What the fuck does a bunny have to do with Jesus?

[snooper2]

I'm 33 years old and have never understood this. Was walking through Tom Thumb after a little :smoke: and noticed the Easter crap out already. Bunnies, baskets, eggs, etc.,

I have never understood what in the hell bunnies have to do with Jesus ( Jesus rising from dead or some crap>? )

Or, to take it further, since when do rabbits lay eggs....What a stupid Holiday....

oh, agnostic/athiest here....

[LynneSin]

1. Why do we know what day the guy was born but can't figure out why day he died

:shrug:

[Sequoia]

59. Jesus wasn't born on December 25 that's for sure.

Most likely on March 28 (my birthday!) or in September. And then sometimes Good Friday falls on March 28 too. The bunnies were thrown into the holiday because it's spring. And bunnies deliver easter eggs because hens don't have hands I guess.

[Initech]

2. Bill Hicks' take on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnjFhdO90Rg

:rofl:

[DS1]

11. thanks

was going to find and post that

[theredpen]

46. I love Bill Hicks

[BeachBaby]

3. Well, as an agnostic/atheist here......

I lump the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy and the Bible Story all in the same category. Until proven otherwise, they are all fairy tales.

But that's just me. :)

[Orrex]

4. Is it a shitbunny?

Easter has a long-standing tradition of High Art, you know.

[Reverend_Smitty]

5. I believe Eddie Izzard has the definitive answer on this question

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJfRzNOJNE

[NMDemDist2]

15. egggggssssxactly!

:rofl:

[Reverend_Smitty]

17. I always defer to the great Izzard for the answers to life's little mysteries

[youthere]

44. "You all just look at me like, look! He's doing the big arms thing!"

:rofl:

[Sweet Freedom]

6. The Pagan Origins of the Easter Bunny

<snip>
Have you ever wondered where the celebration of the Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ acquired its unusual name and odd symbols of colored eggs and rabbits?

The answer lies in the ingenious way that the Christian church absorbed Pagan practices. After discovering that people were more reluctant to give up their holidays and festivals than their gods, they simply incorporated Pagan practices into Christian festivals. As recounted by the Venerable Bede, an early Christian writer, clever clerics copied Pagan practices and by doing so, made Christianity more palatable to pagan folk reluctant to give up their festivals for somber Christian practices.

In second century Europe, the predominate spring festival was a raucous Saxon fertility celebration in honor of the Saxon Goddess Eastre (Ostara), whose sacred animal was a hare.

The colored eggs associated with the bunny are of another, even more ancient origin. The eggs associated with this and other Vernal festivals have been symbols of rebirth and fertility for so long the precise roots of the tradition are unknown, and may date to the beginning of human civilization. Ancient Romans and Greeks used eggs as symbols of fertility, rebirth, and abundance- eggs were solar symbols, and figured in the festivals of numerous resurrected gods.

</snip>

http://altreligion.about.com/cs/alchemy/a/mpreviss.htm

[snooper2]

10. Thanks for posting that...

Still doesn't make any sense,

So some cleric is standing around and talking to another cleric, hmm, we got to get this resurrection thing going. Let's lump it in with their bunny holiday, that will do the trick... :rofl:

Actually, maybe it did...

I'm going to start polling co-workers this question...

[supernova]

16. That's exactly how it happened

"some cleric is standing around and talking to another cleric, hmm, we got to get this resurrection thing going. Let's lump it in with their bunny holiday,"

[Sweet Freedom]

32. You're welcome. /nt

[Kajsa]

42. Thanks Dist22dem,

I love finding out the origins of celebrations.
( and customs, and words, etc.)

Do you know how the day for Easter is determined?

Here goes,

the first Sunday after the first full moon
after the Spring Equinox.

THAT'S why it's so early this year.

There's a full moon on March 22- one day after the Spring Equinox.

:)

[Sweet Freedom]

48. I've heard the Easter formula before, but

I've never been able to remember it!

