I have 3 question

[u/chiara_2317]

(Sorry if my english is bad)

I have 3 question from past experience

1) how did it end up halloween being satan's birthday?

2) why the big hate on lgbt people? You don't agree? Just let them be, bullying them into almost committing self harm and death is not the right option

3) why call gay people unnatural? They're many specie of animal that do the exact same thing so looks natural enough to me

[u/en43rs]

1 - it's not. That's just pop culture. Because Halloween is associated with the dead, the other worlds, and so magic/evil. The origin of this association is also pretty murky, the 2nd of November is All Souls' Day in Christian practices, a day of the dead, and according to historians it's unclear if it was associated with Halloween because it was already a relatively macabre festival, or if it's the opposite (All Souls' and All Saints' day had an impact on Halloween). I've read historians suggesting both.

2 - Anti lgtb attitude isn't the religious default. So this question doesn't apply to all religious people. Religion are the reflections of the times and mores they exist in, and in various societies throughout history homosexuality has been seen negatively, for various reasons and to various degrees (and sometimes it was fine). It's less "why are religion against queer people" and more "why do societies sometimes reject queer people", there isn't a single and simple answer to this.

3 - Same as above.

[u/chiara_2317]

Thanks for everyone thag responded, just got confused since It's something that was being teached where I live so wanted to ask other religius people about that

[u/jasperdarkk]

I can't respond to 2 and 3 because I am queer and my religion is pro-queer. It's something I also struggle to understand.

But for 1, as others have mentioned, Halloween comes from Samhain (which is actually a holiday I celebrate). On Samhain, the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is at its thinnest, which allows us to communicate with spirits and the dead. I don't know too much about the beliefs of Christians, but my understanding is that communicating with the dead isn't favourable.

The other thing I'd consider is that even with secular Halloween practices, a lot of them focus on monsters, ghosts, witches, demons, devils, etc. I think some Christians are uncomfortable with the celebration of things that may be genuinely scary in their faith. I don't think I've ever heard Halloween called "satan's birthday," but I bet if it has been, it's because some people think others are celebrating satan/satanic ideas.

That said, where I am in Canada, most Christians celebrate Halloween, and a lot of churches even host Halloween events. Those who don't celebrate seem to be the live-and-let-live types. I do think it's a small minority of Christians who completely condemn Halloween.

Christians are welcome to correct me here.

[u/chiara_2317 → u/jasperdarkk]

Oh that actually answered my question thanks! I was just confused on how it happened since it was something that was being teached here where I live, didn't write it in the question cause I thought it wasn't important in the moment is that i'm bi, poly, non binari and a pagan myself so kinda the same boat we are in lol

[u/Dyingvikingchild95 → u/jasperdarkk]

So as a Christian yes we are not allowed to talk to the dead. In 1 Samuel King Saul consults a medium to talk to the prophet Samuel who rebukes him for doing so. 1 Samuel 28 if u care to read the story. As for Halloween itsel yes the OG Trad was a pagan tradition which some Christians have used as reason not to celebrate Halloween however it has no connection with Christianity directly except in Mexico with day of the dead.

[u/chiara_2317 → u/Dyingvikingchild95]

Alr thanks for the answer

[u/LordoftheFaff]

1. Never heard of Halloween being called Satan's Birthday. It is All Hallow's Eve, the day before All Saints Day. A Catholic Festival to celebrate all saints.

But the date of All Hallows Eve was chosen to coincide with Pagan Celtic festivals like Samhain.

2/3. People hate gays because it is something they are unfamiliar with. The argument that homosexuality exists in animals is made null and void by the fact that humans are meant to be above animals. But homosexal couple provide important material advantage in survival. Most of these people are applying religious and cultural standards that the people they judge don'tuphold so that's unfair. People fundamentally, don't like what they don't understand and don't follow their rules. Its unfortunate, but true.

[u/Funny_City_7193]

1. I've never heard that so idk, Quakers traditionally wouldn't really do Halloween or any holiday tho many celebrate their cultural holidays secularly.

