Today is Halloween. Some people like Halloween, others do not. In my life, I have found that Halloween provides me with a wonderful opportunity to laugh at that which I fear, including my own mortality. As such, it has provided me with some great psychological and even spiritual benefits.
But, as is always the case this time of year, the fundamentalists are out in force, talking about how celebrating Halloween is actually worshiping the devil. But of course, that is not my intent when I celebrate Halloween... "this doesn't matter!" They reply. By celebrating Halloween, I am worshiping the devil, without even meaning to. As evidence for this, they cite the origins of the tradition among other, non Christian religions. But that would also be an accurate assessment of most Christian holidays and high holy days. It is also an accurate assessment of the Jewish holy days found in the Bible, which are borrowed/adapted from older Mesopotamian and Egyptian predecessors.
A relationship to another religion besides your own does not make something demonic. Turning other religion's gods into your religion's demons is a relatively old parlor trick. For example, Zoroastrianism demonized the Gods of the Vedas... turning their Vedic Gods into Zoroastrian demons, and their Vedic demons into Zoroastrian Angels (See my first of two lectures on Zoroastrianism, time stamp 4342s). In fact, the English word "Demon" is related to the Vedic word Deva... meaning... Divine... which is also etymologically related.
Strange that the English word for Demon has the same origins as the English word Divine... Specifically because of our past history with demonizing other peoples divine beings.
Demonization of the religious beliefs and practices of others is an approach that I strongly dislike. I wrote back in 2009: "worship of God or the Devil must be intentional, some hidden meaning behind symbols can't cause you to somehow accidentally worship the Devil." See my post on "The Language of Symbolism" Part 1, and Part 2. At the time I wrote that, I was a believing Mormon, and my goal was to argue that Mormons are not "accidentally worshiping the devil" because of a pentagram on a building, if the builders of the building didn't think that was what the symbol meant.
As an Ex Mormon, I still stand by what I wrote back then. And a very similar logic applies to Halloween.
We cannot believe that it is possible to "accidentally" worship the Devil, without implying that God is an immoral monster, who will judge us based upon some legalistic definition, rather than upon the intent of our hearts.
If there is a God, then I do not believe that God is an immoral monster.
Photo By Toby Ord - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=271348
Photo By Toby Ord - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=271348
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