Halloween History and the Church - The Thinking Atheist Radio Podcast #32
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2024
- On BlogTalkRadio at www.blogtalkrad...
Also available on iTunes.
Many who warn of the evils of Halloween are completely oblivious of the actual history of the holiday, with little idea that the celebrations of October 31st have been influenced heavily by the Catholic Church.
We take a quick overview of the origins and practices of Halloween, and we talk about what religion is doing to counter and co-opt Satan's Day for other purposes.
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When I was still a christian, a close friend of mine took me to a hell house at her church. I cried through the whole thing. It was traumatizing.
I mean, these people would act out common real life tragedies, like murder, bank shootings, car accidents, ect. right in front of you! We visited Hell, too, which wasn't as bad, but many of the "people" who had died in previous acts were there, all because they weren't saved.
I love Halloween, so this information was really entertaining to listen to. Thank you for broadcasting it to us!
You bring a cheerful, razor-smart nuance to the Atheist community. Always love your show.
Dear Thinking Atheist-
Thank you for the podcast on ghosts. While I am an ex-pagan/now atheist who doesnt believe in ghosts in the least...I ABSOLUTELY love to hear about other peoples scary moments and what they are afraid of. Some of it was chillingly fun (I absolutely LOVE Halloween) and in some cases comedic (scared of big bird...lol). Entertaining podcast, and a good socialogical and psychological view of how the strong topic of death/fear is handled by different people.
Peace, Skelly
I went to Catholic Parochial School all my life from 1st to High school. Every year the school would put together a classic haunted house - it was not a "hell house". It was ghosts, zombies, and scary deranged people. Even the nuns running the school would get in on the fun. That was the point - no one took it seriously - it was scary "dracula", "frankenstein" themes. It was a great time. I learned so much about set design, scripts, and working together. Great fun.
Great stuff. All kids enjoy the thrill of being scared, knowing in the back of their mind it's all done in fun, it's like being on a rollercoaster.
Loved the Jack-O-Lantern story.
I remember going trick-or-treating when I was around 9 years old. We went to this one house with a nice front porch. There was, what appeared to be, a stuffed life-size scarecrow sitting on a bench. Well, I went up to it, a little hesitant, and pinched its nose. The scarecow jumped out at me as I felt a real nose under a mask, and yes......I pissed myself! Good times! LOL
THANK YOU SETH!!!!
BEST BDAY GIFT!!!
Loved this surprise podcast!!!!
As a small boy living in Kent (UK) during the 1960's I remember going to 'Harvest Festival' (one of the two times in the year that we HAD to go to church) and having Halloween Parties (no Trick or Treating back then) usually run by the school, at that time it was just a big children's party with games and cakes and such-like. In the run up to Halloween we were taught about the non-christian and christian origins of Halloween, so it really wasn't much of a big deal.
Assume Nothing. Question Everything. Open your eyes, challenge the opposition and start thinking. (that was awesome)
I love the anti-promotion for the Creation "Museum" at the end.
Nice touch, Seth.
I once dressed up as the floor of a movie theater: maroon sweats with candy wrappers glued to them and a popcorn bucket on my head.
You took all the scariness out of Hallowe'en. You are a very bad man. Good job! Keep it up.
I was raised jw and my birthday is 10/30. Halloween was always a rough holiday for me as a kid. so now as an adult who doesn't raise my kids with any god in their lives Halloween is our day and Thanksgiving and Xmas are days we spend with stuck up religious family so we don't like those holidays as much. my step dad although isn't jw is still Christian so we have to "behave ourselves"
why has this only so little views its a great podcast
I wonder how the church counselors would react if I went through a Hell House and said "I still don't believe in Jesus."
Interesting that October 31st is actually Samhain but November 1st is Hallows Eve. Same Day as the Aztec and Mexican Day of the Dead.
"Is Halloween detrimental"? Well, with all that candy and pumpkin pie, it's probably detrimental to your health. xD
happy halloween :)
greetz from germany
This was interesting and fun and awesome. This guy has a lot of fun with this :D
If anyone is wondering, the Hell House movie is available on instant stream on netflix.