My kiddo asked me the other day why Easter always changes dates. The best I could come up with is, "It just does." :P

[Kajsa]

56. That's how I explain a few unexplainable

English grammar/spelling rules.:)


Spring Equinox-Full Moon-First Sunday=Easter.

:hi:

[LostinVA]

7. Easter is actually a totally Pagan holiday

Bunnies=Fertility Symbols.

[electron_blue]

14. Ah. and see I always thought of it as a totally chocolate holiday.

[skater314159]

52. I got my Czech Absinthe Chocolates again...

... ensures a nice, happy, holiday with the Green Fairy.

[qb]

8. I always wondered why Jesus was mixed up in my favorite holidays...

In my family...
Christmas (I use the term generically) is all about greenery, lights and presents!
Easter is all about bunnies, eggs, and candy!
:bounce:

[trof]

9. Jesus had a pet bunny who chased the snakes out of Ireland.

Clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ez5QPW-ku4

[snooper2]

13. That's greatness...

thanks

[MorningGlow]

12. Absolutely nothing

It's all about fertility, baby!

Darned Christians, stepping all over our nice little pagan celebration of spring...

[DarkTirade]

30. Ayup.

When it comes around I usually tell people, "Happy bunnies humping day." :P

[stuntcat]

18. that is in fact a DEVIL BUNNY

:scared: What's up? with the big teeth? :scared:

[mikeytherat]

19. This:

Easter Bunny Jesus died for your sins! Your creamy, delicious, chocolaty sins!

mikey_the_rat

[stuntcat]

20. pft!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[flygal]

29. WHERE did you get that!!!

Oh my God I'm dying here!!! :rofl:

[mikeytherat]

31. That was from The Onion, I believe (as is the one below).

I can't be certain, though, because these no longer appear to be on The Onion's website.

mikey_the_rat

[Pacifist Patriot]

21. I'm sure you've been given all sort of histories of Easter..

so I won't rehash them here. But I will tell you about a conversation I was once involved in. A group of us were sitting around talking about the history of holidays shortly before Easter. We were a rather ecumenical bunch ranging from atheists to eclectic spiritualists to a Muslim and a Christian. Finally one woman said, "Goodness, isn't there one thing Christianity did that was original?" Without missing a beat the Christian woman said, "Sure, we're the only religion to have converted an execution device into a piece of jewelry." Needless to say that broke us up.

I related the story during an Easter sermon to UUs once and it was the only time I ever got blow-back. I was deemed disrespectful to Christians on the holiest of their days. Odd considering I was relaying a true story, it wasn't something I said, the person who did say it was the only Christian there and none of the people complaining about the comment in the sermon were Christian! Oy.

[LostinVA]

22. OMFG

That's hilarious.

[FloridaJudy]

23. Christopher Moore has the answer

In Lamb - the memoir of Jesus' best buddy Biff. It's a side-splitting but remarkably reverent take on the New Testament.



The explanation he comes up with makes sense to me.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

24. Paulie -- The Passover Parrot

Same thing...

[LanternWaste]

25. Acculturation

"Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acculturation

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

26. Lo!!! On the third day, Jesus aroseth and spaketh

"Man, I'm starving!!! Anybody got any painted eggs or chocolate bunnies?"

[MissB]

27. Already? Pssst... Easter is on March 23rd.

[Goblinmonger]

28. I'm with you, but it isn't so early for Easter stuff to be out

It is on the 23rd, you know.

Little tidbit, March 22nd is the earliest Easter can be and it won't be this early for like 200 more years or something.

[tigereye]

33. spring and renewal?

I don't know.

[HEyHEY]

34. A guy nail to a cross isn't cuddly hence not marketable

[Recursion]

35. Bunny = co-opt the pagans

The pagans were running around emulating bunnies in spring and the church said, "hell, we should get some of that, too"

[DarkTirade]

36. Ironic that you use the word 'fuck' there.

Because that's what the bunny stands for. Fucking.

Eggs are for fertility.

Nothin' to do with Jesus, just a pagan fertility festival that continued on under a christian guise once christianity took over europe.

