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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Christian Halloween Propoganda

“Halloween has strong roots in paganism and is closely connected with worship of the Enemy of this world, Satan” – Paul S. Taylor, Eden Communications

Many Christians have a major problem with Halloween. As the above quote shows, they are under the false impression that Halloween is a Satanist Holiday with connections to ancient paganism. Yes, adults still fall for the myths and urban legends that unite Satanism with Halloween. My goal is to explain why Conservative Christians are wrong when it comes to Satanism and why Pagan origins do not matter for most other Christian holidays.

Origins of Halloween


Halloween stems from two religious holidays: the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday of All Saints Day. The combination of the two Holidays plus modern myths have created what we know today as Halloween, celebrated on October 31 of every year.

The Festival of Samhain

For the most part, Samhain was a celebration of the end of harvest season. It also had a second importance: It was the Celtic new year. The Gaulish Calendar seperated the year into two parts; the Dark half and the Light half. Samhain was the beginging of the dark half of the year (What we know as late fall and winter). During the medieval era, Samhain become the up most important holiday. It was celebrated for three days in Tara (where tradition says the High King of Ireland was seated ans was a very sacred place for the Celts) where many people would assemble. A large bonfire was lit on top of the Hill of Tara, which was to signal people all over Ireland to light their own bonfires. And while the festival was to celebrate the end of harvest and to bring in the Celtic new year, it also had a spiritual side. It was believed by many ancient Celts that during this festival, the doorway to the other world would be opened for the dead and other “evils” to enter our world. This is the origin of many of the scary traditions associate with our Halloween.

All Saints Day

All Saints Day was started with Pope Boniface IV. Boniface chose May 13, an already pagan holiday known as the Festival of Lemures. The Festival of Lemures was a day in which people feared and exorcised restless malevolent spirits from their home A little more than one hundred years later, Pope Gregory III changed the date of All Saints Day to its current date. The holiday usually fell within a couple of weeks of the Celtic holiday Samhain.

The Satanist Urban Legends


Much of the current urban legends that unite Satanism with Halloween stem from an ignorance of the origins of the term Satanism and of the religion itself. With this misunderstanding of Satanism, fears spread widely through the Christian church about the practices and beliefs of Satanists.

The biggest Church/Organization termed Satanist is the Church of Satan founded by Anton LaVey in the 1960s. The first and biggest misconception people have about the Church of Satan is their worship of Satan, The followers do not, in fact, worship a Deity of any kind. They place major emphasis on the power and authority of individual satanists, rather than a Deity or quasi deity.

The second biggest misconception about Satanism is ritual sacrifice. Urban legends spread throughout North America that Satanists would sacrifice babies on Halloween. This is urban legend was never verified, but was shown to be false by law enforcement agencies in the areas where these urban legends sprung up. Satanists believe that all life is important and place emphasis on Children as the purest form of life. They would never do anything to intentionally harm a child.

Paganism in Christianity


Pagan origins is one of the main arguments Christians make against Halloween. Apparently these Christians do not realize that their most sacred holidays come from Pagan origins.

Easter

The name of the sacred holiday celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the second person in the Holy Trinity in Christianity, the God incarnate, is comes from ancient Anglo-Saxon Paganism. The name Easter is derived from the name of the Goddess Eastre. And as you can see, there is only a one letter difference between the name of the pagan goddess and the name of the Christian holiday. But it is not just the name that comes from pagan origins, it is the symbols within the holiday as well.

Eastre was the Goddess of fertility. Her animal was the hare. The pagan symbol of the Hare is still used today during Easter celebrations, but the name of the animal has changed to a “bunny”. Eastre’s symbol, since she was the goddess of fertility, was the egg. Once again, still a symbol used today during Easter celebrations.

Christmas

Christmas is another sacred holiday celebrated by Christians with pagan origins. This Christian holiday is used to celebrate the birth of their savior and God incarnate. Yet, like Easter, it stems from ancient paganism.

During the winter solstice, ancient Pagans used to cut down evergreen trees and bring them into either their homes or their temples in order to celebrate the coming of winter. And this, of course, is still used by many Christians today. The trees are known as “Christmas Trees”

Another similarity between modern Christmas and ancient paganism was the day known as Dies Natalis Solis Invicti or The Birthday of the unconquered Sun. This was a day in which the birth dates of several sun gods were celebrated on the same day. This day was celebrated during the winter solstice or mid December.

Conclusion

As you can see, Christian fears and complaints of Halloween are usually not grounded in reality. Many of the fears they hold are lies created by earlier Christians in order to deter their brethern from celebrating this particular holiday. The issue of the pagan origins can be found within their most sacred holidays, yet they use the pagan origins of Halloween to stay was from this so-called “evil” celebration. The lies and hypocracy of the Christian Chruch, when it comes to Halloween, is enormous.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Helium



I am going to take a quick intermission from Deism, because I want to explain something that might be useful to some of you. There are many sites out there that allow for a writer to earn a little bit of money. If you just pick one or two of these site to write on, don't expect there to be a lot of money in it. But whether or not you choose to write for money or not, it is a great way to great your writing out there in the public arena. Some sites are:

Helium (link above)

Associated Content

Triond (this one has really low pay, but it is my favorite because of the community on the forums)

And many many others.

