Have a wonderful Easter!

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#1 Have a wonderful Easter!

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As it was once explained to me, all of us were born, but only one has come back from death.

May your blessings be many and peace fill your heart.
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#2 Re: Have a wonderful Easter!

Post by tmacklin »

And a Happy Easter to you as well Bernie.

Actually, the word "Easter" was an error made by the translators when the King James Version was penned. The Last Supper was actually the Passover when Jesus was about to become the Sacrificial Lamb of God. Instead, the Romans chose to celebrate fertility. :shock:
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#3 Re: Have a wonderful Easter!

Post by luke strawwalker »

tmacklin wrote:And a Happy Easter to you as well Bernie.

Actually, the word "Easter" was an error made by the translators when the King James Version was penned. The Last Supper was actually the Passover when Jesus was about to become the Sacrificial Lamb of God. Instead, the Romans chose to celebrate fertility. :shock:
"Easter" is one of those things to come out of the Roman Catholic church when it was founded. The Roman Emperors had been trying to stamp out Christianity in the Roman Empire for a very long time-- first by outlawing it and putting Christians to death in the Arena (feeding them to lions, burning at the stake, crucifixions, etc) and having failed utterly, Christianity continued to flourish despite being "illegal". This created political problems for Rome, because eventually SO many members of its population were Christian and they had growing SO much in influence that it was simply no longer possible to "stamp them out" without gravely damaging or splitting the Empire, and causing all sorts of problems. SO, the Emperor Constantine decided to 'convert' to Christianity and thus exercise his "rightful role" as leader of the Roman Christians and Roman Pagans alike. However, there was the problem of how to "reconcile" the differences between Roman Paganism (the Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses and the beliefs and rituals associated with their "worship") and the fundamental tenets of Christianity. The Emperor and politicians looked at this as purely a political problem, not a theological problem, and set out to "meld" the two belief systems together into a single new "Roman" system...

The Romans had long celebrated the "birth of the Sun" (Sol, the sun in the sky) in late December, as they viewed it as the Sun "growing older and older" as the days got shorter and shorter up to the December 21st Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year) and then the "birth of the NEW Sun" as the days began to lengthen after that... The first day that it is possible, without scientific instruments or by the "naked eye" or without precise measurements of time or angles and such to determine that the days are indeed getting longer again AFTER the December 21st Winter Solstice is on December 25th... Hence since the Pagans celebrated the "birth of the Sun" around this time and the Scriptures give no mention of when Jesus (the SON of God) was born, the politicians merely "melded" these two themes together, and declared that December 25th would be celebrated as the "birth of the SUN" AND "the birth of the SON", which was a perfect political solution-- it brought the Pagan and Christian sects of the Empire together, each celebrating their own "version" of the events...

Similarly, the Pagans had long celebrated in spring the feast of Ishtar, the goddess of fertility. They did this by various rites and rituals, usually themed around sexual fertility and practices, worship of icons of fertility (like rabbits which reproduce prolifically, having several litters of babies, usually up to ten at a time, several times per year) and eggs (which are of course the embodiment of reproduction for birds, reptiles, and other other such life forms) and were seen as symbols of fertility and virility, and they celebrated this feast of Ishtar in hopes of promoting a flourishing and fruitful crop year since it was around planting time. This also happened to roughly coincide with the time of Jesus death on the cross, which occurred shortly after the Passover. SO, again the politicians stepped in and declared that "Easter" would be celebrated in place of both the Pagan "feast of Ishtar" and the Christian "Passover/crucifixion/rising from the dead" of Christ, again bringing the pagan half and Christian half of the Empire together instead of setting them at odds against each other as had been to that point.

