31 October 2014. Hip, Hip, Hooray… It’s Halloween… Have Some Kick-Ass Fun… Fie on the Longfaces!

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As usual, all the religious hobbyists crawled out of their hidey-holes to tell us all how nasty and SINFUL that we were for observing Halloween, and how “HOLY” they were for abstaining from Halloween. That’s a crock of shit a mile wide and bottomless, to boot. It’s a harmless secular holiday, that’s how it evolved. It’s no more satanic than American Christmas is (as dreary and commercialised as that’s become). There are times when I think that the religious nutters are trying to distort Christ to fit Him into their fundamentally un-Christian ideology, but they do try, and it’s our duty to oppose them.

Have some fun. God smiles… He did create fun after all… don’t let the longfaces steal both real religion and real fun from you. If you let them do that, well, Satan laughs, and calls for another Margarita…

BMD

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Ura for Halloween! Fie on Long-Faced Konvertsy!

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I wrote this three years ago:

Much of the brouhaha is absolute hooey. It merely gives the terminally religious another occasion to feel superior to their fellows and fill the air with loud Jeremiads about how everything is going to hell in a handbasket, yadda, yadda, yadda. As for me, I observe that much of what goes on in American society on Halloween is just harmless kid fun… let’s leave it at that. In any case, the thing with ghosts and spirits had nothing to do with Satanists or any other oddball cult. It’s because Halloween is All Hallows Eve… the day before the Feast of All Saints on the papist calendar. Evangelicals would do well to remember that, but then again, they’re known for their long faces and disapproval of anything remotely FUN.

It still stands. Last year, I wrote:

Don’t let the Halloween naysayers get you down. Most of ‘em are killjoy religious hobbyist nutters. There’s nothing wrong with secular fun… God LOVES innocent amusement (that’s why He made it, lunkhead). Pass the jug n’ smile… and don’t cross the paths of any black cats (we have one, he’s a neat beast), mind you…

That still stands, too, as does this. I once asked an Old School NEPA Coal-Cracker priest about Halloween, and he said:

Anything that gets people out of themselves is good. We’ve always had a Halloween party in the Church Hall. We open up the bar for the parents, and everyone has a good time. God smiles.

As for me, I believe. If you don’t… I ain’t gonna argue the point with you nor am I going to let your asshat attitude spoil any fun. Fie on you! Halloween is innocent!

BMD

Baby Dies After Parents Trade Hospital For Church After Crash

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A couple in Russia face jail after their religious zeal compelled them to drive their child, injured in a car crash, to church for an urgent baptism, not to hospital. On Sunday, Fontanka.ru said that the two-month-old infant was dead by the time it reached the hands of the priest. The report stated that the boy sustained a brain injury in a minor crash in St Petersburg on Saturday despite being in a child safety seat. The SKP cited the worried parents as saying that they sped him to church because “otherwise, he would be denied the Kingdom of Heaven”. Now, the two parents, both in their forties, are under investigation for “failure to aid a person in danger”, punishable with up to a year in prison. Police confirmed the boy’s death, but gave no details. An Orthodox spokesman told Fontaka.ru, “This is superstition, not religion. They should’ve gone to the hospital, it’s only human”. An SKP source noted, “A psychiatric ward is the best temple for such people”. According to Levada, religious sentiment is on the rise of Russia, where 83 percent of the population described themselves as believers in 2012. In 1991, that figure was just 24 percent.

25 November 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131125/184966751/Baby-Dies-After-Parents-Trade-Hospital-For-Church-After-Crash.html

Editor’s Note:

These “parents” belong in a loony bin. However, this sort of attitude is all too prevalent in some quarters. There are fanatics amongst us who give believers a “bad name”. Most are konvertsy, but there are some elements amongst “native” Orthodox who’re just as bad, especially, some clustered about Jordanville. You’ve heard it all before… Halloween is pagan… priests are “special”… monks are better than laypeople are… “shunning” those they consider “unholy”… the whole rotten megillah. These people wear “long” faces and exude religiosity… but they lack all sense of what it means to be a follower of Christ. I’ve never seen such backstabbing, tale-bearing, and puffed up pride (of course, under a smarmy veneer of “humility”) as I’ve seen in a particular parish. They follow all the rules to the letter (and make up some that don’t exist) and are “so heavenly-minded that they’re no earthly good”. Beware the “religious”… I’ve found them the most treacherous and nasty individuals that I’ve dealt with in life. The truth will set you free… but only if you let it…

BMD 

31 October 2013. A Picture IS Worth a Thousand Words… “Zombie Walk” in Novosibirsk

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The above image is from the “Zombie Walk” in Novosibirsk. Some are trying to shut down the holiday, but they’re not getting mass support, even from the Church. The most that Vsevolod Chaplin would say was that kids shouldn’t be dabbling in the occult, which is correct and that he thinks that it could lead to sickness (also correct… there’s been no statement from HH). There’s Halloween and there’s “Black Masses“… they’re not the same thing. One is harmless, the other is harmful in the extreme. Show some perspective, people…

Click here… it sounds ominous, but the only citation in the Russian press I could find was a short item on Interfax, and there was no material posted on patriarchia.ru from or about Fr Vsevolod at all. The Washington Times is a crank source… they’ve made up things before and are wont to print the most vile lies against Russia (they print all kinds of Langley provocations). I’d only put credence in this if I could find an original Russian source… and I couldn’t find one. As a counterpoise, click here for VOR‘s piece on Halloween… and VOR is a legit source (it’s a Russian government-run operation… and a good one at that).

Keep it focused… your soul does depend on it. Zealotry dims your vision… never forget that. Also, don’t forget that Orthodoxy is the freest of the Christian confessions… the only things that the Church absolutely insists upon are in the Creed. There’s a great deal of leeway… on Halloween, I disagree with Fr Vsevolod, but I agree with him usually, after all, he’s one of the “white hats“.

BMD