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An atheist’s perspective on Halloween
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Halloween is probably my favorite holiday. Like most Christian holidays, it was of course stolen from the pagans and has been secularized by the capitalistic system to deliver profits.
Like most other Christian holidays stolen from pagans, Halloween once had a secular seasonal aspect which has been anthropomorphized with myths and superstitions. It is basically an autumn harvest holiday mixed in with the realization that winter in coming. The main aspect of the holiday is a celebration of the “veil” between life and death. As autumn comes to an end and winter begins, it looks very much like the world is dying. In other words, Halloween celebrates the veil between the two seasons.
Death plays an important role in this holiday and while I think fundamentalist Christians should love this holiday since they seem to be so obsessed with the death of Jesus and his zombie resurrection, many are surprisingly not a fan of this particular holiday. Some fundamentalists even go as far as calling Halloween, “Satan’s Holiday.” It is easy to identify and stay clear of these fundamentalist Christians. They are the ones yelling “bah humbug” and turning out their lights when kids come walking by for candy.
As an atheist, I don’t think that the dead will walk on Halloween night, nor do I think dressing up in scary costumes will frighten off the evil spirits wandering around. But I do think that wearing sexually explicit costumes will wart off the evil fundamentalist Christians and those scantily-clad people aren’t bad to look at either. The irony of this holiday is that Christianity has demonized sexuality and now there is a Christian holiday where people dress up as sexy demons.
Another great aspect of this holiday is that it tends to encourage creativity. People are always thinking of new costumes and new ideas for scaring their friends and neighbors in the spirit of Halloween. It’s all in good fun and it is exciting to see what new costumes people are going to dress up as this year and to see who on the block has the scariest decorations up.
A lot of people don’t realize that Halloween also fosters community. People get to take their kids to visit their neighbors. In today’s internet society, a lot of people haven’t even met their neighbors and so this type of activity helps to break the ice and meet those who live right down the block.
Halloween is great for kids too. They get to dress up as their favorite superheros, movie characters, or use their creativity to come up with something different. They also get to use their creativity on carving pumpkins.
Some kids go out trick-or-treating in groups and then when they get home, they divide their candies into two piles, the keep pile and the trade pile. This teaches kids all about barter and sharing.
These are some of the many reasons why Halloween is an awesome holiday. Don’t forget to dress up in some fun, sexy, creative, and/or scary costumes and eat lots of candy. And remember that the really scary people are the ones with the lights out and have no sense of fun.
Atheism 101 Articles:
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Atheism 101: Is there moral grounding without God?
Atheism 101: The Purpose of Life
Atheism 101: Is the Bible the inspired word of God?
Atheism 101: The anti-intellectualism of religion
Atheism 101: Why has Christianity demonized nudity, sex and sexuality?
Atheism 101: Does it take more faith to be an atheist?
Atheism 101: What came before the Universe?
Atheism 101: How to respond to the ex-atheist
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