around the neighborhood.
Now, I’m an adult and I plan on watching scary movies, baking ghost cookies and playing Sanitarium on my PC [thanks to someone’s CS thread]. I used to sit and be both mortified and very sad that I couldn’t take part in what I saw as a very fun experience. Not anymore – fuck 'em. I’m curling up with Mrs. Chatelaine, eating candy and enjoying the most creative holiday of the year, thanks.
It couldn’t be more obvious. The radioactive spider is like the serpent (i.e. Satan), causing Adam (i.e. Spiderman) to be cast out of the Garden of Eden (i.e. the state of not being Spiderman). All the subsequent events mirror Biblical stories, from Uncle Ben’s death (i.e. Cain slaying Abel) to the Green Goblin’s escapades (i.e. Moses wandering the desert and blowing things up).
If God had wanted us to have great power and the accompanying great responsibility that goes with it, he would have given us all web shooters in our wrists. Since he didn’t, dressing as Spiderman is simply glorifying Original Sin and devil worship. Why not just dress the kids up as Marilyn Manson and have them smear feces on each other? It’s the same thing.
The main reason I hate Halloween is because it brings scores of ankle-biters to my door, invading my peace & quiet with their demands of candy. I’d like to get a sign for my door that says “I EAT CHILDREN”, but my spouse would object.
How old is she? I took my son trick or treating last year when he was 5 months old. I got a dalamation costume for him; it was really just a white snowsuit with spots, a tail, and puppy head for a hood. Very cute. 
I’m taking him again this year (a textured, multi-colored (shades of purple) snowsuit with a tail and a dragon’s head for a hood).
Mmm… Candy. Oh yeah, I’m in MN so none of this “Oh, it’s too cold down here in Dallas” crap. 
Come to Australia START. We don’t celebrate Hallowe’en here.
She’s due in March. 
Amusing Halloween incident:
It was my first year at University in England, and I was staying in a house with a bunch of Dutch and German course-mates. Halloween isn’t celebrated in India, and seemingly not in Holland and Germany either, because none of these guys were aware of it being on that day.
I remember it was a Saturday, because we had all gone and done our weekly shopping. As usual, I stacked up on candy (we’re starved of good chocolate in India) and the Dutch guys stacked up on chips. Fortunately (on hindsight), along with the usual bags of M&Ms, I also picked up several bags of mixed candy, and the Dutch guys picked up several large bags of assorted chips (is that a Dutch student thing?! They ate of LOT of chips).
Anyways, evening came, and as we were sitting down to dinner, the doorbell rang. I opened the door, saw the little kids dressed up and holding a huge bag open in front of me - realisation dawned!!
We ended up emptying the entire week’s stock of candy and chips in less 45 minutes… and the kids didn’t stop coming! After apologising a couple of times, we just gave up and turned the lights off and headed off to the neighbourhood pub.
By the time we got back, the front lawn was covered with toilet paper! I remember thinking, ‘Hmm… strange new culture!’
Btw, what’s with the toilet paper?
doing Robin Williams doing Dr. Gene Scott…
“Today, we’re going to compare and contrast Jesus and SpiderMan…”
Actually, I had the Spider being a symbol of the Holy Spirit/Dove which lighted upon Jesus at His Baptism, thus starting His Messianic ministry…
Check this link- a sane SBC/Presbyterian minister who calls for his fellow Evangelicals to embrace Halloween & recognize that it was stolen from us by our
gullibility in listening to the pathological liar Mike Warnke…
http://www.boarsheadtavern.com/archives/2004/10/26/15025156.html