- Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox...hence the constant moving of the holiday
- This will be the earliest Easter we will see in our life time (barring some huge advance in medicine)
- Easter can only possibly be one day earlier than this year's Easter
- In second century Europe, the predominate spring festival was a raucous Saxon fertility celebration in honor of the Saxon Goddess Eastre (Ostara), whose sacred animal was a hare.
- After discovering that people were more reluctant to give up their holidays and festivals than their gods, early Christian Evangelists simply incorporated Pagan practices into Christian festivals. As recounted by the Venerable Bede, an early Christian writer, clever clerics copied Pagan practices and by doing so, made Christianity more palatable to pagan folk reluctant to give up their festivals for somber Christian practices. (bunnies and eggs make more sense this way then trying to tie them to Jesus lol)
- "Many modern practitioners of Neo-pagan and earth-based religions have embraced these symbols [the egg and bunny] as part of their religious practice, identifying with the life-affirming aspects of the spring holiday. (The Neopagan holiday of Ostara is descended from the Saxon festival.) Ironically, some Christian groups have used the presence of these symbols to denounce the celebration of the Easter holiday, and many churches have recently abandoned the Pagan moniker with more Christian oriented titles like 'Resurrection Sunday.'" (this makes me laugh, sounds like Freedom Fries)
- Dietitians are warning that eating five Easter eggs (the average given to most children) plus the bars included with them, could see youngsters doubling their recommended calorie intake for a week, risking becoming hooked on chocolate, plus seeing their weight increase by several pounds within days. The recommended daily amounts are around 2,000 calories a day for an average 11-year-old boy and 1,500 for a girl, but many could be eating up to 10,000 calories over the Easter period.
- Ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies are produced each year.
Have a happy Easter everyone! Enjoy the pagan chocolate, eggs, and candy and revel in the Christ's Redemption!
2 comments:
Hey! Found you through the PC blog list.
You know I've always wondered what the bunny and eggs had to do with Easter. It's just weird. Bunnies don't lay eggs, so shouldn't there be a chicken or something involved in there too? But now I see the eggs have to do with fertility and the bunny is just like a pagan deity's fave pet (well that's how my mind processed it lol). Thanks for the clarification.
Best of luck on your mini in April. I'm doing one in May.
but remember... the xn holiday of 'easter' (pasqua in italian) coincides with (and is based upon) the jewish holiday of passover (pesach). passover is actually derived from a combination of the feast of unleavened bread and the spring equinox harvest festival. thus, the usurpation of a fertility festival for purposes of worshipping the hebrew god took place long before xnty. the xns simply piggybacked on the existing passover holiday, since jesus was said to be resurrected on (or around) passover. but you are correct, both judaism and xnty both trace this festival back to a harvest fertility festival.
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