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YEAH! Conan's gonna whup that Satan luvin sumbitch's ass!

You are presumptious in your opening sentence. Given the British mindset, I expect new depths of moonbattery this next year. When one is as depraved as they have become you need something to feel good about.

The irony is, this "samhein" that neo-pagans like to honour is as authentic as a three pound coin. Haloween is a corruption of "hallowed eve", also known as all saints eve. It is the same day as a pagan holy day, though really to call it holy sort of misses the point. The original eve was based on putting out trinkets and lanterns to scare away an evil or wrathful god that was going to steal your children and sprinkle mould on your crops. The agan converts to christianity re-purposed the day as a night of prayer for, and contemplation of, the departed in christ, back when "saint" meant anyone who had become a christian rather than someone beatified by the roman church. At first it was a means for the post-pagan society to divorce itself from the fear-based rituals of their past but later it became just another holy day on the christian calendar.

There wasn't any sacfiricing virgins in the old belief, but the eve was based purely on appeasing terror and fear and in many places ritual murders were carried out for that purpose. The following evening was given over to feasting and general gluttony in celebration of the fact that no children had been taken this year. The modern "samhein" thing is junk, completely unlike the actual rituals that were engaged in and about as historical as my left foot.

Titties!

Anti-Moonbat of the Week: News Director Rejects MSM Party Line on ManBearPig

The general manager of two TV stations in Maine has ordered his news department to stop covering global warming until "Bar Harbor is underwater."

Michael Palmer told the joint news staff of WVII and WFVX in an e-mail that global warming stories are like "'the killer African bee scare' from the 1970s or, more recently, the Y2K scare when everyone's computer was going to self-destruct."

How long before the Unshorn Sisters of Gaia (Hairy-legged enviro-Nazis) demand his head on a platter?

First, Samhain (correct spelling, pronounced so-wen) is a pagan holiday. It is the ending of the circle of the year, the final harvest and the symbolic death of the god. It is the day when the veils between the worlds of flesh and spirit are the thinnest. And a thousand more things. Second, and please get this straight. Satanists are not pagans. They worship the Fallen Angel, who came out of heaven. They rebel against the Christian God. Pagans do not believe in an embodiment of evil. Evil comes from intent, internal not external. They have usurped Halloween as a day to celebrate a black mass, which is usually the catholic masS recited backwards. Pagans DO NOT worship, nor even believe in Satan.

Charmaine Spada-Doherty,

I'm a pagan and I worship the Devil! How dare you try and tell me how I can worship and what I can believe! My religious rights supercede your wrong beliefs. It's a big, wide world out there, you have no idea.

Charmaine, you are free to believe whatever you wish, however the historical accuracy of your beliefs might be questionable. Since you don't sound like the kind of person who would start berating me for the "burning times" or other wiccan nonsense I'll not have a go at you either. However, the fact remains that modern pagan beliefs are about as far removed from the real celtic paganism as my christian beliefs are from proto-semetic polytheism.

Just so we're clear on that. :)

Oct 31 is known as the day that Martin Luther made his 95 theses known to the town of Wittenburg...i.e. the unofficial beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It ain't as sexy as little nitwits running around worshipping nature and whatnot, but it was a far more earth-shaking event in Christendom. Next Oct 31 will mark the 490th year of Luther's act...

"the fact remains that modern pagan beliefs are about as far removed from the real celtic paganism as my christian beliefs are from proto-semetic polytheism." ---archonix

your point is well made. depending on how you measure belief you can shorten that stick up to 50 yrs ago for both chritianity and pagans. but then it is the natural state of things to change and any belief in a higher being should recognize this and allow thier worship to do the same rather than fight the natrual state of things . . . but then in my experiance some people just think it's easier just to get mad and blow people up :P

I don't know why I'm posting on what appears to me to be a hate site, it would appear that reason will not sway minds here. but I feel compelled to speak on behalf of a religion i find afinity with. In my opinon there are only two kinds of people in this world ignorant and intellegent. These types of people exist in every religion at various levels. Don't let ignorant people set the standard by which you judge.