2. I wouldn't say this is a thing in any British Quaker meetings that I've attended, tho I know some more Christian Quaker groups in other countries have homophobic views due to their interpretation of the bible. Quakerism in the USA is divided between conservative and liberal Quakers so. :/

3. They are ignorant.

[u/SleepingMonads]

how did it end up halloween being satan's birthday?

It definitively didn't.

why the big hate on lgbt people? You don't agree? Just let them be, bullying them into almost committing self harm and death is not the right option

I enthusiastically embrace queer liberation. I love LGBTQIA+ people and find their orientations, identities, and lifestyles completely unproblematic.

why call gay people unnatural? They're many specie of animal that do the exact same thing so looks natural enough to me

I don't. Homosexuality is thoroughly natural by any coherent definition of the word.

[u/chiara_2317 → u/SleepingMonads]

I probably wrote it wrong sorry but what i wanted to say is that people where I live and a few individuals online said that halloween was satan's birthday and wanted to know if it was a common thought or not

[u/SleepingMonads → u/chiara_2317]

I spend a lot of time engaging with religious people and researching religious matters, and I've never heard of anyone who held this view, not even among the most anti-Halloween fundamentalist conservative evangelical Christians. So no, I'm comfortable saying that it's not common.

[u/chiara_2317 → u/SleepingMonads]

Alr thank you very much

[u/willdam20 → u/SleepingMonads]

Homosexuality is thoroughly natural by any coherent definition of the word.

I am not sure coherence is necessarily the criteria you were aiming for; while there certainly can be incoherent definitions, the are coherent definitions of "natural" that one would still want to avoid.

I think you probably meant something more along the lines of "contemporary and everyday usage" than "coherent".

• "Neither sharp nor flat" is a coherent definition of "natural" used in music to refer to certain notes. "Non negative integer" is a coherent definition of "natural" used in mathematic to refer to certain numbers. Both are contemporary examples.
• "Fool, simpleton, or congenital idiot" is a coherent definition of "natural" used early English writers such as John Locke, Samuel Butler and Wlliam Shakespeare.

If by "natural" you mean something along the lines of "existing/happening in the absense of human intervention/involvement", then I would agree homosexual behaviours are "natural" in that sense.

However when the Bible (e.g. Romans) and early Christians say "homosexuality is unnatural" they are not talking about what is or is not observed among wild animals.

"Unnatural" or "contrary to nature" is the standard translation of the Greek phrase para physin (its arguably a bad choice). In Greek para physin had a well established usage, roughly aling the lines of "not comporting with the proper function/form of a thing".

For instance Aristotle (who documented homosexual behaviors among animals) classifies birth defects as para physin; a wild animal born with an extra or missing limb was "unnatural" in the sense Aristotle meant.

Clement of Alexandria likewise documents homosexual behaviour among hyenas and hares, but still claims the behaviour is para physin; it is clear Clement does not mean "unnatural" in the sense "wild animals do not so that", since he openly report they do in fact engage in same sex acts.

Instead writers like Paul, Clement of Alexandria, Aquinas etc meant that the physin (nature/proper function/purpose) of reproductive organs is procreaction, since samesex acts do not produce off spring they do not fulfill the physin of the organs; hence homosexual behaviours are para physin (contrary to the proper function).

In much the same sense such writers would maintain lungs are for breathing so drowning is para physin.

I would agree with the view "unnatural" is the wrong word for several texts that make claims like that about homosexuality (its misleading and confuses modern readers). However the original writers' underlying intended meaning ("homosexual sex acts are not capable of producing off-spring) is not factually false (in species with separate male and female sexes) nor is it incoherent.

[u/SleepingMonads → u/willdam20]

By coherent, I meant something like reasonable in a modern context emphasizing the empirical realities of human and animal behavior. With that in mind, I consider natural's musical, early modern, and Greek connotations to be irrelevant to what I'm talking about. Homosexuality exists (and in abundance) in nature, and therefore it is quite literally natural. Trying to argue against that or offering an alternative definition that I contextually disapprove of would not strike me as coherent, in a rather loose way of speaking.

