From the 1960s musical The Music Man, we get the lyrics, "How can there be any sin in sincere? Can there be any good in good bye?" There’s a similar question that should be asked every year at this time: Since hallow means holy, how can there be anything hallowed in halloween?

Each October 31, children dressed as super-heros and goblins, as ghosts and skeletons, go to the neighbours’ homes and yell, "Trick or treat." Many are too young to understand what the phrase means, but that’s what they’ve been told to say.

Worse yet, they have no clue that the world will not be saved by Spidey or Superman or the man-boy team in the Batmobile.

Something else. They don’t know who’s behind the entire halloween thing. "It doesn’t matter," say the parents. It’s just a bit of fun for the kids."

But it does matter. Halloween is not an invention of man. A powerful spirit realm, composed of satan and his demons, has influenced man to believe it’s OK to set aside one night a year to worship them. That’s right: worship.

Now I know it’s not cool to believe in the devil, but it’s difficult to believe all the wars and murders and rapes and kidnappings just happen. When a person shoots up a bunch of university students, or some of his fellow employees, the question is asked, "Why would he do such a thing? He was always such a nice boy."

Then comes the arguments, "You’d think his teachers would have realized there was something strange about him," or "The guys he worked with teased him because he was different," or "The system (whatever ‘the system’ is) let him down."