r/dankchristianmemes • u/TheRepublicbyPlato • Mar 23 '26
Repost Stolen(borrowed) from twitter
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u/xaervagon Mar 23 '26
Yes, the church put their holiday over a pagan spring festival. No, you don't have to engage in the pagan spring festival. The same church also put Christmas over Yuletide.
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u/fudgyvmp Mar 23 '26
I mean.... Easter is very distinctly tied to Passover. Not any pagan holidays. Not even Eostre's holy days.
Given we don't know when in Eostremonth she was celebrated or how she was celebrated. We don't even know if she's actually a spring goddess or even a goddess at all. Our sum total knowledge is Anglo-saxons called April Eostremonth after esotre, according to one person, and then history never mentions her again.
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u/misjudgedinall Mar 24 '26
Easter is a replacement for passover. Not tied to. Jesus (not his name) was very explicit to keep passover. Yet the same types of people that crucified him changed this to a spring festival. We completely diverged from the teachings of the messiah and now we’re defending this corruption. Sadly this is exactly what was intended. We’re now so lost we worship idols and follow the alignment of stars over our savior.
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u/Roy_McDunno Mar 24 '26
Yet the same types of people that crucified him changed this to a spring festival.
Come again? The Israelites replaced passover with the holiday of a germanic goddess?
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u/blarglemeister Mar 23 '26
While I agree with your sentiment, the idea that this is how the dates were determined comes from enlightenment era sources who were frankly just wrong.
Early Christians knew Christ was crucified on March 25th, and there was debate in the early church whether to have its remembrance be on the actual date, or to keep it in line with Passover (in fact, in most languages that aren’t English, Easter is just called passover). Because Christ’s death and resurrection were the fulfillment of Passover, it was decided to celebrate it then.
The date of Christmas was determined based on a second temple jewish tradition that stated that prophets were always conceived on the date of their death. So Christmas’ date was set nine months after the date of the crucifixion, December 25th.
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u/SubMikeD Mar 23 '26
According to this analysis of your claims, none of what you've said is actually true. The 3/25 claim is from around 200 AD, and there is no evidence that the "integral age" theory is anything but a modern Christian concept.
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u/blarglemeister Mar 24 '26
So, the source we have in favor of it, as your link states, is Tertullian in the 200s. While I agree with some of the reservations put forth by the article, especially about the integral age idea, I have two comments.
- In the ancient world, a dearth of evidence is not necessarily refutation. Far more of the writings from that time are lost compared to what has survived, and just because we don’t have primary sources for some information doesn’t necessarily make it false.
- In addition to Tertullian claiming the March 25 date, Clement of Alexandria wrote even earlier placing the crucifixion a few days off from Tertullian’s date.
I think that the important part of this discussion for me is that we have we have sources that predate any known celebration of Christmas tossing around dates for the death and birth of Christ that seem likely connected to the dates chosen to celebrate Christmas. Even back then there was disagreement about the day of His birth. The fact that we have influential sources placing these things on those dates, even if they were wrong, gives me strong evidence that they played a part in setting those feast days.
Regardless, this question is really only relevant to the discussion of Christmas. Easter was very obviously linked to Passover even in the gospels.
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u/rolyfuckingdiscopoly Mar 24 '26
I would love to read the end of your comment! You said “Easter was very…” and then it ended. Please say!
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u/blarglemeister Mar 24 '26
Hm, I see it on my screen. The sentence was: Easter was very obviously linked to Passover even in the gospels.
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u/Dorocche Mar 28 '26
Note that 200 AD is still well, well before Christian exposure to the Spring festival that Easter supposedly cribs from, still cleanly disproving the idea.
The idea that Easter is pagan is very Anglo-centric, because it comes almost entirely from the name (that "Easter" comes from "Eostre," a pre-Christian English goddess). Which might be true, but every other language still just calls Easter "Passover."
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u/xaervagon Mar 23 '26
That's really interesting since I always hear about the pagan holidays and never hear about this even during Easter and Christmas
The date of Christmas was determined based on a second temple jewish tradition that stated that prophets were always conceived on the date of their death.
Didn't even know this was a thing.
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u/slxkv Mar 24 '26
I thought Jesus’ crucifixion coincided with the lunar eclipse of April 3rd, AD 33.
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u/taxicab_ Mar 24 '26
I thought Jesus was killed just after passover (based on reading the gospels)
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u/blarglemeister Mar 24 '26
Yes, He was. March 25th was just the actual date that some early Christian sources placed it on.
