Try again. How come in America which seams so Christian the celebration of a pagen festival?

Question

on 31 Oct' is accepted ?

A person Check your history all Christian festivals are stollen pagen festivals !

I don't brand things as Pagen ( being bad ) I am Wican .

Origional pre celtic and was a three day festival

Answer 1

dear Rikstir, you'll find a lot of so-called Christian rituals are steeped in pagan roots...no offense to anyone, but it is so...
:-)

Answer 2

The public observance of Halloween has NOTHING to do with religion, it is NOT the Pagan festival that you allude-to. All it entails is a little costume-wearing, the getting of candy, (And not a few sugar-overload tummy-aches as well) and the occaisional party. The spazz-specialists who rail about Halloween being unchristian had better take another look at Easter/Eostar. (See link) What we celebrate (Publicly) as Easter has more in common with pagan festivals of spring and fertility than anything to do with their supposed raison. Christmas itself is more a commercial celebration than what it originally was intended to be, perhaps the closest thing to that still in existance would be the Eastern orthodox observances. Getting back to your original question, Freedom of religion would have some bearing on acceptance of ANY religious observance. While the majority of the nation's population might BE christian, they are prevented from depriving others of their personal observations of faith by that particular ammendment that protects them as well.

Answer 3

People Celebrate an Event to remember a Tradition . It does not have to be Connected to a religion. They celebrate a Good Harvest- The coming of The rains in some countries. The birth of -the defeat of - the start of . All kinds of Peoples Celebrate Christmas, not just Christians . People celebrate the Birth of a Nation. It does not mean everything you brand as Pagan has to be Bad.

Answer 4

Probably because most people enjoy it as a bit of fun that no longer has anything to do with past religious expression.

Most religions have adapted parts of other faiths into their workings; although this is clearly not what is happening with regard to Halloween!

One might equally ask what kids going out knocking on doors, singing a song telling people that their sons should be blessed and asking for sweets accompanied by an adult dressed up as a horse has to do with Ramadan? (Gaurgaroon).

Celebrations come in all sorts and sizes. There is no harm if none is intended. Enjoy!!!

Answer 5

There are traditions that trascend religion. Halloween is one of them, Druidic I believe in origin therefore common in Celtic people who were one of the prominent groups of the earlier settlers of the USA. The celebration is festive, not religious, no invocations to deities are involved. The Catholic Church, which is numerous but hardly the majority, is against the celebration. And by the way, in the Catholic calendar of festivities, November 1st and 2nd are dates conmemorating the faithfull dead and none is called Halloween, therefore, there there is a nearness of dates but it is not the same. Not October 31st, anyway.

Answer 6

Freedom of religion?

And also, it's a secular celebration for most people. It has no meaning to them, beyond candy and parties.

Why is everyone all, "You can't celebrate that! It's not part of your religion!" So what? We celebrate lots of things that have nothing to do with religion. Why is celebrating considered a bad thing, when it's connected to someone else's religion?

Edit to the below: It's a harvest festival. It has nothing to do with your religion, so quit trying to demonize it. Are you really that insecure in your beliefs that you need to cry over spilt candy?

Answer 7

Because the Americans know how to have a half decent time..

for all those who said its a christen holiday...do your research it was brought into the christien calender along with easter and christmas...do you really think christ was born on dec 25th???

Halloween is a celebration of life and death

it just has a bad rep due to a few bad people ruining it for the rest of us

i say to all those bits out there..celebrate it, we dont have many traditonal celebrations left in this country.

Answer 8

that's not particularly staggering to assert that they are "definitely" pagan fairs. fairly, the early church chosen to set particularly some Christian celebrations on an analogous time as already latest pagan fairs, often to lead them to much less confusing for human beings to settle for and assimilate into the cycle of the 365 days. as an occasion, we don't definitely understand while Jesus became into born, yet many cultures on the time celebrated a iciness competition on the tip of the harvest and formerly the months of deep iciness began. It made experience to set a Christian competition then, to teach historical yule (or in spite of it became into referred to as in a given place) right into a Christian holiday. we are able to be optimistic that Jesus's dying befell interior the spring, by way of fact it befell on the time of the Jewish Passover. in spite of the shown fact that, many cultures had spring fairs, so it wasn't confusing to conflate those fairs with the social gathering of Christ's resurrection. The officers of the early church have been clever adult men. They knew they had to make it quite undemanding for pagans to settle for the recent faith, and co-opting those holiday trips became into one way they did it.

