October 31st is Jesusween

[Video Link] Kids around the nation will be happy to hear that Jesusween celebrators plan keep their candy for themselves and instead "give out Bibles and Christian gifts -- in a friendly way!" on October 31.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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bruckelsprout

Haha… I know I’ll be handing out travel toothbrushes, number 2 pencils, and pamphlets about type 2 diabetes.
doomcake

Sounds like an elaborate prank to get Christian homes egged
RadioSilence

Wouldn’t the contraction be Jesus’een, not JesusWeen.

That is if it made any sense at all anyway.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Justin-Forposting/100002531076048 Justin Forposting

I got your jesusween for ya right here. [grabs male nether-region]
http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir

If a kid expects candy and you give him a “Christian gift,” that kid will learn at an early age to stay as far away from religion as possible.
- parrotboy
  
  Indeed. If they really want to save souls they should set up chocolate fountains in the front yard and baptize the kids in them.
  
  Edited to note that I would, in fact, be willing to consider being baptized if it was in a chocolate fountain.
  
  If only FSM worshippers could do this…
- zombiebob
  
  ahem, I think you mean stay away from prigish evangelical Christianity!
http://profiles.google.com/expectationlost l e

erm All Saints Day and All Souls’ Day
parrotboy

Jesusween? Seriously?

I suppose it is somewhat fitting to hijack hallowe’en for the celebration of an ancient Jewish zombie.

Makes we want to dress up in a toga and sandals, halo and beard, then add zombie makeup and lurch about the neighbourhood moaning ‘souuuuuuls…soooooouls’.

But I live in a smallish town and there are plenty of xians who would take offense.
millie fink

Christ, what a Weener.
nosehat

They hope to have many churches and bookstores benefit, as people buy christian items…

How to spot a marketing campaign.

On a related note, I think I’ll start a new holiday on December 25. I’ll call it Free Candymas. I hope my candy store benefits!!
rrh

I’m fascinated by the use of random stock footage with white fades to illustrate the concept of “various cities and towns.”
http://profiles.google.com/expectationlost l e

#weening!
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

Sounds good. “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” – attributed to Isaac Asimov
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

I hope there’s also some benefit for Ween.
http://cbmackay.ca/ Christopher Mackay

Laugh all you want; this is how Solstice celebrations turned into Christmas. Embrace, extend, extinguish should have a familiar ring to lots of BB readers. ;)
Josh Mortenson

Growing up in the 70s, one of my neighbors gave out the ubiquitous Jack Chick tracts. This isn’t a really new thing.
- Mike Norman
  
  That’s nothing.
  
  I tell Jack Chick tract stories to little kids around campfires. Scares the ever-living shit out of them every time.
  
  Heck, they even unnerve me a bit. People actually think like that?
zebbart

Jesus Ween was Dean and Gene Ween’s Mexican half-brother. Sang lead on “Buenas Tardes Amigo.”

Poe’s law right here. I would be angry about this lame attempt at lampooning Christians if I didn’t know better. Instead I am angry at this lame attempt at being Christian.
andyhavens

I’m a Christian. And Halloween is my favorite holiday. And this just makes me kinda sad.

Then again, if Madison Avenue can take over every religious holiday and turn it into a festival of guilt/spending, I guess some Christians can take over Halloween and hand out Bibles.

I once gave a kid an unopened gallon of cider when he mentioned that he was thirsty. The look of joy was priceless, as was watching him try to drag the thing around in his hobo sack.

Also makes me wonder, WWJE (Who Would Jesus Egg)? Probably somebody who tried to ruin a fun holiday by handing out tracts without any kind of context besides, “You’re doing something wrong… here’s a manual on how to live.”

The more I think about this, the more it bothers me. I’m going to go shop online for parts for my son’s knight costume now.
http://twitter.com/MrAaronSwainEsq Aaron Swain

JesusWeen? Seriously? They actually made a decision to go with that name. Hate to see what they named their kids…
http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Mari Lwyd

I found a Jesus-ween pattern on my toast. However, the Catholic church continues its refusal to affirm the miracle.

