Christians seek Hallowe’en ban in Banff
Gravely offensive: Xians in Banff think this display disrespects their faithful departed
A group of churches in the Scottish town of Banff is trying to get the hallowe’en window displays in two newsagents removed because they are “disrespectful” to the Christian faith.
The secretary of Banff Churches Together, Fiona Stewart, says:
We were alarmed by the nature of the Castlegate window display and the entrance to the Eastside Shopping Centre.
The displays relate to cemeteries and, as Christians, we take the view that they are disrespectful to our faithful departed.
We have no problem with children dressing up and having fun at Hallowe’en, but we are concerned that these displays are particularly morbid.
The word Hallowe’en derives from the term ‘All Hallow’s Eve’ and is the date before the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of All Souls, when Christians respectfully remember all the saints and martyrs and people who have died throughout the centuries.
We do not think the manner of these displays is in keeping with the respectful remembrance of the faithful departed.
Maybe that’s because Hallowe’en not really a Christian festival, but an ancient pagan one known as Samhain?
Amusingly, William Gatt, the owner of one of the shops, is having none of it:
I couldn’t believe it, I thought it was a joke. I had to read the letter three or four times before I could comprehend what they were saying.
I went to considerable expense to create the window, to do something that’s nice. There’s no way I’m giving in to these pressures. I’m not removing it.
Commenters on the newspaper’s website are also unanimously scornful at the pious attempts at censorship. One, going by the name of ‘Beelzebub’, makes an interesting point:
What next? Shops displaying books, pictures and ornaments of a man nailed to a piece of wood, blood pouring out of him, with a spear hole in his side and a crown of thorns? I hope not, as such obscenities should be banned.
Banff Churches Together?
From my experience of small Celtic towns it’s a wonder if more than two are open and more than one can agree on anything!
Looks as though we have one superstition complaining about another – again! Hopefully the Pagans will start to complain when the revolting ‘nativity’ scenes appear in some shop windows during December, but they’ll have to be quick because the muzzies will probably beat them to it.
Aren’t most christian festies assimilated from the prior main pagan religions anyway? They’re all fucking loonies and could all do with electric shock treatment or a red hot poker up the arse.
You think this is laughable? Very recently, Birdshit’s weekly press release boasted that a ‘voodoo’ gingerbread set had been removed from shelves after complaints from a few hysterics.
You truly have to wonder what pathetic state of mind a person has to be in before something like that can upset them.
I feel that Christian churches are disrespectful to my atheist rationalist beliefs, so they should be banned 🙂
Cabalamat you should realise by now that you don’t have any fucking beliefs to disrespct or affend. Your(sic) an atheist and don’t believe in nothing…moron. Jus’ wiat til you die and let Satan sort you out…knob…
Sorry…got filled with the Christian spirit there.
I was going to ask if there’s no end to the stupidity of these people. Maybe asking if there’s any beginning to their thinking would be a better question.
Sadly for the Archbishop of Canterbury the evangelical right wingers are taking over his church. This link shows you just what they are up to.
http://halloweenchoiceorg.bravehost.com/
Clearly the Banff churches are inciting the very same religious hate against other faiths such Pagans and other occultist minorities. This type of evangelical zeal led to many children being dragged into care in the Roachdale, Notts, Orkney etc Satanic Abuse Myth cases. Are Banff churches ignorant of these facts; aare they trying to bring such fundamentalist hysteria back into UK society?
SAFF PRESS RELEASE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND ACCUSED OF RELIGIOUS HATRED
The Church of England was today branded intransigent and imperialistic for breaking all its previous promises with regard to multi-faith harmony by condoning an attack on the religion of Paganism
The Sub-culture Alternatives Freedom Foundation (SAFF), a human rights group formed in 1988 which works to protect the religious rights of minority groups, has accused the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, of allowing his evangelical wing to breach the religious hate laws in a campaign by the Manchester Diocese. The campaign, despite a complete lack of evidence, alleges that Pagan Children who are allowed to celebrate Halloween will suffer permanent psychological damage.
The SAFF has demanded that Rowan Williams take action to correct this sectarian propaganda. If no action is taken the SAFF will have no alternative but to take the Church of England to the courts with an official complaint of a breach of the new Religious Hatred laws.