1) There are pagans of many roots not just Celtic. Though Celtic does dominate tend to dominate those of european decent. Paganism as popular etymology has begun using it to refrence people who try to follow more spiritual beliefs in many diffrent manifestations.

2)Pagans as charmaine said are not Satan worshipers. Satanism is Occult Satanism. Some satan worshippers will say they are pagans because they are either ignorant of the diffrence or just trying to piss people off. Theistic Satanism is the form of Pre-LaVeyan Satanism whose followers believe Satan is an actual deity and is the only true form of Satanism. Inorder to worship satan this way they are simply another fracture one the fractle crystal of christianity, thier origin begins and stops with judeo christian islamic belief, and one could argure are just an anti-christian. Laveyan Satan worshippers mostly atheistic and agnostic worship evil, death and chaos not neccesarily the hebrew/christian/islamic icon called Satan To them he is but one of many icons hades, shiva etc. . . They just like his moniker because it gets the most attention and makes the most nuicance, they like that. Go figure. Hades worshipper just dosen't have the same ring to it :P words have power who would have thought.

Next there are many diffrent kinds of pagans other than a few basic beliefs we share ones belief can be as diverse as any of the various sects of other religions. There is no unifing religious literature not that that has prevented segmentation, but there is nothing that says a pagan must be like this. Pagans are very diverse and become pagans for many reasons mostly for the same reasons any one joins any other religion. Some follow the beliefs more historically others are more spiritual, still others more metaphysical. Pagans do not usually organise past small groups or circles, they usually abore organized religion for the belief organization usually corrupts the religion, there comes a point when you are no longer worshipping the god but worshipping the church. pagans are not evangelical, they let people find thier own path. Recentally pagans have had to organize for recognition and protection from that you have started to see the rise of unitarian/metaphysical churches and other organizations. Though many pagans still steer clear of these organizations. but in the end you don't get laws passed protecting your rights unless you have enough votes. safty in numbers. In the end there are no bounds to the diversity of pagans so if you've met one pagan you have not met them all. Though this is not always true of wiccians

Now onto the holiday Samhain. bearing in mind the Irish nor the celts where not the only pagan beliefs that lend to this ancient holiday, (i.e. the norse alfablot "elf blot") being one of the last groups conqured their beliefs are more easily researched and subseqently refrenced since they survived in one form or another. Samhain means November in modern Irish and appears to have the same meaning though various spellings all the way back. This currently is the word used for halloween in the gaelic irish. The samhain currently celebrated by pagans is representative of a harvest festival held originally the first three days of November. however towards medeival times it shifted to November 1st and the night before Lath na samna (Samhain day) and oenaig na samna (samhain night). The ancient celts split the year in to two. the light half and the dark half. Samonios (October/November lunation - the name samonios meaning summer, some people belive samhain is a root from this word meaning summers end, this is disputed but it is appearent the beginning of winter in acient celt was called summer or summry) represented the end of harvest beginning of no growth season. To the ancient celts the world died and the spirit realm came closer to our own. the world then was a dangerous place even more so in winter, this was a time to take stock of food stores and decide which live stock would be slaughtered for survival until next year, filling in cracks to keep the cold out or mischievious spirits, lighting bonfires for light, warmth and navigation. The central hearth fires of the house, the life blood of the house where put out and relighted from the samhain bonfire, the festivaties were marked by observances in preperation of the home, not indulgance and feasting. This time is very important to pagans and is refrence in many of the few celtic writings like the Ulster Cycle. There is a commen belief by many pagans that this is the celtic new year. In a sense it could be seen this way as to the anceint celts this day was and end and a beginning. however the actual celtic new year is in dispute, by many historians and pagans alike though many pagans such as charmane above still celebrate it as such. Samhain is the end of life and the beginning of death. Were spoiled today with supermarkets and technology food for americans and most of europe very plentiful and commen and my recent time in Iraq opened my eyes to how much we waste. in anceint times one bad winter could wipe out a village grain was as important as money today and far harder to get. Modern pagans share this understanding to an extent but on a more spiritual level. The ancients celts also believed in reincarnation as do most modern pagans one way or another this is a most spiritual time very much intergrated into a complex system of legends and farming far to intricate to break down here. later medieval beliefs included the return of spirits who had died earlier in the year to say goodbye to loved ones or get revenge upon those who where mean to them with the development and improvment of agricutlural practice and when food was more plentiful then it became practice to leave cakes and treats on the door step or at grave sites or set an extra place at the table and this practice became incorperated into the holiday. the meld into christianity I THINK was helped along to the christian beliefs of all souls day, celebrated in christianity on nov 2-3 depending on the year, was established around 1040's brought to the britons by the normans in 1066 and later the scotts and irish, While christians prayed for the souls in purgatory at church the celtic/saxon briton and pagan peasantry of other catholic countries bent the idea to thier religion and left cakes and treats to appease and praise the dead for a multitude of other reasons. IN FACT in the minds of medieval celts the dead were not dead just waiting to be reborn and this was one night they could come make peace before rebirth. the christians at some point began leaving soul cakes for the dead adopting pagan practice. this night still celebrated by pagans and christians alike on the eve of all saints day (established as nov 1 by pope gregory the IV in 835 roughly) back then called "hallows day" became known by english speakers as hallows'eve. then later hallows'even then hallowe'en. then Some time before the english reformation (16th century) the pagan habits get adopted into many christian homes. the english reformation abolishes these types of activities but it continues in Ireland and scotland. trick or treating was originally called guising in Ireland and souling in europe where people mostly beggars figured out they could beg for soul cakes or dress up like ghosts and goblins and get food and treats to leave. this custom seems to die out after the reformation due to puritan origins of America we don't even celebrate halloween till the 19th century but we create trick or treating from the old idea of guising. then take it back to england :P