Who do I have to blow to get my sainthood over there? Gawd.
capnmarrrrk

This is what I picture when I hear the words “JesusWeen” http://www.divine-interventions.com/religioustoys.php (Dildos NSFW)
- phisrow
  
  As the theology of most Christian subsects affirms, Jesus was half God and All Man(tm)…
Mantissa128

I think the strongest argument against the existence of Jesus is that if he were real he would have anticipated this stuff and explictly told people not to do it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=778795544 Christopher Moriarty

You can tell who your fellow Jesus-ween observers are on Nov 1 by noting the drying egg on the walls and door and the toilet paper in their trees and by the flat tires on their cars.
Rob Gehrke

It’s settled, I’m going as crucified Jesus this year, blood and all. Awesome!
brinylon

Are you one of those jesusweeners? Ah, it’s good to be 12.
SpaceBeers

Is Danny Wallace still the inadvertent face of Jesusween? http://twitter.com/#!/misterwallace/status/121886409605918720
voiceinthedistance

Jesusween seems like an excellent opportunity to wean some kids from Christianity.

Not the first holiday this cult has swiped. Watch your back, Columbus Day.
- http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
  
  Columbus Day should probably be Catholic already:
  
  ‘An entry in [Columbus'] journal from September 1498 reads, “From here one might
  send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be
  sold…” Since Columbus supported the enslavement of the Hispaniola
  natives for economic reasons, he ultimately refused to baptize them, as
  Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians.’
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
trefecta

When the symbolic centerpiece of your faith is an execution device for Enemies Of The State, you’ve gone above and beyond the conceptualization of ‘horrifying display’ and ‘celebration of death’.

I’d say putting a realistic crucifix in your front yard is a far better way to celebrate Jesusween.

Also, anyone who thinks Halloween is a ‘Pagan holiday’ is a clear indication of both failure of historical, cultural, religious education.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Oliver-Schmieding/100000452523362 Oliver Schmieding
  
  “When the symbolic centerpiece of your faith is an execution device for Enemies Of The State”
  …please hold that thought for a second. now visualize the following:
  worldwide, precisely HOW would church steeples , principal’s offices etc. look if the romans had preferred gallows?
  
  (skipping the obvious joke about underpaid chinese workers knitting little nooses in sweatshops 24/7 here…)
  
  :)
HowieFeltersnatch

Indeed, bibles and religious tracts are a much better thing to give out than candy.

This message brought to you by your local window washers and aluminum siding repairmen.
Snig

They should compromise and give out chocolate Jesus on the cross. Tasty, fun to bite the heads off, and you can play Van Helsing if you or a friend is dressed as a vampire.
http://www.ioffer.com/i/chocolate-crucifix-cross-party-favors-9317708?source=eisi
- Vengefultacos
  
  Well it’s got to be a chocolate Jesus
  Make me feel good inside
  Got to be a chocolate Jesus
  Keep me satisfied
  When the weather gets rough
  And it’s whiskey in the shade
  It’s best to wrap your savior
  Up in cellophane
  He flows like the big muddy
  But that’s ok
  Pour him over ice cream
  For a nice parfait
  –Tom Waits
snoproblem

These folks have a really serious hangup with a harmless holiday. I predict much eyerolling, come the 31st.
http://twitter.com/michaelsayyes michael b

As a public service we will be providing scalding cauldrons and unholy pyres to dispose of an unwanted Bibles and Christian marketing doo-dads we come across.
TooGoodToCheck

If you want to fully co-opt halloween into being a christian holiday, you actually need to give out even more candy, and attach a thin patina of christianity to the festival ostensibly being celebrated.

You know, like they did for Christmas and Easter.
- Guest
  
  LOL
That_Anonymous_Coward

I’m thinking scam…. but its weird enough to be true.
Domain owned by someone in Canada, and the links on the website seemed to be nonfunctional.