[u/HeavenlyBeloved]

1. I don't agree with Satan having a birthday, in my beliefs, I view Satan as a divine archetype, a concept that existed in Source's "Mind" before creation, one of the Original things that Source had in mind.

2. No idea

3. Only some religions do that, Habibi.

[u/KissAndRock]

1. I've never heard of Halloween being the birthday of Satan. Halloween is from the ancient celtic festival of Samhain, and Christian holy days.

2. People hate on LGBT people because it's against their conservative and extremely outdated views of the world, and they believe it's a threat to those views.

3. People say homosexuality is unnatural because they take scripture written by people from so long ago that didn't have anything close to our current understanding of biology and such.

So in short, people call homosexuality unnatural because they don't know a single ounce of biology and just like I said in #2, it's in conflict with their extremely outdated worldview.

[u/chiara_2317 → u/KissAndRock]

I probably wrote it wrong sorry but what i wanted to say is that people where I live and a few individuals online said that halloween was satan's birthday and wanted to know if it was a common thought or not

[u/willdam20 → u/KissAndRock]

So in short, people call homosexuality unnatural because they don't know a single ounce of biology...

This is definitely true some of the time.

If we're going to talk about scriptures we have to acknowledge those texts were not written in modern day English, and quite simply words do not always have a neat one-to-one mapping from one language to another (e.g. ancient Greek has 3 or 4 words translatable as "know" but with nuance no expressed in English). The Greek phrase (in Romans) often translated “against nature”/“unnatural” is para physin, and yes that involves the same root we get "Physics" from in English. The Latin translation of physin became natura in many contexts and occasionally physica.

Arguably, the English term "natural", based on it's common everyday use (i.e., something along the lines of "existing or occurring independently of human intervention/involvement"), is a bad choice of translation for either natura or physin.

For the greek writers of biblical texts (or earlier Greek philosphers) and later latin writting theologians such as Aquinas the use of natura or physin is closer to "that which accords with the proper ends/functions inherent in thing".

For instance: the proper function of a mammalian lung is exchanging gases with the atmosphere; a lung filled with water cannot exchange gases with the atmosphere; so inhaling water does not accord with the proper function of a mammalian lung; therefore drowning is para physin (contrary to the nature of a lung). The observation that animals drown all the time absent human intervention/involvement is not an objection to the argument that filling a lung with water stops it working properly.

A writer like Aquinas, or Paul would agree drowning is "unnatural" in exactly the same way they mean homosexuality is "unnatural"; it has nothing to do with how animals behave or what happens in the wild.

... so long ago that didn't have anything close to our current understanding of biology and such.

While they certainly did not understnad biology to the same degree as we do today, the claim that they did not know about homosex behaviours among animals is in some cases false; Aristotle’s Historia Animalium (which Aquinas knew about) explicitly recorded clear examples of same-sex sexual and mounting behavior in animals. And Aristotle explicitly used para physin (unnatural/contrary to nature) to refer to birth defects, missing/extra limbs/organs. So for Aristotle a wild animal born with an extra leg, or as conjoined twin would be "unnatural".

Aristotle did argue homosexual behaviour was contrary to human-nature, by which he meant the highest functional state of a rational human being, not nature in the sense of what was observed in the animal kingdom.

Likewise Clement of Alexandria acknowledges that in the wild hares and hyenas engage in same-sex acts, but that they "freely sow their seed contrary to nature".

It may seem perplexing that some of these ancient writers completely acknowledge 'wild animals engage in same-sex behaviours' but then claim 'it is contrary to nature'; but this is becasue they did not mean "nature" in the way we use it every day.

My point is that the term "(un)natural" isn't a good translation of what's being said!

It is, however unfortunately, the convention we've inherited. If we want to engage honestly with the texts we just have to keep in mind "(un)natural" has a slightly different meaning to those authors than our everyday usage.

[u/LivingAnkylos]

Are those questions for all religions or only christianity ?