Answer 9

You're right "SEEMS" xtian but as a matter of fact we have every religion in the world living here and openly practicing..also those who lack belief in religion are in huge numbers..so why do we celebrate halloween? because its fun..

Answer 10

I'd hate to tell you the truth, but you need to hear it. I'm quite aware that the mental status of fundamentalists is usually rather shockingly low, but just in case there is a mind still operable inside your head, here it is.

The PAGANS did not create Halloween.......

You Christians did (at least the Roman Catholics) which to Protestant Fundamentalists aren't "real" Christians anyway but since I'm not of your faith at all, I don't care who is a "real" Christian or not.

Here's how Halloween started. It goes back to the Middle Ages in Europe, where in the Roman Catholic countries the Festival of All Saints took place on November 1st. All Saints is also known as All Hallows. It was the Holiest day in the year next to Christmas and Easter. On this day the forces of God and the Saints were at an apex.

A very stupid superstition arose among the peasant classes which the church actually encouraged as it was good for business, as it is said [LaVey's Satanic Bible] "Satan is the best friend the church ever had, as he's kept it in business all these years." You see if All Hallow's Day or All Saints Day is the holiest, the day just before it or All Hallow's Eve became the strongest day for evil forces, demons and the superstition arose (and goes back to antiquity) that on this day alone the dead can walk among the living. This is much like the Hungry Ghost festival in Buddhist countries, also a product of main-stream religion or priestcraft.

So ran this stupid superstition about the dead and the forces of evil walking among the living on All Hallow's Eve or October 31st.

So how did we get to Trick or Treat?

In the Middle-Ages college and seminary students liked to dress up and scare the Be-Jeezus out of superstitious commoners. It was a big joke, especially among young people. In time Halloween was taken over by commercial enterprises that converted Halloween in to a childhood dress up day, where you can dress up as some fantasy character from Dracula to Superman and collect candy.

This evolved from the later European customs of giving apples and whatnot to children dressed as the dead on this day (much like the Hungry Ghost festival where cakes are baked for the dead to consume) who'd say "Trick or Treat" meaning if they gave you they got a blessing from you on behalf of the dead, if they turned you away, they'd get a year's bad luck!

Now you know the REST OF THE STORY.

And if you wonder why America is declining as a world power it is the pathetic excuse for education especially found among backwoods fundamentalists who've never read a book in their life outside of the Bible. Why then the mispelling of "seem" and "pagan" as "seams" and "pagen" in your question?

Besides, in case you wanted to know, America was not intended at any time by the Founding Fathers to be a Christian nation. Billy Graham, bless his soul, admitted this (and the only fundie I know who has) in a speech published not too many years ago. I'll quote Dr. Billy Graham for you, as you might listen to him as one of your own and instead of me, "America was never intended by the Founding Fathers to be a Christian nation. It was instead a nation which granted religious liberty for all , a nation, where the majority of people happened to be Christian."

So you want to know how a Pagan festival as you see it can exist in a predominantly Christian nation? The Constitution allows it under the 1st and 3rd Amendments, Numnuts. Don't like Halloween, don't dress up and go trick-or-treating. Just remember tho': You won't get any CANDY!

But as for me, I'm Jewish. I have to wait for Hanukkah to get my candy! To put it bluntly, Christian problems ain't mine.
But this year, I'm doing Halloween. I'm going as Adolf Hitler and will scare the bloody hell out of everybody!

Answer 11

Check your history. Halloween is a Christian holiday to celebrate the souls of the faithful departed.