Skulls, Halloween, dark stuff...

The Outlier said:

There is no connection other than tradition and emotion between "dark art" and evil. What is dark art? A skull? A skull is the framework of your face. It is a thing of beauty in and of itself.

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Well, if it's a matter of perspective, as you say, then anything and everything can be turned toward evil. Look at the secular view of sex, for example...

post hoc, ergo propter hoc

"after this, therefore because of this."

Assumes an event occurring first causes an event that happens second when no such casual relationship exists.
Example: I picked up my pen and then stubbed my toe on the coffee table. Therefore, picking up pens causes you to stub your toe.

Root of Jesse said:

Well, if it's a matter of perspective, as you say, then anything and everything can be turned toward evil.

Look at the secular view of sex, for example...

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What does that have to do with Halloween and skulls?



.

besides.. everyone knows that the real spawns of the devil aren't emos or goths, but hipsters.

ChristsSoldier115 said:

post hoc, ergo propter hoc

"after this, therefore because of this."

Assumes an event occurring first causes an event that happens second when no such casual relationship exists.
Example: I picked up my pen and then stubbed my toe on the coffee table. Therefore, picking up pens causes you to stub your toe.

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I have no idea how that relates to Halloween.....perhaps I am just dense.....

LittleLambofJesus said:

I have no idea how that relates to Halloween.....perhaps I am just dense.....

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I was explaining what it meant to those who did not know. In a previous comment I stated that christians loved the argument fallacy. I felt the argument fallacy existed in the thread's op. Darkness is evil. Therefore people who wear dark clothes are evil.

Tins said:

That was not my initial judgment, that those who wear dark clothes or whatnot are evil. People are not inherently evil, well they are but after Christ they are not.

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No. This is Manicheanism.

God created humanity and said humanity is very good.

Even after the Fall, we are inherently good. Unable to save ourselves, but not evil. Corrupted, but still human.

PaladinValer said:

No. This is Manicheanism.

God created humanity and said humanity is very good.

Even after the Fall, we are inherently good. Unable to save ourselves, but not evil. Corrupted, but still human.

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This is an area where East and West often speak past one another, because the theological language and vocabulary of the Eastern and Western theological traditions are quite different.

In the East, insofar as I comprehend it the argument that human beings are inherently good is rooted in that being human is inherently good. Because being human, being a creature of God, is fundamentally and intrinsically good. God, the Creator, made all things and said, "It is exceedingly good" and that includes everything from men, mice, to molehills. And thus, indeed, humans are inherently good because being human is an inherently good thing. And salvation is about God restoring and healing what it means to be human, and thus in Christ is humanity healed, restored; because the inherent creaturely goodness of man as a creature created in the image of God is something God regards worth saving.

And thus to try and paint the created world, including us humans, as fundamentally evil enters into a Gnostic or Manichean perspective where the material, physical, solid existence is an inferior or evil one. We do right to oppose such Gnostic and Manichean garbage for the heresy that it is.

Having said that, we should also understand the Western perspective, and take into account the Western vocabulary of justice, justification, etc. Whereas the East's language is chiefly medicinal, the West's language is judicial.

And here, in Western language, goodness and evil are not being used in reference to the creaturely existence of humanity, but of the human condition, human guilt and concupiscience. That the human creature is sinful, guilty of having trespassed the Divine Law, and thus justly held under the scrutiny of God's Law as judged guilty. And the human creature needs to be justified, set right, set to rights before God. And God has done this in Christ by being both the Just One and the justifier of the unjust. Christ is the just satisfaction, the One who alone truly Just, the One alone who is truly right and righteous and obedient becomes for us the satisfaction and righteousness that we need to be set to rights before God.

And thus the intrinsic evil of the human condition--that we are dead in our trespasses, unable to seek after righteousness under our own power, that we willingly turn inward to ourselves and away from God, etc--does not nullify the intrinsic goodness of being human, of being the good creature of God.

