If Easter is a Christian holiday...?

Question

...why is it named after a pagan goddess?

Answer 1

Is It Easter—or Astarte?

This family’s holiday festivities begin early in the morning as they rise to greet the sunrise with reverent awe. The children are decked in the best new finery, complete with new bonnets. The celebration includes emblems of rabbits, baskets full of gaily colored eggs, and hot cross buns. It must be Easter. Or is it?

Springtime was sacred to the sex worshipers of Phoenicia. Their fertility goddess, Astarte, or Ishtar (Aphrodite to the Greeks), had as her symbols the egg and the hare. She had an insatiable thirst for blood and immoral sex. Her statues variously depicted her as having rudely exaggerated sex organs or with an egg in her hand and a rabbit at her side. Sacred prostitution was part of her cult. In Canaan, the sex goddess was styled the wife of Baal. She was honored by drunken sex orgies, the worshipers believing that their sexual intercourse helped to bring about the full awakening and mating of Baal with his wife. According to the book Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands, “in no country has so relatively great a number of figurines of the naked goddess of fertility, some distinctly obscene, been found.”

Beneath memorials to her in Carthage, brightly colored urns were discovered containing the charred bones of little children. Their parents, commonly people of rank and title, sought the blessing of the gods on their wealth and influence. Some of the urns were found to contain the remains of several children of different ages, perhaps of the same family.

Even the name Easter is barely different from the ancient pagan name. Is this, then, the way to honor the holy Son of God?

Answer 2

It is named after a pagan goddess for the same reason that the days of the week are named after pagan deities (in most countries). That reason is simple. Whatever is of God, the Devil tries to corrupt, usually by incorporating a great deal of truth into his deceptions. He could not wipe out the fact that Christ instituted the New Covenant in his blood and commanded his followers to celebrate the giving of his body; he could not stop the joyous celebrations of Christians whenever they recalled his resurrection from the grave on the first day of the week, so he used his old trick of corrupting the good. Yes, he has always had his followers throughout the centuries worshiping him via sex and sacrifices, especially at spring-time, and so the corruption came about.

Yet despite Satan conning the masses, God has always had faithful Christians who commemorated Christ's Last Supper, death and resurrection in reverent simplicity. Many were persecuted (even unto death) by the establishment, yet they refused to incorporate any paganism into this holy remembrance. It is the same regarding Christmas. The masses are duped and indulge in self-indulgent excesses. Those who take God, and his Word, seriously, stick to the Bible's instructions. It is worth noting that untold millions of Christians have done so throughout the centuries, even to this day.

If you want a long-lost glimpse of the holiness of what's now called Easter, listen to Bach's St Matthew's Passion, the final chorus. And worship God.

Answer 3

Because Easter is not a Christian holiday. It is a Pagan festival that the Christians have adopted from paganism. Many people who say they are Christians, know the originality of where Easter came from. Yet, they see no harm in the celebration of it. One should be curious as to how God would feel about these pagan rituals that Christians have adopted, and has associated his Son with the festivals. In Exodus 32:4-10 gives a excellent example of God's feelings on pagan celebrations being adopted by his true believers.Also compare Jer.7:18.

Jesus never told us to celebrate his Resurrection, but he did command us to celebrate His death. Because His death is the price He paid for us all. Many people do the exact opposite of what Jesus told us to do, remember His death. Man would rather have their own doctrines than to listen to God's holy words.

Answer 4

It was a way to help the pagan feel more at home in the new religion. Also the idea of eggs which symbolize new birth, Resurrection, etc. also comes in here. Correctly Easter is called Phaska.

Answer 5

It is named after a pagan goddess because it is a pagan holiday.
"What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, . . . as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. . . . Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now.” The Two Babylons by (Reverend) Alexander Hislop
True Christians desire to worship God in the way that he directs. John 4:23-24 says Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him. God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth.” Worshiping God in spirit and truth means following the leanings of holy spirit and endeavoring to always practice true worship, untainted by the worship of false deities.

Answer 6

It is a holiday for giving out treats to each other and symbolizes fertility and spring. Since I practice another religion, I am not concerned about the Christian perspective. After all, the stores are stocked with Easter stuff and none of it is Christian.

Answer 7

it was originally, and still is, a pagan holiday..
eggs are symbols of fertility, and bunnies are symbols of having sex

i think that a long time ago a christian leader changed the celebration of christ's resurrection to Easter so that christianity would be be more accepted with pagans

Answer 8

We rejoice His resurrection on the Sunday after Passover. This year the Passover Seder replaced into April 2, 2007. here Sunday is April 8, 2007. If it did not fall on Easter, we does not rejoice it on Easter. yet in my lifetime, it rather is been celebrated on an identical day as Easter. My question is 'why do pagans rejoice Easter on the 1st Sunday after the Jewish Passover, which has been around for over 3500 years'? As to Christmas, no one is familiar with the day of Jesus' beginning. inspite of the undeniable fact that, I unquestionably have talked to Jews that say there are shepherds keeping their flocks in Israel in December, making it greater achieveable that it particularly is December. grace2u

Answer 9

Christianity + Ancient Paganism = Modern Christianity

Ancient Paganism IS modern Christianity, and modern Christianity IS ancient Paganism.

Some aspects of ancient Paganism (such as a God-man, the Son of God, atonement for sins, etc.) manifests itself as modern Christianity.

Answer 10

I consider Easter a pagan holiday even though I'm a devote Christian. I believe we should celebrate Jesus's death and resurrection every day! Not just one day a year.