Halloween fear oddly ironic

Religion is a powerful force, indeed, it is one of the unifying elements of humanity – although one wouldn’t think so, to see some of the atrocities committed in the name of religion.
But belief is powerful. So powerful that it sometimes over-rides logic and reason, such as what will happen in McAdam this weekend, and what happened here some years past, when towns decided to unilaterally “move” Halloween from a Sunday date to the Saturday before.
The logic, of course, is that Halloween is seen as a non-Christian event, somehow in conflict with Judeo-Christian principles.
This, however, doesn’t bear the test of history.
In my former guise as a long-haired philosopher, I opted for the career path of studying religions. Now, there’s not a lot of want ads for long-haired comparative religions professors, which is why I fled the hallowed halls of higher learning and wiggled my way into the current career path.
But I still have a passion for that field.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: almost every major religion or culture has a celebration where there is a belief that spirits of the dead are somehow “closer” to the real world. Indeed, there’s a celebration in Catholic faiths called “all souls day” which is based on the thought that some of the souls of the dearly departed must be assisted to their final destination.
But back to the original thesis for moving Halloween, shall we?
The general gist, as I understand, is that Halloween is a pagan event and it is a conflict to celebrate a pagan event on a day reserved for Christian celebration.
That’s a nasty can of worms to open. For one, our culture is infused with celebrations rooted in pagan observations. Easter and Christmas are two examples. The very existence of the Christmas tree – a common practice in many households – is rooted in the practices of the British and Germanic Celts. A Yule log – often the same pole used in the fertility rite of the May pole – was burned on solstice night, the longest night of the year, to mark the death and rebirth of the horned consort to the mother goddess. (Variations exist in many European pre-Christian cultures.)
The Easter bunny, however, is likely tied more to Greek practices, and seems to be rooted in the sacrifice of fertility symbols (eggs, rabbits, pigs) to the chthonic (earth-bound) gods and goddesses held to be charge of plant growth.
This is hardly news.
But I find it a bit odd that we would embrace or ignore one pagan-rooted celebration in this culture, and provide another – Halloween – with such power.
It would make sense if churches banned Easter as well as most of the pagan trappings of Christmas.
But for the most part, they don’t, in large part because the pagan/non-Christian trappings of both celebrations have long been lost, removed from the realm of religion and incorporated into custom and culture.
Likewise, this forthcoming celebration of Halloween has long lost its roots in pagan faiths, long lost its history as a time when people would wear masks and costumes to conceal their identity from possibly vengeful spirits reaching across from the “other world” on a day when the veil between here and the afterworld was believed to be weak.
Nope, it’s a day for kids to dress up and gather far too many calories in short-chain, sugary molecules.
Unless, of course, one chooses to believe otherwise. Ironic, isn't it?