Author Topic: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara  (Read 71057 times)

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #30 on: April 06, 2015, 03:03:51 pm »
I'm sorry to hear you had a strange Easter, FRiend. It was nice but nothing especially special in these parts. I even got a seat on a very crowded train back to the city late yesterday afternoon!
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #31 on: April 06, 2015, 04:11:22 pm »
I really don't mean to beat a dead horse over this Easter Sunrise Service business, but here's something interesting that I just found:

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

Of course, this article is a bit self-referential: A Moravian Church history magazine credits the Moravian Church with beginning the tradition of holding a sunrise service on Easter Morning (check the footnote). This may well be the case, or it may not. I think the point I'd like to make, or the question I'd like to ask, is whether anyone of whatever religious tradition who claims that an Easter sunrise service is a survival of pagan sun worship has actually bothered to research the history of the tradition of an Easter sunrise service, or just jumped to a conclusion?
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #32 on: April 06, 2015, 05:37:35 pm »
No, I really can't say whether the author of that Guardian piece did his/her due diligence and traveled back in time to ask the early Christian leaders whether they deliberately modeled the first Easter sunrise service on a pagan sun worshiping ritual. But it seems logical to me that when the early leaders were designing the first Easter celebrations, they probably chose to have some kind of a recognition at sunrise to mark the glorious moment when Mary and the other Mary found the stone rolled away. And one of the leaders might have mentioned in passing that they were likely to have a good turnout because the pagans (pagan means "people of the country") were used to worshiping at sunrise at that time of the year anyway.

One thing I do know is that it's called Easter, which is what the pagans called their spring rituals. My daughter's church doesn't use Easter. They call it "Resurrection Sunday." When to celebrate Easter and some other traditions were decided at the Synod of Whitby in 664. The date of Easter is calculated using the lunar calendar, and that is not particularly Christian. I've been to Whitby and studied the early Celtic church. It's really very fascinating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Whitby
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline CellarDweller

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 38,298
  • A city boy's mentality, with a cowboy's soul.
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #33 on: April 07, 2015, 08:44:08 am »
No strange Easter here.  Had a nice time with the family, and a big Italian meal.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #34 on: April 07, 2015, 02:38:56 pm »
So what was Easter dinner, lamb, ham, or lasagna?
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #35 on: April 07, 2015, 08:20:59 pm »
I ended up having mushroom ravioli, which was very good. After an Easter service and brunch (eggs, pancakes, ham, fruit) at the church, I went to my usual first Sunday of the month Sherlock Holmes meeting. They had talked about moving the meeting to another Sunday, but that wouldn't work because there are Jane Austen, Woodhouse, and various other book club meetings on the other Sundays. And a sizeable percentage of the members are Jewish or agnostic, anyway.

On the subject of dates for Easter, my daughter's faith (Messianic Judaism) believes that Jesus was not born in December, either. So they don't celebrate Christmas and they celebrate His birth in the fall. Apparently it is historically possible to calculate when the census was called by Caesar Augustus, so they were able to determine accurately when He was born.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline CellarDweller

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 38,298
  • A city boy's mentality, with a cowboy's soul.
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #36 on: April 08, 2015, 08:56:51 am »
So what was Easter dinner, lamb, ham, or lasagna?

We had baked ziti, meatballs, chicken and eggplant parm.

:)  Of course, bread, salad and corn for sides.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #37 on: April 08, 2015, 09:33:41 am »
We had baked ziti, meatballs, chicken and eggplant parm.

:)  Of course, bread, salad and corn for sides.

Sounds delicious!  :)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline CellarDweller

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 38,298
  • A city boy's mentality, with a cowboy's soul.
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #38 on: April 08, 2015, 03:07:13 pm »
It was, and I got leftovers for home!!!


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline CellarDweller

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 38,298
  • A city boy's mentality, with a cowboy's soul.
Re: We've never had a thread about Easter dinner, or Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #39 on: April 13, 2017, 06:56:06 pm »
Just found out the plans for Easter.

We're meeting at mom & dad's place on Sunday.  The meal will consist of some ham,  chicken parm,  eggplant parm, and the usual sides  (salad, corn)

I've made goodie bags to hand out filled with various chocolates.


I've offered to make Broken Glass for dessert.






Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!