A little warning would have been nice.

So my husband and my three children set off on halloween night to a halloween carnival advertised in the paper.
The advertisment was pretty brief but said something along the lines o0f 'Candy games and fun for the town all indoors to beat the cold"

So we went expecting to have some ghoolish fun.

As we walk in we are handed a little knitted cross and a sticker that says Jesus Loves Me. There is a band playing singing god songs of worship and praise. Posters that children have colored saying things like "Put the Lord in Halloween"
One poster had a picture of a pumpkin with a halo about his "head"

I was furious. I was so mad I could have spit right there!

So we turn right around to leave and the lady says "You just walked in, why are you leaving?" I said "Because your add said nothing about this being a celebration of *your* god whom I don't worship, we came for candy and fun not a gospel session"

*sigh*

Would have been so hard to have put a warning on it?

To my christian brothers and sisters~ I love y'all, but c'mon...we all don't beleive in the same things!

 

I suppose I agree, there should've been more info.

But, you did the right thing by walking out if you disagreed with it.

 

At least it was only a harvest party and not a Hell House. Those are just evil and will scar your children for life.

But I agree, the religious nature of it should have been underlined. It was disingenuous to trick people into going to what they thought was a secular party and then blindsiding them with religion.

 

ugh, i saw that on CNN..made me sick

 

You guys are all off your rocker.

God DOES belong in Halloween. Why do you think He created Halloween in the first place?

(laughs)

And if you don't believe me, you can go to Hell!

(end sarcasm)

 

Not good when people who promote (preach) truth and honesty do anything but themselves.

At my son's church (he's going through the bloody 'born again' phase) he tells me of tradesmen at the church who charge twice as much as any other tradesman to christians in the congregation because ~ get this!! ~ you can trust them!! Bloody hell!!
Does that make sense to anyone

 

My uncle tries to con me and my mum into their Christian crap. Dinner parties with their churchies and giving us bibles for presents at christmas

I agree, it should've been advertised.

MrRee, must be hard having your son believe in something you strongly disagree with(or so I've gathered from your posts).
Just curious, and you don't have to answer this, but do you have a good relationship with him despite his beliefs(and core ones at that) differing so greatly from yours? Does he try to preach to you?

 

My son and I have a great relationship, and it doesn't worry me at all that he's making the same mistakes that I made. The truth is, we learn everything by making mistakes - walking, riding a bike, writing, arithmetic, relationships, work, living itself..... you name it we learn by making mistakes, so that's nature's way!
I also have great faith. I have more faith than any christian will ever have. I have faith that no matter what "mistake" one makes, it is but a part of life's learning process and is nothing to be worried, guilty, or condemned over. I have absolute faith that this universe is divinely benevolent. It nurtures life and love, and we here are in It, living in it, by it, through it, from it, for it, of it, with it, as it. In that, there is no "right" or "wrong". There is simply Love and Life. But you'll find none of the beauty of life until you remove it from your life, and it is when they are absent that they will be missed, and it is when they are missed that they'll be searched for. Christianity robs people of the very living & loving connection that allows the fullness of the expression of Love that resides within each and every one of us. Our need to Love overcomes all obstacles. Even religion. Except in the most hardened of hearts.
Because we are free, we are free to learn. My son is no different to me, or anyone else for that matter.
He doesn't preach to me 'cause he knows that I've got the answers, but he chokes on some of life's little truths that I make available from time to time. My wife told him he was stupid for not screwing his girlfriend when they went overseas together for a year, but they've got the fear-of-hell-if-they-sin syndrome, and that's sad

 

It is so wrong to do something like that and so two faced - If I had advertised a harvest festival and had had a nude harvest queen. They would have carried me off to jail. If I was lucky enough to escape the lynch mob. However, for them to use false advertising to attract us to see material that we might find offensive is just 100% OK, Wonder if the ACLU would take an interest. You were after all exposed to potential trauma - I understand they often show pictures of a human being nailed to a piece of wood. That could cause posttraumatic stress syndrome in anybody.

 

can some one tell me what a hell party is I come from the uk I don't think we have such things over here!

I'm presuming it is a meeting in which children are warned against the fires of hell?
S

 

I was also going to ask.. what exactly is a "hell house"?

On the topic, I am a Christian and I also disagree with the lack of information that it was a Christian based event. That was sneaky and disrespectful, and if they weren't trying to be sneaky on purpose, they were at the very least extremely close minded. I'm sorry you had that experience, it makes me sad.

 

Nevermind. Found this on the internet, which answered my question. Here is the link for anyone else interested: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallo_he.htm

How awful. I don't agree with this, AT ALL.

 

Link posted above is better info - use it - That post and mine came up at about the same time or I would not have posted.




