Easter

[BloodDrunk]

Marry Easter People!
hahah

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[Anachron]

My opinion:
Eastern is not in the bible, so please don't celebrate it if you call yourself a christian.

Source of Easter

If Easter isn't found in the Bible, where exactly did it come from? And just exactly what does the name Easter mean?
It's important to review credible historical sources to understand the celebration's true history. For example, The Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us: "At Easter, popular customs reflect many ancient pagan survivals—in this instance, connected with spring fertility rites, such as the symbols of the Easter egg and the Easter hare or rabbit" (15th edition, Macropaedia, Vol. 4, p. 605, "Church Year").
In the ancient world of the Middle East, people were far more connected to the land and cycles of nature than we are today. They depended on the land's fertility and crops to survive. Spring, when fertility returned to the land after the long desolation of winter, was a much-anticipated and welcomed time for them.
Many peoples celebrated the coming of spring with celebrations and worship of their gods and goddesses, particularly those associated with fertility. Among such deities were Baal and Astarte or Ashtoreth, mentioned and condemned frequently in the Bible, whose worship typically included ritual sex to promote fertility throughout the land.
It was only natural to the peoples of the ancient Middle East to incorporate symbols of fertility—such as eggs and rabbits, which reproduce in great numbers—into those pagan celebrations for their gods. As The Encyclopaedia Britannica notes above, Easter eggs and the Easter rabbit are simply a continuation of these ancient spring fertility rites.
Nineteenth-century Scottish Protestant clergyman Alexander Hislop's work The Two Babylons is still considered a definitive work on pagan customs that survive in today's religious practices.
On Easter, he wrote: "What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by [early archaeologist Sir Austen Henry] Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar" (1959, p. 103).
The name Easter, then, comes not from the Bible. Instead its roots go far back to the ancient pre-Christian Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, known in the Bible as Astarte or Ashtoreth .

 

[IcemanBo]

Don't celebrate a satanic holiday please.

Nice custom user title you got there, Anachron.

 

[HappyTauren]

He's kinda right actually, Easter is a pagan holiday that made it into christianity. But yeah. Happy easter, with bunnies, eggs and fertility!

 

[Stanakin]

Pagan is not the same as satanic..

Anyway, people are free to celebrate whatever the hell they want.

 

[HappyTauren]

Pagan is not the same as satanic..

Many christians suffer from false dichotomy and/or reduce people's worldviews to whether they are christian or not. In this regard, pagan, muslim or buddhist could be the same as 'satanic', as opposed to 'christian'.

 

[Anachron]

Pagan is not the same as satanic..

Anyway, people are free to celebrate whatever the hell they want.

Some people try to find lame mistakes in the other ones sayings so that they make him look bad or uninformed.

You knew what I was trying to say, but still you chose to say that.

Interesting read: http://www.ucg.org/holidays-and-holy-days/christians-who-dont-celebrate-easter-what-do-they-know/

If Jesus were in the flesh today, would He celebrate Easter? The simple answer is No. He does not change. "Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever," as Hebrews:13:8 tells us (emphasis added throughout). Jesus never observed Easter, never sanctioned it and never taught His disciples to celebrate it. Nor did the apostles teach the Church to do so.

 

[gorillabull]

happy easter

show

 

[Orcnet]

y u do dis gorillabull, posting horor banees ;_;

 

[Heinvers]

Oh hi Orcky
Yeah gorillabull, that's creepy. Anyway happy Easter everybody

 

[Wazzz]

♥ Merry Easter, Anachron ♥

 

[neo_sluf]

I don't marry easter people... i marry a girl.. but i say merry to easter people..

 

[Heinvers]

WUT neo sluff?!? 0_o
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Oh and Happy Easter to you Wazzz

 

[Wazzz]

Happy Easter Heinvers ^_^

 

[Stanakin]

You knew what I was trying to say, but still you chose to say that.

I honestly had, and still don't, have any idea what you were trying to say. You say something that is provably wrong, and I'm expected to know that you mean something else, and am thus not allowed to point out your mistake?