Its a sad world when you can’t tell the sarcasm from the real….
yoyomama

Wait a second. When that girl is holding the bible around 10 seconds in her arms appear to be in an impossible position. Unless she is holding the book behind her back and has managed to rotate her head 180 degrees.
BSR

How overweening!
Guest

This sounds like a massive troll operation.
Alan Olsen

Well I am going to celebrate CthulhuWeen and hand out bags of squid jerky. (Since the idea of handing out those little chocolate alcohol candies would probably get me busted.)
http://twitter.com/cicadamania Cicada Mania

I hope to receive Chocolate & Cheese this Jesus Ween.
- BrianOman
  
  I’ma hoping for some Bananas and Blow
George Black

Remember, it’s treat or TRICK.

A Bible gets a trick.
http://twitter.com/askjarv Chris Hudson

@rrh – I’m glad I wasn’t alone in finding the stock footage of “other places” somewhat jarring! Still, good to see the Christians moving to take over a commercial horror and replace it with… with a chance to spend money at your local Christian faith shop… surely someone’s listening to the people all over the world decrying commercialism!
lorq

Once it’s figured out who in the neighborhood is handing out Bibles, someone should surreptitiously mark their mailboxes with the blood of the lamb — so the kids will know which houses to pass over.
demidan

Ween,,Is,,,Jesus…
petertrepan

Competing with Halloween seems like too much trouble. What if instead, they made some kind of special “All Hallows Day,” and put it on the day right after Hallow’een!
demidan

“give out Bibles and Christian gifts — in a friendly way!”

But I want to give out Bibles and Christians gift in a manner more befitting Torquemada!
ill lich

So. . . are they making “fun-sized” Bibles now, like they do with Snickers and Kit Kat?

It’s still better than those fun sized boxes of raisins.
grimc

Holy-ween. It’s so freakin’ obvious. Sheesh.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Oliver-Schmieding/100000452523362 Oliver Schmieding

“poisoned candy scare” v2.0 - desecrated water in a counterfeit lourdes, france plastic madonna.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=521240745 Ryan Griffin

flaming bibles on doorsteps…I like it.
pencilbox

JesusWeen is when kids go house-to-house saying “Yakawow!”
Strato Head

My high school attempted to ban Halloween and replace it with “Harvest Festival”…so we made some violently graphic “sacrifical lamb” T-shirts… that didn’t go over to well with the administration.

anyways… You can have my JackOLantern when you pry it from my cold dead hands…

or in mid November after it’s started to rot.
Petzl

Jesus is like High Fructose Corn Syrup.
The powers that be can’t resist shoving it into everything.
- Strato Head
  
  it’s Jesus Sugar… the body can’t tell the difference.
http://anomicofficedrone.com/ AnomicOfficeDrone

Hold on a second.

Is there any nice way to tell someone to believe what you believe or they’re going to hell?
- HeatherLou1974
  
  Yes. Just ask Jael Phelps (www.godhatesfags.com NSFW). She told a BBC documentary maker that he was going to hell. Then she laughed. He asked why she laughed and she said that it made her happy, because *she* is not going to hell.
  Never once did she offer to save him.
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

At least this will distract some of the Christians who used to do “Hell House” attractions, using all the usual Halloween f/x to show sinners in Hell and scare kids away from non-sanctioned behaviors.
SomeGuyNamedMark

I’m pretty sure that if you celebrate “Jesusween” you already have crates of bibles in your house.

