Deseret News | How faiths unmask Halloween

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How faiths unmask Halloween

s | 11:29 p.m. Oct. 30, 2009

Happy Halloween!

Doug G | 11:35 p.m. Oct. 30, 2009

Halloween turned into a retail experience a long time ago...faiths need not explain it anymore than christmas or flag day. True meaning, right or wrong in the eyes of faih, is long gone.

It's not Catholic? | 11:53 p.m. Oct. 30, 2009

I went to parochial school as a child and I thought Halloween was a Catholic holiday - afterall, we didn't have to go to school the next day.

All holidays are based on some old pagan celebration. For me it is a holiday to just have fun. The only evil in it is in the mind of the beholder.

Comments continue below

Darlene | 12:41 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

Jehovah's Witnesses reject all holidays even benign Mother's day,exception being the Lord's evening meal also called the Last Supper or Good Friday.

They believe that when the world ends they are the only one who will survive.

The Watchtower leaders want us to be 'different' for the sake of being different.Jehovah's Witnesses are not 'happier' and are just as dysfunctional as families who do holidays.
Jesus was not born on Dec 25th,but he also did not have his second coming in the month of October 1914,which is the core doctrine of the Watchtower religion.

Santa Claus is a fairy tale and so is Watchtower 1914 dogma.

Derek B | 3:47 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

We many times think about what we think about things. For a change try to see God's point of view, we may take lightly what may offend him. Jesus told us to do the Fathers will not our own.

Doodles | 7:41 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

Wouldn't it be nice if the pictures used for Halloween were not so gruesome? Most families do not celebrate with death heads and glowing eyed monsters. How about a few children, shivering with excitement, decked out in great dress-ups, ready to go visit their neighbors? How about a school party with crepe paper streamers,and pumpkin cups full of apple cider? How about a community display of carved Jack-o-Lanterns?

We keep saying that Halloween is not celebrated as a festival of the dead, but we keep writing and photographing it as if we lived 2,000 years ago. Is that because the group that goes for the gruesome is so small that everything they do makes news?

Janadele | 7:56 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

It is a pagan evil concept and should be avoided.

Mary | 8:19 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

Doug, don't you think that EVERY holiday has been turned into a retail experience?

Anonymous | 8:29 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

I celebrate Halloween. Every year. Not as a pagan holiday or a time to worship the occult.

I celebrate Halloween as a time to dress up in fun costumes. As a time to eat candy. As a time to have fun with family members. As a time to let kids be kids.

Chachi | 9:16 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

I say that a holiday is as evil as you make it--and true, some people really play up the grotesque and morbid about Halloween. The fact that Christmas occurs in late December because the holiday was converted from a winter solstice festival should not deter Christians, nor should the fact that Easter, a celebration of the Resurrection, was originally derived from a pagan celebration of springtime rebirth and tied to fertility rites that were as sexual as they were agricultural.

Halloween can be about the harmless fun of scares and spooks and dressing up, or it can be taken too far and get morbid and perverse. Christmas can be about Christ, or it can be about materialism. Any holiday is what you make of it.

grizzle | 9:17 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

SANTA ISN'T REAL??? I SMITE THEE NON-BELIEVER!!!

Chachi | 9:18 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

By the way, that is an extremely weird photo illustration. Let's have a contest to come up with the title of the movie for which that could be the poster.

Anonymous | 9:28 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

I wouldn't let my kids go TorT because I did see it as them being allowed to legally beg for food. Now I learn that it was a tradition in England home of our ancestors.

Also after over 20 years I will be passing out candy this year. I love the neighborhood that I live in and the kids are great.

Anonymous | 10:56 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

Halloween is so pagen.. I've already seen kids dressed as Hannah Montana, Strawberry Shortcake, as well as a couple cowboys. Heaven forbid that we would let our children pretend to be something so bad.

Lol | 11:25 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

Why dress up like dead people for Halloween? You will all die soon enough and then you will resemble your costumes FOR REAL :-\

S2 | 11:48 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

The turn from simple fun and traditional scary to the horrific, and the adults failing to leave it to children has been what has turned some of us off to participating in recent years. When 5 years olds started showing up on our doorsteps in Freddy Kreuger/Jason masks, bloody-looking weapons and razor finger costumes, our interest sure waned. With that, adults, with teens soon in tow, have taken the dressing up for fun into using the anonymity of wearing a mask as a excuse to act out in and behaving in or portraying vulgar, horrific or extreme roles. That tendency to act out was likely the underlying principle (with 'safety' being the pat reason) to rules discouraging full masks, to which some still adhere.