Because Christianity uses two sets of vocabularies (Scripture uses both medicinal and judicial language to talk about salvation) we should ensure that we aren't confusing them, or ignoring one for the other.

I think East and West are both right on this issue. The problem is that we sometimes speak past one another.

Is it true that human beings, created in the image and likeness of God are inherently good? Yes.

Is it true that human beings, born in sin and death, are inherently wicked? Yes.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

This is an area where East and West often speak past one another, because the theological language and vocabulary of the Eastern and Western theological traditions are quite different.

In the East, insofar as I comprehend it the argument that human beings are inherently good is rooted in that being human is inherently good. Because being human, being a creature of God, is fundamentally and intrinsically good. God, the Creator, made all things and said, "It is exceedingly good" and that includes everything from men, mice, to molehills. And thus, indeed, humans are inherently good because being human is an inherently good thing. And salvation is about God restoring and healing what it means to be human, and thus in Christ is humanity healed, restored; because the inherent creaturely goodness of man as a creature created in the image of God is something God regards worth saving.

And thus to try and paint the created world, including us humans, as fundamentally evil enters into a Gnostic or Manichean perspective where the material, physical, solid existence is an inferior or evil one. We do right to oppose such Gnostic and Manichean garbage for the heresy that it is.

Having said that, we should also understand the Western perspective, and take into account the Western vocabulary of justice, justification, etc. Whereas the East's language is chiefly medicinal, the West's language is judicial.

And here, in Western language, goodness and evil are not being used in reference to the creaturely existence of humanity, but of the human condition, human guilt and concupiscience. That the human creature is sinful, guilty of having trespassed the Divine Law, and thus justly held under the scrutiny of God's Law as judged guilty. And the human creature needs to be justified, set right, set to rights before God. And God has done this in Christ by being both the Just One and the justifier of the unjust. Christ is the just satisfaction, the One who alone truly Just, the One alone who is truly right and righteous and obedient becomes for us the satisfaction and righteousness that we need to be set to rights before God.

And thus the intrinsic evil of the human condition--that we are dead in our trespasses, unable to seek after righteousness under our own power, that we willingly turn inward to ourselves and away from God, etc--does not nullify the intrinsic goodness of being human, of being the good creature of God.

Because Christianity uses two sets of vocabularies (Scripture uses both medicinal and judicial language to talk about salvation) we should ensure that we aren't confusing them, or ignoring one for the other.

I think East and West are both right on this issue. The problem is that we sometimes speak past one another.

Is it true that human beings, created in the image and likeness of God are inherently good? Yes.

Is it true that human beings, born in sin and death, are inherently wicked? Yes.

-CryptoLutheran

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I concur with your post without objection and had this difference in the back of mind when I wrote mine: "corrupt, but still human" and "unable to save ourselves but not evil". I of course have no objection that we are under a non-anthropomorphic "God's wrath" for our now corrupted nature and will.

I think if all Christians were given a basic but thorough elementary education in history and theology, even a complex difference like this would be reconcilable by more and more people, East or West.

Root of Jesse said:

Well, if it's a matter of perspective, as you say, then anything and everything can be turned toward evil. Look at the secular view of sex, for example...

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That's right- anything can be given an evil context. God created sex. The world made up the idea that God is against sex.

There is another thread also now where Halloween is being discussed quite a bit.

faroukfarouk said:

There is another thread also now where Halloween is being discussed quite a bit.

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IMO the less said the better. Halloween is a pathetic holiday, at its best.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!

faroukfarouk said:

Holiness is an inward and spiritual thing first of all.

It might have some effect on the outward, but it's an inward and spiritual thing first and foremost.

Some legalistic churches seem to think that if a young lady wears floppy skirts and has long hair down her back, no tattoo, only one set of earrings, then this is 'spiritual'.

Whereas if she wears frayed jeans, black mascara and has a Bible verse tattoo in black tribal style on her wrist, this is 'unspiritual', supposedly.

Re. skulls, a lot of women do seem to feel that a skull design, piece of jewlery, etc. can be styled in a quite feminine way.