I wish we had something like a proper Halloween in Finland. We used to have something akin to the celtic Samhain called Kekri, but apparently it has gotten snuffed out so completely nobody has even tried to revive it to sell halloween trinkets. I guess it's just easier to import Halloween wholesale, and even that is facing lots of resistance. Which is fine too. It's not the name or the origins that matter, but being able to have fun.
Pumpkins are eaten in Australia as a normal vegatable...right beside potatoes and carrots, however the breed of pumpkin differs to what is popular in America..(they taste like sweet potatoes when cooked)
Great podcast! You have to admit Gregory III's move to bring Halloween to the christian religion was indeed a wise and clever move. And that 's been repeated over time with other religions and traditions to morph pagan/polytheist cultures into christian ones. It's like aikido.
@fistpounder I'm just outside Glasgow, and each year I grow a nice crop of raspberries, tayberries, blackcurrants, blueberries and Victoria plums in my garden.
In Gaul the corresponding words for these seasons were Samon (end of summer) and Giamon (end of winter). Just to let you all know...
thank u for this cool informative vid
@cluengas2k
Thank you! I'm here all week!
@O2BSoLucky 2). He said that the child wanted to do it. (Fair enough the child was young and we get a lot of US TV). But he needed to be the adult and say no. (Only kid so that is why he gave-in I think). Or a door knock the day before to let people know (get permission/prepare etc) would have been handy. And finally I would have had something for the poor poppet. That is my only Halloween experience.
I like the Simpson's Halloween specials.
that hell house seemed like the LEAST scary haunted house i've ever seen and i wish i could go to it so i could laugh my way through it with friends XD
Im an atheist but I LOVE halloween!!
I listen to this podcast regularly, but mostly because it's fairly alien to me. I've lived in California since I was 7 and although we all know about the "Bible Belt", the stories we hear seem fictional. Listening to this cast, I'm continually saying out loud ... "Of Course, That's only common sense!" . It's astounding and fascinating to know there are parts of this country that actually believe stories from the bible effect their lives. I don't mean to sound jaded, but it's fascinating.
Coming here is like stepping into the sane asylum and away from the insane asylum! Religions, all religions from every culture should have a warning label on them "Do not take seriously may lead to insanity!"... I'm looking forward to each and every broadcast and reading as many comments as possible.
Getting into the Halloween spirit its august as i write i love fall the asthetic is amazing cant wait for october
Only just started listening but I had to post...yay the sound quality is great now! :D
I've actually kind of wanted to visit the creationist museum, just to see the fossil specimens they have. But- and this is a big but- I will have my headphones on with either hard rock/metal music, or something like your show.
By the way, thank you for this, the museum I am working at is doing a Fall Festivals week this week and now I am a bit better prepared for the inevitable "this is the devils day" comments.
You guys are my heroes.
A lot of interesting info, good job.
I love these podcasts
i cant believe some people gave you flack for the last podcast it was great, i love halloween too but i dont believe in ghosts etc. its great fun.
I have a great reason for a free thinker to talk about the supernatural..
BECAUSE IT'S FUN! You don't have to believe in any of it, to let it creep you out.
AWESOME SOUND QUALITY!
i called about the hell house and was wondering if he would do this kind of show. i approve.
your voice, much like Mufasa's, is eargasmic.
@lonewolf7999 Air
1. We can see the effect air has.
2. We can perform chemical analysis to see what the air contains and in what quantities.
3. We can measure the force (pressure) exerted by the air.
4. We can and have formed predictive models for air and its effects on our environment. These tested positively
5. We CAN see air by reducing its temperature.
God.
1. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Well, we have this old book...............
I always wondered how people who had friends or relatives die during Halloween feels about it.
A couple years ago, my mom was pregnant with my baby sister, so she dressed as a nun and my step-dad dressed as Jesus for Halloween. This year, they switched roles!
threetailedfox1 Your dad went as a preggers Jesus?
