Ok it's my turn to Ask Some Christians

[rjamz]

What is the significance of the Easter eggs, dyeing them and searching for them? And where did the Easter bunny come from?

[Deleted]

Great questions. I went to private catholic schools my entire life & I don't know the answer to any of these.

[TrudyCampbell]

I have no idea.

[steph196]

No clue.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure they mean nothing and are just the secular, non religious additions to the holiday.

[Deleted]

My understanding is eggs come mainly from pagan rituals. Christians were very into taking pagan traditions and adapting them into random stuff in an attempt to convert pagans. Eggs were used a lot with pagans used to celebrate the spring season. In Christianity now, eggs represent the resurrection of Jesus but I have no clue why.

To my understanding, is the history of the easter bunny is pretty vague and people aren't sure how it happened.

[Deleted]

Apr 19, 2014 16:25:20 GMT -5 ladybug said:

I'm pretty sure they mean nothing and are just the secular, non religious additions to the holiday.

This would have been a shorter answer!

[TrudyCampbell]

My grandmother claims that the Easter bunny didn't exist in the 1930s lol. Who knows.

[laurack]

In Ireland we never dyed or hunted for eggs.

[livinreality]

Apr 19, 2014 16:25:20 GMT -5 ladybug said:

I'm pretty sure they mean nothing and are just the secular, non religious additions to the holiday.

I agree bunnies and eggs were from pagan celebrations adopted by Christians.

[Deleted]

Easter bunny is commercialization of Christianity at its finest.

Eggs remind us of prolific procreation. Not really about Easter either.

[katfco]

Yeah, it has a lot of non-Christian customs (dyeing eggs is thousands of years old) that have been adopted by Christianity.

Growing up, we were always taught that, like Christmas, there is a "cultural" holiday (Easter bunny, eggs, Santa) and a religious holiday (celebrating Christ's resurrection; we never celebrated Christmas as Jesus' birthday). We did both, but my mom was careful to make sure there was a distinction between the two.

[katfco]

Apr 19, 2014 16:27:34 GMT -5 TrudyCampbell said:

My grandmother claims that the Easter bunny didn't exist in the 1930s lol. Who knows.

Actually, the Easter bunny is an old German tradition, dating back several hundred years. German immigrants brought it to the States.

[DesertMoon]

I saw eggs and bunnies are symbols for Ishtar the god of sex and fertility in ancient Babylonia, Constantine them christianized her Ishtar holiday into Easter and kept the eggs and bunnies.

[muppetinma]

Nobody ever starts an "Ask an Agnostic" thread. Hmpf.

Also, I love that whenever somebody asks a Jew a question, rjamz has a thorough, eloquent answer almost immediately. She asks the Christians a question and everybody is struggling to come up with a logical, cohesive response.

[katfco]

Apr 19, 2014 19:55:29 GMT -5 muppetinma said:

Nobody ever starts an "Ask an Agnostic" thread. Hmpf.

Also, I love that whenever somebody asks a Jew a question, rjamz has a thorough, eloquent answer almost immediately. She asks the Christians a question and everybody is struggling to come up with a logical, cohesive response.

I think part of that is because 1) there are a lot of variations on Christian beliefs and 2) Christianity is so wrapped up in European/American culture that it can be hard to differentiate between them sometimes.

[muppetinma]

Apr 19, 2014 20:06:07 GMT -5 katfco said:

Apr 19, 2014 19:55:29 GMT -5 muppetinma said:

Nobody ever starts an "Ask an Agnostic" thread. Hmpf.

Also, I love that whenever somebody asks a Jew a question, rjamz has a thorough, eloquent answer almost immediately. She asks the Christians a question and everybody is struggling to come up with a logical, cohesive response.

I think part of that is because 1) there are a lot of variations on Christian beliefs and 2) Christianity is so wrapped up in European/American culture that it can be hard to differentiate between them sometimes.

Oh, I completely understand why.  It's just funny to me.  And it makes rjamz seem even more brilliant than she already is.

[artgal84]

Apr 19, 2014 19:47:52 GMT -5 DesertMoon said:

I saw eggs and bunnies are symbols for Ishtar the god of sex and fertility in ancient Babylonia, Constantine them christianized her Ishtar holiday into Easter and kept the eggs and bunnies.

This is also what I learned in a college religion course. It was a way of helping people transition from their pagan rituals to the Christian religion. That's why the word Easter is similar the the pronounciation of the goddesse's name.

Growing up we had an Easter basket but we always got it the day before and on Sunday it was all about the resurrection. We even called it/call it resurrection Sunday not Easter Sunday.

[rjamz]

Thanks muppetinma you're making me blush

I do appreciate all of the answers! It's interesting to see how different people were taught

[katfco]

I actually know some churches and Christians that prefer not to talk about the resurrection at all on Easter Sunday because they believe that the holiday isn't a religious one--and that the resurrection should be celebrated every Sunday.

[thedahliharpa]

Apr 19, 2014 19:55:29 GMT -5 muppetinma said:

Also, I love that whenever somebody asks a Jew a question, rjamz has a thorough, eloquent answer almost immediately. She asks the Christians a question and everybody is struggling to come up with a logical, cohesive response.

[spaghetticat]

Apr 19, 2014 16:48:42 GMT -5 @therealmc said:

E says it's onomatopoeia.

I don't understand what you mean by this. 

[pippilongstocking]

I was always told that eggs represent new life.

[formerlyllizzyb]

Eggs represent new life?

No clue on the bunny.

I think mainly Hallmark

[formerlyllizzyb]

I would not consider Easter eggs and the Easter bunny to be any more a part of Christian Easter than I do Santa and Rudolph to be a part of Christian Christmas.

They're simply cultural traditions we participate in in conjunction with our Christian holidays.

[The Foozzler]

How does a bunny lay eggs?

[nannerl]

rjamz, this just popped up on my facebook feed...

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/04/18/easter-traditions-explained/7865171/

[Dorothy Zbornak]

Apr 19, 2014 19:55:29 GMT -5 muppetinma said:

Nobody ever starts an "Ask an Agnostic" thread. Hmpf.

Also, I love that whenever somebody asks a Jew a question, rjamz has a thorough, eloquent answer almost immediately. She asks the Christians a question and everybody is struggling to come up with a logical, cohesive response.

I'm not even really religious, but this comment is completely rubbing me the wrong way.

[muppetinma]

Apr 20, 2014 6:42:37 GMT -5 Dorothy Zbornak said:

Apr 19, 2014 19:55:29 GMT -5 muppetinma said:

Nobody ever starts an "Ask an Agnostic" thread. Hmpf.

Also, I love that whenever somebody asks a Jew a question, rjamz has a thorough, eloquent answer almost immediately. She asks the Christians a question and everybody is struggling to come up with a logical, cohesive response.

I'm not even really religious, but this comment is completely rubbing me the wrong way.

Okay?

I just find the Jewish religion to be so strong in its routes that it's relatively easy to trace back the origins of their traditions and practices. Christianity has evolved so much over time, adapting practices from other cultures and religions, that it's rather difficult to pinpoint the actual origins of some of the traditions.

That's rubbing you the wrong way?

[katfco]

I think it's important to make a distinction between religion and culture. Jewish culture is strongly rooted in their religion, and therefore very easy to explain. Christian culture isn't always because it's not a single ethnic group; the very nature of Christianity is to spread the religion to all cultures without bias, so naturally other cultural traditions got grafted in and repurposed.