2007-02-20 05:30:59 · 5 answers · asked by Sterling 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Participating in extreme gluttony, (eating, drinking), before Lent, usually celebrated around the world by the Catholic religion. (the day before Lent or what is known as "Shrove Tuesday").
2007-02-20 05:36:40 · answer #1 · answered by Big Bear 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It all comes from Easter. Well, that and the Bible.
Though it may not be particularly obvious why Christians celebrate Easter on the particular day they do, it is pretty obvious why they would want to celebrate the ressurrection of their messiah. Indeed, it is perhaps the most important holy day of all... if it's second to anything, it's only the messiah's birth celebration.
So many Christian sects have ordained a period of honorary purification before this holy day. This, too, is not a particularly unusual step in religious rites. Nor is the ordained length of the purification surprising to one familiar with the Bible: forty days. The number forty appears over and over again in that text... I'll let you research that if you're interested.
Now up until now we have a rather typical and perhaps somber religious procession of days, starting from Ash Wednesday and carrying through to Easter itself. Where it gets interesting is when the common man begins practicing all these rituals.
Many very common religious people honor their gods, but also are rather enamoured of their sins and indulgences. So they compromise the two. Such people will perform forty days of purification, but they're going to pack every last acceptable sin they can right before the end. And so you end up with Fat Tuesday and all of the Mardi Gras celebrations ('mardi gras' literally means fat tuesday in French).
Thus Fat Tuesday is a completely non-religious period of maximized debauchery that is caused by a completely religious period of abstinence. It in itself has no direct religious significance; the stance of most Christian churches toward it tends to be of tolerance rather than endorsement in any way. But it CAN be a good party... even for non-Christians. Heh.
2007-02-20 14:14:55 · answer #2 · answered by Doctor Why 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mardi Gras means fat Tues. in French. It's the last day of the carnival, just before lent.
2007-02-20 13:38:27 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is the day before Ash Wensday, which is tradationally a day of fasting. So people stock up on food for the fast.
2007-02-20 13:35:13 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
its the day before lent starts ---so people go wild and feast and party because after fat tuesday they heed the rules of lent...which calls for sacrifice
2007-02-20 13:39:10 · answer #5 · answered by pokerplayer16101 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