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== [[File:Page.png]] October's featured article<span style="font-size:85%; font-weight:normal;"></span> == | == [[File:Page.png]] October's featured article<span style="font-size:85%; font-weight:normal;"></span> == | ||
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+ | == Halloween == | ||
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+ | ==What It Is From A Christian Perspective== | ||
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+ | Many Christians will allow and even encourage their children to pay respect to the devil on October 31 without knowing they do so. Churches will fully sanction the event with parties that will be decorated with witches, cats, brooms, jack-o-lanterns and bobbing apples. What is the harm? How did this originate? | ||
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+ | The custom of Halloween is traced to the Druid festival of the dead. At that time the Roman Pantheon was built by Emperor Hadrian in 100 A.D. as a temple to the goddess Cybele and other Roman deities. It became the principle place of worship. Roman pagans prayed for the dead. Rome was captured and the Pantheon fell into disrepair. Emperor Phocas captured Rome and gave the Pantheon to Pope Boniface IV in 609. He reconsecrated it to the Virgin Mary and resumed using the temple to pray for the dead, only now it was "Christianised", as men added the unscriptural teaching of purgatory. | ||
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+ | In 834 A.D. Gregory IV extended the feast for all the church and it became known as All Saint's Day, still remembering the dead. Samhain, a Druid god of the dead was honoured at Halloween in Britain, France, Germany and the Celtic countries. Samhain called together all wicked souls who died within the past year and that were destined to inhabit animals. | ||
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+ | '''This celebration of the dead honoured the god of the dead on this particular night.''' Druids believed that souls of the dead returned to their former homes to be entertained by the living. Bonfires were built atop hills so they might find their way. Suitable food and shelter was provided for these spirits or else they would cast spells, cause havoc, steal infants, destroy crops, kill farm animals and create terror as they haunted the living. The spirits demanded placating by giving them a type of worship and offering. This is the action that "Trick-or-Treat" emulates today. | ||
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+ | The Samhain celebration used nuts, apples, skeletons, witches and black cats. Divination and auguries were practised as well as magic to seek answers for the future. Black cats were considered to be reincarnated beings with the ability to divine the future. During this festival supernatural beings terrified the populace. Even today witchcraft practitioners declare October 31st as the most conducive time to practice their arts. | ||
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+ | '''The Christian church tried to eliminate the Druid celebration by offering All Saint's Day as a substitute.''' As Christianity spread over Europe and the British Isles, '''it attempted to replace the pre-existing pagan cult worship of Apollo, Diana or Ymir, but to no avail.''' | ||
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+ | Although the outward forms of such worship disappeared, '''the belief in these deities did not.''' They found an outlet during the Middle Ages in the open practice of witchcraft which is presently enjoying a revival in many countries, including the U.S. In Germany the occult is considered more prevalent than in the Middle Ages. The deistic cults held periodic meetings known as witches Sabbath's, and it is the same today with October 31st being of more importance. | ||
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+ | [[Halloween]] | ||
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Revision as of 13:25, 28 October 2013
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