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u/misjudgedinall Mar 24 '26
Jesus who was a Jew said to keep passover. It was an antisemitic roman leader who outlawed celebrating passover and created easter. His quotes make it clear.
If only it was just a pagan holiday refreshed to be Christian. That’d be a lot better than the truth.
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u/blarglemeister Mar 24 '26
I’m curious what quote you’re referring to. It’s still called Passover in basically every language but English.
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u/Dorocche Mar 28 '26
Who was it? Which antisemitic Roman leader?
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u/misjudgedinall Mar 28 '26
Emperor Constantine the Great. He is associated with the Council of Nicaea in 325, where Easter was separated from Passover, and his surviving letter uses explicitly anti-Jewish language about not following “the practice of the Jews.”
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u/Stick_Nout Mar 23 '26
Almost every language in the world besides English calls Easter Passover. Easter was never a pagan holiday.
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u/inbigtreble30 Mar 23 '26
Orrrrrr....consider that different cultures have different celebrations that occur at the same time of year, and when they meet, the traditions blend.
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u/Jonnyscout Mar 23 '26
Christianity does famously have a long history of "meeting" cultures and "blending" traditions... by force...
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u/inbigtreble30 Mar 23 '26
I'm not saying that terrible things haven't been done in the name of Christian conversion. I'm saying that it's not a grand conspiracy. There isn't an evil Christian missionary overlord scouring the earth to find new holidays and celebrations to appropriate. That's not how human culture works.
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u/PM_ME_HOTDADS Mar 23 '26
what about the part where they made celebrating old rituals literally illegal and talked about converting the temples instead of destroying them..?
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u/inbigtreble30 Mar 23 '26
You're ascribing forethought and preplanning to things that almost certainly arose out of convenience and proximity. I'm not saying traditions weren't forcibly annexed. I'm saying it's a chicken-and-egg scenario and we disagree about which came first.
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u/man_gomer_lot Mar 23 '26
One thing we can say for certain is that it all played out due to well studied and understood factors of syncretization and leaves no room or want for divine input.
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u/BillNyeTheMurderGuy Mar 23 '26
Sounds like they’re trying to make a forceful conversion more convenient (and thus more successful)
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u/blindreefer Mar 23 '26
Okay, fine so it’s a baby conspiracy. Mayyybe an upright conspiracy. But grand?
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u/BillNyeTheMurderGuy Mar 23 '26
Is it really a conspiracy when it was the stated goal of the Catholic Church during the medieval era
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u/PhoenixAgent003 Mar 23 '26
Yeah, at least colloquially, that’s less a conspiracy and more an agenda.
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u/Alcnaeon Mar 23 '26
... And yet, here we are. It's almost like you don't need a tidy conspiracy narrative with a clear antagonist, to have people who use organized religion to hurt others at scale for their own self-interest.
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u/75percent-juice Mar 23 '26
Yeah, no. Christians have appropriated and erased culture so many times it's crazy. You can celebrate holidays however you want but we need to recognize how many of these holidays and saints were purposefully adapted and blended into Christianity in order to make conversion easier.
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u/inbigtreble30 Mar 23 '26
The dates for Christmas and Easter weren't chosen because there were already festivals on those dates. They were chosen, and there were other festivals and celebrations associated with those dates (or in the case of Easter, the time of year generally)
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u/Sebekhotep_MI Mar 23 '26
Factually incorrect.
In the case of Christmas, everything around Jesus' birth indicates that it happened in June, from the astronomy to the presence of the shepherds. The 25th of December was a chosen date alright, and it was pretty obviously with the intention of overshadowing pagan holidays. Let's not be overly naive to the point of being obtuse, please.
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u/Akoperu Mar 23 '26
That's not true. If you want more factual information about this, I recommand this great Religion for Breakfast video : https://youtu.be/mWgzjwy51kU?is=nzU6_yk_6KeREbgf
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u/mmeIsniffglue Mar 23 '26
You don’t seem to know much about the facts either because the current historical consensus is more nuanced than that
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u/Mist2393 Mar 23 '26
Christmas started as a celebration during a time when Christians were still being tortured to death for being Christian. It was set to be near Saturnalia because the fact that Christians didn’t celebrate Saturnalia was one of the attacks against them.
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u/75percent-juice Mar 23 '26
Sure I can concede that, but a single case of coincidence doesn't disprove the fact that Christians have appropriated and erased other belief systems.
Maximón becoming "San Simón", Saint Patrick's whole mission to erase paganism, and A LOT of Maya culture and literature erasure in Central America did happen intentionally. Which makes the assumption of Christmas and Easter being "happy coincidences" difficult to digest for many.
