Easter
Easter is a holiday observed around the world by Christians and people who like bunnies.
Just The Facts
- Easter dates back thousands of years to the invention of candy
- It commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the availability of candy
The History of Easter
Although Easter is technically a Christian holiday, its history starts long before. There was the ancient fertility godess Esotera, and of course the Jewish holiday of Passover. During the last of the 10 Plagues of Egypt, Jews were instructed by God to smear the blood of a sacrificed lamb on the doors to their homes so that the people inside would be spared from having their firstborn killed.
Later on, according to Christians, God was listening to his heavy metal albums and decided to have a different version of Passover in which the lamb would be God. So during a Passover around 30 AD Jesus was crucified, much to the delight of Mel Gibson. This event is remembered on Good Friday, which was presumably named by Satan. Easter Sunday celebrates his resurrection three days later.
Somewhere along the line, these remembrances of pain, blood and suffering became associated with chocolate, which in some ways wasn't that bad.
Easter Traditions
In Europe, Easter became associated with the end of winter and return of spring, and the return of new life that goes along with it. For that reason Easter celebrations have often centered around fertility symbols, like bunnies and public drunkenness. In Australia, Easter takes place in the autumn, and is celebrated with scorpions and poisonous snakes.
Egg Decorating
These days, a lot of people decorate eggs for Easter.
Above: A traditionally decorated egg.
This is a bit more boring than a fertility ritual, but you can still get some fun out of it by making it a challenge. Try it with your kids! This is a good egg to try for the six to eight age range:
If your kid has trouble making a decorated egg like this, be sure to tell them that it's because they don't love Jesus enough.
Egg Hunts
This is another good one for kids. You hide eggs around the place and make the kids find them. For an extra surprise, surprise your child by putting this egg on his pillow before he wakes up.
Kids love surprises!
Self-Crucifixion
In some parts of the world, Easter is celebrated by people nailing themselves to crosses. We don't know why either. Surely egg hunting is more fun.
I was going to ask why Skeletor was in the 1441BC picture, but then I realised that it doesn't really matter why. All religious iconography could be greatly enhanced with the simple addition of a Skeletor.
ReplyI love that yoda egg up there.
ReplyThis topic easily generated the most LOLs per word of any topic on the site. The look on that goddamned egg clown-demon caused me to scald my leg on accounta dropping my thermos of soup because of all the laffs that were occurring.
ReplyStill goddamned hilarious.
I'm so glad I bothered to read this. I was l-ing way too ol.
ReplyPhilippines is the self crucifying country, by the way. it might be in other places, i dunno.
ReplyThis had to be the funniest topics article I've seen in a while.
ReplyHaha you dont love Jesus enough.
ReplyBunnies f**k a lot that's why they became part of Easter, since it originally was a Spring fertility festival.
ReplyYou learned that from reading the article, didn't you?
This was a great article, funny and incisive without being offensive. That's really hard to pull off on topics like this, well done you :)
ReplyIf your kid has trouble making a decorated egg like this, be sure to tell them that it's because they don't love Jesus enough.
ReplyNo, no... Fertility has nothing to do with it. The Easter Bunny participated in the crucifixion. Have a look at the art work from the era. He's there.
ReplyWhen they were nailing Jesus to the cross, they found that they had forgotten to bring the nails. The bunny, being the fastest of the bunch, ran back to town and brought out a basket of nails. In return, they rewarded his efforts with eggs, which they placed in his basket. The reason we now paint eggs at easter is because the eggs they gave the bunny were covered in Jesus blood.
Any other myth on the subject is bullshit.
"Religion" = ("re" = [again], "ligio" [connect]).
ReplyTo reconnect w/ the source, you need to ask ?'s, ponder, draw theory, etc., actually use the f'ing brain that was given, aka Gift. If you just take it all in blindly, never bother to learn, regurgitate on rote, you've achieved nothing and hinder your faith as another talking head.
Also, pagan (pagani = "farmer/rural dweller").
nerd.
Only in America.
Have's, have-nots. Guess where you fit in?
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ReplyI think they forgot about the modern pork sacrifice.
ReplyMmmm easter ham.
Here at the Unitarian Universalist Church we try our best to support every belief. We have gone through great pains to design ceremonies around virgin sacrifice, pig sacrifice, bunny sacrifice, egg shaped artistic endeavors, bingo, and alcoholism. Please feel free to visit one of our outreach missions. It's always fun and we have a special non-denominational game of "hide the wienie" (Kosher wienies for Jews) during the Christian Easter holiday!
I liked this.
ReplyLiked it much.
We celebrate Easter in Japan by going to fertility festivals like our pagan ancestors (sans the human sacrifices, of course). Besides, zombie Jesus and giant bunny costumes creep me out.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesFertility festivals like in Nagoya ;)? Yeah, compared to that, bunnies Do seem strange...
Ha. Zombie Jesus. Awesome name for a christian metal band. heh
too bad all the christian metal bands have names like Read the Book, or Blessing
Judas Priest has made a song named "Jesus Frankenstein".
This article is lame. It has barely an structure, and no punchline. WTF?
Reply Hide All See All 10 RepliesI'll punch your line.
And I will line your punch
it's not an article, it's a reader submitted topic. he's not even paid to do it. so you are critiquing a guy who didn't care and didn't get paid.
I'll line your... oh, somebody beat me to it...
I'll lunch your pine
I'll crunch your spine!
if it goes on the front page, he gets paid
Nozkin, you sensless bastard ! You ruined it !
I'll bunch your Mine
You're the punchline.
Actually, Eostara wasn't celebrated with human sacrifices; that's a really typical lie made up by the Catholic church to discredit paganism. Blood sacrifices did happen depending on where you were, but it had more to do with cutting yourself (without the stupid hair) than with killing anyone.
ReplyActually, easter in Australia is celebrated with booze, and the Easter Bilby, because the kids have to get used to the rabbits being used as target practice.
ReplyHow do the self-crucifying types get the last nail in?
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI've seen it done at the Moriones festival in the philippines. They reenact the whole thing with the help of some good friends, who are probably even drunker than the poor fool they tricked into getting crucified for losing at beer pong!
It was a joke beatpole.
beatpole, I would like to point you to a book called "Getting a joke the first time FOR DUMMIES !" or maybe "Basics of Humor", "How not to make yourself look like a douche (weekend crash course)" and "My mom is a tramp ! How to deal with it!"
Well said, n1ghtmare.