GN Commentary: October 30, 2009 - Ho, Ho, Halloween

Why spend so much time, funds and effort celebrating these two terribly expensive holidays when they are based on bad information and manipulation of the masses?

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Video Transcript

Ho, Ho, Halloween says it all.

Christmas and Halloween are the two biggest consumer spending seasons of the commercial year.

For decades the Christmas season devoured huge percentages of each year's consumer retail spending, running close to half a trillion dollars.  In the recent years Halloween has dramatically ballooned to be one of the highest spending holidays behind the winter season—at least in America.

Question: Why should you spend so much of your hard earned wages on soon-to-be broken or obsolete gifts or on obese amounts of candy, in Halloween's case?  Come to think of it, dentists must love Halloween. 

People spend all this money to celebrate festivals about what?

Well, about ancient myths reworked to market the birth of Christ—at the wrong time of the year.  And, about more ancient myths designed to market conciliation and worship of the Devil on one dark night in the fall.

But here's the odd part…

You yourself already know that both days were ancient idolatrous festivals, and that 300 or 400 years after Christ traditional Christianity re-packaged them into quasi, and I mean quasi-Christian holidays.  You already know that in effect these are sham festivals.

Now if this commentary has caught you unawares, then you have my sincere apologies. But please consult the nearest encyclopedia—in print or online for verification.

We live in an incredible instant information age.  So if you did know this, then you and I also know that untold numbers of our fellow-citizens know it too.

This line of reasoning still begs the question: Why spend so much time, funds and effort celebrating these two terribly expensive holidays when they are based on bad information and manipulation of the masses?

Bottomline:  There is no good mythological, theological or even logical-logical reason to "Ho, Ho, Halloween" your way through the year.  You wouldn't be missing any of the warmth and glow of family togetherness—because waiting in the wings there exists already a full set of annual festivals, based on truth.

The good news is that Jesus Himself created, taught and kept that set of actual, non-mythological holy days.

And by the way, they're a whole lot less expensive to keep than Ho, Ho, or Halloween!

For GN magazine, I'm Randy Stiver.