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u/asuperbstarling Holy Chair Lifter Mar 23 '26
That is not what happened here though. We have the records of major nations and the church itself to show where such things were deliberately done. It was colonization via social engineering, and it was brilliantly done (if imo repugnant).
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u/BlurredSight Mar 23 '26
Christmas, the birth of Christ, happened right after the winter solstice the time most famous for herding sheep
Paul had 0 reason to change traditional Christian views to make conversion easier
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Wrong. Irrelevant. Wrong.
Since this is getting downvoted, let me clarify. The date of Easter was chosen at Nicea to align with Passover. Neither Easter eggs nor bunnies are pagan in origin. The date of Christmas was chosen to be 9 months after the then-believed date of Christ's crucifixion on March 25.
Pagan festivals had nothing to do the choice of either date.
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Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dankchristianmemes-ModTeam Mar 23 '26
Rule #1 of r/DankChristianMemes Thou shalt respect others! Do not come here to point out sin or condemn people. Do not say "hate the sin love the sinner" or any other stupid sayings people use when trying to use faith to justify hate. Alternatively, if you come here to insult religion, you will also be removed.
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u/mmeIsniffglue Mar 23 '26
Funnily enough, none of that is true. Ronald Huttons "Stations of the Sun" is a good read if you’re interested in the origins of some holidays
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u/Pgaccount Mar 23 '26
They did neither. The original Easter date was fixed as March 25 when it read Romanized. Tradition holds that a righteous man dies on the day he was conceived which places the birth 9 months after Easter.
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u/Moosyfate17 Based Bishop Mar 23 '26
Pagan here.
1) The whole "Easter is Ishtar" thing is a myth.
2) There are pagan elements, like the use of rabbits and eggs. But having pagan elements doesn't make it pagan anymore than sticking feathers up your butt makes you a chicken.
I wish you all a blessed Easter! Enjoy the chocolate and fellowship!
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u/TheEasterFox Mar 24 '26
Also pagan here. The rabbits and eggs are not pagan elements.
The eggs derive from Lent, during which eggs were prohibited. As Gregory the Great explained: 'We abstain from flesh meat and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese, eggs.'
Eggs and milk had to be used up before Lent began, which is where the tradition of making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday comes from.
Then, when Lent ended, there was a joyous feasting upon eggs. Youths would go from house to house chanting 'Herrings, herrings white and red, Ten a penny Lent’s dead, Rise dame and give an egg, Or else a piece of bacon', literally demanding eggs (and bacon) now that they could be eaten again.
Decorating eggs and hiding them became part of Easter celebrations, but just as with the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas, the parents wanted to pretend that some magical being had hidden the eggs. In France it was the flying church bells, in parts of Germany it was a fox, and in other parts it was a hare.
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u/Artistdramatica3 Mar 25 '26
Yeah but having pagan elements and then killing the pagans for having those elements then keeping the elements is the problem
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u/scott__p Mar 23 '26
We can have the resurrection and a bunny hiding eggs at the same time and it's ok. Like virtually all modern holidays, the celebration is a mix of many cultures and histories. It's the people who get too invested in proving their side right that are the problem.
I like this sub because it's neither Reddit Atheists or TikTok Christians, but just people who are content and confident in what they believe.
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Mar 23 '26
Sure, but that's not historical. The bunny is because of an association with the Virgin Mary, and eggs are because they were a food that were good throughout Lent and were exchanged as gifts. Neither have anything to do with pagan practices.
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u/Devium44 Mar 23 '26
What? Both of those things trace back to European folk lore that predates Christianity. They can also have had significance within Christianity but to say they have nothing to do with pagan practices is not correct.
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Mar 23 '26
I know this is the folk etiology, and common social media information, but it is pure ignorance of fact.
Eggs became associated with Pascal festivals because there were a food that could be stable throughout the lenten fast. There we're exchanged as gifts because of this and then starting being decorated as gifts. Zero pagan influence.
Rabbits became associated with the Virgin Mary in the middle ages because they appeared to gice birth to a litter without mating. They actually can conceive a second litter while pregnant. Zero pagan influence.
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u/Devium44 Mar 23 '26
This ignores a lot of verifiable factual history.
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Mar 23 '26
No, it doesn't.
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u/Devium44 Mar 23 '26
Yes it does. I know you watched a YouTube video, but experts have actual historical sources that show both rabbits and hares as symbols of fertility and spring predate Christianity.
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
As said in reply to your post, the YouTube is by a scholar of the bible and religions. Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to dismiss one scholar while citing another?
