starheartbeam
10-31-2008, 09:14 AM
Just want to wish everyone a happy and safe Halloween! And have a little fun. :)
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drhowarddrfine
10-31-2008, 12:34 PM
I just find wishing someone "Happy Halloween" is weird. It's not any national holiday, religious celebration, rite of passage, noteworthy in any way except little kids dressing up to get candy, yet we wish glad tidings for this? That's just weird. (And don't come back at me about the superstitions of All Hallows Eve and all that.)
Shorts
10-31-2008, 03:06 PM
Happy Halloween.
Hitting up a costume party tomorrow, dressing as "Artie, the Strongest Man in the World!"
Hitting up a costume party tomorrow, dressing as "Artie, the Strongest Man in the World!"
starheartbeam
10-31-2008, 03:58 PM
noteworthy in any way except little kids dressing up to get candy, yet we wish glad tidings for this? That's just weird.
Halloween has it origin for many different places.
The Romans worshiped various gods and on Oct.31 a special feast was held in honor of Pomona (goddess of fruit trees).
The Druids also honored Samhain (lord of the dead) on Nov. 1. The Druids believed that on the night before Nov. 1 Samhain called together wicked souls that had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals. They where afraid of those souls so Oct. 31 was the day that they made sacrifices to their gods, to protect them. This explains why we have ghosts and witches and black cats as Halloween things in todays world.
Now trick or treating and jack -o-lanterns are from Ireland. Irish farmers would go from house to house begging for food in the name of their gods. Good luck was promised to those who gave treats. Others they said would be threated that they would be tricked.
The jack-o-lantern was an symbol of a damned soul. As the story goes...Jack was a man the was unable to enter heaven do to miserliness and unable to enter hell because he played jokes on the devil. Thus he was condemned to wander over the earth with his lantern until judgment day. They where so afraid of this happening to them the pumpkin was made into a jack-o-lantern to scare evil spirtis away.
Something different to think about for Oct. 31.... in 1517 Dr. Martin Luther published the simple, straightforward truth of the Bible. So the Bible came into the hands of the common people again on this day.
This is just a little bit of history on Oct. 31. Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 have a lot of history it is just that we have turned it into something very different. There are many different things that came together to make Halloween what it is today. It does have noteworthy things about it. And if you think Halloween is a odd Holiday try looking at some of the other Holiday's we have and tell me that all of them have real meanings.
But yes has the Holiday today stands it is a very odd one. But have fun anyway!!!
Halloween has it origin for many different places.
The Romans worshiped various gods and on Oct.31 a special feast was held in honor of Pomona (goddess of fruit trees).
The Druids also honored Samhain (lord of the dead) on Nov. 1. The Druids believed that on the night before Nov. 1 Samhain called together wicked souls that had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals. They where afraid of those souls so Oct. 31 was the day that they made sacrifices to their gods, to protect them. This explains why we have ghosts and witches and black cats as Halloween things in todays world.
Now trick or treating and jack -o-lanterns are from Ireland. Irish farmers would go from house to house begging for food in the name of their gods. Good luck was promised to those who gave treats. Others they said would be threated that they would be tricked.
The jack-o-lantern was an symbol of a damned soul. As the story goes...Jack was a man the was unable to enter heaven do to miserliness and unable to enter hell because he played jokes on the devil. Thus he was condemned to wander over the earth with his lantern until judgment day. They where so afraid of this happening to them the pumpkin was made into a jack-o-lantern to scare evil spirtis away.
Something different to think about for Oct. 31.... in 1517 Dr. Martin Luther published the simple, straightforward truth of the Bible. So the Bible came into the hands of the common people again on this day.
This is just a little bit of history on Oct. 31. Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 have a lot of history it is just that we have turned it into something very different. There are many different things that came together to make Halloween what it is today. It does have noteworthy things about it. And if you think Halloween is a odd Holiday try looking at some of the other Holiday's we have and tell me that all of them have real meanings.
But yes has the Holiday today stands it is a very odd one. But have fun anyway!!!
xvszero
10-31-2008, 04:11 PM
I just find wishing someone "Happy Halloween" is weird. It's not any national holiday, religious celebration, rite of passage, noteworthy in any way except little kids dressing up to get candy, yet we wish glad tidings for this? That's just weird. (And don't come back at me about the superstitions of All Hallows Eve and all that.)
Little kids? Only?
Erm... yeahhhhhhhhhh.
*cough*
Little kids? Only?
Erm... yeahhhhhhhhhh.
*cough*
Declan1991
10-31-2008, 04:30 PM
You're mixing your history up a good bit there. Samhain is the month of November (still is in Irish and Scots), or if used like "lá na samhna" (day of) it refers to the 1st of November specifically, and it also stands for the actual festival (Oíche Samhna).
The Celts believed that the boundary between the World of the Dead and living was blurred during Samhain, and they celebrated the harvest to protect it from the spirits. (It's not a great summary of Celtic beliefs, but it'll do).
Trick-or-treating is an old Christian tradition that has only recently been attached to Halloween, though I'm not sure when it started to be.
