Post Halloween Post

Many bloggers have posted about the idiotic anti-Halloween comments made by Kimberly Daniels of CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network). Although, CBN has removed the article from their main web page, it can still be found here *

C.Woods over at My Thought are Free has a "few suggestions for those who believe demons may be in their Halloween treats."
It's a very entertaining & witty read for those of us who like a chuckle at the expense of religious foolery.

I was telling C. Woods about my own experience with Church & Halloween. I thought I'd share it with everyone as it also ties in with my reasons for liking philosophy so much.

Like I said in the last post, I've just signed up to one of the introductory philosophy classes.
Geoffrey Klempner recently responded to a question of mine about morals on his website & it made me realize how much of a part philosophy really does play in my life. I realized I've used it my whole life to "search for those necessary truths concerning the nature of reality"., as one definition of philosophy states in part.
I've always loved philosophy ever since I tried to read the philosophy books my parents had when they belonged to a book of the month club back in the 1960's. I was about 8 years old & was desperate for reading material as we lived an isolated existence in the mountains & didn't have a television, radio, or anything but a few books. I remember asking my dad what a particular book meant. It was a philosophy book, discourses of Plato I think, & I couldn't make heads or tails of it.
My Dad told me something to the effect that all the answers to everything were found in there. Which I found puzzling as my mother was very religious, & said all the answers to everything were found in the Bible.
Needless, to say I've been engaging in philosophical debate with myself ever since.


On to the church story...

One year during my sojourn as a born again christian, the local church I was a part of went on a anti-Halloween campaign. I dismissed their rant at the time, as I thought the church's rational was hysterical, & ignorant but forgivable. What I couldn't abide though, was the next year when the church got a different more liberal pastor w/kids, those same people who had stood up the year before & claimed to know Gods unyielding authority on the subject & felt it their duty to share it with the rest of us, as they waved their bibles around with all the proof inside, Those same people were celebrating the holiday as if none of what they'd said the year before had meant a thing!
& to top it off, no one else was bothered by that. My religious mother excused their insincere behavior by saying "I don't know what you are upset about, they are only human."
It didn't seem to bother her that they had turned every thing they had said the year before into a lie.
I was already falling away as church lingo goes, but that put me over the edge. Ignorance about truth is forgivable but insincerity is unpardonable.

What does that have to do with philosophy you ask? As Austin Cline replies to the question, "Why study philosophy?"
"...philosophizing makes up so much of what we do during life — there is no escaping it for anyone who want to think clearly or think about important subjects. So, we need to learn how to do it well."

The truth is if we want to call ourselves thinking beings, we will always confronted with situations that force us to look for philosophical solutions. In our personal life & our public life.

Most of you probably learned all of this out in school, but remember I'm unedjucated :) So you'll have to forgive me for rambling on.

*Hat tip to Stupid Evil Basturd