Is Easter Pagan

[amorphous_constellation]

Eggs: Likely from end of lent, something people had abstained from
Easter bunny (hare) = seems to be a more modern tradition based on hares being associated with spring and which developed into modern commercial tradition.

I think that maybe when people were looking more at nature for ontological answers, they likely saw those two phenomena as generative symbols

 

[firedragon]

thee easter bunny, easter eggs etc....

Most of the religious practices in my opinion have pagan origins. But also, maybe some of the pagan practices have other origins as well.

 

[PruePhillip]

thee easter bunny, easter eggs etc....

It's a pagan/Christian cult sort of thing.
Not only is there no Easter in the New Testament but there is to be no
"observing days and months and years." That's just symbolic worship
which is at odds with the spiritual in Christ.

 

[Augustus]

Most of the religious practices in my opinion have pagan origins. But also, maybe some of the pagan practices have other origins as well.

The term "pagan" is largely devoid of meaning in the context of "X is pagan".

It just lumps together countless diverse religious and non-religious aspects of socio-culture and the natural world and calls them "pagan" as if they were part of some coherent, reified religious tradition.

Basically everything humans have ever done can be labelled as "pagan" using such a vaporous concept.

 

[firedragon]

The term "pagan" is largely devoid of meaning in the context of "X is pagan".

It just lumps together countless diverse religious and non-religious aspects of socio-culture and the natural world and calls them "pagan" as if they were part of some coherent, reified religious tradition.

Basically everything humans have ever done can be labelled as "pagan" using such a vaporous concept.

I completely agree with you.

 

[Erebus]

The term "pagan" is largely devoid of meaning in the context of "X is pagan".

It just lumps together countless diverse religious and non-religious aspects of socio-culture and the natural world and calls them "pagan" as if they were part of some coherent, reified religious tradition.

Basically everything humans have ever done can be labelled as "pagan" using such a vaporous concept.

Did you know that brushing your teeth is Pagan?

It's true! The Egyptians were doing it around 3000 B.C.

 

[Kooky]

The term "pagan" is largely devoid of meaning in the context of "X is pagan".

It just lumps together countless diverse religious and non-religious aspects of socio-culture and the natural world and calls them "pagan" as if they were part of some coherent, reified religious tradition.

Basically everything humans have ever done can be labelled as "pagan" using such a vaporous concept.

We could blame the early Roman Christian church for inventing a unified opposition to their faith where none existed.

 

[loverofhumanity]

thee easter bunny, easter eggs etc....

Myself personally, all I read into occasions like this are opportunities to share and celebrate joyously.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Or they are in complete violation of Paul's counsel at 2 Corinthians 6:14-18...
"...what do righteousness and lawlessness share together, or what does light have in common with darkness? 15 Or what harmony does Christ have with Belial, [the devil] or what does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 Or what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,

“I will dwell among them and walk among them;
And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
17 Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord.
“And do not touch what is unclean;
And I will welcome you.
18 And I will be a father to you,
And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,”
Says the Lord Almighty."

We are not to "touch" what is spiritually "unclean" in God's eyes. He tells us to separate ourselves from those things if we want to be his "sons and daughters".

It all comes down to our assumptions. For example the post I'm quoting (your post) assumes Belial to be a being. I don't and think it refers to an idolatrous cult which begins in the tribe called 'Dan'. Can I demonstrate this, no; but I sure don't think of it as a being. I notice the scripture has opposites: belial is the opposite of Christ just as the temple of God is the opposite of idols, just as lawlessness is the opposite of upright, just as light is opposite of darkness. It proposes we can be made sons of God, which is synonymous with sons of Abraham, with peacemakers, with those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Sons of Abraham are the opposite of Sons of Cain, the murderer. They have left Cain for Abraham. They have cut off that part of themselves.

[Mat 5:9 NIV] 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
[Jas 3:18 NIV] 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.​

How can a person have the Lord Almighty as a father? Do I not already have a male parent? This suggests I leave one parent to be adopted by another, but what was unclean to Moses is clean for me. How then can the Lord Almighty be my father if some unclean things have been made clean for me? This is the mystery of Christ. So I may eat, and I may taste and touch. What, then, is unclean? Easter? No, that is no more unclean than a bowl of bacon for me. Jesus says its not what goes into us that makes us unclean but what comes out of our hearts, so to me its purification of the heart which matters. Easter will not hurt anyone or cause anyone to lay eggs.

[Mat 15:19 NIV] 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts--murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
[Act 10:28 NIV] 28 He said to them: "You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.
[Rom 14:14 NIV] 14 I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean.
​

By what means has unclean been made clean? Obviously it is a different approach, because the covenant is supposed to be forever. All I can piece together (because I'm a terrible student) is that it has something to do with what Zechariah says. He talks about holiness as something which spreads out making unclean things clean, instead of the opposite. Normally touching something unclean makes clean things unclean, like leprosy or finding something dead in the road.