Halloween is really a mixture of a number of different things:
1) The Christian All Hallow's Even (or Eve), which used to be in May sometime, but was moved to November 1 (originally, both Halloween and All Hallows were considered to be on the same day, Nov. 1, but because of a different way of deciding when the new day begins, Halloween is now one day before All Hallows).
2) The vague idea of Oíche Samhna, the Celtic festival.
3) Trick-or-treating, a practice unrelated to Halloween until recently.
BTW, the view that Samhain was "Lord of the Dead" is held because misinformed so-called Druids hold the belief, going on the word of an even more misinformed 18th century historian. It is not the case at all. (From here on I could be wrong, I cannot remember fully), I THINK, that the Celts didn't actually have gods at all, but spirits. They had a very different perception of time to us (similar to what Yeats refers to with "perne in a gyre"), and these blurring of boundaries between life and death.
The Celts believed that the boundary between the World of the Dead and living was blurred during Samhain, and they celebrated the harvest to protect it from the spirits. (It's not a great summary of Celtic beliefs, but it'll do).
Trick-or-treating is an old Christian tradition that has only recently been attached to Halloween, though I'm not sure when it started to be.
Halloween is really a mixture of a number of different things:
1) The Christian All Hallow's Even (or Eve), which used to be in May sometime, but was moved to November 1 (originally, both Halloween and All Hallows were considered to be on the same day, Nov. 1, but because of a different way of deciding when the new day begins, Halloween is now one day before All Hallows).
2) The vague idea of Oíche Samhna, the Celtic festival.
3) Trick-or-treating, a practice unrelated to Halloween until recently.
BTW, the view that Samhain was "Lord of the Dead" is held because misinformed so-called Druids hold the belief, going on the word of an even more misinformed 18th century historian. It is not the case at all. (From here on I could be wrong, I cannot remember fully), I THINK, that the Celts didn't actually have gods at all, but spirits. They had a very different perception of time to us (similar to what Yeats refers to with "perne in a gyre"), and these blurring of boundaries between life and death.
NogDog
10-31-2008, 10:21 PM
It's interesting that at least here in the USA, while the Roman Catholic church has always been a minority here (though steadily growing now, in part due to the influx of people from Latin America), we have widespread holiday observances - if largely secular in nature now - nominally derived from the Roman Catholic calendar: Saint Patrick's Day, Saint Valentine's day, and Halloween (an attempt to merge pagan spirituality into something to do with All Saints' Day).
Now we celebrate them here in a mainly secular manner, fostered by the businesses that make their income from them: beer and spirits manufacturers for St. Patrick's Day; greeting card, florists, and candy makers for St. Valentine's; and costume makers and the candy makers again for Halloween. Heck, the alcoholic beverage syndicate even has started promoting Cinco de Mayo: the anniversary of Mexico's victory over the French at Puebla de Los Angeles.
Maybe it's time to cut out all the subterfuge and just have a national Get Drunk holiday, a Buy Everyone You Know a Greeting Card day, and a Give Out Free Candy day.
:rolleyes:
Now we celebrate them here in a mainly secular manner, fostered by the businesses that make their income from them: beer and spirits manufacturers for St. Patrick's Day; greeting card, florists, and candy makers for St. Valentine's; and costume makers and the candy makers again for Halloween. Heck, the alcoholic beverage syndicate even has started promoting Cinco de Mayo: the anniversary of Mexico's victory over the French at Puebla de Los Angeles.
Maybe it's time to cut out all the subterfuge and just have a national Get Drunk holiday, a Buy Everyone You Know a Greeting Card day, and a Give Out Free Candy day.
:rolleyes:
drhowarddrfine
10-31-2008, 11:28 PM
Halloween has it origin for many different places.
(And don't come back at me about the superstitions of All Hallows Eve and all that.) See! See! There's one in every crowd.
(And don't come back at me about the superstitions of All Hallows Eve and all that.) See! See! There's one in every crowd.
drhowarddrfine
10-31-2008, 11:38 PM
Maybe it's time to cut out all the subterfuge and just have a national Get Drunk holiday, a Buy Everyone You Know a Greeting Card day, and a Give Out Free Candy day.
:rolleyes:
Absolutely! I've believed we should even round them all up and have one or two "holiday" days on every first Friday or Monday of the month totaling the number of holidays we now have. You can name them what you want. OK, maybe keep Christmas and Thanksgiving where they are, but January is Minorities Holiday, February is President's Holiday, March is Handicap Awareness Holiday and so on.
I always call them one of two things. Either, thank-God-I-get-a-day-off Day or damn-it-I-didn't-know-they-were-closed-today Day. In almost all cases they are artifical and unobserved holidays.
:rolleyes:
Absolutely! I've believed we should even round them all up and have one or two "holiday" days on every first Friday or Monday of the month totaling the number of holidays we now have. You can name them what you want. OK, maybe keep Christmas and Thanksgiving where they are, but January is Minorities Holiday, February is President's Holiday, March is Handicap Awareness Holiday and so on.
I always call them one of two things. Either, thank-God-I-get-a-day-off Day or damn-it-I-didn't-know-they-were-closed-today Day. In almost all cases they are artifical and unobserved holidays.
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