the pagan roots of Christianity There are lots of those - and I don't mind. Now some fundamental Christians maintain that our friendly Easter Bunny or Easter Rabbit is not only pagan, but even satanic! Would you agree?
@ about the pagan roots of Easter: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/03/easter-pagan-symbolism
God is not an elitist, and He wants to bring people to him in a way that they could relate to. Since the world had been Greek from Alexander the Great onwards, Christianity adapted to the Greek/Roman world and the Church took the form it did in the Mediterranean. In the Orthodox Church we call the Resurrection Pascha from the Passover, and it is the biggest holiday of the year. Forty days after the Resurrections, the greetings are: "He has risen", and the response is: "He has truly risen".
Not any more than Santa Clause. Easter is simply the day Christians celebrate the risen Christ. Renewed or Resurrected. If people want to use eggs or whatever to visually remember Christ's Atonement, doesn't bother me. I like Cadbury Eggs!
Btw: Santa Claus is not pagan. And he really existed. @ Saint Nicholas of Myra More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas
Well, bunny rabbits actually exist as well. So do chicken eggs. So, you believe in Santa Clause. Nice.
That's St. Nicholas. I'm asking about Santa Clause. The one that lives at the North Pole? Has elves working for him? Flies a sled with reindeers led by Rudolf the red nose flashing light reindeer? You think they are one in the same. Okay...
Would you please not claim such nonsense. I have tried to answer you honestly and earnestly. No more answers now. Over and out.
Welcome to Political Forum! I hope you will not take my tendency to speak frankly, as distracting from the warmth or sincerity of my greeting, but I found your sparse Opening Post (or OP, for short) to be a disappointment. You do not, yourself, enumerate or discuss any of these "roots," save your allusion to Easter, which kind of misses the boat. First off, Satan is a Christian figure/invention (though the name, which I think the Bible translates as meaning, "enemy," is suspiciously close to a M.E. deity named Sathan, IIRC). So one cannot be a true believer in a literal Satan, without simultaneously endorsing Christian doctrine. The first to perform Black Masses-- which are actually inversions of, and so based on, Catholic masses-- were Catholic priests. There is more that could be said, here, but this encounters the 2nd problem I would cite, of your OP: that it doesn't even take a position, or set out a direction, for the conversation. Since the thread is nominally about pre-Christian, pagan roots, and Satan is, himself, not a pre-Christian, pagan god, as far as I am aware, it would seem a tangential detour to say much more about him. Moving on, there seems to me a good reason-- especially since we don't know the crux of either your thesis/perspective, or the main reason for your interest in this topic-- to divide Christian beliefs into the original foundations of the cult, including primarily the Gospels, and the later dogma of the powerful Church, into which it ultimately metamorphosed. For the most basic form of Christianity, Jesus is a God of rebirth & renewal, in keeping with a long tradition of deities whose deaths a resurrection symbolize the annual crop cycle. The Greek goddess Persephone, spending half the year in a subterranean realm, with Hades, and the other half topside, with her mother Demeter, is just one example. Another is the Attis cult, which I think was particularly strong in Asia Minor. IIRC, this involved two Goddesses sharing the beautiful young man's company, as a lover. And one of them was his mother Cybele, the mighty Mother Goddess of the region. One cannot dismiss these religions as just silly stories; the living religion of adherents of the Attis Cult inspired the fervency of their practice of self-castration. But, again, I am probably digressing. Later articles of faith, of the Catholic Church came from sources other than firsthand accounts of Jesus's ministry. Much came from the convert Paul (formerly Saul, of Tarsus), but also from Christian theologians. This includes the central concept of the Trinity, which also is a very popular religious construct, from antiquity: Egypt's Osiris, Isis, and Horus, for example, or the Hindu Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Sustainer), and Shiva (the Destroyer), to cite another. Then there are religious aspects that involve traditions of symbolism. This is the case with Easter. As a Spring festival of rebirth, it was all about fecund fertility, which most decidedly included livestock, and humans; that is, procreation (and often, sex) was strongly emphasized. The rabbit, if you did not know, is a prolific multiplier, so came to represent this idea of new life, along with the egg. These were parts of a festival for a pagan goddess of Light, Oestre. This, by the way, is the origin of the words estrus, which describes an animal, "in heat," and estrogen. This was all part of the Church co-opting older traditions, & folding them into their own, to make the religion more palatable, for converts. Catholics employed the same strategy, in places taken control of, by Catholic Kings, to use places of pagan worship as the sites for Catholic Churches. https//maureenfitzgerald.com/the-history-of-easter-originates-in-the-goddess-of-spring-oestre/ I hope this is useful to your discussion. For anyone who wishes to do further research into the area, I highly recommend the Farrar's version of The Witches Bible.
Thank you for welcoming me. I think there are several ways to open a discussion. a) to write a long article as an introducton b) ask a pertinent question and take it from there
Nor did I think that I was implying that it was. I was trying only to offer information that accurately addressed the very general idea of the intermixing of older, pagan elements with the newer, Christian religion, both purposefully, as well, no doubt, as unconsciously, if not even through a communal unconscious (if one will grant the possibility of Jung's postulate). But the Easter stuff was all marketing, and very deliberate.
@Lindis Hey, I just wanted to pass on that I had conflated elements of two different gods, which is pretty ironic, if you think about it. Though Attis was the son of Cybele, and ritual castration was part of his worship, that was all I knew of it. The part about being shared by two female Goddesses, was the beautiful Greek god, Adonis.
A History of Rome Christmas https://traffic.libsyn.com/historyofrome/18-_A_History_of_Rome_Christmas.mp3
I've never heard that the Easter bunny / Rabbit is satanic in nature but I do recall that the early Christians adopted many pagan fertility symbols of which the rabbit is one. The goddess Eostra was worshiped by the early Germans (Teutons) as the goddess of fertility and Spring. I think you'll enjoy the following article: "How Is the Easter Bunny Connected to Christianity? Meaning and Origin" https://www.christianity.com/wiki/h...ected-to-christianity-meaning-and-origin.html
I'm afraid you misunderstood me. I'm quite familiar with the Easter Bunny and went on many Easter egg hunts as a child, I had just never heard that the Rabbit / Bunny was associated with Satanic worship. I know that goats were connected to Satanism but didn't know that rabbits were. Additionally, in Goethe's Faust, the Devil, Mephistopheles, first appears to Faust in the form of a black poodle which follows him home through a field.
To be clear, what you're talking about are the pagan roots of Christian traditions, Lindis. Christianity has undergone so many changes in the West over the past 2000 years I don't know why anyone should care whether it includes the Ester Bunny, Christmas trees, etc. It's all part of what Christianity has become in a cultural sense.
I live in the Southern Baptist part of the country. Some embrace Halloween with zeal. Others, more recently, have been getting all loud about how it is Satanic in nature. Samhain or All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day. People are going to see with a bias, regardless of the event. Many Pagan rituals were co-opted to make the transition from Pagan to Christian 'easier' or more palatable.
