Agnostic.com

78 7

SHOULD AGNOSTICS & ATHEISTS CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN?

Halloween, All Saints Eve, is basically a religious holiday that promotes belief in spirits, fostering ignorance & superstition.

Should agnostics & atheists participate in any way?

Remiforce 7 Oct 22
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

78 comments (51 - 75)

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

Technically, no. But to each their own. I love Halloween and think it should be a month long event rather than just one day.

Gohan Level 7 Oct 24, 2019
1

Celebrating any kind of holiday (Halloween, Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, etc) is more about getting together with family and friends than about any religious significance for me. Raised Catholic and married to a Jewish woman has no religious connotations for me. Maybe because of my prior affiliations I am adamant that I do not partake in the ceremonial aspects of these holidays. It is just fun time.

1

It's at the user's discression. I don't have any kids and don't want anyone knocking on my door begging for shit so by default I don't celebrate Halloween but I couldn't give a fuck less about if someone did or didn't.

Good for you. I hope the greedy little rugrats stay away from your door. Parents who allow this parctice are teaching their kids to be parasitic beggars

1

Yes! My favorite holiday!!

1

Only if they want to, geez. It's just a thing people do to give an excuse to dress up and eat too much candy. I don't know anyone who believes in Halloween except some religious fanatics who actually believe it's the devil's holiday.

1

Yes children should trick or treat and get dressed up . I never really heard of its religious significance when I was a kid .

1

Yeah why bother throwing parties and having traditions, religious people own all that stuff.

...we threw eggs 😉

1

If there is fun involved, why not? Or are the "spirit police" going to show up?

1

Hallowe'en, despite its origins and trappings, doesn't promote belief in said trappings. If anything it promotes diabetes and tooth decay. Should atheist kids be forbidden to watch Topper or Caspar? How about fairy tales? Fantasy has its uses.

g

Giving candy to kids promotes tooth decay, obesity, & diabetes. It is child abuse.

Fantasy has its uses. Much learning can by conveyed in fiction & myth. But when the myth is acted out & celebrated, it becomes superstition, which I thought we opposed

@Remiforce oh is there a rulebook? wasn't aware. anyway, tooth decay and diabetes have nothing to do with superstition, and giving kids candy isn't child abuse. that's a stretch. moderation in all things, including moderation. kids don't get diabetes because once a year they collect candy which in most cases the parents then confiscate and dole out judiciously. if you still have an objection to that, please don't try to relate it to atheism. as for superstition acted out, your premise re that is also ridiculous. in fact acting things out can prevent taking superstition seriously. why shouldn't kids (and adults for that matter) have dress-up time if they enjoy it? no one is saying ghosts are real, or that witches by modern definition equal mythical witches. i intend to "encourage" my guy to go out as marilyn monroe (not trick-or-treating but to a gathering in which others also will be in costume). she actually existed. she didn't have facial hair (that i know of) but it will be fun and funny. it won't promote theism, either.

g

1

Did you see the photo of Meryl Streep in Donald Trump orangeface? Celebrate Halloween, if for no other reason!

I hope Donald Trump is a very popular costume this season--that will be REAL SCARY!!!

1

Hell yeah!

1

Halloween , like most other holidays , is what you choose to make of it . If you can't see anything beyond a religious related holiday , then that's what it is for you . As for me . I have an annual party , sometime in October , with fall / Halloween decorations , my guests come in LARP garb , we have a blast , and absolutely nothing is held in a religious manner .

1

All of our holidays have multiple contributions in their origins. If someone wants to celebrate Halloween by dressing up and having a party, who cares if it once had something to do with spirits and superstition? Heck! Christmas has "Christ" in tne name, but I wouldn't suggest that anyone should deprive themselves of festivities for that reason. We as non-believers don't need to act like the up tight religionists who would deprive themselves and their children tne enjoyment of holidays. If you need to invent an alternate reason for the holidays, we are certainly creative enough to find one or to create one. This is what Christians did after all. The Yule log, mistletoe, and holly have no Christian origin for Christmas; they just adapted and combined their new tradition with a well established one so new Christains didn't feel deprived by having to abstain from winter solstice celebrations and festivities.

1

I wouldn’t say I celebrate much of any holiday ever. My spirit of the season extends as far as being in the mood to watch spooky movies and eat candy. Nothin superstitious about that. I don’t believe in spirits but everyone’s susceptible to some good and/or campy horror. I also like the idea of people celebrating/remembering their dead, and the idea of putting on a mask or costume and feeling free of ones inhibitions. That’s the spirit of Halloween in its purest form to me. It’s catharsis from the restrictions of religion boiled into a party, ideally.

I think the commercialization of most any holiday is the worst part of it, but there’s a way to participate in the spirit of it that is completely healthy and completely secular/revolting against religion. If you’re an ignorant superstitious person youll celebrate in an ignorant superstitious way. If you’re not then you won’t. Halloween is no doubt cooler than all the other pagan holidays that religion coopted, evidenced by religion (at least the brand of conservative Christians in my area) largely still railing against it. It’s bothering them somethin awful for some reason, so it can’t be all bad 😉 Hail Satan!

