Posted by giveawayboy on October 18, 2002 at 00:54:49:
In Reply to: Halloween Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa posted by Rhino on October 17, 2002 at 11:14:01:
: thanks bill for the info of the holiday origins.
: My mind was racing to contradict him, especialy about christmas (eg Christmas tree) and easter (eg..the easter bunny)
: Here is the original post from Bill: http://www.hifidelity.net/bbs/messages/7826.html
: Happy Hallo
: Ryan
No problem. The neat thing to remember is that alot of pagan and Christian traditions overlap. Part of this is because the Christians sort of piggybacked Jewish and pagan culture. Christianity went into all the world and was influenced by many cultures. For instance, both Jewish and pagan culture had strong associations of the 'lamb' which got absorbed into Easter. For Jews the lamb was the central symbol of Pesach (Passover) and this was incorporated into the Christian version of Pesach, called PASCAH (the REAL Christian word for EASTER). Pascah was the time for recalling Jesus' death and he is known as the Lamb of God. Not that we believe he was a literal sheep of course. Anyway, Ostara was the pagan Easter in parts of Europe. And one of the symbols of Ostara was a lamb. So, the early Christians who were simply baptized pagans, already had lamb symbolism at OSTARA time. So, then they eventually incorporated PASCAH into OSTARA and this gave us EASTER. EASTER therefore is correctly a blend of Christian and pagan beliefs. To be honest, there is little trouble here. I think for Celtic Christians in particular the interchange between pagan and Christian cultures was more fluid and affirming of the best in both traditions. Not many church messageboards would let us talk about these similarities. Instead they would focus on differences and invent them if there weren't any.
God bless, Bill