[joeybee12]

37. An Orthodox Catholic friend in the Ukraine e-mailed me about this today...

...I had no freaking clue.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

38. I thought about that at the grocery store last week after I toked up too, lol.

Stoners minds are all connected.

[snooper2]

69. greatness...

This thread has lasted longer than any thread I have ever posted ...

:rofl:

[RainDog]

39. what does killing someone...

have to do with fertility?

hmm, since you're 33, and easter day is almost here... we could try an experiment or something?

[unpossibles]

58. it's not the killing, it's the rebirth

which has been connected to fertility since ancient times.

[RainDog]

60. my post was a joke.

but actually, the killing was part of it in some cultures for a long time... sacrifice and sprinkle blood on the fields... which, btw, has some basis in science because blood meal and bone meal both serve as nutrients for soil and as natural defenses against some animals (b/c they won't cross the boundary of a field that smells like animal blood.) Blood meal is still used for rabbit control, for instance.

some farmers plant dead animals under trees because the bone is good for the soil. not to mention the benefits of micro-organisms acting upon the body and the soil.

so the move from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to chocolate bunny sacrifice if all just part of the circle of life...

[unpossibles]

67. well, you can't make an omelet without

killing people in a symbolic ritual.

Or something like that.

[Hand]

40. ...

[skater314159]

53. As Dwight Schrute said:

May I point out that the sex appeared to be consensual - both animals were smiling.

I grew up on a farm. I have seen animals having sex in every position imaginable.
Goat on chicken.
Chicken on goat.
A couple of chickens doing a goat.
A couple of pigs watching.

Whoever drew this got it exactly right.

[Twillig]

64. That's the punchline to the joke: "why does the easter bunny hide his eggs?"

He doesn't want anybody to know he's fucking a chicken.

[hippywife]

41. Well, I've heard

that the custom of an egg hunt was begun when Jesus found out he had a cholesterol problem. If they were eating eggs and saw him coming, the apostles would hide all the eggs so he couldn't find them.

(I think that was an old Carlin joke. Can't remember!)

[TommyO]

43. The real story of the "Easter Bunny" was best told by South Park

I'm truly surprised that nobody else posted this yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Easter_Special

From Comedy Central:

http://southpark.comedycentral.com/video_by_episode.jhtml?episodeId=103208

[RainDog]

61. That's my FAVORITE South Park

Hippitus Hoppitus...

[snooper2]

70. I totally forgot that episode

:rofl:

Hare club for men :)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

45. It's a rite of spring! We're all s'posed to fuck like bunnies!

[uppityperson]

47. I finally figured it out. Try this... (seriously)

Being a secular humanist, how could I morally celebrate this with my offspring?

The word "Easter" came from Ashtoreh and Astarte, both old female fertility goddesses. Cool. That helps with the name.
Bunny reproduce like mad, so do chickens, both of which typically start doing so in the spring. So, spring celebration is about life continuing, renewing, regenerating.
Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. That helps with the timing.

Now, the Jesus part. Aside from the Seder/last supper thing (timing), what I could figure is that Easter is actually the Most High Holy Holiday (is that redundant?) of people who are Christians (notice "are", not "call themselves"). The reason being that Jesus got to regenerate, renew, didn't go "oh crap I'm dead" but (mystical part, allegorical or real? Whatever) got to continue living (rose to heaven or wasn't really dead so lived on in this lifetime somewhere).

So, spring celebration is about renewing, life continuing. The Christianity part is about Jesus doing the same. The rabbit and chick part is about life renewing, continuing on. Flowers are coming up. The dark time of year is departing. The sun is coming back (ok, because of the tilt of the Earth's axis, we of the northern hemisphere are getting more and more daylight). Time to take a breath, appreciate life, realize I made it through another dark time and look forward to it being lighter, warmer, outside more, doing more with other people, the cycle comes around again. (aha, that was the last Jesus part, about light returning).

Simpler: it's all pretend, magic, foolery. If you don't like peeps or chocolate, appreciate the fact that soon there will be an outbreak of chickenpox and/or shingles near you since they are both encouraged to thrive by some amino acid present in chocolate and nuts. hahahahahahahaha.

