Kirk Cameron and His Critics: Is Halloween Christian or Pagan?

[unrepentant progress]

In an interview with the Christian Post, Cameron explains that Christians shouldn’t hesitate to celebrate Halloween because it is, like Christmas, an entirely Christian holiday... Halloween does have Christian roots. While it may also have some pagan elements, those are so intertwined with the Christian tradition that it is impossible to disentangle the strands. Kirk Cameron’s notions about Halloween are simplistic, poorly researched, and partly wrong, but those who criticize him by asserting that Halloween is simply a pagan holiday with a superficial Christian veneer are also using simplistic, poorly researched, and partly wrong arguments.

Full article: http://www.skeptic.com/insight/kirk-cameron-and-his-critics-is-halloween-christian-or-pagan/

[rug]

1. There's good information in there.

[unrepentant progress]

2. A Soalin'

It's funny how so many people associate Peter, Paul, and Mary's A Soalin' with Christmas when it's actually based on a Victorian era song about the tradition of children begging for soul cakes on All Hallows Eve which goes back to the Middle Ages.

[rug]

6. I never heard that before. You made me look at the lyrics. Thanks.

Hey ho, nobody home, meat nor drink nor money have I none
Yet shall we be merry, Hey ho, nobody home.
Hey ho, nobody home, Meat nor drink nor money have I none
Yet shall we be merry, Hey ho, nobody home.
Hey Ho, nobody home.

Soal, a soal, a soal cake, please good missus a soul cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry,
One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who made us all.

God bless the master of this house, and the mistress also
And all the little children that round your table grow.
The cattle in your stable and the dog by your front door
And all that dwell within your gates
We wish you ten times more.

Soal, a soal, a soal cake, please good missus a soul cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry,
One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who made us all.

Go down into the cellar and see what you can find
If the barrels are not empty we hope you will be kind
We hope you will be kind with your apple and strawber'
For we'll come no more a 'soalin' till this time next year.

Soal, a soal, a soal cake, please good missus a soul cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry,
One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who made us all.

The streets are very dirty, my shoes are very thin.
I have a little pocket to put a penny in.
If you haven't got a penny, a ha' penny will do.
If you haven't got a ha' penny then God bless you.

Soal, a soal, a soal cake, please good missus a soul cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry,
One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who made us all.

Now to the Lord sing praises all you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood each other now embrace..
This holy tide of Christmas of beauty and of grace,
Oh tidings of comfort and joy.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. I'm not sure the arguments she claims are made are the arguments that are made.

asserting that Halloween is simply a pagan holiday with a superficial Christian veneer

I don't think I've heard people saying that. What I have heard people say is that they believe pagans had a holiday at that point in the year, and that Christians plunked one of their own holidays down essentially on top of it to get people to stop celebrating the pagan one and start celebrating the Christian one, just like Christmas being plunked down in late December, despite the fact that the Bible points to a likely birthdate in late spring or early summer.

Not that 'pagans' were all one bunch of people, but rural dwellers did tend to tie their pre-Christian holidays specifically to natural turning points in the seasons, so their having a festival at that time of year is likely, even if later Christian writers didn't bother to write it up. After all, the 'winners' write the histories.

[cbayer]

4. This is a very lengthy article, but it has some good information.

November 1st is a huge religious holiday in many countries, particularly those that are primarily catholic. The night before is connected is some ways, as she point out, but it has really lost most of it's religious significance, imo.

[mr blur]

5. Ah, young Kirk. Is there anything he doesn't know?

[Iggo]

7. Is Kirk Cameron an idiot or an asshole?

[unrepentant progress]

8. I'd say more the former than the latter

But just because we don't like the guy doesn't mean he isn't occasionally right, and we're wrong. Atheists and skeptics (and neopagans in this case) have their myths too. It's always best to argue the argument than the arguer.

[Iggo]

9. Times when he's right and I'm wrong?

I can only imagine.

[edhopper]

11. What is he right about, do you have an example?

What myth's do atheists and skeptics believe in?

[trotsky]

10. ...

[Marrah_G]

15. Both!

[edhopper]

12. Many Christian holidays have links with pagan holidays

or were overlaid on them.

[struggle4progress]

13. The choice of 1 November as All Saints Day was used in the diocese of Rome in the eighth century;

extension of that date to all of the Western churches about a century later

At that time, the Irish churches seem to have celebrated All Saints Day in mid-April. The first Christian missionaries had arrived in Ireland four or five hundred years earlier

It seems unlikely that Pope Gregory III, in directing the diocese of Rome to celebrate 1 November as All Saints Day, had in mind any customs local to the speakers of Gaelic on isles far from Rome: what benefit could possibly be obtained by the church in Rome by putting an emphasis on Gaelic custom? When Gregory IV decreed the whole church should use that date, it had already been in use in Rome for several generations

[Lordquinton]

14. Halloween, much like Christmas and Easter

aren't Christian, they are holidays celebrated by Christians that have their roots in countries that Christianity came from, but are not recorded anywhere in the holy texts.

(see the recent discussion of female circumcision in Muslim countries on how traditions that are wholly associated, and claimed by a religion aren't actually a part of the religion.)

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Who gives a flying fuck?

Halloween is currently an entirely secular holiday that is fun for kids and adults who still like to have fun and unlike most other holidays doesn't have nationalistic or religious bullshit wrapped around it.