Why is Easter seen as a Christian celebration when the actual date(s) is/are based on ancient pagan beliefs?

Answer 1

Not Just the dates!

Several Christian feasts occupy moments in the year that were formerly devoted to pagan celebrations. Familiar examples are the Roman Saturnalia, converted to Christmas, the festivities of Yule in northern Europe, the name of Eostre converted to English "Easter" to identify the Paschal festival, the celebration of Midsummer Day as the birthday feast of John the Baptist, and the celebrations of the Feast of the Lemures and of Celtic Samhain combined and transferred to the eve of All Saints' Day a.k.a. Halloween.

Although today seen and regarded as a Christian time of celebration, the word Easter as explained elsewhere on this site has it's roots in the name of an ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess called Eostre. The Anglo-Saxon celebration of Eostre was the celebration of the passing of winter and the arrival of the summer season. So when the Christian missionaries arrived and converted the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity it would have been sensible to keep the celebration, but replace the resurrection of summer with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter as a celebration contains many customs of differing origins, some pagan and some Christian and others of a none too clear origin. The passing of winter is found and celebrated in an Easter custom known as Riding-the-Black-Lad, which is performed in Lancashire. In this custom a dummy is dressed in black and burnt. Egg related customs and traditions performed during Easter are very widespread indeed, this is in keeping with the celebration of new life and birth, the egg itself of course representing the arrival of that new life. We have egg rolling, egg painting and the building of Easter trees.

Several Christmas traditions, particularly in Northern Europe and North America, have several facets with a similarity to Yule, the pre-Christian winter solstice festival, whose name has often been used as a synonym for Christmas. The traditional consumption of ham, and/or sausages, at Christmas, historically known as Christmas ham, is widely thought by historians to derive from the sacrifice of a pig to the god Freyr, that occurred during pre-Christian Yule. The burning of a Yule log is derived from the celtic of cutting a tree, dousing it with wine and grain, as offerings, and burning it for the duration of Yule, believing that it would protect the house from evil for as long as it burnt. Giving presents at chritsmas is another custom that comes from the ancient Yule, when they would give presents to each other as a symbol of good faith and celebration. Kissing under Mistletoe is thought to derive from a Germanic tale in which Frigga (after whom Friday is named), goddess of love, extracted the poison of Mistletoe from her son, and when he recovered, she was so grateful that she kissed anyone passing under the Mistletoe. Covering buildings in holly, and creating holly wreaths, is thought to derive from pre-Christian beliefs that holly would protect the house from evil, and also be a gesture of hospitability to small woodland spirits who could use it for their protection; the sharp edges of holly allow small animals to hide inside the bush and be protected from predators.

It is thought again that Yule would have been very hard to dispose of as it was an ancient tradition that the people would have clung on to. To get around the issue they simply gave it a different meaning, even the customs surrounding Yule remained the same.

Answer 2

Easter is the most important time for Christians
this is the time we celebrate Jesus' Resurrection - good Friday is the day he died on the cross to take the worlds sin away, then the Sunday is when he rose
that is the meaning of Easter and the people probably needed something symbolise this so used eggs as a meaning of new life the Easter bunny is something for the kids these days , its something that's used to cover the truth so the world of today doesn't have to tell the kids that Gods son was beaten beyond recognition , nailed to the cross and pierced with a sword to save them and just tell them a fluffy bunny will give chocolate eggs

Answer 3

Easter and many other pagan rituals were adopted by the roman catholic church when it decided to swell its numbers. All the pagan rituals were changed slightly in either name or some other way to incorporate them into the christian religion. Among them are Easter, Xmas, Pancake day and lent. The names of our days are also based on pagan ritual names such as Saturday being Saturn day and Monday being Moon day. If you read the bible carefully, you will see that Jesus Christ was in the ground three days and three nights. However, if you calculate the days of Easter, they only add up to three days and two nights. Someone messed up somewhere.

Answer 4

A lot of 'Christian' things, like the Christmas tree for example are based on pagan traditions. Because when they invented the new religion they didn't want to give up all the stuff they had been used to, so they continued to celebrate certain pagan things and dubbed it 'Christian' so that they could get away with it.

Answer 5

This is infact true! Easter or Eoster is a Pagan holiday celebrating new life, as well as, the solstice. Hence the egg that is used in the hunt. And guess what! That is not the only holiday they stole from Pagans! You can also attribute Christmas and Halloween to this! And many more!!

The reason people refuse to believe this is because they do not study histroy.

The fact is, they stole it to adapt it to their own religious agendas.

Answer 6

Like Heather said, the early Church wanted to convert, or kill, people to Chrisitanity. Since widespread belief in the gods and goddesses was so strong, the early Church used the timing of various festivals to create feast days for the Church. Thus, easing the acceptance of a new religion. This started with the Christian Emperor of Rome before 500BCE attempting to give the Roman Empire a new religion with the same feasts the citizens were used to.
Christmas is celebrated in December originally to take the place of the feastival for Saturn, Saturnalia. The Romans also practiced many traditions similar to Christmas; specifically the "Christmas tree", though the Christmas tree itself is a later development in the celebration of Christmas (having its origins in Germany, possibly during the Reformation). The Romans often cut down evergreens and decorated them to pay homage to Saturn, the god of farming. This was to honor the fact that the evergreens remained alive during the harshness of winter. It was also traditional for Romans to exchange gifts during this holiday. These gifts were customarily made of silver, although nearly anything could be given as a gift for the occasion. Several epigrams by the poet Martial survive, seemingly crafted as riddling gift-tags for gifts of food. The medieval celebration of the Feast of Fools was another continuation of Saturnalia into the Christian era.

Answer 7

Call it whatever you want. Easter time for Christians and Jews recalls God's saving work.

He saved the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
He saved us from slavery to Satan, sin, and death.

Displacing pagan holidays and making them Christian celebrations was a God inspired way of converting the whole pagan world - and it worked.

Christians worship and celebrate the one true God, not pagan gods, and that's the whole point.

Answer 8

Many of the adopted celebrations of Easter are pagan however Christians celebrate Easter because Jesus accomplished the work that God sent him to do and that was to die for all of mankind's sin and then arose from the dead.

Answer 9

It made it easier for Christians to convert Pagans to Christianity by using the Pagan holiday rituals they were accustomed to and masking them as Christian holiday's.

In essence, Christians are celebrating Pagan holidays. (Which is why it's funny when Christians attack non-Christians for celebrating christmas, easter, etc...)

Answer 10

To satisfy their pagan masters and to not upset them. Brainwashing millions and millions of people and masking the true faith or what prophet Jesus would have approved of.

Ditch Christianity (Pagan 2) and join Islam.