Halloween, it's just around the corner.

Postby **andyroo** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:11 pm

I do what lazy people do. Sit around, eat, and watch the t.v., and stare out into oblivion (space [same difference]). My parents have never liked for similar reasons already stated by Technomancer about the Celtic festivles. I used to go candy collecting when I was really little. Then I stopped out of no where and haven't trick-or-treated since.

Postby **Fsiphskilm** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:50 pm

OH NO! it's NOT what you guys think...I beleave that debates are a good thing, if you though Technomancer and i were arguing like (yelling) over this, no no, don't get the wrong idea... And yea i am a pretty werid guy, my logic is a bit on the mysterious side, it's because i work mostly on getting out a fealing rather than a word, sentence, or frase. And i hope you didn't get the intention that TechnoM. and I were fighting over who's right and wrong. Oh no, the way i see it, debates are meant for learning, both poeple take what they know or have herd and put it to the test, i really did enjoy talking to technomancer and he did refreash the things i didn't mension and i learned a lot during this. If you don't like it just tell me and i'll switch over to PMing. But i am very interested in learning what he has to say. I guess i've been so stubbern becasue for the last 3 years my dad has kept me up during school nights, making me watch these, religious news shows late night on channel 18 (i do NOT support TBN in any way, i don't agree with them but i do enjoy their 3rd party non-denominational sources) i've seen year after year of "the truth about halloween" and really if these people have been lieying to me then i'd like to get it straightened out".
I'd say i did take it a little too extreme, halloween's root are demonic, no doubt in that(source is from William and Sharon Schnoebelen -ex satanists-that wrote a book about thier salvation, coming from sin, and well kept hidden secrets about everything occultic, "Blood on the Doorpost")But i don't want to give the impression that dressing up and haveing a good time is bad. Next year i'm going to hold a christianized version at my house, we're going to dress up as our favorite Game or Movie character and play Horror games all night long. :dance:

But i'm sorry :red:

for confusing you about my logic. I wish we had microphone enabled message boards, becasue i like others try to take an idea beyond words and express it through simple text. So Sorry.

Postby **Mave** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 10:01 pm

heh none of the poll options fit my opinion of Halloween. Every year I just refuse to acknowledge its existence. :lol:

I personally detest witchs, skeletons, ghosts...stuff like that.

So, I never do anything out of the ordinary on that day. However, there is an alternative event to HalloWeen...called "Holy Wind" where we dress up as Christian characters in the Bible and act out some dramas...haha me thinks it's more fun cosplaying Moses, King David, Mary or someone biblical.

And it includes going around saying "Trick or Save?" [Tricked by devil or saved by Jesus] heh

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 5:27 am

Technomancer wrote:I wouldn't read to (sic) much into Halloween stats though. I mean you've got a bunch of people who can now run around in masks, generally acting kooky and not look out of place. That's gotta be something people are are (sic) going to abuse. Of course, there's the whole Devil's night thing too. Really just people looking for an excuse to wreak havoc.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with your last two sentences, if you mean what I believe you do. This is one area where I have nearly personal experience.

It's interesting that the entire false memories returning thing was brought up here. While I've read studies that have convinced me this definitely happens in many situations, it would be naive to say this is the true source of all stories. Again, personal experience. I don't know if it's called the Devil's Night, but it is the biggest night of the year for Satanic rituals.

Postby **EireWolf** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:00 am

While I know that Satanists take advantage of Halloween as one of their major celebration days, I'm going to agree with most of what Technomancer says.

My own point: Any day is what you make of it. Worshipping material goods is just about as bad as worshipping Satan, yet many people do that around Christmastime. See what I mean? There are some people who see Halloween as a great day to glorify Satan, but I personally don't see it that way. That's not what Halloween is about for me.