What exactly is it that you're trying to say? That if Jesus wouldn't do something it's satanic? I'm pretty sure Jesus - if he were in his flesh today - wouldn't be sitting behind his computer posting on WC3 modding forums...

 

[Gilles]

He's kinda right actually, Easter is a pagan holiday that made it into christianity. But yeah. Happy easter, with bunnies, eggs and fertility!

Do you have a source? In my limited research I see no pagan holiday. Sure there are various spring celebrations, but the specific day we celebrate Easter is tied directly to the Death of Christ, and I haven't seen any evidence of anything being celebrated on that day prior to the Church starting it.

In Western Christianity, using the Gregorian calendar, Easter always falls on a Sunday between 22 March and 25 April inclusive, within about seven days after the astronomical full moon.[51] The following day, Easter Monday, is a legal holiday in many countries with predominantly Christian traditions.

 

[HappyTauren]

Do you have a source? In my limited research I see no pagan holiday. Sure there are various spring celebrations, but the specific day we celebrate Easter is tied directly to the Death of Christ, and I haven't seen any evidence of anything being celebrated on that day prior to the Church starting it.

Start here, there's sure a lot deeper to dig, though. Although some elements of Easter are christian (like, the idea that the story is about resurrection, but even that is debatable), there's nothing else connecting it to christianity, customs sorrounding it are pagan, and there's great controversy about the date as well.

 

[Anachron]

Do you have a source? In my limited research I see no pagan holiday. Sure there are various spring celebrations, but the specific day we celebrate Easter is tied directly to the Death of Christ, and I haven't seen any evidence of anything being celebrated on that day prior to the Church starting it.

Check my post for it
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/off-topic-478/easter-250937/#post2515114

Eastern is just added to Christianity later, by church, not by the holy book.

 

[HappyTauren]

so please don't celebrate it if you call yourself a christian.

The problem here is that you think your idea is the defining factor in who's a christian and who's not. There are likely at least 20 thousands of christian denominations that disagree with your point of view. While I do agree that many christian holidays are taken from pagan cultures (and those cultures took some customs from those that came before them, etc), it still doesn't mean you understand christianity the way many other people do. Since there's not much to it either way, it is irrelevant who's 'righter', what's more important is what kind of a person you'll become or be.

 

[Gilles]

Start here, there's sure a lot deeper to dig, though. Although some elements of Easter are christian (like, the idea that the story is about resurrection, but even that is debatable), there's nothing else connecting it to christianity, customs sorrounding it are pagan, and there's great controversy about the date as well.

Ahh, thanks. So probably a lot of feast days and holy days that the Church celebrates were changes to previous celebrations. Makes sense that as a particular religion becomes dominant it would place new customs on previous ones.

We've started to come full circle (bunnies, eggs, etc) I suppose.

Eastern is just added to Christianity later, by church, not by the holy book.

So? As Happy pointed out, not all Christians believe the same thing. In fact one could argue it's the most divided and confusing religion ever.

As a Catholic I uphold the Bible to be the inspired Word of God. But that doesn't make it A) Written by God; B) Entirely Literal ; or C) the only source of guidance.

 

[MiniMage]

Do you have a source? In my limited research I see no pagan holiday. Sure there are various spring celebrations, but the specific day we celebrate Easter is tied directly to the Death of Christ, and I haven't seen any evidence of anything being celebrated on that day prior to the Church starting it.

The Hare and the egg is the symbol of the Godess of Fertility. Eastero (The pronunciation of them are many.. and that's just the english translation). The godess which Easter was named after. Basically, the viking sex god. With time that symbolism became the easter bunny, which hides eggs. Easter never was that important before capitalism took ahold of it and made it a marketing ploy. Back then in the old times it was basically just a day to point out that land was becoming more fertile, rabbits started being easier to catch and eggs would pop out more frequently from the hens that had stopped dropping like flies due to the cold, grass started growing, butterflies was in the air and then there's mead and sexytime with women. Because that was also important. Although it's not advertised as much as it was during Midsummer. That day basically is advertised as a day of magic and sex at that time would mean healthy babies..

But overall, nothing that important. Cultures across the globe practiced it for various reasons. Jews practiced it too, for example.