A brief conversation with my barber this morning about Halloween—he took the standard Christian line, but did acknowledge in the end that, in 2006, it was all about American capitalism—made me want to post this.

Halloween – Ever Dance With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?  

by Morpheus

Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? This was the question put to Michael Keaton’s “Batman” by actor Jack Nicholson, the Joker. I thought up the title after I received an email from some concerned friend (out to save my poor heathen soul) about the holiday of Halloween, which was likened to “dancing with the devil.”

Every time a holiday comes up the religious right (which appears to be neither) sends out mass emails trying to scare everyone in the name of their Western Asian Semitic savior deity and his thunder god Pops. There are a lot of threats to the “unsaved” about living all of eternity in a really drab netherworld of unbearable heat run by pitch fork wielding, cloven hoofed, pointed horned, barbed-tailed overlords, if they take part in these “blasphemous” events. Some of these zealots actually take to the streets and pass out pamphlets with pictures of damnation and torture instead of candy. Others create “Hell Houses” at their churches as an alternative to Halloween, where the monsters are teens at raves slitting their wrists with razor blades or young girls bleeding to death from terrible abortions—all of whom are consequently dragged off to Hell by demons, naturally. Relegating everyone to children, these new age fire and brimstone fanatics attempts to scare the beejeezus outta anyone that reads a Harry Potter book or puts up a Jack O’ Lantern.

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