This Easter (Ēostre), don't forget the true meaning of the Holiday (Baptist, worship)
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Easter, like Christmas, started out as a pagan holiday which the early Catholic Church attempted to co-opt those pagan celebrations in order to assign a new Christian meaning to very old pagan celebrations. THAT is the actual true meaning of the holiday.
I've never understood the perception that Northern European paganism and Christianity are somehow at odds and incompatible. Of course our Germanic and Celtic ancestors fused their own traditions with their newly-acquired Christian faith and ritual, just as much as Christianity incorporates much of the Greco-Roman tradition and, originally at least, the Judaic. It's a European religion, by 'sblood - what else should it do?
My ancestors celebrated Yuletide while simultaneously and indivisibly celebrating the Feast of the Nativity, and Eostre as one with the Feast of the Resurrection, and I'm happy to continue the tradition. You'd think that for a religion the central tenet of which is the Triune God this wouldn't be much of a conceptual problem.
As long as nobody mentions the names Jesus, Christ, God (in reference to Christianity), Holy Spirit... Basically, anything having to do with Christianity if off limits. We have to appease our intolerant leftist overlords, lest we start feeding the Christians to the lions.
The thing about the bunnies is great though. It would be more appropriate if the bunny was a Muslim though.
Easter, like Christmas, started out as a pagan holiday which the early Catholic Church attempted to co-opt those pagan celebrations in order to assign a new Christian meaning to very old pagan celebrations. THAT is the actual true meaning of the holiday.
You don't say! I never heard this before!
Actually, I think the Catholic church (the only Christian church at one time), just kept the elements of the spring celebrations that people liked and came up with different rationales for them, e.g. bunnies and chicks now symbolize "new life", etc.
As long as nobody mentions the names Jesus, Christ, God (in reference to Christianity), Holy Spirit... Basically, anything having to do with Christianity if off limits. We have to appease our intolerant leftist overlords, lest we start feeding the Christians to the lions.
The thing about the bunnies is great though. It would be more appropriate if the bunny was a Muslim though.
I've never understood the perception that Northern European paganism and Christianity are somehow at odds and incompatible. Of course our Germanic and Celtic ancestors fused their own traditions with their newly-acquired Christian faith and ritual, just as much as Christianity incorporates much of the Greco-Roman tradition and, originally at least, the Judaic. It's a European religion, by 'sblood - what else should it do?
My ancestors celebrated Yuletide while simultaneously and indivisibly celebrating the Feast of the Nativity, and Eostre as one with the Feast of the Resurrection, and I'm happy to continue the tradition. You'd think that for a religion the central tenet of which is the Triune God this wouldn't be much of a conceptual problem.
Yeah, the "12 days of Christmas" were originally a 12 day Yule celebration for the winter solstice where the days start getting longer again. The Yule log, the use of an evergreen (as a symbol of fertility), and even the Yule roast (usually either a goat or a hog) all are of pagan origin. There is very little about both Christmas and Easter which is actually Christian and instead a bunch of foreign priests just tacked on a thin veneer of Christianity to pagan celebrations because they were complete failures at trying to stop the Pagan holidays.
As long as nobody mentions the names Jesus, Christ, God (in reference to Christianity), Holy Spirit... Basically, anything having to do with Christianity if off limits. We have to appease our intolerant leftist overlords, lest we start feeding the Christians to the lions.
Now you're just being daft. Your delusions of persecution are just that, delusions. All people want is for you to keep your private religion to yourself and to stop trying to use the power of the state to force it on to everyone else. I'm beginning to think evangelicals are unable to exist without constantly falsely claiming they are somehow picked upon. It really is a deliberate lie on the part of those self claimed Christians so rather than making up more bogus claims maybe you ought to read your own holy book about baring false witness.
Now you're just being daft. Your delusions of persecution are just that, delusions. All people want is for you to keep your private religion to yourself and to stop trying to use the power of the state to force it on to everyone else. I'm beginning to think evangelicals are unable to exist without constantly falsely claiming they are somehow picked upon. It really is a deliberate lie on the part of those self claimed Christians so rather than making up more bogus claims maybe you ought to read your own holy book about baring false witness.
Baring any witness is probably a bad idea, at least without their consent.
Yeah, the "12 days of Christmas" were originally a 12 day Yule celebration for the winter solstice where the days start getting longer again. The Yule log, the use of an evergreen (as a symbol of fertility), and even the Yule roast (usually either a goat or a hog) all are of pagan origin. There is very little about both Christmas and Easter which is actually Christian and instead a bunch of foreign priests just tacked on a thin veneer of Christianity to pagan celebrations because they were complete failures at trying to stop the Pagan holidays.
Thank you for enlightening us so much. Are you familiar with any culture that did not borrow from another.
There is very little about both Christmas and Easter which is actually Christian and instead a bunch of foreign priests just tacked on a thin veneer of Christianity to pagan celebrations because they were complete failures at trying to stop the Pagan holidays.
No, that's not correct. There is very much about Christmas and Easter which are pagan, but that does not mean that there is very little about them which is Christian. Your view is a logical fallacy, apart from completely missing the point of what I wrote above: Christianity subsumes its European pagan roots without any great contradiction.
The early church fathers built upon and incorporated much of Greco-Roman philosophy in their theology and doctrine. The early church likewise built on Germanic, Celtic and Greco-Roman pagan liturgy, myth and festival. Neither foundation invalidates what was built upon it.
On the contrary, this European syncretism strengthens the Christian tradition as the legacy of not just one slender tenuous strand of Judaic-Hellenistic culture, the "Jesus part", but of the deep and wide channel of European civilization: Germanic and Latin, pagan and Christian.
Christmas and Easter are very fundamentally Christian festivals. They are also very fundamentally pagan festivals. They don't have to only be one or the other - they gain deeper meaning by being both.
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