Origins of Halloween

Well, that is true. Constantine, with the Catholic church, basically stole every pagan religion and replaced it with a christian counterpart in order to more easliy sway people to christianity. So technically, halloween is a catholic holiday, whereas Samhain was the cletic celebration of summers end, which had been being celebrated many years prior to the beginning of the catholic holiday. But that was all mentioned in the links I gave.

 

Why do modern, intelligent people still insist on regurgitating Dark Age lies and misunderstanding about pagan religions? Aren't we all smarter than that?

It is well known that the priests of the time told their congregations that the pagans weren't simply worshiping in the old ways they always had, but no, they were worshipping the devil! This is an instrument of hatered, can't we move beyond these stupid stereotypes?

 

I can see that you're coming from a place of ignorance on the subject.

Also, who says getting power from the Earth is getting power from the devil? Why can't it be God?

And if we dress up as ghosts and devils, isn't it more like making fun of the devil? If religion has no sense of humor, it is dangerous, and becomes fanatical. You have to be able to step back and laugh about it, or it's not working right.

 

I see some people still resent the fact that mass amounts of 'Pagans' converted to Christianity and decided to celebrated and institute their own new holidays at the same time as the old ones.

Sorry folks but 'Dates' on the calendar are not patented and trademarked.

Hey.. if One Billion people in India decide to make Oct 31'st 'Sacred Elephantoween' then that is there right.
Its not 'stealing' anything from 'Pagans' - its there entire right to do so.

Hey.. if you want to get out your 'Magick the gathering' cards and your made in Taiwan 'Pentagram' necklaces and pretend you are better than everyone else by refering to God as a 'Goddess' - then that is your right to do so on Halloween.

No one is gonna stop ya!

 

All I'm saying is that pagans did not worship the devil, as being pagans they obviously did not believe in the christian devil...

 

Yet another holiday taken over to get society to spend money. Honestly, I love Halloween... I love horror movies, I like dressing up. I am trying to get away from that.

 

First, I am not pagan, but I do resent many of the actions of the church in the past, yes. Everyone should though. Even the pope does.

Second, I suggest you read up about Constantine. It wasn't masses of converted pagans that decided to celebrate christian holidays on the same days as pagan ones. It was Constantine. He did it in an effort to stamp out paganism.

Except it wasn't billions, or even millions, or even thousands. It was one man in an effort to destroy paganism. Maybe not stealing, but a dirty trick. I'm sure Jesus was sure pround of christians using his birthday the way the church did. And making up other holidays in his name to convert people. I'm sure Jesus would have loved "the end justifies the means" mentality

Yeah, you have a good grip on what paganism is...


Read up on Constantine, and his replacement of pagan with christian holidays:
http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/EastEurope/ConstantineConverts.CP.html

http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/comp/cw06preChristian32100502.htm

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/Catholicism/catholic.htm

http://www.realtruthmag.org/articles/0202-prh.html

I'll even give you christian sources:

http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/holidays2.htm

http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1999/dec6/9te085.html

http://biblicalholidays.com/Excerpts/What%20happened.htm

http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/valentin.html

 

Face it folks.. Halloween, Christmas and now Easter have been bought and sold by the new religion called 'Consumerism' and we must all worship at its glass doors and food courts.
No one to blame but ourselves either.

 

Excpet in this thread we are discussing the orgins of halloween...

 

The origins of Halloween are Christian.

This has been explained and you have agreed with this.

You happen to believe Pagans were very stupid and weak minded and could be 'forced' to make choices by having a holiday declared.
But that is beside the point and is your own opinion to have i guess.

 

Your snide attitude doesn't score you any points.
It's interesting how you have used this thread to twice make fun of a religion that you obviously know little about.

The orgins of halloween are not christian. I never agreed to it. What I did agree to is that the catholics stole the tradition for pagans.

And the pagans are no more stupid for falling for christianity than you or any other christian. Do you feel stupid?

Maybe you should research the history of religion a bit before acting like such a smart-ass.

 

November first was declared 'All Saints Day'.

The Evening before it is called 'All Hallowed's Eve'

Hallow'een.

This was instituted by The Christian Church.

(Please explain where you are having a problem here so far??)

I have no doubt that there have been .. any number.. of Harvest celebrations on the same exact day.
Probably thousands of different names of holidays in hundreds of different cultures.

This topic asked about the Christian one called 'Halloween'.

Please specify where you have a problem with any of this?

 

Well there is the first post for you. Which shows you how we got on the topic. The original poster was obviously leading towards the early orgins of the celebration in general.

 

Brocktoon, did you even read the first post?

It is not Christian, and even in your world if it was, why would they look down on their own holiday now? Why is it now a devils holiday?

It's not, because it's not Christian.

 

Yes, Halloween is the name for the evening before All Saints Day.

I suppose Devil Worshippers might have some celebration happening on the same evening.. or once had a special Devil celebration at that time?

What happened before Christianity.. well Ive heard that various religions in various parts of Europe and UK had various celebrations... some of those traditions are still emulated today.
(although often with little or no symbolic meaning left at all)

Im also told Trekkie-type grouplets of modern 'Pagans' (whatever that means) get together and have Magick-the Gathering parties where they pretend to be witches and warlocks etc?

 

Brockton, there has been plenty of information that has been linked to about the orgins of halloween. Please read it before you start talking about devil worshippers and magic gathering cards.

The celebratin started under Cletic and druids, as celebrating summers end and appeasing the spirits of the dead. It was also a time to relieve stress and act silly. FOr the druids human sacrifice was also involved.

Then the catholic church made a holiday on that day to attract pagans to their religion. So talk about a symboless holiday. You can thank the catholics for that one.

You say "I suppose they may have had some celebration on that day..." but it isn't a suppose, it was purposely covered by the catholic holiday.

Every pagan holiday has been covered by a catholic one. Not just halloween.

How would you like it if Islam, the fastest growing religion in the world, replaced christian celebrations with similar ones of their own in order to sway people over to their religion (since it is similar)? You would definitely feel like the holiday was stolen, and that is was no coincidence.

 

There is no 'replacing' of anything.
There is a coinciding celebration to accomodate Christians. (or Muslims in your example)
If people are 'swayed' to convert their belief system because some others are celebrating on the same day.. then really that is their silly choice.

Happy Ramadan!

 

Brocktoon

Christainity hijacked a whole bunch of stuff.

People celebrated life a LONG while before christ...or mohamad
Like 10 thousand years.

Wake up . Christians and mohamad came along 3/4's of the way through human history
And you suggest they are the be_all and end_all..

Human dates for cellebration are the same now as they were before christ or the prophet from arabia
THE prophet showed up in 600 ad
Thats 3600 years after recorded history.
In none of those 3600 years ..was your god a god.
He only became a god..when enough people believed it...

THAT IS RELIGION.
Religions are a product of the number of people that believe them

WakeyWakey

Occam

 

There was definitely "replacing" it was very strategic and Constantine's motives have been documented in history. He was replacing pagan celebrations with christian ones. It is exactly what he was doing, it is common knoweldge to anyone who doesn't want to be in denial about how their christian traditions came to be.

And so you think it is completely ethical of a religion to use tactics like the catholic church? And you can't understand why pagans would feel like their traditions and holidays were stolen?

 

Sera

Agreed

Occam