So, it's fine by me that some people don't believe in Halloween. Whether it's for religious reasons or for any other reason, I don't care. I wouldn't try to force it on them or convince them otherwise. I have no problem with them. It's their business. They don't have to participate. They can just turn off their porch lights and/or not answer the door, and they don't have to give out candy. No problem. I really don't care.
However ....
Along with way more candy than he could possibly eat in half a year, while out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, my six-year-old son was given a cartoony booklet entitled "The Great One." No big surprise what this booklet is about. It's about Jesus. Well, no, I take that back. If it was just about Jesus and was an uplifting, positive story for children about Jesus and love and goodness that would be one thing.
But no. This is a story about a man, a highly educated scholar who is very proud of himself.
(P.S. - I don't think I'm imagining the man's Semitic features, either.) He has a daughter named Ashley. One day she goes to Sunday School and reads the Bible and learns about Jesus. She repents her sins and ~ hallelujah! ~ she knows she's gonna get to go to heaven when she dies. The next day she talks to her father the scholar and he says that he's too smart to believe in God and that "religion is only for the weak." So when her father dies, Jesus sends him to burn in hell in the lake of fire (cartoon renderings included, folks); and when Ashley dies, she goes to heaven.
Wait: now that I think about it, this not-so-very-nice little slice of Christianity is actually a quite appropriate Halloween haunt. I find it scary as hell (!) that there are people who think it is perfectly okay to pass this dreadful, fearful little story off to small children without parental permission. And what really pisses me off is that the nasty little people who hand this stuff out are undoubtedly the same people who claim that gay people are trying to brainwash and indoctrinate kids. Hah! What a laugh! Talk about brainwashed & attempted brainwashing!
As a footnote, let me mention an encounter I had about a month ago with a checker at my local grocery store. She told me that she doesn't believe in Halloween now that her children are grown (convenient!) because of Jesus, of course, because it comes from the devil. But it's okay for children, she said, because they don't know any better. Is that some twisted logic? I didn't challenge her; I just smiled and laughed to myself because I thought: if children don't know any better and it's the devil's work: wouldn't that make it LESS
okay for children? Wouldn't they need extra protection and guidance? Are people really this stupid? Oh well, I guess that's what the booklet is for!
Hope you all had a very Happy Halloween!
:)
