What is Halloween really all about?

Question

My friends have different opinions on why they don't/do celebrate Halloween. What do you think it's all about.
Is it
a) good
b) bad
Explain your answer!

Answer 1

It really depends on your reason for celebrating it!
It is always good to celebrate and get into the neighborly spirit. For some this is the only time they see who is living aroung them. So I say, It is healthy to get into the spirit and share with your friends but if you use it as an opportunity to grand stand religous ideals then it becomes overshadowed by guilt and pagan references.

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).

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 2

Halloween is good and bad, depending upon how people celebrate it.
For me, Halloween is a traditional, historical holiday. It is actually New Years Day in an old religion. The jack-o-lantern, that can be made out of pumpkins, gourds, or radishes, is actually based on an old tradition that went along with an old Halloween tale. As the tale went, Jack wasn't such a good guy. He was a gambler and a drunk. One night while he stumbled home, he ran into the devil, but didn't know who he was. The devil made a bet with him and if Jack lost, he would have to give the devil his soul. Unfortunately, Jack was a bad gambler, and her lost the bet. However, he didn't want to give up his soul without a fight, so he made a bargain with the devil that if he could find another soul to take his place the devil would leave him alone. The devil agreed. Jack wandered in the dark of the night looking for someone, but he couldn't see anything at all. Not even his own hand. He needed light. He found a garden with radishes. Jack quickly hallowed out the radish, put a candle in it, and held up his homemade lantern so he could see. When people saw Jack wandering through the land with his lantern at night, they knew he was looking for a soul to give to the devil. To confuse Jack, they made their own lanterns out of radishes, gourds, and pumpkins. They carried them when they wandered out on halloween night, so that Jack would see them and think that they were also looking for a soul to give to the devil. This way Jack would leave them alone.
For me Halloween is traditional, like telling this folktale.

For some it's a night when they do bad things, like vandalizing, stealing, or worse. Then they blame it on Halloween. Some people believe that Halloween, which is a Pagan holiday, is bad because they have been told that the Pagan religion is bad. Unfortunately, these people have never talked to a Pagan, or read about their religion to find out if they are really bad.
Halloween doesn't make people do bad things, they do bad things, because they are bad.
Halloween as a tradition of the Pagan beliefs isn't bad, it's actually New Year's for people of this religion. A day to begin a new year with new possibilities.

If you really want to know the truth, do some investigating. Although the internet is easier, go to a library and read some books. The internet has too many things to distract you, and a library actually is a better environment to decide for yourself is Halloween is bad or good.

Happy Hauntings!

Answer 3

Hallowe'en is certainly a pagan festival. There is nothing Christian about it - BUT there is really not a lot of Christianity in Christmas either. The year started for the pagan Celts on Samhain, when the dead could roam the Earth again, when animals were slaughtered and preperations for winter took place. The early church put all saint's day the same night as the old festival (all saint's day was much more important hundreds of years ago than today) - as they believed the day started at sunset.

Christmas itself occurs very close to the old pagan festival of the winter solstice and saturnalia - again a device used by the church to get pagans to change their gods, but keep their traditions. Many traditions (yule logs, carols and christmas trees) are pagan in origin.

If Christians don't have a problem with Christmas trees and worshipping the dollar at Christmas, I don't see why they should have a problem with Hallowe'en either.

Answer 4

Just nicked this off Wikepedia.....



Halloween, or Hallowe'en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, Halloween festivals, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses" and viewing horror films. Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is now celebrated in several parts of the western world, most commonly in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom.

The term Halloween (and its alternative rendering Hallowe'en) is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the eve of "All Hallows' Day",[1] also which is now known as All Saints' Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions,[2] until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints' Day from May 13 to November 1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints' Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day. Liturgically, the Church traditionally celebrated that day as the Vigil of All Saints, and, until 1970, a day of fasting as well. Like other vigils, it was celebrated on the previous day if it fell on a Sunday, although secular celebrations of the holiday remained on the 31st. The Vigil was suppressed in 1955, but was later restored in the post-Vatican II calendar.

Many European cultural traditions, in particular Celtic cultures, hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world, and when magic is most potent (according to, for example, Catalan mythology about witches and Irish tales of the Sídhe).

Answer 5

Halloween is only good or bad if it is made that way. It is a blend of several older holidays and most have lost their meaning in today's culture. Today it is really what we make it.

I think that Halloween is a chance for us to indulge our imaginations and interact with friends and neighbors. I, personally, don't care for the really disgusting or scary. I do like to dress up and enjoy spending time with friends. Of course the children enjoy the candy and costumes. For most of us it is an excuse to have a little imaginative fun.

There are some who use it as an opportunity to be mean or to celebrate evil. But in truth, those people have the same darkness in their hearts year round, you can't really blame it all on Halloween.

Answer 6

To understand Halloween, you need to accept one fact that opens up a lot of uncomfortable questions in today's society: the Christian religion is assembled from bits and pieces of other religions that came before it. As Christianity moved into new parts of Europe, the Church selectively allowed some people to keep practicing the holidays and festivals they were used to, as long as they professed a new, Christian reason for celebrating. So:

The end of the harvest season was marked by the Celts with a (in most places) three-day celebration of the coming winter called Samhain, dedicated to the spirits of their ancestors who were thought to walk among the living at that time. The customs of costumed revelry and mischief began as masked processions designed to ward off wicked or unpleasant ghosts. The generosity and feasting practiced during Samhain has filtered down to us as trick-or-treating, which, at its simplest, consists of asking someone for delicious food and never being turned away hungry.

When the Celts were Christianized, they weren't going to give up their giant community picnic and costume party without a fight, so the holiday was allowed to continue as "All Saints Day," or "All Hallows," with the religious aspects dedicated to the saints instead of the Celts' own ancestors--at least publicly. The night before All Hallows is All Hallows Eve, which eventually got contracted to Halloween.

So is Halloween evil? Absolutely not, and it's silly to think so. Is it Christian? Just barely, and they got it secondhand. Should anybody be afraid or ashamed to celebrate a holiday that started out as a way to honor and remember our ancestors? I hope not, because remembering where we came from and being thankful to the people who got us here is something our society could use a lot more of.

Answer 7

well to up tight religious people halloweens where you worship spirits and the devil or something like that but now a days people just use it as a way to get free candy

Answer 8

halloween is my favorite time of year ... beacuse of the vibe

i dont know what its about but its a godsend for thieves and muggers ... the only time of year when you can legally wear a mask on the street

anyway ... me and my mates usually go to epping forest, get drunk, have a bbq and attempt to summon something lolololol ... we know it wont work, its just that something freaky happens everytime we try

Answer 9

its good in the sense that you could get back at the people you hate by scaring them...

its bad in the sense that I GET SCARED too... =))

lol...

Answer 10

Its good because Its Irish, and so am I!