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.

It’s not a a Christian holiday though? You just rebranded someone else’s holiday. Haven’t you ever wondered why it’s called “Easter”? It’s got absolutely nothing to do with Christians in its origins, any more than Christmas is actually the birthday of Jesus considering he was likely born in March.

It’s really weird to co-opt someone else’s traditions and then get outraged people don’t automatically associate them with your beliefs.

surely though, the vast majority of those who disagree with you @Tuliptana do not have Irish ancestry, therefore would have been unable to apply for an Irish passport?

Unless you are privy to MN poster stats?

It’s a Spring holiday as far as I’m concerned. I’m not religious at all. It’s about good food, chocolate and family time for me. Those who are religious can believe what they want and I don’t judge them - each to their own.

The structure of Easter is:

• Historical core: Passover and the crucifixion/resurrection timeline
• Liturgical calendar: standardized by the early Church
• Cultural layer: local spring traditions added over centuries

Why?

I think the OP is being ridiculous in judging people for not knowing why Christians celebrate easter and more than a bit of a hypocrite - but I do think religion and especially Christianity should be taught in British schools.

Not from a 'this is the truth' point of view but it is important to understand the underlying fundamentals of the different flavours of Christianity because so much of our history and literature is tied to it.

Without a decent knowledge of Christianity, Shakespeare, the Canterbury Tales, Dickens, Chronicles of Narnia, even Lord of the Flies become much harder to fully comprehend.

You also don't stand a chance of a thorough understanding of history - the Crusades, pretty much the entire Tudor period, the English Civil war, the Jacobite uprising, the Troubles - religious differences played a part in all of them.

An understanding of other religions are just as important to fully appreciate more modern history as well as current world politics.

The majority of Easter is not associated with christianity. The eggs and the bunny come from the ancient pagan festival of Eostre. The Christians just put a religious spin on it, the same way they put a religious spin on Yule and renamed it Chrisrmas. But non-Christians can still enjoy the non-Christian parts of both holidays.

When I was 5, I came home from my army school in Germany one afternoon and told my mother that Marjorie Clark had been to school wearing a long black dress and that he had told us a story about a donkey. That was what I took away from the story of Palm Sunday. I remain godless to this day.

(It wasn't until they happened to meet the RC chaplain, Padre Clark, that the mystery of Marjorie being a "he" became clear.)

Whether anyone is remotely religious or not, IMO it’s part of general knowledge.

@scalt The Entertainer toy shops are no longer owned by the Christian family.
They now open Sundays and sell Harry Potter, Halloween merch and other previously "forbidden" things like Pokémon.
I would be interested how much their sales have gone up.

Your mocking a mother whose child died and siblings believed she would come back to life because she was good, because the church and school pushed the resurection at the time a child died. And you feel your comment is ok

Ah right. That’s not how I read it at all so apologies if I got it wrong. Am not religious so thought I’d missed a bit of the story. Sorry@Whathappensinthissituation

Back in the 90s, the meaning of Good Friday was a multiple choice question in an A-level General Studies paper. (I remember, because my sister got it wrong - despite being taken to church every week as a child, and attending a CoE primary.)

@scalt With the ubiquitous story of Joseph, how does one explain to children why Joseph was in prison, because he was shagging Mrs Potiphar?

Try reading Genesis Ch39 v1-23 and you will see that the above is not correct.

What are you saying, won't you think of the children 😱
No chocolate eggs, you are cruel 😂

No. If you see my recent post you’ll notice I read it wrong.

I went to a CofE school that enforced chapel every day. I did RE up to GCSE. But I'm not religious and the story has no real meaning for me and the exact details have got a bit fuzzy. My recollection is

Judas betrayed jesus.
Dinner (a la Michelangelo painting)
Cockrell? Im sure there's a Cockrell that crowed or something? But not entirely sure.
Crown of thorns that made blood drip down his face (not sure how to make that child friendly in my retelling?)
Crucified (again not fun story time)
Donkey! Theres a donkey somewhere, jesus rides it maybe?
Jesus gets buried and emerges with holes in his hands (again not child friendly)
Everyone goes yay, he has risen
He climbs up a hill and levitates up to heaven?
All our sins are forgiven.
The end.

I think if i tried to retell my recollections of the story my dc would be utterly confused and would still rather focus on the chocolate and bunny based traditions that we as a family do celebrate.

Also OP - please feel free to judge me however much you want, but may i gently remind you that jesus encouraged humility and self reflection over condemnation of others (judge not, lest ye be judged, etc)

I think we should pray for them. Judging them doesn't share the message about the purpose of Easter.

For those saying I would not mock Islam: I would. I do. I mock all religious, without fear or prejudice. You may be afraid. I'm not.

I am happy to respect individual religions people. But organised religions and all their tenets and their interference - all fair game.

I’m not Christian. But the UK does have an official state religion, and so living in the UK I believe we should make the effort to know the religious significance of national holidays, whether or not you celebrate them in a religious way.
So I agree OP, I think it’s wrong that people don’t know the religious significance of Easter as much as they know the seasonal significance of spring.
You don’t have to be part of a religion to enjoy the two days off work that we are about to have, but you should know why we are having them.

🤣🤣🤣

Can you point me to your post where you mocked EID?

Thanks.

When my eldest was about the same age we went away for a few days - driving down the motorway, there were some roadworks with big red and white markers that happened to be cross shaped.

Absolutely wet myself laughing when she said "Are those there for Jesus?"

seriously? Ok explaining Christmas as a non-believer is easy - baby born in a stable, lots of animals and stars, good songs, everybody’s happy. But Easter as a non-believer - where do you even start? its very mystical and also sad, I don’t think its on me or the school to explain someone being murdered and then coming back to life but in some mystical way that means nobody is a bad guy permanently or something.

I have to agree with this. I visited NI a couple of years ago and learned so much that is simply not taught in English schools. Madness!