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Easter

Lauren

Norbizness feels the holiday spirit:

— Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. I heard it in a Beatles’ song once, so it must be true. But what if I told you that you could double the amount of mercy you obtain without having to give out any more mercy? I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out!

— Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. In a potato chip.

And because someone asked me, here are the relationships between Christian and Pagan holidays. Easter correlates with the Pagan holiday Ostara, marking the Spring Equinox, usually celebrated around March 21st. “With the return of spring,” says the site, “came the birthing of the farm animals for the year. Which is why we see bunnies, chicks, eggs and little lambs as symbols for this holiday. Part of the Ostara mythology involved the return of various deities from the underworld (symbolic of the end of winter). So it’s not surprising that this holiday got enmeshed with the Christian story of the ressurection of Christ.”

Also see the Pagan origins of the Easter Bunny.

13 thoughts on Easter

  1. What kills me is that the wingnuts are screaming about the Garden Hills Mall (or somesuch) that re-named their Easter Bunny the Garden Bunny. And the wingnuts are getting the vapors over this as if the Easter Bunny actually has something to do with the Resurrection of Christ.

  2. yup, the return of Persephone from the underworld marked the beginning of spring for the Greeks, and winter was Demeter’s revenge on the world for the fate that kept her daughter away from her for half the year. I always loved that story when I was younger.

  3. Oh, the fecund and formidable delights of Spring!

    In her is the end of breeding.
    Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
    She would like some one to speak to her,
    And is almost afraid that I
    will commit that indiscretion.

  4. Well, sure. Plenty of fundies have no idea that Easter is a pagan fertility holiday, or that “Christmas” was a pagan holiday turned English social event finally turned religious commemoration by an opportunistic (and, ok, smart) Church.

    To them, it’s been called Easter since Time Immemorial (2’000 years).

  6. Someone in our office, who is very religious, was asking about rabbits and eggs being a part of easter, he didn’t understand it, I spared him the truth.

  8. Kat, you have it a bit mixed up. actually bunnies were being crucified themselves, right along Lord Jesus Lord Our Lord. you never see them in the paintings & photographs & whatnot because their crucifixes (crucifi?) were so short. the egg thing came later, when during times of scarce game, people would crucify eggs instead to symbolize the bunnies – because, y’know, bunnies & eggs are the same shape.

    does anyone remember last year when some fundie church held a Passion play & beat the Easter Bunny on stage with whips? ah, those were good times, my friends…. good times.

  11. I’m surprised people actually try to substitute Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny in place of Jesus at these holidays. While I understand the intent is to bring the focus to the Christianized side of the holiday, I would expect that a crucified Santa Claus or a whipped Easter Bunny is more than a little blasphemous. How very strange.

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