So, you can find any of the sites not linked by googling their name. If you need help finding one, comment and I will give you the URL in the comment section.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Richard Dawkins: The Failed Philosopher

There was a time when Atheists earned the term “free thinker”. It was a time when Atheists used their rationality and logic to try to solve philosophic problems that are created when one believes in God, but it is no longer that time. Atheists now have a single religious leader who tells them what to think. Richard Dawkins is the most quoted atheist of our time. Atheists seem to look up to him as a wise leader and expect him to answer these questions for them. Their trust could be put in the hands have a much more qualified man than Dawkins. Dawkins, while he may be a gifted biologist, fails as a philosopher. His own made up definitions of philosophic positions, such as Pantheism, are completely wrong. But Atheists follow his divine words with such gumption, they could never admit when he is wrong. When I state that Richard Dawkins is a failed philosopher to Atheists, they usually say “He never claimed to be a philosopher”, and one time an Atheist even added, “That must be the wisdom shining through”. Whether or not Dawkins has claimed to be a philosopher, he is ultimatley acting as one when he discusses philisophical positions and/or philisophic problems. Now, I want to correct all who believe the lies and bull spewed by Dawkins when it comes to philisophic matters. philosopher

Pantheism

Dawkins has described pantheism as “sexed up Atheism”. Dawkins says that pantheism is simply atheism, because they don’t believe in a God. He says they use the term God to refer to nature. If you were to walk up to any pantheist or philosophy professor and gave them this definition, they would laugh at you. It is simply wrong.

While pantheists do use the term God to refer to nature, there is more to it. Pantheists do believe in the divine. They do believe in God, even though they do not believe in the common Judeo-Christian concept of God. Pantheism comes from the Greek words for “all” and “God” and it literally means “God is all“. If Dawkins could even take the time to understand the name, he would realize just how wrong he is. They believe that the universe is one with an all-encompassing, immanent God.

Atheists have even gone as far as making up a new term to try to prove their Lord and Master, Dawkins, right. This new term is “Scientific Pantheism”. A scientific pantheist is exactly what Dawkins describes Pantheism as: sexed up Atheism. They do not believe in a God, rather they refer to nature and the universe as a whole using the term “God”. Scietific Panthiesm is just one way in which modern day atheists are trying to highjack a philisophic position that has absolutely nothing to do with Atheism.

It is this very wrong definition of God that makes Richard Dawkins believe that certain people are atheists, though a good understanding pantheism proves otherwise. One example is Albert Einstein. Einstein is quoted in saying, “I believe in Spinoza’s God”. And for that reason Dawkins have not only claimed Einstein was a Pantheist, but also an Atheist. But if Dawkins had taken the time to look at a couple of things, he would never have made this mistake. The first is this: What did Spinoza really believe? The second is: How much did Einstein really know about Spinoza’s God? Max Jammer, a close friend and colleague of Einstein, wrote in his book (Einstein and God) that Einstein actually knew very little about Spinoza’s God. In fact, Einstein, says Jammer, stuck to Spinoza’s writings on ethics Though, if Einstein had learned more about Spinoza’s God, he would know that Spinoza did believe in the divine. In fact Spinoza wrote, “It is utterly false to suppose that it is my intention to equate god and nature” in a letter.

Deism

Another philosophic term that Dawkins gets wrong is Deism. Dawkins referred to Deism as “watered down Theism”. While it may seem like so to Dawkins, that is entirely wrong. Theists believe in a personal God based solely on one religious text or another. Deists use logic in order to infer from the universe that a God does exist, but that God does not reveal himself to humans. The reason Deists do not believe in a personal God is not because they are a watered down version of theism, but because they use their reasoning and logic to try to understand God. Deists have come to the conclusion, through logic and reasoning, that God has not revealed himself to mankind through any forms of special revelation because there is no reliable evidence to make such a claim.

He fails to grasp the basic beliefs of Deists when he uses like “I do not believe in a personal God” to prove Einstein was an Atheists. Deists do not believe in a personal God, either. To claim someone is an Atheist simply because he does not believe in a Personal God is, quite frankly, stupid.

Agnosticism

In discussing agnosticism and how agnostics look at the question of God’s existence Richard Dawkins says “The alternative which I favor is to renounce all euphemisms and grasp the nettle of the word atheism itself.” Here Dawkins is clearly stating that Agnostics should consider themselves Atheists. Why? Agnosticism has absolutely nothing in common with Atheism. Agnostics believe that God might or might not exist, while Atheists believe God does not exist.

Dawkins has a [wrong] answer to this, as well. Dawkins says that Atheism is the gospel of “I don’t know”. That is completely wrong, yet Dawkins’ religious followers grab on to that too. Historically Atheism has aways been the “gospel of there is no God” yet, with one man saying different an entire community of Atheists jump on the band wagon.

Conclusion

It is clear that those Atheists that follow Richard Dawkins religiously are no better than organized religion. These atheists are dogmatic, fundamentalist and lack the use of logic, much like Dawkins himself. If Dawkins wants to continue to philosophize, he should learn more about what he is talking about. He cannot change the definitions of words simply because it suits his agenda.