Seth-
Please please PLEASE keep the audio quality as awesome as this all the time. Your voice is completely different in good quality like or your FreeOK speech versus your podcasts.
I love how, when talking about Hell Houses, they're described as "depicting horrors found in the real world...like demons" xD
And isn't Lindsey Lohan a sort of combination of the circus freak and the crash-test dummy?
Halloween wasn't celebrated in Finland until recently, basically you can say it started to become noticed only after year 2000: you can't get away from all the seasonal crap the stores try to sell you. Even now, Halloween exists only in the form of private costume parties, there's no trick-or-treating. Dressing up as witches and going around begging for candy and money? For us, that's Easter and children often offer decorated twigs to bless the house they visit.
@treesmoke
Probably just like people who had friends or relatives die during christmas, easter, new year, or columbus day feel about it ....
It sucks, no matter what day they die on.
@Invincible327 Comments like these take no time. But if you'd like to start sending messages, well that could take some time. More time than I'm willing to spend at the moment. This is more to do with me as I have a tendency to fully explain my entire point in great detail. To respond to your comment about misinterpretation, the passages I listed were quite clear. They leave very little room for wrong interpretations.
think I'm gonna try out that apple peel thing
I would be so excited if the lobster baby came to my door. I didn't even know they did delivery.
maybe you should record your side of the audio pickup and then overlay it on the blog talk recording when you post podcasts
@Invincible327 That's something I've heard from believers too. My response is this: If we're meant to take some parts literally, and some parts are not meant to be taken literally, then why take any of it literally? If we take none of it literally, then it's not the word of God. If it's not the word of God, then why believe it at all? See how that's infinitely more logical than "Just cause". If you want people to believe you, you have give reasons. Otherwise you're talking to yourself.
Halloween is the best time of the year. Zombie walk coming up too! Mwahahahaha!
Gotta watch out for those tricky Faeries. But if you've got something of iron, you're good. For what ever reason the Tuath de Danan have a strong aversion to iron. Hurts them.
Better quality sound ... YAY ^^
@lonewolf7999 With wind, we feel and see the effects, and understand the underlying physics behind it, so it is easy to believe in wind. How does one evaluate the proposition that "His glory and His awesome creation is all around you"? It isn't exactly testable in the same way that the physics of wind is.
@Dream0Asylum Yea but you can avoid celebrating xmas or thanksgiving if someone died that day. But Halloween you have people coming to your house some of them may be dressed up in ways that may mock the death of person you care about.
CHEERS!
I laughed at the leaf pile idea! That was great.
Check out Hauntcast for a great Podcast on everything Halloween.
Where
I've been listening to this podcast (#32 = an excellent binary number) while building a new cemetery monument for our Halloween display! Our floating lantern is wandering around outside as if carried aloft by some disembodied soul. The neighborhood kids have been coming by to make sure that we are doing our haunted house this year. I love Halloween and simply can't imagine allowing someone else's silly religious beliefs to diminish our spooky fun!
A young earth creationist I used to work with has dressed up as Harry Potter for Halloween. It's possible to be a nutter about religion and still be pretty cool about Halloween.
(Not saying anyone didn't think so, just offering random thoughts related to the vid.)
@TruthSurge how big would a potato need to be to put a light in it?
@gatraw Totally right! I was amazed too.
Sounds like you got a new mic, Seth. Sounds great. Or is it just that this was pre-recorded?
@LichQueenKathie Your boys should have whipped the French in the Rugby World Cup.
"Lich Queen huh? "Light be with you" LOL
fuck yeah! I swear that is the most senseless comment I left since my last one. Love you...do more book reviews please I wanna find more to read as I do spend most of my time!]
22:42 "predatory snakes"
I guess herbivorous snakes just wouldn't be as scary.
I find some religious peoples fear and apprehension about Halloween kinda funny especially since the church kinda helped preserve the holiday in some ways.
