The Pagan Origins of Easter

The next time some religious person tries to say that there is some secular conspiracy around religious holidays and that the common secular symbols, such as the Easter bunny, Santa Claus, etc. are taking away from the significance of their holiday, remind them that their religion is primarily responsible. Easter is a perfect example. Most of the supposed “secular” symbols were actually Pagan symbols that were co-opted by early christians in an attempt to make their religion more palatable to the Pagans and make it easier to convert them.

The Pagan origins of the Easter Bunny talks about how Eggs, the word Easter, and the Bunny were Pagan symbols from Vernal celebrations co-opted by christians.

The Pagan origins of Easter conflicts somewhat with the aforementioned site but still shows how many of the symbols existed long before Jesus supposedly came on the scene.

More important is to remember how many of the core symbols of the christian Easter story were actually co-opted from previous religions, including Pagan. The crucifixion, resurrection, drinking blood and eating his body, etc. are all symbols from Pagans. Most of them are parallels to the Egyptian god Horus.

The Religious Tolerance website has tons and tons of other quotes, discussions, references about bible and religious teachings that are very interesting.