The fact is every group has had festivals at this time of the season since people first figured out how to farm. christian and pagan holiday traditions melded into this holiday as many others. This paticular holiday happens to be important to pagans. So now back to the artical. . . if a pagan dresses up and goes trick or treating or to a party, has dinner with thier pagan friends, has a fire marshal approved bonfire with dancing, smores and games/stories, has some form of law abiding worship or some prisoner in england gets a day off work because they celebrate diffrent than you and this is intolerable and causes you lost sleep at night. . . might I suggest you consider finding a good hobby because you obviously have to much time on your hands. Everyone has a right to this holiday and no one has claim to it. take the hate goggles off and be realistic.

Sorry for the typo's I was in a hurry and long winded. I've done my home work so if you wish to dispute this and want me to listen you had better have good citable prefferably non-bias sources.

All my best regaurds and wishes of good fortune to you all.

Me :)

No virgin sacrifices. No virgins!

Hey! Isn't that a Boris Vallejo painting? Loved his stuff when I was a kid.

Christianity is following the teachings of Jesus, it's clear-cut, and any medieval torture and what-not that went on was a TWISTING of that faith.

Paganism is NOT following anyone's specific teaching. It can be whatever you like...unless the religion police that are posting here find out and report you.

Top post Andrew, but you are right, this is a hate site and I doubt many people read more than a couple of lines of what you wrote. Maybe is was a little highbrow for them..

Maybe next we can link Christmas to the pagan Winter Solstice and see how that goes down..

Ilovehalloween,

Wonder why we only read a few lines of posts like yours? Could it be the main focus is always hate? You say this is a hate site but your post here (and probably in most places) insults others? Why is that?

That's the new buzzword of the decade "hate", "hater", "hate speech", et al.

I think of it like a modern version of "racism", overused to the point it's meaningless. Probably in your mind a thought process follows these lines: "If I disagree with someone, they must be wrong, they must be racists, they must be haters...well we'll call them that anyway because that's what my sociology professor said. Boy I wish he was here, he'd show you neo-cons a thing or two. We're always right on everything. We college liberals are always smarter than neo-cons, they don't go to college. They still think Christmas should be celebrated, they still think there's a God. Republicans are so stupid."

But what we hear in your rants: blah blah blah