SAFF director Tony Rhodes said: “I was completely stunned by the Church’s breach of UK Religious hatred law with such unsubstantiated claims. Especially after so many years of trying to include individual Pagans, and their organisations, in Interfaith forums up and down the country. Our phones have been red hot with angry Pagans who feel insulted by this insensitive and malicious allegation that they can’t look after their kids. People who took part in interfaith forums must feel really betrayed.”
SUPERMARKET BLACKMAIL?
It is common knowledge that Christian evangelists have for years campaigned against the popularity of Halloween but this deceitful allegation about harm to Children at Halloween is a step too far. The Church of England’s Manchester Diocese appear to be trying to use this misdirection to frighten supermarkets and corner shops into not stocking Halloween masks and costumes, or to force them to display Christian related regalia alongside them. If the CofE tried this with Eid or Diwali there would be utter outrage from the Moslem and Hindu population, yet the imperialist minded evangelists in the CofE are so behind the times they think they can get away with it in relation to minority beliefs. Halloween one of the most sacred festivals of the pagan calendar.
WHO IS DAMAGING WHOM?
They claim Halloween can cause long term psychological damage but all kids know that Halloween toys are make-believe. They know that putting on masks and costumes is not reality and is meant as fun. What damage could this possibly cause? The vast commercialisation of Halloween in recent decades is not something pagans find objectionable because we like children to enjoy themselves, but apparently the killjoys in the Church of England do not. The crux of the matter is that some evangelical activists in the CofE are trying to establish the lie that children who celebrate Halloween will be psychologically damaged and Rowan Williams is letting them get away with.
Tony Rhodes said: “They are trying to say that making kids wear Halloween costumes is a form of abuse. The implications for Pagan families is immense and we have every right to be outraged. ”
They hypocrisy of the CofE is very clear when one compares the Christian festival of Easter to Halloween. Children are shown an image of Christ nailed to a cross with blood dripping from wounds. If there was any truth in the Manchester Diocese’s slur; if exposure to images did permanently damage children then Christianity would clearly have questions to answer. Yet here they are besmirching the genuinely held beliefs of a religion which is much older than theirs by inferring that our celebration is a form of child abuse.
The hysterical Satanic Ritual Abuse scare, long proved to be a dangerous and socially damaging libel, was also based on accusations of child abuse and first fostered in the UK by troublemakers from evangelical Christian groups. Ultimately wasting taxpayers’ millions of pounds, and destroying many innocent families. Have the British public forgotten the cold shiver when they first heard of the ‘dawn lifts’ of children snatched from their beds by social work stormtroopers? The Manchester Diocese of the CofE is located only a stone’s throw from Rochdale, the scene of one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the Satan Scare of the 1990s. How can these people be so totally insensitive?
In conjunction with the Pagan Anti-Defamation Network (PAN) the SAFF are already in correspondence with Dr Rowan’s secretary Andrew Nunn at Lambeth Palace ( andrew.nunn@lampal.c-of-e.org.uk ) over the matter but fear that the evangelical wing of the CofE is now so powerful that they will be allowed to get away with this open and direct insult to another religion. We demand that Rowan Williams reigns in these troublemakers forthwith.
Contact: saff@uk2.net
Background information on the true facts about Halloween: http://www.saff.ukhq.co.uk/haloween.htm
SAFF (Sub-culture Alternatives Freedom Foundation) Leeds, Yorkshire U.K.
No Fiona – you are suffering from a popular misconception.
The original Celtic festival was and still is called ‘Samhain’ pronounced ‘Sow – een.’ Your monotheistic faith system sought to hijack Samhain and thus in 993 AD ‘ALL HALLOWS’ was created.
Along the way these become a compound word ‘Hallow-een’.
Your church is, like others, seeking to link abuse of children with Halloween celebrations and this is clearly breaching UK law on incitement.
You owen both the newsagaent and UK Pagans an apology for your odious actions.
Yes, the Banff churches must be seeking to create more Rochdale abuse cases. What they are doing now is par for the course with fundamentalists and the same thing that evangelists did who started the socially destructive satanic myths in the 1990s. Do they really want to stick more innocent kids into care and ruin more innocent families via linking child abuse with a Pagan sacred day?
I’m maybe wrong about this, but isn’t one of the central themes of Christianity forgiveness and tolerating others?
Homer Simpson – ‘God bless those Pagans’
Wow – the shop in the row with the self-riteous Christian fundamentalists has now been targeted for physical attack.
Now ‘who’ could be behind this lot?
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/907256?UserKey=
Terrible how some folks react isn’t it when they cannot get their own way!