Season 2 Episode 3 "Lesson Zero" Discussion, ***SPOILER****SPOILER***PONIES PWN*** Options

[TM2 Dinobot]

Right, but is that to the day?

It had to either have been that day or passed it already, otherwise, she would have said 'nearly a thousand years'.

Right. I guess also it was 1000 years to the day. Why would Luna have stayed in the moon a second longer than possible?

[Masked Toaster]

Right, but is that to the day?

It had to either have been that day or passed it already, otherwise, she would have said 'nearly a thousand years'.

Right. I guess also it was 1000 years to the day. Why would Luna have stayed in the moon a second longer than possible?

To pull a Majora?

[Copper Bezel]

According to the online tv guide, it will be on History Channel again on the 27th at 8p EST, The Real Story of Halloween. And the description off-hoof calls it a Pagan holiday.

Apparently, it's arguable. It's definitely a Christian holiday, first and foremost.

[Masked Toaster]

According to the online tv guide, it will be on History Channel again on the 27th at 8p EST, The Real Story of Halloween. And the description off-hoof calls it a Pagan holiday.

Apparently, it's arguable. It's definitely a Christian holiday, first and foremost.

Except the first line of that wiki says it originated from Celtic and Roman traditions, and the end of the paragraph says 'pre-christian times'.
So it's accepted by some followers of Christianity, shunned by some, and has traces to other cultures and religions. It's neither one or another, but an amalgam of parts.

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. ... Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

This post has been edited by Masked Toaster: Oct 21 2011, 06:01 PM

[Sobana]

According to the online tv guide, it will be on History Channel again on the 27th at 8p EST, The Real Story of Halloween. And the description off-hoof calls it a Pagan holiday.

Apparently, it's arguable. It's definitely a Christian holiday, first and foremost.

Well, if you want to get technical, there are no true Christian holidays mentioned in the bible at all, all the holidays Christians celebrate are taken from other religions or cultures and given a Christian theme in the hopes of converting people from pagan religions, later on it become tradition.

[Adam G]

According to the online tv guide, it will be on History Channel again on the 27th at 8p EST, The Real Story of Halloween. And the description off-hoof calls it a Pagan holiday.

Apparently, it's arguable. It's definitely a Christian holiday, first and foremost.

Please specify what makes you think it's Christian. It's really not. Christians celebrate it. They also celebrate birthdays, Valentine's Day and Thanksgiving, but none of these things are Christian.

Really...

ChristianityChristian attitudes towards Halloween are diverse. In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions of All Saints’ Day,[42][43] while some other Protestants celebrate the holiday as Reformation Day, a day to remember the Protestant Reformation.[44][45] Father Gabriele Amorth, a Vatican-appointed exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."[46] In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on the holiday.[47] Similarly, many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy for free.

Many Christians ascribe no negative significance to Halloween, treating it as a purely secular holiday devoted to celebrating "imaginary spooks" and handing out candy. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage.[48] In the Roman Catholic Church, Halloween is viewed as having a Christian connection,[49] and Halloween celebrations are common in Catholic parochial schools throughout North America and in Ireland.

Some Christians feel concerned about Halloween, and reject the holiday because they feel it trivializes – or celebrates – paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs.[50] A response among some fundamentalist and conservative evangelical churches in recent years has been the use of "Hell houses", themed pamphlets, or comic-style tracts such as those created by Jack T. Chick in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism.[47] Some consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith[51] believing it to have originated as a pagan "Festival of the Dead".

How can you read that and think anything but "Not a Christian holiday"?

[MyLittleEmpath]

At this point, I really must ask if any of us actually care about this argument anymore. Can't we just agree that Halloween is a fun holiday and leave it at that? I mean, seriously, arguments are popping up over the most inconsequential of minutia recently and it's starting to annoy at least me, and probably others here. So can we please just let this one go?

[RoboViking]

I mean, seriously, arguments are popping up over the most inconsequential of minutia recently and it's starting to annoy at least me, and probably others here.

Uh oh. Someone should see if the Royal Garden is missing a statue...

[Masked Toaster]

Uh oh. Someone should see if the Royal Garden is missing a statue...

Empty pedestal surrounded by barbed wire and signs that say 'Keep Away'?

Nope, nothing missing here.

[MyLittleEmpath]

Uh oh. Someone should see if the Royal Garden is missing a statue...

Empty pedestal surrounded by barbed wire and signs that say 'Keep Away'?

Nope, nothing missing here.

You know what's weird? In all seriousness, these arguments did actually start popping up right around the time Discord appeared. Or at least, that's when I started noticing them . . .

[Adam G]

Dude it's the Internet. I thought this is what it was for.

[Copper Bezel]

I agree.

How can you read that and think anything but "Not a Christian holiday"?

Okay, let me slow down a bit and clarify (and correct) my terms. By saying "Christian holiday," I'm being inaccurate in two senses - it's not a holy day of anything, and it's not a recognized part of Christian orthodoxy. I'll drop "holiday" first. But it is a Christian celebration in the sense that it's part of the Christian tradition, reflects superstitions derived from Christian faith, and has no other religious underpinnings. That's my understanding of the blurb I just read on Wikipedia.

I don't see any reason to consider the position of present-day religious orthodoxies on the celebration, because the above description relies only on description of historical influences. Present-day Christians can't speak for their four-centuries-dead.

I admit that I could be misreading something, but I was mostly going on the quote from Ronald Hutton, apparently a relevant expert, on Wikipedia:

Certainly Samhain was a time for festive gatherings, and medieval Irish texts and later Irish, Welsh, and Scottish folklore use it as a setting for supernatural encounters, but there is no evidence that it was connected with the dead in pre-Christian times, or that pagan religious ceremonies were held.

We already know that the name is Christian in origin, as is the precise date, since it's named for the Christian holiday it precedes (following a roving calendar of holy days defined by Christian orthodoxy.) The presence of a harvest festival is pre-Christian, but the association with the occult is not through an association with pagan ritual, but via the darker side of Christian theology. Souls roaming free and the whole bit.

It's less Odin, more Satan. That says "Christian holiday" to me, if that phrase can reasonably stand to mean "a festival from the Christian tradition." Maybe it can't, and I was being sloppy with the terminology. It's certainly not a pagan (pre-Christian) celebration in any real sense except in that everyone already knew that October was a great time to get drunk.

This post has been edited by Copper Bezel: Oct 24 2011, 08:37 PM

[TM2 Dinobot]

That's why I just go with Dia de la Muerte. People leave me alone and scares the heck out of "white" people.

This post has been edited by TM2 Dinobot: Oct 24 2011, 09:59 PM

[Matenshi]

Dude it's the Internet. I thought this is what it was for.

(IMG:http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/6792/theinternet.png)

[Waspinator]

(IMG:http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1157/hiddenfeelingsbygonzahe.jpg)

[Masked Toaster]

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1157/hidd...gsbygonzahe.jpg

"But I thought you had it for AJ!"

[TM2-Megatron]

lol; Twi asked for it with that line.

[Pocket]

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1157/hidd...gsbygonzahe.jpg

Now I'm imagining a scenario in some show or comic where the exact opposite happens: Someone says "You don't have to hide your feelings for me" believing the other person is in love with them, only to have that person bluntly give their unflattering opinion of them.

[Sobana]

Epic misunderstanding and silent awkwardness right there.