I’m Sorry Bucko, But You Are Celebrating Easter Like A Pagan

It's Easter weekend and many of the faithful will attend or return to church.

Many of those faithful will also get down and dirty with Easter's pagan roots.  As you might suspect Easter weekend was a celebration of the Spring Equinox.

Things can get a little muddy when you're tracing things like this back. In fact, you'll probably encounter a meme that also points to a lot of pagan influence on Easter, but it's not entirely accurate either. At some point in the conversation, you have to figure out if this was begun with a celebration of the German Ostara or the Middle Eastern Ishtar/Inanna who was tied into a spring resurrection tale 2000 years before Christ. At this point I can tell you that trying to get to the bottom of all this is like going down a rabbit hole and since the holiday was covered up in a layer of Christianity it's kind of hard to untangle things.

I can tell you that the Jehovah's Witnesses are having none of it and straight up say:

"Easter is a pagan holiday that those who want to please God will avoid"

It also appears that biblical scholars admit the pagan influences as well, and to paraphrase, one should tread lightly when celebrating the holiday. This is from Bibleinfo.com:

"Nowhere are bunnies, chicks, or eggs mentioned in the Bible or in connection with Christ’s resurrection"

 

One thing that is known is that many different cultures used the egg as a symbol of birth or rebirth and that ties in nicely with the Spring season. There's also a weird German story about a bird that turns into a bunny that lays colored eggs.

So does any of this matter? Not really. If I want to celebrate all the planets lining up by having a taco party with everyone in their pajamas, that's up to me. If you choose to celebrate the resurrection with Easter traditions, then enjoy.