LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY amethyst_hunter)

Apologies if this is OT, if so, please feel free to delete (or let me know and I'll delete it). Just some random thoughts I had today...

Today is Halloween. Many of us will be enjoying all the flotsam and jetsam that comes with such a 'holiday'. Be you religious or not, everyone has their own way of having fun, and candy doesn't even have to be involved.

Except for, of course, the religious zealots who seem to wholeheartedly *embrace* evil by using what should be an innocent holiday for kids (and the kid in all of us) to dwell on horrors, and instill fear and misery in their hearts, with such niceties like "Hell Houses" and the like. Suffering = good. Happiness = bad. That's pretty sad.

When I was a little kid, I used to think that if I made a little 'shrine' to tornadoes (being that I live in the Midwest, I'm well used to the weather) it would please some tornado god or something, somewhere, and then maybe we wouldn't get so many severe storms. And it makes me think: each of us has or had our own little weird childhood 'rituals' that, by Dominionist standards, would be considered Evil or Satanic. How many of us would have been brutally abused (be it verbally or physically), or have already been (you know who you are), in Dominionist households, for such simple childhood trappings? Kids are naturally prone to imagination; they don't necessarily intend to start worshipping devils or whatnot just by indulging in Halloween festivities, or drawing tornado pictures, or reading mythology books, or anything else.

Ultimately, what determines whether or not a child will grow up to be a decent adult is based on two things: 1) how the parent(s)/guardian(s) raises that child, and 2) how that child/adult conducts his or her own choices in life. Halloween alone does not a demon make.

That's why religious zealotry - of *all* stripes - must stop. Zealotry sucks all the fun and joy out of life, and turns it into a depressing eternity of misery - and remember, misery loves company.

Besides, if God didn't want us to have chocolate, He wouldn't have made so damn much of it. XD ;)

May you all have a happy and safe Halloween!