Easter
Easter is another celebration that originates from Paganism. It is considered the most important celebration for Christians. But the truth is that the observence of Easter derives from ealier Pagan celebrations. The very name of "Easter" is of pagan origins. Easter is not a Bible based celebration. It was originally a Pagan festival introduced into the church.
Socrates: "It seems to me that the feast of Easter has been introduced into the church from some old usage, just as many other customs have been established."
Even the The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us: "A great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring, gravitated to Easter. The egg is the emblem of the germinating life of early spring. . . . The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility."—(1913), Vol. V, p. 227.
The New Encyclopædia Britannica explains that the hare was "the symbol of fertility in ancient Egypt." Thus when children hunt for Easter eggs, supposedly brought by the Easter rabbit, "this is not mere child’s play, but the vestige of a fertility rite."—Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, volume 1, page 335.
Here are some other interesting points:
* Easter marks the end of the forty days of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at Easter Sunday. Lent in itself was not practiced by the early Christians. It was observed in the fourth centuy after Christ and it was borrowed from pagan sources too.
* The Easter festival is an "unclean thing" because its roots are in pagan sex worship. Springtime was sacred to the sex worshipers of Phoenicia. (Phoenicia was an ancient civilization in the north of ancient Canaan.) Their fertility goddess, Astarte, or Ishtar (Aphrodite to the Greeks), had as her symbols the egg and the hare. She had an insatiable thirst for blood and immoral sex. Her statues variously depicted her as having rudely exaggerated sex organs or with an egg in her hand and a rabbit at her side.
In conclusion, Jesus did not command his followers to commemorate either his birth or his resurrection, but he did institute the Memorial of his sacrificial death. (Romans 5:8) Indeed, this is the only event he commanded his disciples to observe. (Luke 22:19, 20) Also called the Lord’s Evening Meal.