Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: pmd@cbnews.att.com (Paul M Dubuc) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Halloween Message-ID:Date: 29 Sep 89 07:27:18 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 27 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu A short answer to the original question: In my opinion, I see nothing wrong with Christians participation in the social rituals of Halloween. You have to ask how much "paganism" is really being instilled in your child by it. Talk to your child about your feelings, find a happy medium of participation that you both feel relatively comfortable with. Strictly excluding your child's participation when they just want to have fun with their friends may do more harm than good. On to what is becoming a pet peeve concerning Halloween and the public schools: It's not even October yet and they are starting up already. My daughter's Kindergarten class is making haunted houses and ghost masks. Around here the schools really over-do Halloween. Doing even half as much for Christmas would be considered sectarian and offensive, a violation of Church/State separation. Modern pagans probably feel the same way about popular Halloween decorations as I do about Santa Claus, but I still don't see any reason to emphasize the observance of one event so much over the other. Where's the ACLU when you need them? ;-) Any other opinions? -- Paul Dubuc | "How could God reveal himself in a way that would leave att!asr1!pmd | no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there | would be no room for me." | Frederick Buechner [Interesting. I wonder if it's precisely *because* one can't spend as much time on Christmas. --clh]