To judge parents who do not even tell their children Easter is a religious festival

[Tuliptana]

I'm shocked that 12 out of 20 children in my childs class had no religious knowledge of the meaning of Good Friday or Easter Sunday for Christians.
All aged 9yrs old.

This is true but there is another side to it. I work in the community, and don't know if my suburb is reflective of the country as a whole.... but the majority of people I encounter who go to Educate Together are religious, just not Catholic. I would say they are significantly more religious or traditional than the average 'cultural' Catholic in Ireland in the local school. Although ET don't do religious instruction I can guarantee you your child would be talking a lot more about religious celebrations form the other kids than they would in the Catholic school. Only it wouldn't be lent and the nativity, but it would be Ramadan and Eid or Holi and Diwali etc. They will be exposed to religious practises one way or another. There's no avoiding it really.

Well... yes... if they come from a practicing Christian family.
Most don't though.

He doesn't debunk that Christians ripped Easter off from existing cultural celebrations though - only that they didn't rip it off from British Pagans specifically.

Since humans could walk upright, every culture has had rituals which celebrate the coming of spring, just as every culture has creation myths.

Christianity co-opted existing celebrations because it was what early Christians already knew

It helps with understanding and familiarity. Why things (like festivals, customs, etc) happen, how they happen , why do they matter.

It helps immensely with creating connexions and finding similarities rather than divisions. So many people have no idea that Muslims view Jesus and most other significant figures in the Bible as prophets and hold them in high regard. That fasting is common among other religions. So many kids don’t realise that the Jewish God is the Christian God in the Old Testament. That Hindus have their own version of the Trinity. And so on. That so much of it is intertwined and interlinked and very similar. Similar tenets , similar creation stories, similar beliefs , similar principles etc.

Religious or not, i’d expect a child of 9 to know the origins of Easter. Is it not taught in school? My children certainly knew at that age.

A child in one of the classes at my DC's C of E school made an Easter card with the message 'Jesus is back. And this time he's brought eggs' 😂

As a practising Christian I don't give a monkeys if other people believe or not. They are exposed to the messages if they go to a faith school and aren't if they don't.

Yes it's Easter but we did nick it from the pagans so I struggle to take the moral high ground in 2026.

Just asked my 9 year-old (and 6 year-old) why we celebrate Easter and both said because Jesus died and came back to life. We're an atheist family (though don't particularly talk about it in front of the kids). School isn't a religious school but they have learnt about easter in school. Surprised so many didn't know!

We aren't religious, but have no issues with learning about different religious. My SS was opted out (by his parents) of religious education in primary due to it being heavily geared toward Catholicism.

The other 4 kids who opted out in his class were of different religious beliefs.

In that case are you going to have a pop at Islam?

In Islamic tradition, there is a creature said to have transported the prophet Muhammad to heaven. Described as “a white animal, half mule, half donkey, with wings on its sides" It was called "Buraq" and was originally introduced into the story of Muhammad’s night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and back, explaining how the journey between the cities could have been completed in a single night.

Muhammad’s third (or fifth, depending on the source) and favourite wife, Aisha, was the daughter of his friend. She was six when she married Muhammad and was nine when the marriage was consummated.

Any comments on that ?

I think we are both confused!

I asked how many non-christian schools were in the OPs catchment, rather than answer you told me to home school, which wasn’t very helpful!

What does any of that have to do with the price of fish?

It’s funny how religious people seem to be the most judgemental and viscous, shame they can’t put their religion to something positive … please though, no preaching!
as for schools - religion theory is the only thing that should be taught in schools … not as fact - because it’s not fact, limited to zero empirical evidence

It’s funny how religious people seem to be the most judgemental and viscous, shame they can’t put their religion to something positive … please though, no preaching!
as for schools - religion theory is the only thing that should be taught in schools … not as fact - because it’s not fact, limited to zero empirical evidence

By that generated by AI metric, there are hundreds of Christian groups that don't worship the Christian God, either. Not every Christian subscribes to the Trinitarian tradition.

But then again, that's the basis for a whole load of persecution of those groups by the dominant Trinitarian ones as well. An ecumenical matter, as it were.

All three faiths believe in and worship the God of Abraham. What they do not agree upon is how that God manifests and consequently, about the significance (or not) of major prophets.

Do your kids know about pesach? What about Yom Kippor? Would you or they know what to buy for some one on Rosh Hashanah? No? Then stop judging folks And expecting the world to revolve around Christianity. Times have changed.

Abhorrence.

Yes, I find all religions ridiculous, foolish and harmful. Fortunately, statistical studies of belief in Muslim countries show that Islam, like Christianity, is also in decline.

Those who think it is some generic pagan spring festival so not know what Easter means. It is primarily Christian.

I didn’t call it nonsense. But saying something can’t be fully comprehended or explained is the definition of a wild idea/concept. Especially since it’s fully man made and agreed upon.

I have faith, I’m just not a massive fan (to put it mildly) of (all) organised religion. So I can debate on both sides , but more than that, I can see the things that don’t quite add up and maybe shouldn’t be taken quite so literally.

Same with transubstantiation. If you literally believe that in that moment you are eating and drinking the actual flesh and blood of Jesus thrugh a “Mystery” , you do you(ignoring the cannibalism angle) but we won’t agree on much. If you are doing it as a symbolic gesture/affirmation of Faith, that’s a whole different thing.

If we all came from Adam and Eve we’d just be deformed, puddles of goo (and extinct by now) , due to all the inbreeding.

We don't celebrate it as a religious festival, and I didn't celebrate it a such growing up either. In fact we don't 'celebrate' it at all - my daughter has time off school as set by the council and I take time off work in line with that. We have a nice time and eat chocolate eggs. It's just a thing that happens. I don't go out of my way to teach her about any religious holidays - she has learned about some of them in school which is fine. Maybe she knows the Christian elements, maybe she doesn't - she's got her whole life to hear about it. Religion isn't part of our life and any holidays we 'celebrate' are done so on a cultural basis, not a religious one. You can judge for that if you like, it makes no odds to me.

Nothing, but it might have to do with the price of 2 fish and some bread.

Why would I explain to them about the bible stories when so much is incorrect and impossible ? We have taught them the difference between fact and fiction and the use of evidence.

I think it depends on the school. My local Catholic school isn't very religious at all and they learn about other religions too which I think is very important. What i think is sad is a recent change locally, there was a gap between my kids and i really noticed it. Our school had adapted very well and kids received basic enough education about different religions. There were a significant portion every year who were not making Holy Communion. Then ET opened locally and all the non Catholics started to go there and it created segregation. It wasn't intentional but that's what happened.

I judge teachers who blame parents for their children not being educated on topics included in the curriculum.
I'm Christian, my children know about Easter. I've not taught them about other religions festivals though so I don't expect other parents to teach theirs about Christian festivals.

Tbf, by ridiculing Christianity, or significant figures in Christianity like Jesus , Joseph, Abraham, Moses etc. you’re also ridiculing Islam as they’re significant figures and revered/respected prophets.