It's all about the candy and costume parties! :dance:

I just think it's fun to have an excuse to get dressed up in a crazy costume once a year... Well, maybe twice -- Halloween and Renaissance Fairs. :grin:

Postby **Gypsy** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 11:55 am

My family has never had too much to do with Halloween. We used to have a family get-together and I think we dressed up once. I never remember specifically going trick-or-treating. I agree with Shinja's take on the whole thing. Cheap candy the day after! :lol:

This year, the youth group at my church has made a "Hell House." Basically, they take the visitors on a walk through death, hell, and then a side romp through Heaven. (I think they made a Heaven, anyway.) At the end, they're given a brief salvation message. They've worked really, really hard on the Hell House, and they really did make it very, very scary.

Postby **Michael** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:56 pm

<It's all about the candy and costume parties!>

Of course!

Postby **Heaven's Cloud** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:59 pm

My opinion on it is that you can get a little to old for it, but for the most part I see it as a fun holiday.

My plans are dressing up as the Grim Reaper, and please do not judge me of my costume, it's just a fun holiday that I enjoy.

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:15 pm

EireWolf wrote:Worshipping material goods is just about as bad as worshipping Satan, yet many people do that around Christmastime.

That needed to be said. Basically all holidays have been completely secularized.

Postby **Michael** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 4:30 pm

<My plans are dressing up as the Grim Reaper, and please do not judge me of my costume, it's just a fun holiday that I enjoy.>

Me too.

Postby **SailorX** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 5:03 pm

Though I don't do my house all creepy like I did as a kid, my mom was a huge Christian and people told me it was all about satan, but my mom told me that Christians shouldn'rt fear Halloween, infact the REAL reason for moderen halloween is to mock Satan and death, taking it as our own and destroying the meanings, but I'm still a bit spectial, but I will let Kayana trick or treat and such...I miss my childhood memories of Halloween and am still debating if it's ok that I do Jack o lanterns and scarey stuf...But my childeren aren't allowed to be things like witches or devils, but it's something I still debate with.

Postby **Taslin_Jewel** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 5:06 pm

Like I said before, I don't have a problem with Halloween, and I find it interesting to note that the scariest/most monster-y thing I see on Halloween Night is a seven-year-old boy dressing up as an extraterrestrial. :lol:

As for me, my Zelda costume is pretty safe, I think!

Postby **Fsiphskilm** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:08 pm

i don't think that going to christian parties and eating candy like many of our repling members say they do, is bad or anything. That's great and a wonderful way to do your own thing and convert a celebration of dead to one of the kingdom. But the carved out pumpkins is symbolic and dresssing up as satan and his minions, you get the picture. But here's a site that explains Halloween in a christian mature manor, http://www.cbn.com they're pretty good with relieable sources and very professional. I mean i'm not brain washed to think that 2 billion kids die on halloween and no one cares, there lots of myths about halloween like the piosoned apple, there was only 1 case in the entire US and it was the little boy's reletives trying to collect insurance money. Sure halloween isn't bad in the intension that we see it. but it's purpose goes deeper into more hellish intensions. That's the end of my input on this converstation. I'm done.

Postby **madphilb** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:47 pm

I think we had a thread a long time ago that talked about holidays and such (i.e. - pagan origins and what not). The whole issue of the background of holidays are very touchy with some people.

I even had a friend of mine forwarding me all sorts of articles about why christmas and most of the "trimmings" (so to speak) that go with it are evil/wrong/pagan/etc....

Point is, the Christian viewpoint on many of these sorts of issues is as varried as anything. Most of it (there are some things which most Christians will agree on) are simply personal conviction.

I do agree with Seireisamano Se in that we shouldn't be afraid of the hoilday.

And on that note, if you'll all excuse me, I'll be over here singing a round of "God is bigger than the boogey man"....

PHIL

Postby **Keely** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:55 pm

To me halloween is just another excuse to DRESS UP! But, then again, I do love to cosplay...^_^;

Postby **StarMasayume** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 8:02 pm

I've never had a problem with Halloween before either, though I am aware that some people don't agree with it. I don't believe that I've ever gone trick-or-tricking, but that's more because my parents have brought me as as always going to Halloween Alternatives (or fall festivals) that are held at our church or another church. So I've always really enjoyed halloween day through those.

