Our Traditional Holidays

moreluck

golden ticket member
It's already starting again this year. Some school (didn't catch the state) can't have Halloween because ONE mom objects to it.

If you object, then don't participate.

Little kindergarteners parading around in their costumes and having a good time......what's wrong with that? I hate it when the majority have to bend over backwards for a few "party-poopers".

Don't even get me started on Christmas......it's coming pretty soon, you know.
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
It's already starting again this year. Some school (didn't catch the state) can't have Halloween because ONE mom objects to it.

If you object, then don't participate.

Little kindergarteners parading around in their costumes and having a good time......what's wrong with that? I hate it when the majority have to bend over backwards for a few "party-poopers".

Don't even get me started on Christmas......it's coming pretty soon, you know.
Well, Halloween is a pagan holiday.... maybe it was a christian mom who objected? At least that would even out the whole x-mas debacle :wink: Got a link to the story?
 

satellitedriver

Moderator
Well, Halloween is a pagan holiday.... maybe it was a christian mom who objected? At least that would even out the whole x-mas debacle :wink: Got a link to the story?
Halloween was a pagan holiday, but it wasn't called that. It was the midpoint between the solstices.The catholic church turned it into All Hallowed Eve and declared the next day as All Saints Day.
Christmas was placed in December to match the pagan winter solstice festival.
Easter is a movable feast. Every year it is on a different day. Most christians can not tell you why.
Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs after the spring equinox. Another pagan holiday.
So, back to the thread.
Halloween should be fun.and not linked to religion.
In the area I live in, the Baptist churches have a sort of party on Halloween to entertain the kids. They believe Halloween is a form of devil worship and should not be celebrated.
I enjoy watching the kids trick or treating,while I deliver my in-town residentials.
As a child I enjoyed Halloween as much as Christmas morning.
PAX
 

diesel96

Well-Known Member
The Churches don't seem to have a problem selling pumkinheads on their grounds on this most festive, evil, Pagan holiday:confused:1

I don't know what that's supposed to mean..anyway that ONE mom that stopped halloween at school must be ultra conservative....always trying to push their values on others. She seems more like a real witch than the fake ones who dress up like one.
 

Overpaid Union Thug

Well-Known Member
The Churches don't seem to have a problem selling pumkinheads on their grounds on this most festive, evil, Pagan holiday:confused:1

I don't know what that's supposed to mean..anyway that ONE mom that stopped halloween at school must be ultra conservative....always trying to push their values on others. She seems more like a real witch than the fake ones who dress up like one.

An ultra-conservative trying to push their values on others? LOL! Mutch like your Liberal buddies trying to push homosexuality, abortion, excess taxes, gun control, and socialist programs on others? And that was just to name a few.

It doesn't really matter how halloween got to the way it is now. The point should be that it's a harmless event for children and most of us participated in it in some form of fashion in the past and now people want to take it away? Does it really surprise anyone though? I mean look at what has been going on with Christmas the past 5 years. I predict many of the holidays and events that used to keep our calenders full will slowly be crossed out for good in the near future. Probably in our lifetime. And don't think the ACLU won't have a hand in that.
 

satellitedriver

Moderator
Well, Halloween is a pagan holiday.... maybe it was a christian mom who objected? At least that would even out the whole x-mas debacle :wink: Got a link to the story?
Here you go Jones. It wasn't a christian mom, she is Muslim.

(CBS) OAK LAWN, Ill. A southwest suburban school district has taken action, responding to the concerns of a Muslim parent.

But now, as CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports, other parents are angry that traditional school holidays will be renamed or even eliminated.

"That does not represent all the Muslims, all of the Arabs at that school," said Qais Nofel, the father of a student in Ridgeland School District 122.

There was some heated discussion between parents outside Columbus Manor Elementary School in Oak Lawn on Friday. The thought of no more traditional holiday celebrations has many parents really upset.

For now, children in Ridgeland School District 122 will celebrate fall festival instead of Halloween and winter festival instead of Christmas.

Brenda Elvidge said, "It's not fair to our kids. This is America and that's an American tradition."

The decision affects the children at four elementary schools in Oak Lawn and one junior high school in Bridgeview.

The district has a 30 percent Arab-American population, many of whom practice Islam. The superintendent says the reason for the change in tradition comes after one parent wanted Ramadan decorations put up inside Columbus Manor Elementary. They were taken down.

Superintendent Tom Smyth said, "I go back to our policy which says that public schools are to remain neutral in this respect."

Ridgeland School District 122 has called for an emergency meeting on the issue, to be held on Tuesday.

