Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter.

Did anybody know that Easter is actually a Pagan holiday?

Yep most christian holidays are, and most of the traditions surrounding them have pagan beginings..ie xmas trees, decorating eggs, bunnies...all are symbols of fertility, death & rebirth and changing of the seasons.

Its snowing! Happy Easter everyone!

Happy Easter Everyone.

Happy Easter!

Easter Greetings to everyone!

They are pagan because that is how the Christians hid their celebrations from them. They used the solstices as a way to celebrate their own holidays. Christ was actually born in April or so.

Easter? Oh wait, you Catholics celebrate it a month earlier! The Orthodox Easter is on 27 april. So is my spring holiday Anyway, Happy Easter!

Originally posted by damieon Did anybody know that Easter is actually a Pagan holiday?

As much as I know, it's jewish! It was set on the same time with a Pagan holiday, because the folk's beliefs were too strong.

I did not find this out until yesterday my brother-in-law told me about it, what is the relation with Christmas and the pagan society? I did not know about that either hell I always thought that Christmas was the celebration of the birth of Christ.

Have you ever heard of Yule Damieon? check out: Yule I also think of it as, Christmas is close to the time of the Winter Solstice. The darkest time of the year and celebrates the time of reawakening, or the returning of the light.

Sounds like a little history lesson time. It turns out that damieon and amy are both right. It's Jewish because the Last Supper is actually the passover meal. Yes Jesus was Jewish, the Christians do not celebrate Passover anymore because we commemorate it every Sunday through the act of Communion. Amy, it is not just Catholics that celebrate Easter tomorrow it is the majority of Christians with the exception of Orthodox (or as I was raised in NY it was the Greek Orthodox.) Why that happens I have no idea but perhaps Amy you can teach me. The Christians were persecuted by the pagans, so they moved Christs birth celebration to December so they can celebrate under the guise of the Winter Solstice, the same with Easter. However there is a Christian signifigance with the tree but I forget now what it is. But to my knowledge that is why there are so many pagan symbols mixed in with the Christian ones.

Actually, if we want to be technical.... The Last Supper (which was the Thursday/night before Jesus' arrest and crucifiction) was a Passover Seder meal. Therefore, Easter is known to be the Sunday at the end of Passover. Therefore, Easter is timed every year to coincide with Passover. (This is why the Orthodox churches like Amy's are celebrating Easter in a month, instead of now. The slight differences in description of the lunar cycles cause the differences every so often.) Now additionally, there are the issues of early Christians hiding their celebrations and masking them with pagan ones, in addition to bringing in other, more familiar traditions to make new converts feel welcome. But unlike Christmas, there is actually a biblical reason for Easter being timed now.

Very recently, I learned about "Dyngus Day," courtesy of my Polish-American boyfriend. It's the Monday after Easter Sunday, and apparently it involves boys throwing water at girls and swatting their legs with pussywillows. I could really be in for it, come Monday morning. And, I'm 99 percent convinced that it must have originated as some sort of pre-Christian fertility ritual (hopefully not an effective ritual!)

The timing of easter is based on the lunar phase...It's the first sunday, after the first full moon, following the spring equinox...Thursday (march 20th) was the spring equinox, Friday was the full moon so Easter is this Sunday. That's why it's so early this year.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Originally posted by Transmute Jun The Last Supper (which was the Thursday/night before Jesus' arrest and crucifiction) was a Passover Seder meal. Therefore, Easter is known to be the Sunday at the end of Passover. Therefore, Easter is timed every year to coincide with Passover.

I may be splitting hairs here, but if Jesus' resurrection took place three days after his death (and his death took place the day after the first Passover Seder), then he actually rose again in the middle of the holiday, as Passover is celebrated for 8 days.

Originally posted by Transmute Jun (This is why the Orthodox churches like Amy's are celebrating Easter in a month, instead of now. The slight differences in description of the lunar cycles cause the differences every so often.)

Yes, this is true. The Passover holiday begins on the 15th day of Hebrew month Nisan, so usually every year Easter and Passover fall around the same general time. This year, however, was a leap year on the Gregorian calendar (but not on the Jewish calendar), which is why the lunar cycles seem "early".