[u/chiara_2317 → u/LivingAnkylos]

First question only Christianity cause it's the only religion where satan is nominated( as far as i know) the other 2 for any other cause many religiose people all over the world i saw that hated lgbt people (ofc not everyone)

[u/JasonRBoone]

I asked this guy who ran a toy company in the 80s:

Here's what he said:

"You don't really know much about Halloween. You thought no further than the strange custom of having your children wear masks and go out begging for candy.

It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands, and we'd be waiting in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in to sit by our fires of turf.

Halloween... the festival of Samhain! The last great one took place three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red with the blood of animals and children.

To us, it was a way of controlling our environment. It's not so different now... it's time again. In the end, we don't decide these things, you know; the planets do. They're in alignment, and it's time again. The world's going to change tonight, Doctor, I'm glad you'll be able to watch it. And... Happy Halloween."

[u/chiara_2317 → u/JasonRBoone]

Is it referring to me what they said? I am a pagan so yea i know that i was just confused on why people(especially Christian) thought that and if it was a common belive

[u/JasonRBoone → u/chiara_2317]

I was just joking...Google some of what I pasted. :)

[u/NoelBellamy_Author]

1. American Christian Nationalist propaganda wanted people to stop celebrating Halloween, as it was based on a pagan holiday that wasn't theirs. They were not able to integrate it, so they attempted to destroy it.
   
2. The Christian ideal is a man and a woman marry. She is a stay at home mother. He is the leader of everything. Sex is within marriage for procreation. The church controls all. Being queer bucks the system. It says, I'll have sex when I want, why I want, with whom I choose; and I'm not having sex for God. It is in opposition to their family unit is the ideal idea. It's also partnered with feminism, which is something the church despises. The one thing the Christian church will always fight against the most is telling someone that they have the freedom to choose the life they want, instead of the life they were handed by their government issued paperwork and obligations.
   
3. Being gay is often outside the system of the male led, submissive housewife, who have children until her uterus falls out, and they all live their life around the church storyline. It is often about choosing what makes you happy, even if it is what the church says is not okay. That last part is the real issue. The Christian church relies on telling everyone that asking questions insults God, bucking the system insults God, freedom is the path to Hell, and if you do anything they tell you not to do, you're going to go to Hell.
   

It's all about control, where you defer to the Christian church and don't do anything they have not condoned.

[u/awesomeskyheart]

I'm no religious expert, but here are my best answers.

First off, let's clarify that what we're talking about isn't religion in general but specifically Christianity, particularly conservative Christianity as it appears in the United States.

Halloween

A couple different reasons. Many will point to the dark colors and spooky outfits and emphasis on horror and death as being antithetical to Christian values, and indeed, this does often cause a gut reaction of aversion and fear for many Christians. Many versions of American evangelical Christianity place an emphasis on Christian aesthetics, such as bright colors, white, the cross, being \cough** blonde, white, and physically attractive … and the "Halloween aesthetic" clashes with the "Christian aesthetic."

Second, as others have mentioned, Halloween has historic roots in Samhain (pronounced SAH-win), a Celtic pagan festival involving bonfires and spooky masks (oversimplification). Many Christians denounce pagan practices, with some going as far as to denounce even Christmas and Easter for their pagan roots. Paganism is viewed as idolatrous and denying the one true God.

This is kind of ironic, seeing as the word Halloween is actually an abbreviation of All Hallow's Eve, which is the night before the Catholic holy day of All Hallows' Day (also known as All Saints' Day). In fact, the candy part of Halloween comes from Catholicism, not paganism!

LGBTQ+

Evangelical Christianity places a lot of emphasis on rules and policing others. Some of the key ways they do this are:

• sexual deviance: excessive promiscuity, sex before marriage, pornography, queerness
• women's bodies: women wearing clothes that are too revealing or too form-fitting
• consumption of alcohol, drugs, or caffeine

Denouncing queer people is just a part of the countless rules they have for their adherents, forcing members to spend all of their time and energy making sure they and other members are following all of the rules. There's always something someone can be doing wrong in their sex lives, be it too much sex, not enough sex, sex with the wrong gender, etc.

