Believe it or not, the middle of October will be here next week! You know what that means? Harvest Day (aka, "Halloween")? Yes, but that's not what I had in mind. Thanksgiving's coming soon? True again, but that's still not it. Christmas? Yes, that's coming soon too, but there's two other things I've been looking forward to. One of which is the NanoWrimo challenge. Essentially, the challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel between November 1 and November 30. Last year, I succeeded at writing a good-sized novel. This year, I plan on doing the challenge again. I'm totally stoked! The other thing I'm excited about is The Good Dinosaur! That movie will be coming out soon too! A brand new trailer was released just a few days ago, so be sure to check it out in the In the Spotlight section of today's post!
Days Till:
It is: 3 days till Columbus Day
It is: 22 days till Harvest Day
It is: 47 days till The Good Dinosaur's release
It is: 48 days till Thanksgiving
In the Spotlight:
As promised, here's the new The Good Dinosaur trailer:
Finally, in this trailer not only do we get gorgeous views of the not-so-prehistoric landscape, but we also get a good look at some new dinosaurs that will be in the film. Most notably, we get to see what appears to be a pack of dromaeosaurs or raptors, perhaps Velociraptors. I was already excited about this film, but when I saw those raptors (my favorite dinosaurs by the way), I was even more excited! We also get a good look at a ceratopsian that will be in the movie named Shamaan. I am not sure what species he is, but he seems to be a hybrid of Triceratops and Styracosaurus, possessing the three horns of the former, and the horns around the frill of the latter. While we're on the subject of what the dinosaurs in this movie look like, you might notice several of the species look different from their fossilized counterparts. This is because The Good Dinosaur takes place not in the past, but the present day in an alternate reality if dinosaurs did not go extinct. Therefore, natural selection and mutation has allowed the dinosaurs to change somewhat over time. That being said, here is a list of the species of dinosaurs we've seen in the movie so far:
Topic of the Week by Christian Ryan
Many are very excited this time of year. Not about Christmas or Thanksgiving, but another “holiday” coming much sooner than that: Halloween! Stores all over the country make millions (if not billions) of dollars every year on Halloween decorations and costumes, the only holiday that makes more money is Christmas. Now only do they make money on costumes and decorations, but they also make money on candy, tons and tons of candy. They also have those creepy tours through those supposedly “haunted houses”. “The gorier the better” seems to be today’s slogan of Halloween. Over the years, costumes and decorations have become creepier and gorier. On my Dad’s way to work, he passes a house with at least . . . say, 20-40 decorations (I’m not exaggerating) ranging from eerie skeletons that appear to be rising out of the ground to a GIANT inflatable black cat, to an inflatable horse and headless rider (the rider is carrying his head under his arm). One of those big inflatable cats can be worth $40 by itself, and they have a bunch of things like that in their yard, so they probably have well over $100 of decorations in their yard.
Days Till:
It is: 3 days till Columbus Day
It is: 22 days till Harvest Day
It is: 47 days till The Good Dinosaur's release
It is: 48 days till Thanksgiving
In the Spotlight:
As promised, here's the new The Good Dinosaur trailer:
Finally, in this trailer not only do we get gorgeous views of the not-so-prehistoric landscape, but we also get a good look at some new dinosaurs that will be in the film. Most notably, we get to see what appears to be a pack of dromaeosaurs or raptors, perhaps Velociraptors. I was already excited about this film, but when I saw those raptors (my favorite dinosaurs by the way), I was even more excited! We also get a good look at a ceratopsian that will be in the movie named Shamaan. I am not sure what species he is, but he seems to be a hybrid of Triceratops and Styracosaurus, possessing the three horns of the former, and the horns around the frill of the latter. While we're on the subject of what the dinosaurs in this movie look like, you might notice several of the species look different from their fossilized counterparts. This is because The Good Dinosaur takes place not in the past, but the present day in an alternate reality if dinosaurs did not go extinct. Therefore, natural selection and mutation has allowed the dinosaurs to change somewhat over time. That being said, here is a list of the species of dinosaurs we've seen in the movie so far:
- Apatosaurus
- Parasaurolophus
- Tyrannosaurus
- Nyctosaurus (actually a pterosaur, not a dinosaur)
- Triceratops/Styracosaurus hybrid
- Velociraptor
Topic of the Week by Christian Ryan
Many are very excited this time of year. Not about Christmas or Thanksgiving, but another “holiday” coming much sooner than that: Halloween! Stores all over the country make millions (if not billions) of dollars every year on Halloween decorations and costumes, the only holiday that makes more money is Christmas. Now only do they make money on costumes and decorations, but they also make money on candy, tons and tons of candy. They also have those creepy tours through those supposedly “haunted houses”. “The gorier the better” seems to be today’s slogan of Halloween. Over the years, costumes and decorations have become creepier and gorier. On my Dad’s way to work, he passes a house with at least . . . say, 20-40 decorations (I’m not exaggerating) ranging from eerie skeletons that appear to be rising out of the ground to a GIANT inflatable black cat, to an inflatable horse and headless rider (the rider is carrying his head under his arm). One of those big inflatable cats can be worth $40 by itself, and they have a bunch of things like that in their yard, so they probably have well over $100 of decorations in their yard.
