Any other Christians annoyed at what society has turned Easter into?

[Opol]

I’m resigned that the same has been done to Christmas. But for me that is “only” the birth of Christ.

As a Roman Catholic, Easter is of far more importance to me. For me, God’s love for humanity meant he sacrificed his only son. Jesus’ resurrection is literally the embodiment of the victory of light over darkness, good over evil etc.

I don’t wish to gate keep but seeing it reduced to Easter baskets and chocolate rabbits is unpleasant to witness. I’m more annoyed at society making everything hollow and superficial via consumerism and over consumption.

It's print out worthy imo, would save lots of googling 😂

🤣🤣🤣 no it’s just a fat robin for Christmas these days.

Transported to Australia for having a religious meeting that was not C of E

Don't you love the tolerance?

Conventicle Act 1664 - Wikipedia

And the 5 mile Act

Five Mile Act 1665 - Wikipedia

More Christian values this country was based on?

More tolerance and Love thy neighbour

De heretico comburendo - Wikipedia

I strongly suspect that a lot of the history of religion and State involvement over the centuries is not known by many people.

Yes they are

utter bollocks obviously

And round and round and round we go.
An everchanging world whether for good or bad.

OP I share your perspective but not your annoyance.

For Christians such as us, Easter offers a profoundly rich spiritual experience, with the moving Passion narrative of Holy Week, beautifully enriched by the music of Bach, Stainer and others, culminating in the Resurrection and Promise of eternal life. For others, it offers two bank holidays, buns and chocolate.

I know which I’d rather have but people are free to choose. Happy Easter, Christ is Risen, we still have 49 days of feasting to go!

Christmas and Easter are re-imaginings of pagan festivals - easier to get the non-believers converted that way. So YABU.
These are cultural festivals and if you want to continue believing in a ‘god’ who controls everything - go for it. But the rest of us will celebrate our long weekend how we please, and if that’s with family time, Easter egg hunts and fluffy bunnies then so be it.
And I say that as someone who was raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools, was baptised, confirmed etc.

I suspect many older people have learnt and know all this from school.
We were certainly taught it as basic standard stuff.
The curriculum has slowly eeked away much of religious history due to pressure from society and parents, so yes many probably don’t know these days.
Rather sad really as it’s an important part of our history.

‘Happy Easter, Christ is Risen’

its a cult, isn’t it. It’s only when you escape a cult like I did, you realise how mad it all is.

I was never taught much of this stuff - I did social and economic history with a focus on things like the Corn Law, Peterloo, Unionism, the Industrial Revolution

Maybe a knowledge of how religion was used to persecute and oppress people with other beliefs and none would be useful for people to know.

There’s a huge difference between religion and a cult.
Its a simple google if you are interested.

i know roman catholics whom celebrate rebirth with easter eggs, hot cross buns, simnel cake, lamb etc..they have people round for easter lunch. Its not about the 'things' for them but the celebration and getting people together to be thankful for what we have

this

my mum had an incredibly strong faith and went through so much in her life that would turn a lot of us away from the church….she still liked a chocolate egg though

(and we got books as an easter present which i still do for my children….I remember asking for Christine by stephen king one easter and my mum flicked through it 😳 i did not get that book for easter 😀)

I am pretty surprised by the number of people on this thread who are personally upset by the fact that Christians "stole" the Pagan festival of springtime. Pagans don't have a monopoly on celebrating the spring.

Christians celebrate being granted the gift of eternal life at the same time as spring comes in the Northern Hemisphere - so all the rebirth and renewal going on around us in nature is reflected in our Easter celebrations. Christians celebrate the resurrection at the same time as celebrating rebirth and renewal and fertility in God's creation. They are metaphors for each other.

Now the green blade rises from the barren grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain.
Love lives again, that with the dead had been -
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

@cakeorwine i actually agree with all this, but not sure the point it’s trying to make in terms of celebration of Easter and Christian values. So there are Christian values, which are good values and a good ‘blueprint’ to live your life by, in my opinion anyway. I won’t go through what the values are, if you read the Gospels you will get the jist. A few very bad (usually men) throughout history did very bad things in the name of Christ, but were not following Christian values. Most people including Christian’s would agree this is bad. This still happens today - awful things are committed in the name of Christianity, atheism, Islam, insert any ideology really - usually by people in positions of power - maybe it’s power that corrupts. Jesus, by the way, was the antithesis of earthly power. However, this still doesn’t mean that the Christian values (that these people weren’t following) aren’t valid, and that a lot of the ‘moral compass’ of the majority of the population aren’t influenced in some way - ie helping the poor, tolerance etc. I mean, we all know that the laws and ways of living listed are wrong - ie do not kill, where do we get the idea from that they are wrong! It hasn’t always been like this. In Roman and Greek times, the fittest in society surviving and sports like gladiators where people were killed for entertainment was very much accepted. Pre - Christian times.

We were taught it as part of RS, there was very little time spent on other religions in those days.
Plus history and to some extent Classics
before O levels, during and as part of Alevels particularly.

@Wibblywobblylikejelly

MintCocoa
Communism = over 100 millions people killed
Nazism = over 17 millions

I was born and raised in a communist country where being a Christian was an act of mutiny.

Every totalitarianism eradicates religion. The only allegiance allowed is that to the state.

"And Christinaity has, I would say, easily hit that number.

Witch trials.
The crusades
Catholic/ protestant drama
The baby's still being dug up.
The natives begging to find their missing loved ones.
The violent sexual abuse."

Not a chance that Christianity has hit that number. For a start the entire entire world population up to the 1600s was only 500 million and many of those lived outside Europe and were non Christian. Secondly what exactly were deaths caused by Christianity- most wars at the time as they are today were politically driven but every King wanted "God on his side" so for PR reason labelled them as Christian. Thirdly the deaths caused by Communism from Mao's great leap forward to Stalinist purges way way outstripped anything caused by Christianity.

The popular quote that religion causes more deaths than anything else is pure bollocks and quoted by those with no knowledge of history.

Maybe people are celebrating spring. I could make up a new never been done day today if I wanted and it might catch on.....its our choice. We celebrate what we want how we want and if there's enough interest then shops etc will watch on and produce things.

It shouldn't also be one of the other ....People can celebrate spring along with Jesus resurrection.

I think the annoyance is regarding certain Christians decrying any other celebration of the feast than they seem acceptable tbh. If you're a Christian, go on ahead and celebrate how you want. Let everyone else do their own thing.

"So there are Christian values, which are good values and a good ‘blueprint’ to live your life by, in my opinion anyway. I won’t go through what the values are, if you read the Gospels you will get the jist."

Based on another thread, it seems that people disagree on Christian values - and that the Gospels aren't the only source.

There are people who claim to be Christian but who definitely do not espouse the Christian values in the Gospels.

Excellent points here 👏

@cakeorwine completely agree on Christians not living up to the values of the Gospels - in fact I’ll include myself in this, of course there are times every day where I don’t live up to Christian values, no one can really. That’s partly the point 🤷‍♀️

And there are some people who actually live against those teachings - who don't even try to live up to them, but actively go against them.

And who would be the first to dismiss Jesus and his teachings.