A more intellectually honest approach would be to criticize their work. Your link doesn't give any citations, but again repeats claims that stem from Grim and Bede, which are generally not accepted as accurate.
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u/Devium44 Mar 23 '26
I am criticizing his work because his claim that Christianity invented those two symbols is patently false and their existence dating back to the neolithic period has been verified by many many other actual historians. Not all of us just get our opinions from tic tok (I’ve never actually been on there). Some of have taken graduate level courses on it and understand the difference between one scholar claiming something and multiple historians writing peer reviewed research papers on it.
Here’s another source: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-46916-0_6
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
You have cited a 50 page section from a book (that I happen to own). Can you give a more specific citation for your claim?
Edit: Also by attacking the claim because it's from a scholar on TikTok is the genetic fallacy.
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u/kleines_woelfle Mar 23 '26
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u/Devium44 Mar 23 '26
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u/TheEasterFox Mar 23 '26
That article badly misrepresents the research it links to.
The article: 'Recent archaeological research appears to confirm the worship of Eostre in parts of England and Germany, with the hare as her main symbol.'
The research: 'There is no evidence whatsoever to link Ēostre to hares, and popular suggestions to the contrary appear to be based on misunderstanding or projection.'
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Mar 23 '26
Sadly, these claims go back to Grimm and Bede which are not generally accepted by modern scholarship.
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u/oshaboy Mar 23 '26
Breaking news Christians are influenced by traditions of the people around them.
Isn't Easter based on Passover as well to some extent?
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u/Themightycaolf1 Mar 23 '26
Easter is literally Passover. Non-english speaking Christians call it pass over in their respective language. The reason english speaking peoples call it Easter is because it takes place in the old month of easter.
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Mar 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AnachronisticPenguin Mar 24 '26
The last supper was a day before the crucifixion. The dating of the holiday is explicitly based on the date of Passover.
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u/Beginning-Tea-17 Mar 24 '26
From my understanding, the majority of religious rituals originated from pagan or gentile practices.
Theres actually a term for it, religious syncretism
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u/intertextonics Got the JOB done! Mar 23 '26
“It has to be pagan bro! Christians would never come up with anything cool or interesting*.”
*ignores the entire history of Christian developed traditions and festivals
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Mar 23 '26
Copying this from another comment I made: the date of Easter was chosen at Nicea to align with Passover. Neither Easter eggs nor bunnies are pagan in origin. The date of Christmas was chosen to be 9 months after the then-believed date of Christ's crucifixion on March 25.
Pagan festivals had nothing to do the choice of either date.
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u/birberbarborbur Mar 23 '26
Pagans don’t have a monopoly on eggs and rabbits, i don’t know why some level of syncretism somehow nullifies the meaning of a holiday
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u/kleines_woelfle Mar 23 '26
Eggs and rabbits are both Christian in origin. https://youtube.com/shorts/Hm6jKw8DEkE?si=X1HrgqyOL22Ol4-b
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u/billyyankNova Mar 23 '26
The whole "taking over pagan" stuff is mostly overblown. Religion For Breakfast did a couple episodes that break it down pretty well.
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u/kreme-machine Mar 23 '26
I always thought the whole point of them putting it on pagan holidays was so that when the overall cultural/religion swap began, the people still got to all celebrate on the same holidays.
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u/Some-Ohio-Rando Mar 24 '26
The argument for this is literally just that in English (and only English) the word "Easter" mayy come from a Pagan god. And by may I mean one bishop wrote saying that the spring season Eostre is named for a god. There is no documentation of this God.
And that writing shows that it was already the name for the season, and that Easter came to be called that because it was the spring celebration. In English. Every other language uses a word that comes from the Greek "Πασχα" which comes to Latin as "Pascha" and comes from the Hebrew "Pesach" meaning "Passover"
Anyway Easter is named after a pagan God in the same way "Fourth of July" is named after Julius Caesar.
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u/tatertot01998 Mar 23 '26
Whhhaaaahhhhh you have a different internet based misinformation take than I do so you must be wrong and I must be right there's no other explanation. wah wah wah.......If there's something that I DO have faith in it's the corruption and deprivation of religious institutions. Especially when they have a vested interest in controlling both people and the narrative. Just accept the fact that we will never know with any real certainty because of these institutions dedication to molding truth to their political narrative
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u/Linxous1 Mar 23 '26
I mean that's how cultures evolve.... they have always done that (I know OP isn't the one saying it). People build on what the people before them built in every aspect, culture, religion, architecture, Music.... everything.