I’ll stick to my own tradition of handing out ladles of beef stew into kid’s candy bags.
mowinman

Of course! 31 Oct = 25 Dec
scifijazznik

I’ll celebrate by drinking a bottle of Jesus Juice.
http://mystrunner.tumblr.com/ Mystrunner

But. But…

Halloween is a Christian holiday…
scifijazznik

I suppose it would make me Captain Obvious to point out it’s not really news that Christians like to take over holidays that they perceive as unChristian…
- http://mystrunner.tumblr.com/ Mystrunner
  
  But. BUT! Halloween was made by the Christians! I mean, I’m one of them! The next morning, we’ve got a special church service and everything! For fuck’s sake!
  - scifijazznik
    
    Yes, but kids running around pretending to be witches and goblins is just WAAAAYYY too scary for most Christians. Gotta get them into a church where they can stare at a bleeding man hanging from the cross who will rise from the dead in 3 days to show them what goodliness and compassion is all about.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WJA7LGMXXKFCP6L7QEOJGGBYWQ timm
    
    it’s sad to me that it took this many comments before some one even mentioned that halloween IS a christian holiday, made to replace the pagan holiday of Samhain.
    
    does NO ONE watch all the “history of halloween” shows during october?http://youtu.be/d6LgVn4HRpksomeone send this all the over-reacting “christians” it’s always the un-educated nut jobs that give the rest a bad name…
technogeekagain

Exactly. All Hallows Eve, by that name, *is* a Christian holiday.

Sure, it has some residue of alder fall festivals. But so does Christmas, which is at the wrong time of year for what it’s supposed to be celebrating specifically so it could be aligned with other celebrations.

Those who refuse to even look at history (never mind learn from it) are idiots, and arguing with them is a waste of time.
technogeekagain

JesusWeeny Todd?
miasm

Dang! Now anyone who prefaces or frames their speech with the phrase “Good News” gets a wide berth from me.
As it so very often is not.
- Vengefultacos
  
  Professor Farnsworth would like a word with you…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

Oh, COME ON.

A real Christian would set up an All You Can Eat Loaves and Fishes buffet on the lawn on 10/31.

“No, really, as much as you want.”
palmettopastor

All Hallow’s Eve has been a Christian Holiday/Day of Saint commemoration since the 8th century A.D. Jesusween is well known, only the name has been changed to protect the Protestants…
Donald Petersen

Is that Erika Christensen?

Anyway, being a Christian kid must suck these days. In my Methodist-flavored childhood, Halloween was no naughtier than Christmas. Though the Powers That Were tried to emphasize the cleansing power of All Saints’ Day, they recognized the value of a few scary manifestations of lesser evils. Also, relatively few kids dressed up as actual Bad Things in my neighborhood. Zombies and werewolves were rare (nobody had the makeup skills), and for every witch or Dracula you’d see six hoboes, a couple of princesses (most named Leia), a handful of superheroes, one or two cops and/or firemen, a cowboy, a prairie girl, three Darth Vaders, a matching pair of salt and pepper shakers, four cats, and a kid in camo fatigues.
Graysmith

This October, Suckle on Jesus’ ween.
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

Why don’t they just celebrate All Saint’s Day, the day after Halloween (i.e. All Hallows Even) instead? They have a Christian holiday ready-made for them.

Either they don’t know their own traditions, or celebrating saints is too Catholic for good American Protestants.
p96

Reinforces what kids already know: adults ruin everything.
Ted Brennan

JesusWeenies are the candy for this OCT. 31st. I hear priests give them out all the time.
RayFerd

Cool, I’m gonna hand out Watchtower mags.
bardfinn

This kind of thing is nothing but Protestant bigotry trying to claim that Catholics are devil-worshipers, not Christian, etc. It’s racist and it’s bullshit.
Hallowe’en : Scottish abbreviation of Hallows Evening.
Tom Hale

Stupid Christians, doing dumb things once again. I hate it when they do that.
My church does this thing called Trunk-or-Treat where everyone parks in the church parking lot with a bunch of candy and other treats. The kids, dressed in non-monster costumes, go from car to car collecting candy. They get quite a bit of candy and don’t have to walk neighborhoods around a bunch of people dressed as monsters and such.
Of course when my kids were little, they dressed as vampires, zombies, ninjas, etc. I never did buy into dressing as a monster was un Christianlike.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  The kids, dressed in non-monster costumes, go from car to car collecting candy. They get quite a bit of candy and don’t have to walk neighborhoods around a bunch of people dressed as monsters and such.
  
