Happy All Hallow's Eve!

[DangerousBeliefs]

Despite the Church's best efforts, happy celebration of this ancient Pagan holiday!

Of course, we all know that Skeptics are at their most powerful tonight. Just as the moon rises to the equinox, we dance naked around bondfires and drink sacred wines in attempts to raise our lord and master Sagan from his grave.

I won't be able to make the global takeover meeting tonight... so will instead be handing out bits of candy to small children.

[epepke]

Originally posted by DangerousBeliefs
Despite the Church's best efforts, happy celebration of this ancient Pagan holiday!

Actually, it's a Christian holiday as well. All Hallow's Eve, the evening of All Saints Day.

[Some Friggin Guy]

Halloween is a christian holiday for the same reason christmas is:


It was a pagan holiday adapted in order to win over followers from those pagan faiths.

[Agammamon]

You don't want to miss the global takeover meeting tonight. We're having elections and whoever isn't there usually gets elected to the prestigious post of Garbage Remover.

[c4ts]

Originally posted by DangerousBeliefs
Despite the Church's best efforts, happy celebration of this ancient Pagan holiday!

Of course, we all know that Skeptics are at their most powerful tonight. Just as the moon rises to the equinox, we dance naked around bondfires and drink sacred wines in attempts to raise our lord and master Sagan from his grave.

I won't be able to make the global takeover meeting tonight... so will instead be handing out bits of candy to small children.

Yes, our cunning plan to ROT THE TEETH OF SMALL CHILDREN is succeeding! Bwahahahahahahahahahah!

[epepke]

Originally posted by Some Friggin Guy
Halloween is a christian holiday for the same reason christmas is:

It was a pagan holiday adapted in order to win over followers from those pagan faiths.

Aren't they all? But Halloween if anything is more Christian than the rest. Christmas is a winter solstice holiday. Easter is basically Passover, with the Spring Goddess Esther thrown in. Halloween, on the other hand, is obviously based on the Roman solar calendar. Otherwise, what significance is there to the last day in October?

[Some Friggin Guy]

The Feast of Samhain.

[neutrino_cannon]

I've just got back from tromping about in my Fidel Castro suit, and I'm proud to say that it's really cold here, and it didn't kill me.

Yes! Go Halloween!

[Yahweh]

I like Hallowe'en, lots of candy, lots of skeletons, lots of pi#&241;atas, and all the people all dressed like heathen... did I mention I LOVE this holiday!

[Rosencrantz]

Originally posted by Some Friggin Guy
The Feast of Samhain. That seems to be a myth. At least, I've been reading a discussion where it has been pointed out that All Saints' Day became official when a 13th century French Pope universalized a feast day that can be traced back to 411 C.E. in Antioch. While it seems clear that Samhain was celebrated in medieval Ireland, there's no way to establish that it was celebrated on or near October 31 (because the only existing calendar is a lunar one), or that the festival was common or widespread in pagan Europe; and it seems unlikely in any case that the Celts would have had that much influence in the Mediterranean. This would mean that any association between Samhain and All Saints' Day is a modern one, and I would hazard the suggestion that similarities between the two holidays probably have more to do with the characteristics of the season itself (shorter days, colder temperatures, leaves browning and dying, etc.) than any sort of "stolen" mythology.

[c4ts]

The pagans at my school are celebrating it anyway.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Some Friggin Guy
The Feast of Samhain.

Nope. Lunar calendar. The lunar holidays the Christians appropriated at least had the decency to wiggle around a bit.