Easter, an excuse for holiday

Lets get real how many people celebrate Easter for the resurrection of Christ anymore. All its known for is chocolate, a fake bunny, and east days off. Holidays are annoying as it is, but to have one like this so your mother says its a special dinner is ridiculous.

How many others would prefer without this lousy holiday.

That's the spirit.

That's every holiday.

I know many that celebrate the holiday religiously, as in literally; they think Jesus gets up and walks around. They post things on FB like "He is risen!" and "He walks among us!" and, frankly, it is a bit alarming. The rural parts of the US are still very religious and observing; not more than an hour or two out of Hippie Central San Francisco you can visit the Central Valley; places like Merced, Fresno, Modesto, etc and it's very conservative and very Catholic. People go to Church, dress their babies up in gowns, and eat lunch with their priests, pastors, and so forth.

Growing up, Easter (for me at least) was more of a holiday for kids, candy and egg hunts and getting together with family. That's awesome, and given how hard and how much the average American works I think it is totally fine to have as many reasons to take an extra day or two off work (I know it's a Sunday, but many places will be OK if you take the Monday after off). I think it is kind of rediculous to ask to go "without this lousy holiday" as you put it; relax, it's just a reason to get together.

Either way, whatever; it's a holiday, just take it.

So? Don't celebrate it. I'd be happy if I got some free chocolate candy and a day off from work (with pay).

Instead of eating the special dinner your mom prepared, go ahead and cook up some mac n cheese if it makes you happy.

Easter is a Hallmark holiday

Would you prefer to have no time off?

That bunny needs a glorious statue erected in its honor. All hail the bunny of liberty!

Um...I'm curious as to what is your actual problem with Easter. The only thing I can see that would potentially affect you is the whole "having to spend a special dinner with mom" thing. And even then, I'm thinking "so what?! She's YOUR MOM, just have dinner with her if it makes her happy."

Anyway, why exactly do you have a problem with Easter?

If it were for me, we would remove all religious holidays and instead have a holiday for actual important people. Like, I don't know, I apple throwing party at Newtons birthday?

How would you define who is and isn't important?

Is Einstein important? what about guy who invented penicillin? the wheel? car? etc etc.

We could rotate every year? ^^

The only problem I have with Easter is, where the hell did this whole Bunny thing with eggs came from? Bunnies don't lay eggs, it's strange seeing a Bunny with eggs all-around it and that doesn't make sense at all.

Also I don't celebrate Easter in general so I don't know much about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and for a good reasons.

Holiday dinners from family are practically the best around. Homemade food that usually doesn't get cooked for most of the year. And leftover for days. Which is why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

Its a Christian holiday. So not everyone is going to celebrate it of course. The easter bunny has different origins. But anyways, its not like everyone celebrates Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah either. Or know what they are. However if you get a day off from school or work. And in the case of Jewish businesses you get paid for those days. Then what's the issue here. Do you not want to enjoy the company of others who won't always be alive. Or keep working till you drop dead. The latter is not intended to be an insult, but a figure of speech.

I would feel comfortable in saying that millions+ celebrate Easter for the ressurection of Christ. I'm going to infer that you are not religious or you have removed yourself from practice otherwise you would know as it is a religious day of obligation and you would have attended service. There's nothing wrong with removing yourself from religion if that is your choice.

"All its known for is chocolate, a fake bunny, and east days off." Your previous sentence states that you understand it is for the "Ressurection of Christ." Yet you completely forgot in your next sentence and simply refered to the commercialization aspect. As a note it isn't the holiday's fault that businesses launched a successful marketing campaign and people bought into it.

"How many others would prefer without this lousy holiday." - You did not convey how this is a lousy holiday to you. Your only real complaints reference holidays in general as being annoying, which isn't exclusive to Easter as it is one out of many, and for some reason your mother wanting to have a special dinner on a holiday.

This whole thing comes to us from the Germanic Goddess Ostara.

Why would one ever want to get rid of a holiday? Millions of people celebrate it as a religious holiday. You're bothered because your mother wants to make a special dinner? This thread baffles me.

do i get an extra day off to use at my leisure?

if were talking "lets have fewer holidays and be more productive" then no sale.

I enjoy my two full days off with full pay. Don't care about the reasons.

Yep. Ancient worship combined w/ fertility idols.

Oh so that explains it all. This is very interesting and thanks for the answers :)

Exactly, that's about every holiday I know.

There is only one Biblical 'holiday', two if you count OT Judaism: Communion and Passover. The Catholic Church was pretty good about incorporating existing practices into the faith. Hell, a lot of the stuff the Catholic Church in particular does is directly drawn from pagan rites, like prayer candles and venerating icons and such.

Protestantism originally rejected these additions (even Christmas was outlawed in some parts of the US for a while) but people like their traditions so they've largely wound their way back in.

Here's a letter (~c 600CE) from Pope Gregory I to Abbot Mellitus that pretty much lays it bare:

Tell Augustine that he should be no means destroy the temples of the gods but rather the idols within those temples. Let him, after he has purified them with holy water, place altars and relics of the saints in them. For, if those temples are well built, they should be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God. Thus, seeing that their places of worship are not destroyed, the people will banish error from their hearts and come to places familiar and dear to them in acknowledgement and worship of the true God. Further, since it has been their custom to slaughter oxen in sacrifice, they should receive some solemnity in exchange. Let them therefore, on the day of the dedication of their churches, or on the feast of the martyrs whose relics are preserved in them, build themselves huts around their one-time temples and celebrate the occasion with religious feasting. They will sacrifice and eat the animals not any more as an offering to the devil, but for the glory of God to whom, as the giver of all things, they will give thanks for having been satiated. Thus, if they are not deprived of all exterior joys, they will more easily taste the interior ones. For surely it is impossible to efface all at once everything from their strong minds, just as, when one wishes to reach the top of a mountain, he must climb by stages and step by step, not by leaps and bounds.... Mention this to our brother the bishop, that he may dispose of the matter as he sees fit according to the conditions of time and place.