I've always enjoyed the idea of dressing up. When I was little, I remember some of them (which I even have pictures of), was a raggady anne doll (the red mop for my hair smelled musty though lol), a sheperd with a lamb my dad made out of wood that i could roll across the floor, and I remember one elaborate costume my dad built that I won first place for in a costume contest..... a grandfathers clock.

There's always fun games, lots of candy, and being held at a church.. not much harm in celebrating. It makes it a nice atmosphere. So I never really ignored the day--I just never acklowledged it for anything more than what it was to me.

In the past few years, as I'm getting older, I haven't really been doing anything special for halloween. I made some art a year a so ago (one a really cute anime-style called Costume kids, another with a kitty by a pumpkin in front of the fireplace, etc), and also used a friends art and set up an online e-card service through this writing.com.

This halloween, i'll probably just be staying home. A friend is going to spend the night. In the future though, I might still might do something else. When I have kids of my own, I'll probably take the same approach on Halloween as my parents did me and take them to Halloween Alternatives at churches. ^__^

Can't say I'm fond of some of the Grim-reaper, monster, satan costumes, but some costumes are so cute! I think it can be a fun holiday. Carving pictures into pumpkins, or painting them with my mom, the costumes, candy, face-painting, kids, games, candy-corn specifically, candy apples--all come to mind when I think of Halloween. ^__^

Postby **supa dupa ninja** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 12:53 am

Halloween, hmm, I never really had any Halloween experience .
but all I know is that we celebrate (back where I came from) a different kind of celebration.

we celebrate all saints day and all souls day on november 1st and 2nd. its an old chatolic solemn celebration, we visit those who are beloved to us who passed away, and hangout at graveyards and light some candles and pray for their souls.
anyone heard of it before?

Postby **Technomancer** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 4:34 am

Yeah, an important part of the holiday. I think in elementary school we had a special service.

Postby **Azier the Swordsman** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:18 am

I think I'll just stay home and play Castlevania 4 nonstop. While munching on candy.

Postby **EireWolf** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 10:05 am

uc pseudonym wrote:That needed to be said. Basically all holidays have been completely secularized.

Perhaps not completely. But I know what you mean. The mainstream idea of Christmas and other holidays seem to be whatever the secular media pushes. (heh... sounds like drugs, doesn't it?)

Like I said before, any (holi)day is what you make of it. Christmas doesn't have to be materialistic, and Halloween doesn't have to be Satanic.

Postby **Technomancer** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 10:24 am

On the subject, has anyone ever read Fritz Leiber's short story "A Bad Day for Sales"? A real classic piece of SF and very topical.

Postby **Kat Walker** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 12:35 pm

I've seen Chick tracts before...those things are HORRIBLY disturbing. I'm not one for scare tactics, even if it is Halloween. o.o

I think a better idea would be to put some nice Bible quotes with the candy or something -- so as to make the kids understand that there's more to the bible than REPENT OR YOU'RE GOING TO HELL! etc.

As for what I do on October 31st, like Keely I love costuming/cosplaying and its just an excuse to impress everyone with my creativity. :cool:

My only personal restriction is to not dress as anything blatantly demonic. ^_^; I like to keep them guessing what I am -- this year, its going to be kind of a gothic (not fallen!) angel. I'll show you guys my planning sketches of it later. ^^

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 1:18 pm

EireWolf wrote:Christmas doesn't have to be materialistic, and Halloween doesn't have to be Satanic.

But they will be by some people. Sigh...

As to "completely..." it was probably an overstatement on my part. Except that what I was really referring to was culture's view of it. Even your average birth of Jesus scene has no real significance to most people. It's just part of the holiday. I'm thinking along the lines of "I abhor your worship... etc."

Postby **Azier the Swordsman** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 8:18 pm

The Chick tract parody of 'Friday the 13th' was plain disturbing. Satan in a Halloween costume murdering a bunch of teenagers in a cabin with a chainsaw? Please!