So confusing...... I didn't think that the lunar cycles had so much to do with the holidays lol

Originally posted by damieon Did anybody know that Easter is actually a Pagan holiday?

I've heard people say thing like that...but its far from the truth, pagans have their own celebrations. Some things like decorated trees,and eggs came from the old pagan days... Christians borrowed them but used them for different purposes. Eggs were used to represent the new life Jesus gave us during the Christian Easter period. But Easter itself is about how Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins... and the rose again three days later. The new testament isn't a Jewish part of the bible its Christian. The old testament is. (But Christians still refer to the wisdom of the old testament.) Christians, as we became, acknowledge that we have been forgiven for our sins by the death of Jesus through water baptism. We no longer have to carry the burden, and we can live in the grace of god. Jews don't recognize Christ as the son of god. But they do respect him as a prophet. As for timing...yes it stems from the bible. You are right in saying that early Christians had to hide their faith because of the Romans empire... There is a difference between religion and faith. But some were brave enough to stand up to them. Watch the movie... "Passion of the Christ." That explains it very well, and it closer to the truth of what happened than most movies I have seen.

There is a difference between religion and faith. But some were brave enough to stand up to them. Watch the movie... "Passion of the Christ." That explains it very well, and it closer to the truth of what happened than most movies I have seen.

Yes there is a big difference between religion and faith, that is why when I'm asked if I'm religious I say no, I am however spiritual and have a faith. And the movie, yes, a very powerful one indeed. Ebony I think you pretty much summed it all up quite nicely, thank you.

Happy Easter everyone... I see you guys can get deep at this time of year!

Originally posted by Joeswench Happy Easter everyone... I see you guys can get deep at this time of year!

We can get deep at any time of the year. Which is why we need the Smut to keep us from getting too deep.

Did anybody know that Christ was born between 7 and 4 BC and not in the year 0.

Originally posted by Cep Its snowing! Happy Easter everyone!

Snow what snow. Have heard the rest of the island is covered with the stuff but in Bloxwich there's no sign.

Originally posted by Metaliant Did anybody know that Christ was born between 7 and 4 BC and not in the year 0.

I'd believe that, historians have been trying to figure it out for ages. My idea about that was the Roman christians started the time frames.. B.C = Before Christ A.D = After Christ Much the way Americans especially will refer to 9/11 as a base for time and events that happened before and after. It marks how significant it really was.(I hear many people even outside of America refer to before 9/11 or after.)

That is correct, BC means Before Christ and AD means Anno Domini which translates from latin to In the year of (Our) Lord and was used in the Julian calander and is used in the Gregorian calander which is being used now. Oh and talking about Easter, you really should read about this.

And just to confuse things even more, don't forget BCE (Before Common Era), used by those who don't believe in Christ.

Well they do say in Star Trek that time travelling gives you the headaches and we have certainly been doing that with this calander or that calander or this time zone or that timezone and then in Britian we just had the change to BST and the Americans had a similar change earlier on as well. I am surprise that we know when we are at all.

Found this and it's kinda relevent for Easter.

Wow, that's interesting... I got a message that said "This video is not available in your country". I never got one of those before!! So what are they showing in Britain that the US is not allowed to see????

Met it just went to a common page in youtube. That generally happens when the link isn't quite right. The date system we use is the Roman calender... its just a way we track time, and most of the world recognized the millenium. I never went fully into the historical side of Easter and how some religions worked out the time frame. I guess in a way to me its not whats important... So why would there be restrictions on the video I wonder...

That's funny, I have just tried it again and it worked. Maybe it's that far right Christain people you got over there. Basically it's Robot Chicken parody of Kill Bill called Kill Bunny, where Jesus is in the role of the Uma Thurman charactor and goes after the Easter Bunny who's in the role of the David Carradine charactor. It's a trialer style version which has Santa Claus as the Lucy Liu charactor and the Jewish rabbi version of the Crazy 88 gang. Dammed funny.

For me Met I just think it was the link... I didn't get warnings like that.

Still strange but just goto YouTube and copy and type, [adult swim] : Robot Chicken - In Quarantino, this in and hopefully it will come up either exactly or give you several choices.