 |
| Here are several people attending a Halloween-themed event. |
Now, being a born
again Christian, my family and I don’t
celebrate Halloween. Some Christians do celebrate Halloween, but I
really don’t condone it. When we talk something positive about this
day, we call it “Harvest Day”. Should Christians really be
celebrating this holiday? What is a Christian to do on October 31st?
Well, that is what this post wishes to tackle. So please continue
reading to learn more about this holiday you never knew (by the way,
Halloween is not an
official holiday, contrary to popular belief).
I firmly believe that in
order to address and tackle an enemy, we must know something about
it. The same applies to evil “holidays”. So let’s take a look
at its history and see how not harmless some of those Halloween
traditions are.
Now where did Halloween
begin? Well, there are many ancient cultures that have days very
similar to Halloween. These cultures range from Ireland to Mexico
(the Mexican version of Halloween is called, “The Day of the
Dead”). Now if there were only a few places around the world that
have Halloween-like events, then it would be considered
“coincidental”, but with so many different cultures around the
world celebrating Halloween-like “holidays”, it’s unlikely that
they all just coincidentally are similar, no, it’s way older than
you think!
Some tell you that
Halloween-cultures started a few thousand
years ago, but really, the world’s human population was already
spread apart by that time, so it is more likely that its origins are
older than that. They probably route back to a time when the world’s
human population was in one location. And there’s one and only one
time after the Flood when the world population was together – right
after Noah’s Flood and before Babel, around 4,300 years ago! That’s
old! How can we even assume that? Well, the Flood of Noah killed a
whole lot of people. Only eight people survived – Noah, his wife,
his sons and their wives. From them, the human population came,
including everyone on the planet today. Now considering Noah and his
family probably lost a lot of relatives who failed to listen to God’s
warning, they must have been a little sad. Perhaps the people living
right after the Flood made a special event to remember
those souls lost in the waters (of course this is just speculation
since the Bible says nothing about this “remembrance day”).
Another theory deals with Noah’s wife. Noah’s wife isn’t
mentioned in the Bible a little while after the Flood. We don’t
know for sure, but perhaps this is because she died soon after the
Flood. We know in that portion of the Bible that people lived
hundreds of years at a time, so Noah’s generation (which at this
time only would have consisted of him and his wife) would have lived
to see their children grow up to have children of their own, and have
grandchildren and great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren
and great, great, great grandchildren and so forth. So it could be
that after having many great, great, great . . . grandchildren,
Noah’s wife died and her grandkiddies held a special “remembrance
day” for this woman.
We may never know exactly
where this “holiday” began, but either way, after leaving the
Tower of Babel as described in Genesis, people would have taken the
“remembrance day” culture with them as they traveled the globe,
but as they did so, they did some tweaking to this day as we’ll see
in a minute.
Flashing to the bit more
recent time of more than 2,000 years ago, the Druids, or Celtic
people of Ireland, Great Britain, France had morphed this “holiday”
a lot. These people had elaborate and religious pagan festivals, one
of the most important was the Fire Festival called Samhain (it’s
pronounced sow-en,
nothing at all like it’s spelled, is it?) that was observed in
harvest time. Now the Celtic people had a lot of strange beliefs, one
of which was that on this particular night, the barrier between
natural world and the supernatural world was removed and the spirits
of the dead can roam among us in the form of ghosts. This event was
nowhere near as “fun and lighthearted” as today’s Halloween,
but this is where the “spooky version” of it originated.
 |
| These folks have a serious case of "Halloween-gydus" |
Halloween wasn’t all
paganized though. Actually, early Christians made their own
“Halloween” day . . . sort of. The customs of this day were
Christianized in 835 A.D. when Pope Gregory IV decided to dedicate a
day to the believers who had died. This day was called “Feast of
All Saints” and was originally in the spring but was moved to
November 1st to
replace Samhain. The day before “Feast of All Saints” was called
“All Hallow’s Eve” and was a sacred vigil in church.