My thoughts exactly. However, OP is mistaken. Many Catholics celebrate Easter religiously.

You are bitching about a paid day off? LOL

LOL I expected nothing more from people of this site to bash those that celebrate Easter as a religious holiday. To the liberals and progressives believing is God/ Jesus is stupid, childish, irrational, and people may have a mental issues. But a man who thinks he is a woman and walks around in a dress is a hero and should be celebrated. A woman who thinks she is a man should also be celebrated and everyone should "pretend" these people don't have mental issues and that stuff is normal and rational. Ending a childs live through abortion is rational because you're too lazy, irresponsible, and stupid is also something that is logical and normal. But believing in Jesus resurrection is the most absurd thing ever?

As the Miz would say:

And rational thinking is that some guy died, three days later got up and started talking to people, and then flew up into the sky? Let me ask you, did he pass up into the mesosphere? Did he have a ride waiting up there or what? Where did he go?

I don't think many argue that LGBT isn't a mental health issue. The brains of males and females are different, and considering all the other genetic variances and issues from depression to harlequin ichthyosis (look it up, so sad) how hard is it to believe that sometimes the wrong brain gets put in the wrong body?

Is there evidence for this? Why yes, quite a lot actually.

So you go on spreading your hate in the guise of love. The rest of us will continue to, you know, treat others as we would like to be treated.

@iron_legion87: This attitude is why religious groups get ridiculed.

@br0kenrabbit: I am not spreading hate. I am just saying folks like you pretend that a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man and see no problems with that. But some believing in a higher power that's just to far fetched huh? I was just pointing out the irony in that really.

Because it's usually the liberals/ progressives who go around talking about tolerance and acceptance but are quick to crucify someone (no pun intended) who DOESN'T share their liberal mindset and views. They believe all religious people are bad because of some politician or bad apples who claim to be religious or what they see on Fox News. It's just a cycle of generalization really.

I don't think you understand what irony means, because that's not it.

Did you not consider the scientific findings I posted? Oh yeah...you think science is a guessing game. Yeah, you keep right on doing what you do, buddy. The rest of us will take a license to laugh and shake our heads, but whatever.

Tolerance does not mean we have to accept people with hateful mindsets. Hell, most of the left think Peta and feminazis are idiots, despite people grouping all liberals together with them.

The reason we find religious people in disdain is because they are hypocritical. Like people who rail against homosexuals while on their third wife. If you're going to use The Bible to say one thing is bad, then you damn well better give the entire book the same attention. So, don't eat shellfish, don't eat pork, don't wear clothes with mixed threads, women must cover their heads, etc.

Homosexuality is mentioned in the Bible only six times, but decrees against divorce are mentioned, just in the New Testament, over 20 times! Don't you think your attention should be elsewhere?

Beyond all the hypocrisy, there's the fact that fundamental Christians cannot accept what's both observable and testable when it contradicts their theology, and yet they ask us to believe things that are against all reason and evidence.

If you want to know how people like me view people like you, think about how you (I hope) view flat-eathers. Yeah, you're just like that in our eyes. Can you blame us?

@br0kenrabbit: Fighting intolerance ( or precived intolerance) with more intolerance solves nothing. Like I said, a lot of liberals are progressives are quick to make judgements on religious people based on the actions of SOME ( the key word being some). There are plenty of Christians who don't believe in gay relationships or abortion but don't spread hate to anyone. They treat them with respect as long as they do the same to them, regardless of their skin, religion/ lack of religion and sexuality.

But the meree thought of a person not champing for the LGBT community or not supporting abortion and liberals get triggered and label that person as a bigot or a woman hater just because that person doesn't share their liberal mind set.

As long as those people aren't trying to cause physical harm, or spreading hate or trying to restrict others rights why do you care? Why does it trigger liberals so much when a religious person actually lives by their faith??

Liberals can be hypocritical as well expecially when they tell Christians they should be tolerant of the Muslim faith, but most liberals aren't even tolerant of the Christian faith.

And if liberals want to bring up the old arugements about the Bible maybe they should be more knowledgeable as the comments about shellfish and fabrics is taken out of context. I could explain that but it would be several paragraphs long.

There's a big difference between damning someone (or claiming such) and calling them on their BS. People like myself don't tell people they are hell-bound and constitute an abhorrent existence. We instead just say your ideas are wrong, not that your existence is an affront. Really, really big difference.

People say Christians shouldn't judge, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says Christians should judge each other, but not judge non-believers.

Matthew 18:15 - Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

James 5:19-20 - My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

Let us also not forget James 2:13 - Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Yes, I know The Bible. Although I am not a believer, it is an interesting document, and I have studied it for decades. As I've said before, I've learned to read both Hebrew and Greek, and can stumble around the Aramaic with some help. I know the Bible more than most Christians, and I'm telling you most Christians don't know what they're talking about.

If you are honestly convinced that The Bible is the truth of God, don't you owe it to yourself to put the effort into learning to read what was actually written (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic)? Because the phrase "lost in translation" isn't a punchline. There is A LOT that changes when you read the original script.

I agree it is an excuse for a holiday. I actually celebrated with my friend and her family who celebrate the orthodox holidays (happened to fall on the same day this year). While there was no religious connotations to it, it was a day they celebrated religiously back home. So her mother cooked Russian Easter bread, which is one of my favorite desserts ever.

What's wrong with having some days off ?