?

[madinmaryland]

49. Jesus was a buck-toothed rabbit?

:wtf:

:rofl:

[Chovexani]

50. Since people already answered it for you

I'll just post my favorite Easter bunny graphic.

[skater314159]

51. Jesus is really Zeus' Jewish kid...

... unfortunately he thinks he's THE SON OF GOD™, and due to some of his later "followers" who knew a good thing when they saw it, Pagan stuff (like bunnies, fertility, and fucking) got co-opted.

And let's be honest folks, aren't cute fluffy bunnies much better than bloody pictures of Roman death-penalty cases? I'd much rather have happy alive Jesus (preferably noshing and enjoying some wine) than dying/dead Jesus - the horror of torture is a bit too much for me.

[MassLiberal]

54. because bunnies are simply divine!

Duh! ;-)

[laconicsax]

55. It's a co-opted from a pagan holiday.

A holiday named after a spring fertility goddess named "Eoster."

Bunnies are fertile, and if you're willing to believe half the stuff that most religions claim, then why the hell not have them lay eggs?

[unpossibles]

57. well, bunnies, eggs, and resurrected sky gods are all about the renewal of Spring

fertility symbols and all that jazz.

[Demeter]

62. Bunnies Have to Do With Easter--Which the Catholic Church Perverted

http://altreligion.about.com/cs/alchemy/a/mpreviss.htm

[momophile]

63. the Equinox is on the 20th this year and Easter the 23rd

so we'll be dying our Equinox Eggs Friday and hunting for them Saturday. Convenient this year. As soon as the little one starts asking, we'll tell her about the Pagan holidays and the Christian ones and why we do weird things like color eggs and put ornaments on trees.

[LibertyLover]

65. Even the name "Easter" is pagan -

and ultimately derives from the goddess Eostre, a west German goddess associated with dawn who was celebrated at the spring equinox or Ostara. The old English word "Eastre", from where Easter comes, derived from Eostre, is cognate with the term "east".

[Javaman]

66. It goes like this...

Jesus had a pet bunny named Ester. Ester loved him some Jesus.

One day, Jesus and Ester were hungry and decided to "liberate" a few eggs from the hen house.

After getting the eggs, they went around to the far side of the barn to eat them.

Mary found him there with the eggs.

and Jesus said, I can't tell a lie, they are Ester's Eggs.

And there you have it.

Happy now?

[Shine]

68. Easter was originally a pagan holiday. The goddess Oestara had a rabbit as her companion.

Rabbits are symbols of Fertility, which is abundant in the Spring time.

http://www.janih.com/lady/sabbats/ostara.html

[ElboRuum]

71. Easter is much like Christmas...

It's a pagan holiday, more akin to seasonal festivals than the actual elements of any Christian religion. Easter is the coopting of pagan spring rituals, and the bunny and the eggs are symbols of fertility. Rabbits can have huge numbers of offspring, and eggs symbolize conception. In tune with this is Jesus Christ's supposed resurrection, the rising from the dead, so the Christians coopted the pagan spring festival as their own to celebrate this. In modern times, most Christian observances which have had pagan roots have brought along the pagan trappings as well to create a secular holiday. Easter? The eggs, the bunnies, though I'm not certain of the cocoa fetish and where that comes from. Christmas? Trees, presents... although egg nog is a stumper. Hallowe'en (All Hallows Eve) has the ghouls and the goblins, although, I'm not sure what the religious significance (if any) there is any more to it.

[intaglio]

72. Usual Christian theft of a perfectly good pagan festival

Bede said the Angles and Saxons had a godess called Eostre for whom the lunar April was named (Eostre-Monath) but he might have been confusing it with Ostar-Monath from the Germanic for month of opening - personally I go with Bede as you can still find villages in Eastern England with the word Easter in their name I'm no expert tho'

The Bunny was originally a Hare, a creature very sacred to dawn and moon godesses. The hare has it's breeding rituals in March (the mad march hare) and baby hares would have started to appear in April.

Eggs, again very sacred symbols of fertility and goodness and also associated with the Moon.