Apparently, “All Hallow’s Eve” was too long for most, so it was
shortened to “Hallow’s Eve”, then to “Hallow’en” and
today most of us just write (or type in my case) “Halloween”.
So we have two “holidays” that are somewhat similar: Samhain, a
100% pagan thing and “All Hallow’s Eve”, a Christian-type
remembrance. Which one do you think is the one that stuck around?
If you guessed Samhain,
you’re wrong! Today’s Halloween is a mixture of Samhain AND
“All Hallow’s Eve”. But there’s more to the story than that.
The knocking on door thing was started in the British Isles where
people in masks would go from door to door putting on a simple
performance to earn (what else?) food and drink! Many times these
shows had Christian themes. (Keep in mind I did say, “many times”.
Some of these people would simply go up and ask for something and
then if they got it they’d bless the house, if they didn’t they’d
curse the house) So how did we get from putting on a show to earn
food to simply knocking on a door and yelling, “Trick or treat!”?
Well that story started
back when Irish and Scottish folks brought Halloween customs to
America in the 19th
century (Halloweens much more complex than you thought, isn’t it?).
On Halloween night, “some” vandals (a lot, actually) started
doing “cute” pranks and mischief. These folks did things like
soap windows, tipping outhouses and yanking doors off their hinges
(doesn’t sound very “cute” to me!). These were said to have
been the work of mischievous ghosts, goblins and witches. When we
reached the 1920’s though, these jokes weren’t very humorous at
all! This is why Halloween is the policeman’s least favorite day of
the year, they have to always stay on their toes! The vandalism was
getting worse. So community clubs such as Boy Scouts decided to help
the situation. They decided it would be a good idea to have children
going from door to door and yell, “Trick or Treat!” as soon as
the door was opened. This would keep those vandals away. It didn’t
take long to catch on, by the 1930’s it was a popular Halloween
activity. So this type of Halloween wasn’t bad. It was fun,
playful, and entertaining. It wasn’t bad at all . . . yet!
As we all have noticed
over the years, costumes get more and more gory and horrific. And the
Samhain part of Halloween has started to come out. Ghosts, goblins
and witches (along with their witch craft) is creeping out and
haunting like they did 2,000 years ago. However, unlike the legend,
they don’t really haunt the earth, except in the form of
imaginations. Today’s Halloween, a “holiday” initially supposed
to be a Christian day, is a day filled with spooky, creepy paganism
that deals with the souls of those who’ve died. Now you know
exactly how bad Halloween really is and why my family doesn’t
celebrate!
Some of you might be
asking yourselves, “What’s so bad about witchcraft?” (Supposed
ghost encounters is a whole other topic, I’ll talk about that
later). Think my talk on this subject is cheap? Well, God’s talk is
definitely not cheap! God Himself speaks against paganism and
witchcraft in the books of the Law (the first five books of the
Bible). Yes, witches are also not new, they were around 3,000 years
ago, about the time of Moses. . . . So as you can see, God warned us
not to follow paganism, as harmless as it seems, it has a much, much
deeper meaning to it. It’s all in Satan’s evil plot to get people
away from God. As I’ve expressed in previous posts, Satan is very
real indeed! There is a Heaven and Hell.
A lot of people don’t
know this, but Satan is really an expelled angel who used to live
with God. In the book of Ezekiel, we read that his voice was like
that of a beautiful instrument. However, when Satan got prideful, he
was banished. Believe me, Satan is no joke, he’s got lots
of power. However, being his Creator, God has even MORE
power. Satan really wants to lure people away
from God and Halloween is just one of those times he uses to do this,
in the form of “harmless” witchcraft, fake devils (by the way,
Satan doesn’t have horns, a pointy tail and pitchfork either),
ghosts, goblins and skeletons. Even things that really aren’t bad
are used a lot on this day, such as black cats, bats, spiders and
crows. None of these animals are bad at all. So seriously, what’s a Christian to do on
this evil “holiday”?
 |
| Talk about creepy! |
Well,
there’s lots to do! First of all, one option is to pray for all
those poor lost souls engaged in this paganism. Another thing you can
do is along with your candy, give out Bible tracks. Kids will take
just about anything if there’s candy involved. If you don’t feel
like the whole “trick-or-treaters” thing (or even if you do), you
can go to your church and help out with your church’s Halloween, or
rather, “Harvest Day” event. If your church doesn’t have this
event planned, you should inquire about it (and if it’s too close
to the date, simply suggest it for next year). Beware, Satan is out
to stop all lost souls from God’s Holy Word. But together, and with
God’s help, we can use this pagan “holiday” to reach more lost
souls and lead them to God by telling them about Jesus’ message of
salvation!
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