@Cougar139tweak New Zealand's like that too. You're more likely to get rolling eyes if you say you're religious than if you say you're an Atheist. 8^)
I'll say, I'm a Christian, but I really enjoyed this video. It told the facts of it's history clean, straight-forward, and without all the dogma. It was so annoying trying to find a history video without having to filter through half an hour of "Why Halloween is Bad". Plus, some of the Christian video's had totally bogus information. I saw these two guys I just had to quit listening to when they pronounced "Celts" as "Selts". Morons!
in austria (not australia) we still have halloween in a more original form. meaning its not halloween at all, but "allsaints" and "allsouls" day. the first is even a national holiday. you are supposed to commemorate the deceased and take care for the graves of you relatives. and you have to be sad. but hollywood influences our culture, so we now have the american halloween version here too - not as huge, but becoming bigger.
carnival is around the end of wintertime and has no theme.
@warren52nz That depends which part of NZ you're from. NZ seems to be a lot more secular than many other places in the world however.
i got proud when he said guising in scotland
Now I want to go to a hell house just to say to the councelors "I just came for the violence, bye!"
This postcast sounds a lot better quality-wise, new mic ftw?
@Invincible327 Also, Free Will isn't a virtue. It's something we have because we're sentient. It's not given to us. We just possess it. It's part of being human.
I´d like to see pictures of Zorro and his steed!
I GOT THAT ONE TOO, AND "I'm a Mormon" ADS!
@mocktheweekfan92 The only spelling errors were that i and e were reversed in "weird" and I'm sure you meant to say "from" instead of "form".
"hearing Celtic history from an American is pretty weird."
@Invincible327 No True Scotsman is a logical fallacy by which an individual attempts to avoid being associated with an unpleasant act by asserting that no true member of the group they belong to would do such a thing. Instead of acknowledging that some members of a group have undesirable characteristics, the fallacy tries to redefine the group to exclude them. Sentences such as "all members of X have desirable trait Y" then become tautologies, because Y becomes a requirement of membership in X.
My neighbor hands out miniature New Testaments to kids who visit his door. I'm definitely going to point out the fact that the Catholic Church has more influence behind "Satan's holiday" than Christmas.
my exams are on November 1st... i guess that works
I hated carving turnips. It was hard to do with a butter knife and spoon, and smelled bad. lol
YES! thank you!
@MrTroll652
Sometimes, yes -- we can be. But it's usually when we're provoked by those who have faith.
~Amen to that!
@ TheThinkingAtheist
I am absolutely loving this!
But I must correct you this.
(this criticism is purely and 100% benevolent and in no way mean to offend you)
I was a Catholic for about 18 years so I'm familiar with some of the history/terminology. When you said Limbo, I'm pretty sure "Purgatory" would be more accurate.
Purgatory is believed, by the Catholic tradition, to be where souls go before you go to heaven.
Limbo was where babies went if they died before getting baptized.
@Invincible327 How you define wisdom that it's power gives you the ability to discern that Buddha's ability to heal the sick came from demons, but Jesus' power came from the one true god? Especially when you consider the story of saint Issa, which if confirmed, indicates that Jesus at one point during his youth lived in India studying under the monks there.
Halloween is an excuse for me to show off my Skyrim and Fallout cosplay.
Don't waste your time with the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Went to their "Dark Harbor" Halloween thing last weekend and waited 4 hours to get into 2 of the 7 or so mazes, which were basically filled with college students wearing zombie make-up. Total waste of time. Also did their ghost tour a couple years ago, which was a really expensive way to get cheap laughs. The ship itself and it's history is very cool and interesting, so do go there but don't waste your time with the gimmicky tours
I would like to say as a KY born person.....I'm sorry for the Creation "Museum". Not all of us here in KY surport it at all.
Dude, I like scary stories. Keep talking about different stuff on occasion.
@MrTroll652
I agree, some of them do. I personally do not.
@Newenlightenmentnow Lol, thanks. And yeah, you'll have to talk to TTA about it. It is a bit still surprising that they don't know what's in their own holy books. Anyways, cheers.
hollowed out potato or turnip? cmon man. that's really stretching to make a history for jack-o-lantern. they're not even gourds.
The recipe for the biggest pie sounds like recipe for a giant bowl of chocolate salty balls to me