EDIT: Here's the link. http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0058/0058_01.asp

Postby **EireWolf** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:40 am

Chick Tracts... :stressed:

I hate seeing the Gospel packaged in fear.

"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship." (Romans 8:15)

"Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil-- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." (Hebrews 2:14-15)

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18)

Postby **Gypsy** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:09 pm

Yeah, that comic was a tad on the obnoxious side. I agree with you, EireWolf, about using scare tactics to try to get people to get saved. That's why I wasn't overly thrilled when I first heard that my church was putting together a Hell House. But after I went through, I realized they weren't trying to scare people into getting saved - they were showing them the reality of an eternity, both with and without God. They did their best to depict a taste of hell, but they also tried to show what Heaven was like. To me, the most disturbing part of the whole walkthrough was not the hell part, but the part right before when the Book of Life slams shut without my name in it.

Afterwards, our pastor comes out and explains that God is a loving God, and His love for us is stronger than we can imagine. He explains that it's not what people do that condemns them to hell, it's what they don't do - believing and accepting Christ as their Savior. Then he offers to talk to anyone that has questions, gives them a modern version of the New Testament if they want, and that's it.

The best news is that 35 people have gotten saved at the Hell House. 10 of them wanted to re-commit their lives to God, and we have an awesome follow-up program for the new converts. So, aside from my initial skepticism of the whole thing, seeing 35 people give their lives over to God is an excellent way to be wrong!

Postby **Shinja** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:28 pm

wow thats awsome

Postby **madphilb** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 4:27 pm

What bugs me about "scare tactics" is that so many preachers (good and bad ones) sell fire insurance more than anything... usually it's "if you don't come to Jesus you'll burn in hell" and such, but, well let me put it this way.

If hell was paradise, choosing to follow God would still be a better choice.

There is so much more to being a believer than not "roasting" at the end of our run here.

Think about it, the creator of the universe right there with us through it all, as our best friend (amongst other things).... yet I think that most people miss that, how sad.

I will have to say that a local church did one of those types of things, I don't think this was hell house, something else that I've seen other churches do though, amounts to about the same thing. They can be powerful tools in season.

PHIL

Postby **Fsiphskilm** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 9:01 pm

"If hell was paradise, choosing to follow God would still be a better choice."

Well yes, but most seculars don't see it the way you do, how do they know? They have no reason for following God, nor being afraid of hell. Of course like someone mensioned earlier, their church set up a nice haunted house and that's what i call Fear/faith balance, which works well, you give people the fear of reality and then a way out. As for the chick tracts, my freind bought me a samplers pack with ALL of them, i don't what's so horrible about them, they are imaginative, strange :lol:

, but creative in a not so okay strange way. I don't know. I think they just depict proof and the reader has the chioce to accept it or denie it. While there are certain Tracts i dissagree with and mark them as offensive, you, I and everyone here needs to understand that there is only 1 way to heaven, yes? Through god/jesus right? If this is the truth then what's the big deal about getting offended. You can't go through life and have everyone hide the truth from you so that you simply don't get hurt or offended. It's a process and cycle of life. Sooner or later you're going to come to the realization that what you beleave in isn't right or in full comodity with God's word and tossing it from your list of ideas and beleafs will become part of your everyday agenda. If we didn't tell the Gays they were wrong becasue we though they'd get offended then none of them would be saved like the few that are now. If we didn't preach to the Tribes of third world countries none of them would spiritually grow. It's no bigy. Offence is the begining of a debate, and if God really is the truth then you would have enough faith to mension him and his ways in front of non-beleavers, whether they are offended or not. :jump:

Postby **Technomancer** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 9:46 pm

Jack Chick is a disgusting bigot, who has done far more to damage people's opinons of Christianity than he has ever done to preach the Gospel. His tracts are filled with outright lies and misinformation; moreover, they cater to a certain mindset that rejects reason, fundamental human dignity, or any attempt to understand that which is different from ourselves.

How could anyone love a God as appalling as the one presented in Chick's tracts?

Halloween, it's just around the corner.

huh?

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