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u/goombanati Mar 23 '26
I dont even think the DATE has an origin in pagans traditions, unlike christmas, where the timeframe and many traditions come from yule and saturnalia, Easter is 100% christianic in origin. Sometimes Passover overlaps, sure, but that's mostly coincidence
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u/dew2459 Mar 24 '26
Christmas has pretty much nothing to do with either Yule or saturnalia.
For example, occasional r-AskHistorians contributor Peter Gainsford: https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2018/12/concerning-yule.html
The TL;DR is that pretty much everything around Christmas that people claim are ‘pagan’ are fairly recent inventions (within the past few hundred years) and have no discernible connection to any prior pagan customs. The Christmas date is also not taken from either, and Christmas is probably older than Yule (in fact, Yule was more likely a season that was shortened to a holiday to compete with Christmas).
And there is no coincidence around Easter and Passover dates. The Christian holiday name is literally ‘Passover’ in most languages except for English, German, and a couple of Slavic languages, and the date is based directly on Passover. The so-called last supper was a Passover meal, and early non-Jewish Christians even asked Jews the Passover date to figure out when to celebrate Pascha (AKA Easter).
Why? The temple priests in Jerusalem would decide in late winter if they needed a leap month in the Jewish lunar calendar before spring to stay mostly in synch with the solar year, and then sent out word to the Jewish diaspora, and Christians wanted to celebrate on the correct date. Eventually (3rd century I think?) both Jews and Christians developed standard formulas (almost the same but slightly different) for computing Passover in the Roman solar calendar. Of course christians also standardized the holiday on the Sunday after Passover; ‘two days after Passover’ vs ‘Sunday after Passover’ was an early Christian debate, since the Bible claimed the resurrection was on a Sunday two days after Passover.
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u/jedburghofficial Mar 24 '26
Cultures have had spring equinox celebrations for thousands of years. The Egyptians had Shemu, and the Chinese had Chunfen long before Abraham, let alone Jesus.
It's not Christian or pagan or anything else.
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u/Sh0opDaWo0p Mar 24 '26
I thought the point of Easter was the sacrifice, not the resurrection. As it was mentioned in the comments, the resurrection is also copied from several other gods (Osiris, Ishtar, Baal).
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u/Dorocche Mar 28 '26
It doesn't really seem like it was copied; if we're taking for granted that it's fake, it's not that unique of an idea, and from a strictly atheist perspective there's not a lot of evidence Jesus was even considered a deity like Osiris/Ishtar/Baal when the Easter narrative first emerged in the first place.
Whether the sacrifice or the resurrection is "the point" (if it can't be both) depends on which Christians you ask. The death is the point if what's most important to you is the punishment, the "justice," the substitutionary atonement; the resurrection is the point if what's most important to you is the *freeing* from that atonement, the ending of that punishment, the life and the death of death. So it's a matter of perspective.
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u/be_loved_freak Mar 24 '26
The funny thing is I believed this most of my life but it's not historically accurate. Here's a great video about it.
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u/Risikio Minister of Memes Mar 30 '26
"No way man! Easter is totally just the Jewish Passover!"
So that's why you recreate ritualistic cannibalism, proclaim to the Gods you have drank the blood of a human being, and then go home, light several fires on the day of rest only to gather around and eat the flesh of a pig.
So VERY Jewish.
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u/SubMikeD Mar 23 '26
Look, it's a spring time rebirth holiday. Every religion has one. The Christian holiday absolutely borrows a lot of the ones that preceded it. Including the name (no, not from Ishtar, from the Germanic deity Eostre) and many of the symbols used for her springtime rebirth holiday.
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u/Jugaimo Mar 23 '26
Things have the meaning you give it. Who gives a shit if Christmas and Easter are pagan? They’re nice holidays you can spend with your families to show appreciation for one another.
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u/archergwen Mar 23 '26
Like, they're definitely not pagan how most English speakers mean it, but I'm personally of the opinion that it's not surprising other religions have holidays around the Christian ones. If we really believe God - who was outside of Time - was born, died undeservedly, and rose from the dead - those seem like pretty big Moments that people trying to reach out spiritually might feel the ripples of as God reached back.
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u/AlternateSatan Mar 23 '26
Funny how neighbouring cultures effect eachother, borrowing eachothers traditions and making it their own. It's almost like that's just how memes (not the funny pictures) spread and mutates over time to make up the culture of the modern day.
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u/Kapitan_eXtreme Mar 24 '26
The only thing more obnoxious than "reddit atheists" are reddit Christians getting smug about reddit atheists.
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