Meantime, Muslim children are being allowed to pray during what's being called their own time, that's lunch time, during Ramadan.

Parent June Quigley said, "They get to pray in our schools. That is religion in a public school."

Muslim parents have different views on the issue.

Sala Abour said, "To take away Halloween and Christmas from little kids, that is very wrong."

Nofel said, "We go and we celebrate the holidays and traditions here, but we do have the right to be Muslims as well."

Other parents say the controversy is overshadowing what really needs to be addressed at all five schools in the district.

Ronnie Carroll said, "The fact that they are cash strapped. Our classroom size is way above the average mean, 38 children in our first grade classroom. The concern should be our school, not the whole holiday issues."

Those issues along with the holiday controversy are going to be addressed at a school board meeting on Tuesday. Members will decide if holidays will be celebrated or not.

Meantime, the Illinois PTA district director says the state is now investigating this issue and there's a meeting with the superintendent next week.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved
 

moreluck

golden ticket member
I had a feeling it was a muslim.

Try to stop ramadan celebrations and they'll scream. I suppose they want the cafe-gym-a-torium closed while it's ramadan too....fasting you know.

If you are in America, either go with the flow or get out!! Quit trying to change OUR traditions. :mad:
 

satellitedriver

Moderator
I had a feeling it was a muslim.

Try to stop ramadan celebrations and they'll scream. I suppose they want the cafe-gym-a-torium closed while it's ramadan too....fasting you know.

If you are in America, either go with the flow or get out!! Quit trying to change OUR traditions. :mad:
I guess we will have to also provide foot baths at all public schools.
 

over9five

Moderator
Staff member
"Quit trying to change OUR traditions."

Why would they quit trying when we do such an excellent job caving in to their demands?

America has lost its balls. We have been castrated by the Liberals. They have won, it's all over.
 

Overpaid Union Thug

Well-Known Member
Isn't it ironic that while our military is taking on Muslim terrorists in the Middle East there are Americans here slowly but surely giving in to Muslim demands? Where is the petition to save Halloween?
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
Well, the petition was actually from a christian group. The mom in this particular instance was a muslim, but in a lot of places the ban on halloween has been pushed by evangelical christians, among others.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Halloween has become evil personified," said Steve Russo, a California evangelical pastor who promotes alternative Halloween observances. [/FONT]

and
Banning Halloween

and

Banned at the schoolhouse door: pint-size ghosts and goblins

The real problem is state institutions bowing to religious fundamentalism in any form. I wonder if it's a coincidence that the whole footbath contraversy and this latest ban on halloween happened in the same state where they tried to replace science with creationism in the classroom?

Once you start down the road of bowing to religious demands you never know where it will end.
 

diesel96

Well-Known Member
Isn't it ironic that while our military is taking on Muslim terrorists in the Middle East there are Americans here slowly but surely giving in to Muslim demands? Where is the petition to save Halloween?

Isn't it ironic that while our military troops are dying trying to revamp a Muslim country there are Americans here slaming Muslims here and abroad.
BTW...Remember those little orange cardboard UNICEF collection boxes we used to get for halloween time?....Well you'll be surprised as to where some of the monies go to.....That's right MUSLIM countries.

I'm thinking this Miuslim Mom might be a little sour to the decline of donations towards UNICEF in the US...BUT there's a new sherriff in town who might rekindle the collection rejection.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...rganizations/U/United Nations Children's Fund
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Holiday is a contraction of the words Holy and Day which described a day set aside from the normal daily activities of life for a day of rest and religious observances. In our modern age, holiday both represents the divine as well as the secular.

Halloween has it's European roots in 2 similar religious customs. Samhain as it was known among the Celtic pagans of pre-Christian Scotland and Ireland was celebrated as the New Year and is best known for it's links with the spooks and spirits that we've come to focus on in our modern world. In their day, these traditions had a much more direct religious importance and was celebrated . The time period of this celebration had to do with the Harvest moon but to our modern calendar it would be Oct. 29th to Nov. 2nd.

Among the Norse people of the pre-Christian era it was called WinterNights and shared many of the same traditions including the dates but the spooks and goblins didn't seem as strong or at least to me it seemed that way.

Once these European areas came under Roman religious control, the older pagan beliefs were "Christianized" in order to dissolve the older religious beliefs in the hope that Christian thought and practice would prevail.