  That’s horrible! Anyone can buy (or wheedle their parents into buying) candy whenever they want. An excuse to dress up in costume, on the other hand, is a precious thing. Not that I’ve ever really needed one.
http://www.facebook.com/lharden1 Laura Harden

Reminds me of good ol’ Ned Flanders and his boys celebrating halloween.
UncaScrooge

Much good may come of this. I’m pretty sure my days of indifferent atheism* began during an “Unbirthday” celebration in Sunday School. I was new blood, so they kicked up a big fuss, told me it was my “Unbirthday” and wheeled out a fake plastic birthday cake. What crushes the faith of a child more quickly than sugar denied?

*”Indifferent Atheism”: An atheist who doesn’t ascribe all of humanity’s ills to religion. Indistinguishable from Agnosticism.
- TooGoodToCheck
  
  What the hell man? They celebrated your unbirthday with plastic cake? that is bullshit.
  
  The true meaning of unbirthday is that you don’t have to wait for your birthday to eat real cake and sing songs. The very idea of plastic cake is so. . . sad. Also, the cake is a lie!
  
  Given that today most likely is your unbirthday, I encourage you to celebrate it properly.
  
  A very merry unbirthday to you, UncaScrooge!
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dZH9a67SZE
jimkirk

I always like a reading of Ray Bradbury’s “The Halloween Tree” for the holiday. An entertaining exploration into the origins of the skeletons, mummys and such the kids dress up as, and how cultures deal with death.
- snoproblem
  
  The cartoon adaptation is pretty good. Leonard Nimoy provides the voice of Moundshroud, and Bradbury himself narrates.
Mister44

Jesusween? Sigh. Goddamnitsomuch.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GVKHNINUD55NXFN4TRNHMBRDB4 Alexandros

“And lo, thus the Christians choosed treat. And there was a great rejoice among the juveline masked philistinesas their homes were egged, Amen.”
pjcamp

I thought Jesusween was December 24.
MomentEye

It’s part of the war on Samhain.
Antinous / Moderator

Now, if Jesusween involved revelers dressed as Jesus, it would have my firm support.
janusnode

The word coinage truly sucks. It has to be Jesuseen (or Jesuse’en) if it is to make any sense at all on an etymological level. They can’t just randomly take the ‘w’ from ‘hallow’. It’s idiotic.
PurpleWyrm

Oh please, we all know this “Jesusween” is going to be completely pre-empted by the Rapture on October 21st! Come the 31st all the good, pro-Jesusween Christians will have been swept away to heaven while the evil, left-behind pagans will be too busy fighting off flying scorpion-locusts to bother with trick or treating!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Samantha-Patterson/100000876004192 Samantha Patterson

Am the only one here who really doesn’t want to think about Jesus’ ween?
SeeChao

I’ve been handing out play-doh and legos for halloween(dirt cheat to buy bulk little packets of random lego sets on ebay, and the 50 colour packs of playdoh are cheap too. Almost on par with mini chocolate bars), in an effort to reduce junk food, and make kids smarter and more creative without pissing parents off(not many parents get angry about lego and pay-doh)but I may start handing out copies of dawkins’ “The magic of Reality”. If I see a single bible out in my neighborhood, I’m gonna try to get a deal on 200 copies of Dawkin’s kids book for next year. Anyone else want in on this, we can prolly get a good price if we organize a bunch of people to make a bulk order together.
SeeChao

yeah, stuffing a kid’s bag with 32 bibles isn’t gonna make him wanna take it home and read it… I anticipate alot of discarded bibles clogging the drains on nov 1st
http://twitter.com/macbeestje Philip Shook

Who will want their goodie bags?