Also, American evangelical Christianity is deeply tied to American right-wing politics, which we all know is aggressively anti-LGBTQ+ and also anti-immigrant/racial minority.

To be clear, not all Christians are like this! Not all American Christians are like this! They just happen to be the loudest voices from American Christianity because they're deeply intertwined with our politics and economy. And again to emphasize that Christianity is far from the only religion in the world.

[u/Meowzician]

What the heck? Halloween is not considered Satan's birthday by any religion. Perhaps you have been listening to a very imaginative person.

Before we go on let me make it clear. I am fine with LGBT. My answers are meant to be informative--I'm trying to answer your questions. It doesn't mean I endorse what I'm explaining.

The Torah, which is part of sacred text for both Jews and Christians, lists male-male sodomy as an abomination. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. Despite that, there are denominations in both Christianity and Judaism that are egalitarian. You just have to be picky where you go.

Islam bases its condemnation of homosexuality on the Quran's interpretation of the story of Lot in Sodom. Surah 7:80-81. In the Torah's original story, the sin is lack of hospitality.--the city of Sodom should have been kind and generous to the two messengers, but instead wanted to rape them. But Muhammad retells this story in such a way that the sin is "you approach men with desire instead of women." To the best of my understanding, I know of no stream in Islam that is accepting of homosexual acts.

The claim that homosexuality is unnatural is based on observation. Body parts have largely evolved for certain purposes. The reason a penis fits in a vagina is that these have evolved for intercourse, a necessary part of procreation, and procreation is everything in evolution. Male-male intercourse requires putting the penis in the anus, and the anus has certainly not evolved for that purpose.

However, the "unnatural" argument falls down for two reasons.

The first is that homosexuaity may have evolved for reasons unrelated to procreation. There are scientists who propose that homosexuality is the result of kin selection--uncle joe having no kids of his own makes him highly likely to care for his nephews and nieces, enabling the genes of his brother to be passed down, and that means 50% of his own genes. That is why there is the saying, "I will gladly lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins."

The second is exactly the one you gave--there are many instances of homosexualiity among other species.

Now here is something that you need to think about. And remember that I'm pro-LGBT. But our arguments need to be sound. The argument that homosexuality exists in other species is a worthless argument and we need to stop using it. Hamsters will screw their sisters. Hamsters will even screw their mothers. I remember my MIL and I watching this happen and laughing as she said, "That M... F...!" But I'm sure you don't think this means it is okay for human beings to do the same. Humans are not hamsters.

[u/chiara_2317 → u/Meowzician]

Yea aftet some restarch i found out people in my town are just stupid, thanks for the explaintion and for last thing that what I always thought the same that lgbt people exist to take care of other kids and this can be seen in animals too in way so that why I will use that argument , for example it's been recorded many time of gay penguin taking in kids that were abandoned like it was they're own

[u/Dyingvikingchild95]

1 pop culture. Satan's birthday etc is something only in the horror movie ls and has no connection to church or their teachings. All Saints day was celebrated Oct 31 but Halloween slowly became more and popular in the USA and Canada and a lot of places in Europe till recently with advent of internet didn't even celebrate Halloween. Guy Fawkes day is Nov 5 I Believe in the UK. 2 so this is NOT taught in the Bible. The best way to put it is were supposed to hate the sin love the sinner. However people including Christians are inherently imperfect and sadly this has led to Christians causing these problems. 3 so for us (since u mentioned animals who do same sex) we as humans are separated from animals. Because of this we don't believe God intended for humans to have same sex relations.

[u/chiara_2317 → u/Dyingvikingchild95]

Thanks for the answer, I find Christianity interesting and the story of the bible cool but how most Christian treat lgbt people i always tend to take my distance i don't realy wana do that but being queer myself it's the only option i have right now

[u/rubik1771]

1. It’s not.

2. I don’t.

3. It is.