The History of Easter Celebrations
Easter is a Christian rip-off of the Pagan Spring holiday which takes place on March 21st, the vernal equinox, and celebrates the goddess Eastre. The original holiday celebrates fertility and the rebirth of life that comes along with the Spring season. There is much misinformation available about the holiday, which is understandable, since Catholics would prefer not to focus on the shady past of the Church, and ideological organizations do occasionally rewrite history in small ways in order to avoid the sinister image that might come along with such a past.
During the Crusades, the Catholic Crusaders encountered Pagan tribes in northern Europe. Until this point, the process was based on a simple convert or die concept with Muslims having inferior weapons. As the Catholics crusaded northward, though, they found that the tribes were more fierce warrior tribes who would have the heads of anyone who tried to force them into a different ideology. Realizing this, the Catholic church knew that if they were going to plant a seed of Christianity, they would have to go at it a different way. They learned of the Pagan holidays, based on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, as well as the summer and winter solstices. These holidays were based on the position of the Earth, and they were more a celebration than a worship service. Crusaders used these celebrations as a gateway and invented Christmas and Easter to relate to the winter and spring holidays and teach the so-called barbarians about their beliefs. So, that's how Europe became overrun with Christianity.
The rabbit and eggs are the symbols of Easter that are the butt of every holiday joke because they have very little to do with the Christian version of the holiday. Rabbits, renowned for their reproductive speed and success, are symbols of fertility. Eggs are also clear symbols of new life, as is the season itself. Upon deeper examination, this actually begins to fit into the Christian interpretation of the holiday, with Jesus coming back to life, which symbolizes eternal life somehow. This is the connection that the Catholic Church made in an attempt to convert the Pagans to Christianity.
So we have the Pagans to thank for Easter egg hunts, the Easter bunny, and all sorts of chocolaty niceties, and we have Christians to thank for businesses closing, crowded churches, and, more importantly, the continuation of the Pagan holiday. Centuries ago, southern Europe decided northern Europe should believe the same things. And that's why we hide the eggs.
