The events of yesterday kind of summed up everything I was talking about in my last post.

My Illustration class was an example of the fun of Halloween. We wore costumes to class, carved jack-o-lanterns, ate food and candy, watched "Shaun of the Dead," and generally had a good time. Fun was definitely had by all. It was a harmless holiday.

In my Drawing class before that, however, there was a little bit of conversation about the nature of Halloween and how it's celebrated in the U.S. as opposed to other countries. My teacher in that class is British - he reminds me of Sark from "Alias" - and he was going on about how Americans put an absurd amount of emphasis on Halloween, as if it were some sort of religious holiday. In fact, he said, we treat it with more enthusiasm and reverence than we do actual religious holidays, which we ruthlessly secularize anyway. My teacher is not in any way a religious man, but he notices this. Our model that we were drawing from was Puerto Rican, so she came from a Catholic background, but her husband is a Pagan, so she said they individually celebrate their own respective holidays. The sad truth of the Postmodern mindset that has infected our brains was further illustrated by a brief conversation between the model and one of the students. In the end, the model said, "Well, we each have our religion, and we respect that. We don't get worked up about it; I mean, whatever works for you."

Sometimes I wonder if I should be more belligerent. It might be really obnoxious of me to speak up at times like that and say, "How does that even work? Is it like physics, like how if I don't believe in the laws of gravity, I can't die from falling off a cliff? I don't think what you're talking about is "religion;" at best, it's therapy, and at worst, it's delusion. I tend toward thinking the latter because, if what you say is true, then your "religion" is meaningless to the degree that it can be safely ignored by other people. You don't have a god, you have an imaginary friend." It might make them hate me, think me intolerant, or some crap like that, but wouldn't it ultimately benefit people to be called out on such nonsense? As it was, I didn't say anything, and I'm regretting it now. This is so endemic in our culture, it frightens me, and I've grown so timid, that frightens me, too.

When Mr. Sark made his comments about Halloween's pseudo-sacred importance to Americans, I pointed out that there was an actual religious holiday on the 31st, Reformation Day. The other person who knew what I was talking about was the girl who had the "whatever works for you" conversation with the model, because she went to a Lutheran church where they celebrated it on Sunday.

She agreed with the model's assessment of religion.