I've been thinking about this the past few days and I was wondering what you guys think.  Now I know that Halloween has it's roots in pagan rituals and all that stuff but the current rituals practiced on Halloween seem to me to be very positive if not vaguely Christian.  Is there any other night of the year that strangers will willingly open up there doors to other strangers and without a fuss give them something for stopping by unannounced.  I'm so pumped about Halloween this year.  It turns out that I won't be in Shawnee to help out with TOTFC if it pans out but I'm equally excited to say hi to strangers and give them gifts.  What do you guys think?

I think if a person decides not to celebrate Halloween because of it's partial roots in non-Judeo-Christian religions, that's completely up to them.  But, it would only make sense that they should also stop celebrating Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc., since these all evolved from pagan seasonal festivals in one way or another.

I doesn't actually matter to me what people choose to do, though.  I celebrate Halloween when I can because it's fun to dress up in goofy costumes and cut up pumpkins with my friends.  If someone just can't get past the feeling that they're worshipping satan somehow by asking people for candy, then maybe it's best they do something else that night.

I'm glad you pointed out the other pagan holidays; the actual word easter means spring in some ancient language (can't remember what), but the celebration of the spring goddess.  bottom line, hallow's eve is fun, thought i don't like dressing up any more.  i don't know about vaguely christian, but it's still fun.