What is Halloween really about?

Question

Is it a trick or a treat. I am going to be doing a teaching on it and I would like all kinds of opinions. From Pagan to Christian to see what it is truly about.

Answer 1

Good question! Just a holiday for the young and old? Just enjoy this mysterious holiday as you did every year...

Answer 2

You are going to get anti Halloween answers here most likely. I'll tell you what it IS NOT though.

1. It has nothing to do with Satan or devils regardless of what fundamentalists will say here.

Halloween falls at the same time as Samhain..a harvest festival and a farewell to summer. Nothing devilish about that.

Here is what the history channel says about it:

"Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
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The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas."

Answer 3

What Halloween is TO ME:

It's about bonding time with my children. The fun of finding costumes together and having fun with them. It's about taking the walk around town and visiting all the stores who do 'trick or treating' and then the night door-to-door stops and the pictures and the grandparents reactions to the costumes

Answer 4

It's Samhain (Gaelic for "Summer's End") - the end of summer, the end of the year. The barrier between the land of the living and the land of the dead is the thinnest - so it's somewhat like Memorial Day, commemorating those who have been lost.

Answer 5

The legend goes: Once a year, all the departed spirits return to earth, and you're supposed to dress up as one of them so they won't know you're still alive and take you back to the land of the dead with them. (Now it's just all about candy! yay!)

Answer 6

It's a fun holiday that you get to be anything you want to be, and eat lots of candy without feeling guilty.

Answer 7

All Hallow's Eve...do a search on that.

Nowadays it's an excuse for women to dress up and be as slutty as possible without being accused of being a hooker.

Answer 8

I am a Christian..Halloween is the Eve of All Saints..Years ago some evil druids released some devils from prison at Stone Henge.Good druids had to call Saints to recapture all of them..So the night before All the Saints captured them they ran wild...People remember it by dressing up.It is not evil if remembered that it is a triumph over evil by good..God bless.

Answer 9

it's a celebration exclusively for Satan - there's a lot of ignorance in this celebration - you don't even know what happens behind it. in the most dark scene, in the most remote places and metropolitan cities... if you do some research you'll find out.. and do some physical research if u know what I mean . all i can say is be careful with this - it may have the innocent feeling of children asking for candy - but there's a spiritual and dark feeling behind it.

Answer 10

Better to ask what would Jesus do? Any participation would be against God's laws. Would you give a cigaret liter to a child to play with unsupervised? Fooling around with halloween is no better.l