April 11, 2004
Celebrate the Pagan Roots of Easter
Eostre Was a Saxon Vegitation Goddess -- Perhaps She Still Is
Christians appropriated pre-christian iconography, feast days and nomenclature to sell pagan Europe on the idea that Jesus Christ represents an *exclusive* path to salvation/enlightenment. Eostre was a Saxon goddess of Fertility, Dawn and Vegitation; the word Easter does not appear in the Bible, but this doesn't seem to bother those who embrace mainstream protestant sects of Christianity. My thoughts on Easter come closer to Paganism than Christianity.
*excerpt*
The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 AD.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similar "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [were] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos." Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: "eastre." Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime. Some were:
Aphrodite from Cyprus
Astarte, from Phoenicia
Demeter, from Mycenae
Hathor from Egypt
Ishtar from Assyria
Kali, from India
Ostara, a Norse Goddess of fertility.
*end excerpt*
Posted by nalgene at April 11, 2004 12:05 PMBlaspheemer! The world was empty of meaning until Jeezy Creezy came along and made it all better. Modern Christianity is a pure, unadulterated expression of the true word of the one and only God.
Seriously though, there is no subtantive difference between the Church and the State or those who adhere the gospel of either one. That is, followers of the State are just as likely to ignore the lessons of history, insist that their State is better, to seek to impose that belief on others and to rely on the specious use of dogma as rational defense for their position. To say nothing of their (the Church and the State) shared fondness for killing large groups of people.
On a related note, the Indian calander puts us in the age of Kali, the age of turmoil essentially. It's supposed to last for several thousand years.
Posted by: Ezra at April 11, 2004 12:16 PM