Thanksgiving has a European and Mideastern origin associated with harvest festivals. In the anglo-saxon, the word haerfest which means autumn was the term used to mean harvest festival so to speak. It has pre-christian roots and like Sukkot, it also thanked the gods (pre-christian europe was not monotheistic) for a good harvest. Once Christianity came on the scene it was christianized but did maintain some old pagan traditions alongside the new but the overall idea was the same except now it was one god instead of many. The mideast connection is to the old testament Feast of Tabernacles and/or Feast of Booths and in the hebrew was known as Sukkot. The purpose being of thanking god for a bountiful harvest. Even the 5th century BCE greeks have a connection with the corbucopia or horn of plenty as some call it.

Christmas has both pagan European, Babylonian and Persian connections and even some Egyptian rites have connection as this time of year of the winter solitice held special play in some societies through time. Saturnalia among other names was it's name during a time and it's rites and practices pre-date by centuries if not millenia the birth of Christ. The fact is, christ actual birthdate is unknown and our current observance was picked by committee in effect and was so done to surplant pre-christian customs among conquered populations.

Easter is another non-christian custom with roots mostly among the Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians and even Europeans to a lesser extent. The reason easter as does passover move around has to do with using the lunar movements to make the time. Isreal once it left Egypt adopted a solar based calendar which pretty much resembled our modern day one with 365 days. However in 500 BC, the remnants of old Isreal returning from the babylonian capativity had adopted the babylonian lunar calendar which only has 354 days and every 5 years (don't hold me to this as I'm operating from memory) they added a 13th month in the same was as we add an extra day to February to keep out calendar current. In old Israel the first month of the year was known as Abib and if you'll read Ezeriah on Nehemiah (again memory here) the first month is now called Nissan as it was during this time the folks returned to Jerusalem by the favor of the Persian Xxeres.

It's is ironic that in Christiandom we talked about Jesus being executed (I call it exactly what it was, it was a political execution for the crime of sedition) on the Friday before Passover but then look at how often Easter falls exactly on the same timeframe as the jewish Passover? Not often enough to sell me on the idea although I do not question the event at all but only the specific day on which we told to celbrate the event.

Holidays are manmade ideas and creations and many with noble ideas behind them or in some cases to be silly and act childlike for a moment. I always find it of interest when so-called good Godly people stand up and oppose ideas like Halloween or whatever but then if you look deeper into them you'll also find they practice as many pagan customs if not more than the folks who done costumes on Halloween but hide this fact by just calling the custom under a Christianized name. I still think St. Valentine's Day should revert back to it's Roman origins when it was called Cupid's Day and the custom was open orgies in the streets for all good Romans!

:thumbup1::lol:

BTW: Are you aware that among the Pilgrim colony at Plymouth that the practice of Christmas was forbidden! What would UPS be today had that opinion held sway?
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Check this out. The school that tried to ban participating in Christmas and Halloween, which was thwarted by parents, held an Islamic concert.


http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/610554,101907peace.article

Big,
I have to say I'm in your corner on this one and all because of the following statement from the article.

the elimination of pork products and Jell-O from the lunch menu.

This move is in relation to muslim dietary laws and this makes IMO a clear violation of separation of Church and State as this is an attempt of enforcing a religious dogma of one group on the lives of others who feel otherwise. Now I also agree that from the muslim perspective, pork on the menu can be an equally opposing force and as someone who at one time followed the dietary laws found in the Bible and Koran (Abrahamic tradition as found in both the Islamic and Israelite (jewish) law) and still do for the most part to this day, it does present a situation that could cause them to unknowningly violate their beliefs. It's one thing to work within the school system to have in place the means to accomodate for religious dietary laws especially when the gov't has compulsory school attendence laws but it's another thing to force an entire school population into a religious practice just to accomodate a small percentage of the overall student population.

I think the better focus of efforts would be to do some historical research and learn of ancient customs and health circumstances in relation to certain prohibited food groups supposedly by the "Word of God". Education is the seeking of truth and I think some truth is what this situation needs. Might do well to also include the history and traditions of Christmas and Halloween as well. We might learn that certain "traditions of men" that were ascribed to God as a means of preventing a health problem in the case of the dietary laws present at one time in history when the laws came into being doesn't exist in the same manner in our day and time. We also might learn that certain holidays came into place because as one religion of an empire displaced another, the old traditional holidays of that society had to go but like today the people rebelled at that process. Instead, the same trapping and traditions remained but under a new reason in the hopes that over time the real purpose would change to meld into the new religious order of the empire. And it has worked very well indeed!

It's funny what you learn studying history and traditons of people and if more of this were done, the radicalism of many religions would melt away in the light of truth as it would become obvious as the nose on one's face that what we've been told that is the "absolute word of God" in many cases has been nothing more than the words of a bunch of men out to manipulate and rule their own little fifedoms for their own means and purpose or to advance the bigger worldly empire created by other men!

JMHO!
 
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