Your opinions please

anew

First, I apologize if this goes through twice, I cannot find the original post. My question is how do you feel about Halloween. I grew up as JW and never celebrated anything. I do now. I will not celebrate Halloween however as I believe it of the devil. The world acknowledges this and the holiday's origins undeniable. I would not allow my child to be involved in this one holiday as I do believe in evil spirits and want nothing to do with them. What do you think on this topic?

unbeliever

I love Halloween. I don't belive in the devil or spirits. To me its a holiday for children and I enjoy celebrating it with my neices and nephews and taking them trick or treating.

Jez

I use to think that Halloween was an evil holiday, now I see it as a way for society to look at the dark side of life and not be afraid of it. I think that every culture has their way of looking at death, dying, the spirit world etc and this is ours. I believe it is good if we do not take it all so serious and it is our way of poking fun at evil and saying, WE are in control, WE are not afraid and we can take the piss out of it all.

It is why kids and adults fell in love so much with Harry Potter as well. The spirit realm will always be of interest to humans, we love to guess how it is, could be etc and the delving into it allows us to face our fears therefore conquer them. Not to be afraid of death, go on, have some fun with it even.

I am no longer afraid of Halloween, I see it as a ways of preserving culture and feel that it does serve a purpose in society other than just the fun of dressing up and candy. (although that is great too!) Many other cultures have ways of 'celebrating death' 'looking at death/evil' and accepting it, this is ours.

Each to his own though, Jez

lisaBObeesa

I love Halloween. My children have the greatest time on that holiday! I have never, ever in my entire life ever seen a child or adult become possessed by wicked spirits for ANY REASON, and certainly never because they celebrated Halloween .

StinkyPantz

This is a holiday that the entire world acknowledges as being of the devil and associated with evil.

I have never really celebrated it myself, but I will allow my children to. I don't believe in the devil, and as far as I can see humans are about the only "evil" entities in existance.

lisaBObeesa

This is a holiday that the entire world acknowledges as being of the devil and associated with evil.

I have never, ever met a person who actually was a devil worshiper or something and celebrated Halloween in some evil way. Never.

I have never met a non-JW (or maybe exjw) who believed it was 'of the devil' or 'associated with evil.'

People are just dressing up in costumes for the day, eating candy and having fun. For fun. That?s all. Just fun. There is no evil to it. It is just a holiday that turns social conventions on their heads. Many cultures have them. They are for fun.

For the most part, the only people who think it is evil are strict fundamentalist Christians and JWs. To the whole rest of our culture, the only thing evil about it is the unwanted weight gain that comes from eating all your kid?s candy for a month afterward!

Mysterious

I just wanted to snag your other thread here for you so you dont miss any comments. http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/77401/1.ashx

Edit: You can use your own posting history to find threads as well: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/member/14055.ashx (post history and topic history) and your name should be in the top left of the screen hot linked if you are logged in. Cheers.

New Castles

SP your avatar is very distracting.....Whoa!

I would celebrate it, just for the costumes...

myauntfanny

I'm neutral about Halloween. I never celebrated it as a kid (of course) but other than the candy I had no real interest. I'm not a dressing up and saying boo! sort of person. I don't know if I believe in evil spirits or not. Probably I don't, although sometimes the way people behave makes me wonder. But I don't have any feeling that Halloween is about evil spirits. I think that deep down it's a holiday that is about remembering our dead ancestors. I think this is reflected by the fact that it is actually a very joyous holiday.

edited to add a missing word

Odrade

well, it's a pagan holiday, but it's not an evil one. It just got attached to evil by Puritanical Christians who wanted to stomp out paganism. The name is Hallowed Evening (or sacred evening--not so evil sounding any more--it's not HELLevening.) AKA All Saints Day (the next day I believe.)

If you go to a traditional pagan celebration of Halloween it's really quite lovely and natural. Plus, even the traditional modern celebration is really about having fun. The idea of appeasing evil spirits is kind of a deviation.

BTW, I like Halloween. My doggy was a jack-o-lantern last year. This year I'm gonna be something... don't know what yet...

Odrade

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