Resolved Question

As a christian I hear Halloween is the devil's birthday and me being diffrent and wanting to know things for myself decided to look it up. Halloween IS NOT THE DEVIL'S BIRTHDAY.In ancient Britain and Ireland, the Celtic festival of Samhain was observed on October 31, at the end of summer. This date was also the eve of the new year in both Celtic and Anglo-Saxon times and was the occasion of one of the ancient fire festivals when huge bon fires were set on hilltops to frighten away evil spirits.... The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day, and the autumnal festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, black cats, fairies and demons of all kinds said to be roaming about. It was the time to placate the supernatural powers controlling the processes of nature. In addition, Halloween was thought to be the most favorable time for divinations concerning marriage, luck, health and death. It was the only day on which the help of the devil was invoked for such purposes. The pagan observances influenced the Christian festival of All Hallows Eve."

It was a pagan belief that on one night of the year the souls of the dead return to their original homes, there to be entertained with food. If food and shelter were not provided, these evil spirits would cast spells and cause havoc toward those failing to fulfill their requests.

Literal sacrifices were offered on this night to the spirits of the dead, as they supposedly visited their earthly haunts and their friends.

"There was a prevailing belief among all nations that at death the souls of the good men were taken possession of by good spirits and carried to paradise; but the souls of the wicked men were left to wonder in the space between the earth and the moon, or consigned to the unseen world. These wandering spirits were in the habit of haunting the living...But there were means by which ghosts might be exorcised.

To exorcise these ghosts, that is to free yourself from their evil sway, you would have to set out food and provide shelter for them during the night. If they were satisfied with your offerings, they would leave you in peace. If not, they were believed to cast an evil spell on you.It was a general practice of the Christianized Roman Empire and the church at Rome to convert the pagans within the empire as quickly and on as large a scale as possible.

Ever since the time of Constantine, who made Catholicism the state religion, the Roman Emperors realized how essential it was to have a unified empire, where as many as possible would have one mind. The civil and religious leaders saw how important it was for the for the sake of unity to allow only one religion within the Roman realm.

It became a state policy to force all non-Christians to accept the orthodox faith. The conquered pagans had a profound influence on the affairs of the church. These pagans brought with them many pagan practices and celebrations. Halloween was merely one of many. The pagans were fervent in clinging to their past ceremonies and observed them openly, yet they were supposed to have been converted to Christianity As all saint's eve a day of rembering the saint's that are dead, so people use to trade in cookies and cake etc for a prayer to the saint. Long before that there was a tradition of Harvest and celebrating the month of the growing crops which was a practice later on adopted by christians also. What I would like to know is what happened to that day and if Halloween is " the devil's birthday then Christmas is too?The truth is complicated, and it depends upon what tradition you're referring to as "Christmas." "Christmas" as "Christ's Mass," the celebration of Christ's birthday, originated when the Roman Catholic Church decided to concecrate pagan traditions. The Church wanted to convert the pagans of Europe to Christianity, and as a way of doing so, they established a Christian religious meaning to the important and popular celebration of the winter solstice. They chose the birth of Christ because it echoed pagan attributes of the holiday, which celebrated, amongst other things, the rebirth of the Sun. ["rebirth of Sun"/"birth of Son," get it?]. The truth is that, before then, Christians didn't really celebrate Christ's birth; it was his death and resurrection that were supremely important, and his borth was a minor point without a fixed celebration.

It's certain that Jesus ''wasn't'' born on December 25. In fact, the details in the Bible clearly point to his being born in the spring. Placing the holiday of December 25 was a direct attempt to co-opt solstice traditions.

Christmas as a ''modern'' celebration, including most of the things we associate with it (Santa Claus, gift-giving, carols, egg nog, etc.), were a Victorian invention. A number of writers and politicians, including Clement C. Moore ("The Night Before Christmas"), popularized Christmas as a family tradition, in part to supplant undesirable older traditions that had become part of Christmas (including "misrule" traditions we now associate with Halloween!). For a detailed and fascinating account of the Victorian Christmas invention.

As for individual Christmas traditions ... well, those are probably best answered seperately.Dec 25th was initially celebrated as 'Conquering the Sun Day', in which the Romans at the time, who worshipped the sun, thought the Sun God was pleased with them as the days started to get longer. They would have celebrations and exchange gifts. Those that believed in Jesus feared for their lives, and wanted to mark a day for his birth, and so did on the same day, under the guise of the Roman beliefs. So the birth of Jesus was celebrated around 460AD for the first time, and as the Church grew, it eventually took the day over for themselves.

I really wanted to read this but went blind halfway through...