Christians and Halloween

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A Christian might say "it's for the children" or "what's the harm in it?" or "how is getting free candy evil?"

The Encyclopedia Americana says: “Elements of the customs connected with Halloween can be traced to a Druid [ancient Celtic priesthood] ceremony in pre-Christian times. The Celts had festivals for two major gods—a sun god and a god of the dead . . . , whose festival was held on November 1, the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The festival of the dead was gradually incorporated into Christian ritual.”

Additional References
http://www.history.com/topics/halloween
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/culture/halloween.html
http://www.neopagan.net/Halloween-Origins.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

Halloween's origins are steeped in Paganism. If you are a Christian and you follow the bible's teachings the best you can, then how can you in all good conscience call yourself a Christian if you celebrate a pagan holiday? The fact of the matter is any Christian celebrating Halloween is practicing paganism. Something to think about...

The bible contains more answers than you can believe, but answers can only be found through personal study. Honestly pray to God for help and a way will be opened for you.

Ummmm.....considering that even many christian conservatives celebrate Halloween, I think the OP might just be the reincarnation of Heinrich Kramer. For those of you who don't know....Kramer was the inquisitor who authored the "Malleus Maleficarum" in the 15th century.

Why does it seem like whackjob christians these days are always trying to out-whack other whackjob christians???

What's next? A whackjob christian who will call for the execution of all those who fart on Sunday or something?

I've watched at least two fundamentalist guys give a sermon about halloween. They said it was like celebrating Satan's existance, and that the holiday blindly supported demon worship. "We are poisoning our childrens' minds, by allowing them to think it's ok to dress as Satan, the opposite sex, or a witch."

If it wasn't for companies like M&M Mars, Hershey's, and such, there might not be any thing remotely Christian today

Im a conservative Christian, i dont have too much of a problem with halloween as it is practiced today. if i had a kid, i would educate him about the pagan roots of halloween, but explain to him that dressing up as darth vader and getting candy is far from satanic. i would not allow him to dress as a demon, devil, or any occult thing, but going door to door for candy has become an american tradition.

Going on that logic celebrating Christmas on December 25th is evil as well, that was an adaptation made by an emperor to make Christianity more palatable to Pagan's since December 25th was a big holiday for them.

On the other hand - if God is omniscient, omnipotent, etc. that also means that not a single thing - ever - has budged an inch without him willing it so, as every action and reaction has been a train of dominoes leading out from the big bang. With that in mind much of this becomes a moot point as any change of course that Christianity or public culture, or other religions, or atheism even, has been 100% his doing.

Going door-to-door for sweets isn't a tradition here, although some children copy the American tradition and do it. It was basically a non-festival here until the 1960s. Some neo-pagans celebrate Samhain - but my boyfriend's a technopagan and can't be bothered.

We've always had the Harvest festival, which is I suppose pagan in the very limited sense that it celebrates the bounty of the earth. When I was a kid in Catholic school we used to use it as a time to give unwanted tins of beans to homeless people. We had All-Soul's Day, which I used to personally wish was more like the Mexican day of the dead. I just like the skulls and the gaudy colours.

Valentine's Day coincides with Roman Lupercalia, but Lupercalia was nothing like Valentine's.

I think people make such a fuss about festivals having pagan origins because festivals were important to pagans - but not so much to Christians. The Roman Empire after Christianisation realised that people still need festivals; so they just came up with Christian reasons to celebrate the old festivals.

I'm not a Christian anymore, but I don't think Jesus would care if you had a seasonal party (which is what the festivals have become, since the religious/pagan connotations have been removed). According to the Bible, he showed up at parties and turned water into wine.

well, Christianity has some pagan influences anyway, really, if some christians attempt to get rid of some stuff because of pagan origin, as few denominations do, then they should renounce Christianity, and turn into either Judaism or become like 1st-2nd century Jewish-christians as they would not have been bastardized by the roman empire yet.