From Wikipedia - go and give them money at once

A hell house, also commonly known as a judgment house, is a haunted house-style attraction typically run by evangelical Christian churches or parachurch groups. These attractions are meant to depict the divine judgements that await unrepentant sinners and the torments of the damned in Hell. They are typically operated in the days preceding Halloween.

A hell house, like a conventional haunted house attraction, is a space set aside in which actors attempt to frighten patrons with gruesome exhibits. Unlike the conventional haunted house attraction, the hell house focuses on occasions and effects of sin, or the fate of unrepentant sinners in the afterlife. The motivation for the event occurring during the month of October before Halloween is to take advantage of the similarities between hell houses and conventional haunted houses.

The first hell house may have been created by Jerry Falwell in the late 1970s. Similar events began in several regions during that period. More recently, the concept has been promoted by Pastor Keenan Roberts, originally of Roswell, New Mexico, who started a well-known hell house there in 1992. Since that time, hell houses have become a regular fixture of the Halloween season. Pastor Roberts remains active in what he calls his hell house ministry by providing kits and directions to enable churches to perform their own attractions. He is now the senior pastor of Destiny Church Of The Assemblies Of God where Hell House is still performed each year in the month of October.

The exhibits at a hell house often have a remarkably political tone and tend to focus on sins that are also issues of concern to the religious right in the United States. Hell houses frequently feature exhibits that are meant to depict sin and its consequences. Common examples include abortion, homosexuality, suicide, use of alcoholic beverages and other recreational drugs, adultery and pre-marital sex, the occultism, and Satanic ritual abuse.[1] Given the theology of the churches that sponsor them, hell houses typically emphasise the belief that anyone who does not accept Jesus as their personal saviour is damned to Hell. However, these politically controversial sins are usually singled out for special criticism in a typical hell house. Hell houses have been criticised for misleading potential patrons that they are a conventional Halloween attraction rather than an evangelical presentation.

 

I've had the same kind of thing happen yellow.. but I lasted a lil bit longer.. I stayed for about ten minutes while the kids ran around getting free christan candy (where do they find candy crosses anyway...sheese) but the final straw was when they started to wash off my daughters face (she was the undead lol) I snatched her up and politely informed them that I had spent almost an hour on it... they were still trying to convince me it was wrong to paint her dead while I walked out.... goodness

 

Terrifying impressionable children into salvation, lying, gay bashing, manipulation aplenty...I'm sure Christ would be so proud of those people who took his name and call this their religion. And yet christians (these same christians doing all this crap) seem to think us "unbelievers" are the bad, sinful, out to get their religion, and deserving of punishment. They are their own worst enemy.

I wish the kind and tolerant of the christian community (that is supposedly out there - I keep hearing about them as a defense in these forums) would speak out over stuff like this. I have never seen any large condemnation of such actions from the christian community for their peer's disreputable behavior.

Why are these fools not ostracized from your community? Protestants AND Catholics are old pro's at ostracizing peoples with beliefs they disagree with (just ask the natives of any land they have ever touched...)

 

all power to you for putting a link to something that shows extreem versions of your religion in such a bad light.
I feel that the divine cries tears on misguided individuals that have not the slightest idea of how their actions can hurt individuals in countless ways.
not to mention harming the christian movement that is more gentle and less extreem.
On a lighter note when I clicked on some of the links within the article, due to an on going virus, my computer took me to a porn site, which I think is very ironic
S

 

You want your son to screw some girl? Why? ( He won't go to hell for fornicating BTW, but what he WILL do is destroy the present he was to keep for his future wife. I admire that he's fighting his temptations. )

And where's your tolerance? Don't you respect your son's choice to be a Christian? -There's a reson we have free will, your sons gonna grow up some day...(BTW: What Church does he go to? Just out of curiosity. )

Sorry, just needed to get rid of that...I'm happy you're gonna put your life in Christ's hands some day though. Hallelujah!


BTW: I don't mind that they didn't put a notice. I doubt you would have anything against it if was 'all Buddhas'.
Also, the Hell-house thing wouldn't bring much for G-d's kingdom, maybe turn a few people anti-Christian instead.

 

it is the religious tolerance website...have you ever visited it before? the basic plot of it is that it tries to present a non-biased view of many world religions [and denominations]...and within most religions, they also present a [or some] areas where there have been controversy inside the religion too...

for example, the Baha'i one has something on the issues with womens rights, and Islam has one about extremeism etc...

 

Why is it that people in America think they have the right to start parenting your children for you?

 

disagree what ever religion it is, it should be open. that way the person can make an informed choice of what they are walking into.
I don't have a problem with buddism, I would however have a problem with walking into a meeting that I thought was something else and ended up in being just an exersice in pushing buddism on me, its deciet.
I agree with the second half of your comment though about it turning people anti-christian, I doubt wether any christians out there with respect for human rights would approve with Hell houses at all.
S