(Is this the sort of comment you were looking for, maybe?)

Blessings.

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Matt 7 says that bad trees produce bad fruit and good trees - good fruit.

1John 2 says that to love the "things" in the world is to be at odds with God.

James 4 says that to love the things of the world is to be the enemy of God.

Beyond all of that - the devil is pretty good at his job. He has decided that the night before "all saints day" should be dedicated to the programs of the devil. He is the one promoting death while Christ is the author of life.

To engage in the devil's party "as if it is a good thing" is to be somewhat asleep at the wheel.

1 Peter 4 "they are surprised that you do not join them in their excesses".

Romans 1 "they not only do such things - they give hearty approval to others that do the same things".

in Christ,

Bob

Tins said:

I am pleasantly surprised by the LACK of legalism in this thread...I am happy to see that. I am trying to get away from legalism, which is what I was raised with. That's why I'm broaching these subjects (and I'm also keeping track of the tattoo thread) because I want to get away from the legalistic viewpoints and get more in line with what God really wants me to be focusing on. But I'm a VERY visual person, and was also raised to judge on appearance, so it's hard to sort of be "OK" with things that make me think of death...lol. And Halloween, everyone knows that it's "satan's holiday" so why would I want to participate in that?

With that said, I take part in Christmas, and it, too, was a pagan holiday. Sooooo...yeah. However, I was raised without Christmas...for that very reason. But I love Christmas because of Christ and his coming, and because it's another time to be able to give to those I love. Halloween, I don't know, it's at night and it's all about that supernatural, death, scary stuff...lol...so I don't know. I certainly don't want to be legalistic...that's why I'm trying to educate myself so that I can understand and accept that which is foreign to me.

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Christmas and Halloween were never pagan holidays. That is a myth people start because they do not like people being happy.

Liberation said:

Christmas and Halloween were never pagan holidays. That is a myth people start because they do not like people being happy.

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Not disagreeing with you but can you provide evidence that Christmas,Easter and Halloween aren't pagan holidays because there a few that say they are?

James Is Back said:

Not disagreeing with you but can you provide evidence that Christmas,Easter and Halloween aren't pagan holidays because there a few that say they are?

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Easter is known in almost every other language by some variant of Pascha, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Pesach--Passover. From the Dutch Pasen, the Russian Paskha, or Irish Gaelic Cáisc.

The Christian feast of Pascha is the earliest Christian feast, the earliest discussions about it involve not whether to celebrate it, but rather when to celebrate it. In the mid-2nd century Anicetus of Rome and Polycarp of Smyrna were unable to come to any agreement on how to calculate the timing of Pascha; Anicetus followed the practices which the Christians in Rome regarded as apostolic in origin, which was to celebrate the Feast always on a Sunday, whereas Polycarp followed the practices which the Christians in Anitolia regarded as apostolic in origin, which was to celebrate the Feast on the same day as the Jewish Passover.

Recording this, St. Irenaeus wrote, "Neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it, as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him."

The custom of observing Pascha on Nisan 14, the same as the Jewish Passover, was known as Quartodecimanism, that is Fourteenism. However by the time of the first council of Nicea in 325 Quartodecimanism was already nearly extinct, and while the council met to discuss and resolve the Arian controversy, other matters were addressed--mostly canons of order for the clergy (such as telling them not to castrate themselves or to co-habitate with women that they aren't related to)--but also the council resolved this ancient dispute about when to celebrate Pascha. The council ruled that the most widespread custom--what was in use from Rome to Egypt--was to be standard, and thus the Paschal Feast came on the Sunday following Nisan 14. Further Paschal Tables would be produced, sometimes resulting in further complex methods of calculation (it was a major controversy in the British Isles in the 7th century where the Irish and British Church had used the calculatory methods of the Iona Monastery, however by that time Rome and much of Western Europe had adopted new calculatory methods, resulting in significant liturgical controversies in the British Isles.