[Zec 14:20-21 NIV] 20 On that day holy to the Lord will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the LORD's house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. 21 Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD Almighty.​

Also we have this example of the clean making something else clean:

[1Co 7:14 NIV] 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
​

How this all works would be somewhat baffling if I tried to figure it out logically from the law for myself. I haven't been able to do that. If however its a matter of the heart of and common sense then I can except it. I don't regard Easter as a problem.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Is Easter Pagan? thee easter bunny, easter eggs etc....

If you're talking about the bunnies and eggs Easter, it's clearly related to older fertility celebrations that characterize the vernal equinox, the time of rebirth. If Pagan means non-Christian, then yes, that holiday is pagan.

But even the Christian form of the holiday with palm fronds and passion plays can be called pagan in the sense that there were multiple traditions in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, etc.. that worshiped gods and demigods that died and rose again on the third day. In that sense, even the original religious holiday can be thought of as having a pagan roots.

I live in a Mexican village, and Easter is still a religious holiday. I have walked in the Palm Sunday procession with folded palm fronds myself. No eggs or bunnies, although the egg dye has just appeared at Wal-Mart this year or last.

This is a common phenomenon lamented by many. Years ago, Wal-Mart began selling Christmas trees and lights in our village, and the holiday is gradually being transformed from a religious desert holiday to the more traditional American version, which is also pagan (Nordic). Fewer mangers and Magi are being seen outside homes and more reindeer and snowmen. They want to emulate the Americans.

This is also happening with Dia De Los Muertos, which is gradually being transformed from a celebration of the departed - celebrated in cemeteries at night, but not a gloomy or scary holiday (kids singing and dancing) - to trick-or-treat, with vampire and ballerina costumes on kids going door to door for candy. I remember when the first appeared many years ago, the hadn't learned, "Trick or treat!" yet and would hold out their plastic lack-o-lanterns and say, "Halloween!" Moms loved it when we snapped photos of their little ones in costume and gave them framed pictures to take home.

But this is what happens when cultures collide and infuse with one another. As I said, many lament it. They see it like a violation of a Star Trek directive to not interfere in foreign cultures, but of course, the very presence of our large expat community will of necessity transform Mexican culture to some extent, including how holidays are celebrated.

but if you are not religious why celebrate? Isn't that being a hypocrite?

Why celebrate ever? Why celebrate somebody else's birthday? Why celebrate some other country's tradition (Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick's Day)?

I suggest that you to lean what hypocrisy is first before misusing the word again. It seems like you think that people that don't worship your god shouldn't have fun with people who do, or even with other people who don't, and if they do, they are saying "Do as I say and not as I do," the sine qua non of hypocrisy. Not at all. I welcome you to join us in our celebrations. No hypocrisy there. No double standard.

 

[Brickjectivity]

This shows you that Easter is at least quite a pagan word, that was retained by some. Similar to the way that the word hell is retained to describe something different, or the word heaven, or god. These are not hebrew origin words

Certainly not, however Easter is Catholic. It has a different meaning for Catholics than for other cultures. The idea is to take the germ and leave the shell. For example whatever brings people together will be kept, and other things will be left out. Whatever Catholics judge to be appropriate to Catholicism is kept. Its no longer the same holiday.

 

[Brickjectivity]

They are also a metaphor for coming out as transgender, at least as far as some corners of the internet are concerned.

Is that derogatory? I would not think calling someone an unhatched egg was a nice thing to say.

 

[Augustus]

Did you know that brushing your teeth is Pagan?

It's true! The Egyptians were doing it around 3000 B.C.

I was going to eat some eggs today but after discovering that eggs are objectively Pagan, I didn't want to be accused of culturally appropriating the intellectual property of the fertility goddess Ishtar.

 

[Kooky]

I was going to eat some eggs today but after discovering that eggs are objectively Pagan, I didn't want to be accused of culturally appropriating the intellectual property of the fertility goddess Ishtar.

Don't worry, both appropriating pagan traditions and destroying them beyond recognition is a very Christian thing to do!

 

[Augustus]

Don't worry, both appropriating pagan traditions and destroying them beyond recognition is a very Christian thing to do!

Actually, I think you'll find they appropriated that tradition from the pagans too...

 

[Vee]

thee easter bunny, easter eggs etc....

Easter is like a tradition salad. A bunch of different things got mixed and the result was a bizarre, colorful thing with the chocolate industry the big winner and parents praying that at least one emergency dentist will be open on Sunday.
If you check a few details, in the bible Jesus asked for his death to be celebrated. Some churches decided to celebrate his resurrection instead.
I'm not sure exactly where this came from, but after the death of the apostles, the idea took root that it would be appropriate to hold a fast (that became Lent, which is not fasting at all), followed by a feast, at Passover. Somehow this became a way to commemorate Christ’s resurrection.
According to our dear wikipedia, the easter bunny and the eggs have pagan origins Easter - Wikipedia. No surprise there.
I think it's just another excuse for people to spend money in stuff they shouldn't be eating. The way things are going, one day instead of chocolate, people will be offering Metmorfin* to each other.

* for those unfamiliar with it, it's medication to lower blood sugar/