Now, the problem came in that the pagan celebration was determined by the lunar cycle and the spring equinox on March 21st, rather than any "fixed date", since the date changed due to the differences between the lunar cycles and the calendar months. SO, if they declared that it would be celebrated on a "certain date" of the year, there would be a lot of "die hard" pagans who would refuse to celebrate "Easter" on that mandated day, instead choosing to celebrate it on the "calculated day" per the lunar cycle in relation to the spring equinox. Of course if a person died on a given DATE, ie my Dad passed October 25th, 2016, then his "death date" will forever remain Oct 25th of each year, REGARDLESS of whether that is a full moon, new moon, first or last quarter, etc, or what day of the week that falls on, on in what combination with the lunar cycle. SO, they HAD to adopt the pagan method of determining WHEN the feast of Ishtar was supposed to be, in order to get the pagans on board. SO, the politicians declared that the determination of when "Easter" would be is determined by the same method used to determine when the "feast of Ishtar" was to be performed-- the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, which is March 21st. Since the lunar cycle is 28 days, and the week is 7 days long, the counting starts at the Spring Equinox, March 21st, so the earliest Easter can occur is March 22nd, assuming the full moon is on the spring equinox (March 21st) and that the spring equinox also happens to be a Saturday, so the next day after it is the first Sunday after the full moon after the equinox. The latest "Easter" can happen is April 25th. This is assuming that the full moon happens the DAY BEFORE the spring equinox, (full moon on March 20th, equinox on the 21st) and therefore the next full moon will occur 28 days later, and assuming that the full moon occurs on a Sunday the NEXT Sunday won't be for 7 more days after that, hence 35 days after the equinox. Of course since the lunar cycle does not align on the same days year after year (12 "lunar months" is 354 days, compared to the solar year's 365.25 days length) and the fact that the number of days of the year (365.25) divided by the number of days of the week is NOT a whole number (7 days per week) which causes this date to be "the next day" the following year (excluding leap years which skip over the following day-- IE April 1st is Sunday this year, next year it will be Monday, but in 2020 April 1st will be on a Wednesday (it'll skip Tuesday because it's a leap year). Because of all these "possible combinations" of permutations, "Easter" can therefore fall anywhere between March 22nd and April 25th.

Now, of course that shows it has NOTHING to do with the "date of Jesus crucifixion and rising from the dead". Those events would have occurred on SPECIFIC DATES if they did... at the very least, they would be timed to coincide with the Jewish Passover, which is when Jesus partook of the Last Supper, prayed in the Garden, was arrested, beaten, tried, and Crucified, and rose out of the tomb on the third day. It is in NO WAY tied to the "lunar cycle and spring equinox". It was STRICTLY a political decision designed to 'appease the masses' and prevent continuing strife between the Roman pagans and the Roman Christians. The ascendancy and dominance of the Catholic church then "established" "Easter" as a rite or ritual belief throughout Christianity. The true Christian following the BIBLE rather than the man-made dictates of the Roman Catholic church pandering to political expediency of the time however realize that there is really no connection between Jesus and "Easter" as the world celebrates it...

SO that's why you've got Christmas in December (though we have ABSOLUTELY NO scriptural evidence of when Jesus was born-- it could just as easily have been in June as December) with trees and mistletoe and these other sorts of pagan symbols, as well as an "Easter" celebration of Jesus death and resurrection based on man-made lunar cycle calculations and stuff, filled with eggs and rabbits and other pagan symbols of fertility... They're both a mish-mash of Christian and pagan symbols and times and celebrations.

Later! OL J R :)
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#4 Re: Have a wonderful Easter!

Post by tmacklin »

That's a great explanation of how Easter came to be what it is. Now, can anyone explain "Daylight Savings Time"?
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#5 Re: Have a wonderful Easter!

Post by luke strawwalker »

tmacklin wrote:That's a great explanation of how Easter came to be what it is. Now, can anyone explain "Daylight Savings Time"?
That was thought up by Benjamin Franklin... probably when he was drunk or whoring around LOL:) Or right after his hair was curled flying kites in lightning storms... LOL:)

Later! OL J R :)
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#6 Re: Have a wonderful Easter!

Post by bernomatic »

tmacklin wrote:That's a great explanation of how Easter came to be what it is. Now, can anyone explain "Daylight Savings Time"?
It actually caused me to do some further research, where upon I found out additional answers, since I was wondering how the day was moved from the Jewish Passover to the current reckoning, since the Jewish people wouldn't seem to be inclined to accommodate the Roman Empire.
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#7 Re: Have a wonderful Easter!

Post by Commander »

Worthy of a bump.

May you find strength in the Jesus and his story, no matter when the actual day is.

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#8 Re: Have a wonderful Easter!

Post by luke strawwalker »

Commander wrote: Sun, 21 Apr 19, 18:10 pm Worthy of a bump.

May you find strength in the Jesus and his story, no matter when the actual day is.

Bernie
Good point and well said!

OL J R
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