I am not one for suggesting top-down changes. I would think it would be nice to see more Strawberry Shortcakes, Robin Hoods, clever Campbell's Soup cans, or simple ghosts, with the teens weaning themselves from the children's dress-up fun by around 13. All of that, of course, starts at home.

Get Over It! | 11:53 a.m. Oct. 31, 2009

Children who grow up without fantasy and make-believe will grow up sheltered, unmotivated, and with a lack of creativity. Teach them the difference between fantasy and reality - and let them have some safe fun! Some people need to just get over themselves...

Jay | 12:17 p.m. Oct. 31, 2009

To S2, you are right. I have seen kids dress up like mass murders, chain saw massacre crew and Cannibals with a body part hanging from their mouths. It grouses me out, and for this reason we do not celebrate Halloween any longer. It is a mischievous night.

Humor-Impaired | 1:21 p.m. Oct. 31, 2009

Some people can always find something to gripe about. It's just a costume party, guys. Get over it!

ME | 2:49 p.m. Oct. 31, 2009

Ok, for all of you's who hate halloween costumes. My kid is going as a white angel bowing a gold horn.

How is Halloween a good thing? | 3:44 p.m. Oct. 31, 2009

I'm not crazy about Halloween. If it were just a fun day to dress up, that would be fine, but when you throw in the candy, the begging, the overtones of mischief, violence, gruesomeness, and evil, you have to wonder why society would consider this a desirable practice.

To a certain extent, as Chachi says, a holiday is what you make of it; but when people come knocking on my door dressed in horrific costumes and begging for candy, and when my neighbors decorate their yard with tombstones and skeletons, it's no longer just "what I make of it," is it.

It's not as if Halloween is the worst thing I have to worry about--not even close. And I admit that as a kid, Halloween was great fun. But as an adult, I would love to see us do away with this stupid holiday.

A. Nony Mouse | 4:42 p.m. Oct. 31, 2009

As a Jew, you have the facts wrong. We do not frown upon Halloween; growing up, I celebrated it. Now, I don't. It's my choice. I respect the fact that it is a Celtic holy day to remember those who came before us and wish those who properly celebrate it a Blessed Samhain (the original name for the holy day).

Anonymous | 12:36 a.m. Nov. 1, 2009

Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate any man-made holidays. Especially one that has the occult added to it.

Judge a trees health non-invasively ... by its leaves. We have brochures on every subject.

chuck | 6:45 a.m. Nov. 1, 2009

The point is...what is God's feeling about Halloween, Christmas, Easter and any other so called "Christian" holiday. They're all rooted in paganism...look it up. People say "that was so long ago and means nothing today". But again what is God's view? The Bible says that a day to God is a thousand years (2Pet3:8). So it was only 2 days ago to God that people were practicing these Satanic pagan rituals. So do you think in 2 days God has changed his mind? Just because you give these celebrations Christian titles does not make them holy in God's eyes...Easter being the exception...is named after a pagan goddess...Eostre. Deut.18:10-13 says anyone practicing divination, sorcery, and magic is detestable to Him. I don't think God has changed his mind in the past 2 days, do you? Let me put it another way....If someone wanted to celebrate and honor you by doing things that you considered detestable and disgusting...How honored and pleased would you feel??? Regardless of motive...people have God's Word and history...there's no excuse. Do you want to please yourself or God?

To Jahovah Witness | 10:55 a.m. Nov. 1, 2009

That is funny when your religion is man made just like all the rest of them.

jess | 5:53 a.m. Nov. 2, 2009

this hoiladay is for kids it is not what is in the beginnig lighten up its a day it has not the eaning it had before

TO YOUS' | 9:05 a.m. Nov. 2, 2009

I think HALLOWEEN is a appropriate day as suggested earlier (ME) for bowing your horn.

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2 photos

Michael Brandy, Deseret News

Halloween decoration at the home of Mike and Erika Siler in Wellsville, Cache County. This is the third year the couple has decorated their home, which takes more than a hundred hours.

Gallery (2 photos)