If the conservatives hate it, it must be good. Satan can't be worst than them

1

Despite Odin and Frigg supposedly not liking/supporting it. It is a Pagan day that I like and I also don't have a problem with others that also like it. There is also education talk about the Flying Spaghetti Monster talk to the Norwegian, aka, Vikings/Norseman 🙂 I also know that many Pastafarians like to participate in it.

Halloween is an ancient pagan holiday that was celebrated long before the Vikings, probably back to the stone age.

Some see it as a big excuse for a party, but I think awoke agnostics & atheists should realize they are willingly participating in a pagan ritual

1

Well ur not connected to anything so is up to u

B00! Welcome to the community!

Happy Halloween!

0

Sure. It is a child's holiday. It started a fall festival where folk would wear gourds to ward off, or hide from, demons on their way home. The Catholic church polluted it trying to convert it to a Christian holiday. Unfortunately we live in a religious world. Exposure will not harm them. It also points out that it is not a Christian holiday.

But should we encourage children to participate in a holiday that encourages superstition

@Remiforce They are going to need to know that superstition exists. Explain it to them that it is for fun. And that the supernatural is made up. All children should learn fact from fiction -- it will lead to critical thinking about life.

0
  1. That's a very narrow definition.
  2. If they want to.

What is narrow--that Halloween is fundamentally a religious holiday that fosters ignorance & superstition? Seems pretty broad to me

@Remiforce your definition doesn't mention the history of the holiday prior to being co-opted and renamed by Christianity. It's relationship to celtic harvest festivals or Samhain or the secular significance. You think dressing up is a religious observance? Or trick or treating or apple bobbing? Yes i'ts a religious holiday, but that's not all it is by a long chalk.

0

Yes, if they so wish.

0

I don't tend to celebrate any mass cultural events unless they have a personal meaning. I never understood celebrating because "it's tradition" "it's what ya do" "everybody's doing it". So I don't celebrate halloween, thanksgiving, christmas or new years. You can invite me, I'll go, but don't expect "happy" anything. If someone says it, I just say "Great party" and keep things lively. Surpringly, I still get invited! 🙂

That said I do celebrate my own personal list of scientific and atheist heroes and heroines, along with great discoveries and achievements.

For example I personally celebrate Hitchens' birthday, April 13 i think, with a small glass of Johnnie Walker scotch to honor his work and memory. I believe he would approve the sentiment, lol.

I also personally celebrate July 20th for two reasons: 1) the moon landing, I read up on all new space news I can find, and technical details about how NASA did it - still amazes me, and 2) watch 'Die Hard', which was released on that date, it's one of my favorite movies, and its makes me appreciate how good a movie can be made that is simple, uncomplicated, story - just great writing, direecting, and acting that still holds it's own.

Just find your own stuff to celebrate! There shpuld be more that enough real relevent stuff in your own life to celebrate.

Glad you're celebrating scientific achievement & not ancient hogwash

0

If memory serve correct, 'Halloween' was originally what Xrstians choose to call 'a PAGAN celebration for the Dead BEFORE they did their usually thing and adopted and twisted it to suit themselves, therefore, YES, BUT celebrate as IT should be and NOT as Xrstianity would have it is my opinion.
Though, it is NOT as big a thing here in Australia as it is elsewhere .

0

Why not? its a good excuse to wear a costume. It can be a time of fantasy it doesn't have to be morbid, why not have fun?

0

I might add, should atheists or agnostics celebrate any holiday, since technically we would have no holy days whatsoever?

I hark back to the golem Constable Dorfl in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, one of that world's only atheists, who said, "Either All Days Are Holy, Or None Of Them Are." (That's how golems talk on the Discworld, just go with it.) And it should be noted that this was a fictional world where gods actually intervene, and live physically on a mountain, so it takes some chutzpah to be an atheist. He demanded rational proof of the existence of gods. When holy lightning struck him, melting his helmet off, Dorfl commented, "I Don't Call That A Very Convincing Argument."

This Atheist acknowledges Both Equinoxes & Solstices … attempting to conjure up some patriotism on July Fourth.. Other than that, I call them ‘holy days.’

@Varn Equinoxes & Solstices should be our celebrations. I'm a bit appalled by the jingoism of The Fourth of July, although I believe in the American Declaration of Independence & Constitution. Maybe New Years, a secular time for the changing of the calendar & resolutions for the new year

0

It is folklaw and culture so therefore must be cultivated and examined. It was the only thing that legitimately put us on our guard with a bit of fun. Actually there were no laws involved . THEN they didn't need any.

I wasn't going to correct spelling. After all, my auto-correct plays nasty tricks on me. But when you mentioned law I thought you might actually think the word was folklaw. It's folklore. Pardon me if you were punning or something.

g

@genessa Thank you so much for being forward and honest with me. Thank you for the correction. Not my best point.

Folklaw is actually custom, which can have the force of law in some cultures

0

Absolutely

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:416875
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.