But when all is said and done Pascha--Easter--is a thoroughly Christian affair. The only thing that even approaches "pagan" is the English word "Easter", which according to the Venerable Bede writing in, I believe, the 8th century that the Paschal Feast fell within the springtime month which the local Britons called Eostermonath (Easter-month) so-named from a local British goddess. Because the month (Eostermonath corresponds roughly to April) was called such, the Paschal Feast came to often be called "Easter" after the month in which the Feast took place. We don't actually know anything about the supposed goddess named Eoster which Bede mentions, as Bede is our sole source--there are no corroborating sources, no written records, no archeological finds, nothing. While we shouldn't assume Bede made it up, it is a fact that Bede is our only source.

So what about egg-laying rabbits and things of that nature, those are certainly pagan symbols surrounding the worship of this ancient British goddess right? Well, not that we can tell. Again, Bede is our sole source, and he says nothing more than that the Britons had a month named after her.

Jacob Grimm, many, many hundreds of years later, hypothesized--using Bede as his only available source--that a continental equivalent for British Eoster was Ostera. But, that is Jacob Grimm hypothesizing about a goddess mentioned only once in any historical material, namely Bede's work.

Christmas, likewise, has a Christian origin. The Nativity was originally part of the Christian celebration of the Epiphany/Theophany. And even to this day is celebrated on January 7th on the Armenian Calendar. However from sometime in the early-middle part of the 3rd century Christians began to celebrate the Nativity on December 25th. At around the same time the Romans started celebrating their own nativity holiday, the Nativity of the Unconquered Sun--a syncretic solar cult that has its origins in the mid-late 3rd century. The question of which came first, the Feast of Christ's Nativity or the Feast of the Nativity of Sol Invictus is a matter of continued speculation and debate. But we can be confident that Christmas is, quite thoroughly, Christian.

Hallowe'en, the Eve of All Hallows (All Saints), is as would be indicated by the name the evening prior to All Saints, a Feast Day on the Christian calendar. During the middle ages the Feast of All Saints had originally been celebrated on a Sunday sometime following Pentecost (as I believe is still the practice of the Eastern Orthodox), it was moved to its current position sometime in that period, I want to say the 1100s, but I'd have to double check. It was likely part of a greater program of Christianizing pagans from Northern Europe, for whom the autumn harvest was a very important time of the year. By positioning a Christian feast day to give a Christian alternative to a pagan festival, it was intended to help bring the peoples of Northern Europe further into the Christian fold--even after converting many still continued to practice the old ways, and the Church was always trying to find ways to get them to stop mixing Christianity with paganism.

There's actually a great irony today, in that many Christians and churches instead of celebrating Hallowe'en--a Christian holiday that was intended by its movement on the calendar to give a Christian alternative to pagan harvest festivals--offer instead "Harvest Festivals" as alternatives to Hallowe'en. Hallowe'en isn't pagan, but harvest festivals are.

What about all that spooky dress up? It's the product of early-mid 20th century American businesses trying to find a healthier outlet for young people. It was very common in the early 20th century to use Hallowe'en as an unofficial day to pull pranks, and sometimes these pranks were downright awful, that is, people and property got hurt. So American businesses worked to try and offer a better outlet, how about giving children candy? From this evolved the practice of door-to-door trick or treating. It's an entirely modern invention. Why dress up as ghosts and witches and all sorts of creepy things? For the same reason one might dress up as a cowboy, a princess, an astronaut, or a power ranger.

It's fun.

-CryptoLutheran

James Is Back said:

Not disagreeing with you but can you provide evidence that Christmas,Easter and Halloween aren't pagan holidays because there a few that say they are?

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d

They are indeed pagan holidays.

Easter:
The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE), a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similarly, the "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos." 1 Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: "eastre." Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime.
The Pagan origins of Easter

So "yeah" -- the bunny and the egg - have nothing to do with Passover.

However - the Christian interest in that same time for the resurrection of Christ is because Christ was slain on Passover and raised in the feast of first fruits.

Christmas origin:
How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25? A. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.
B. The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing...(activity deleted)... and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm