Is there anyone else who isnt religious and thinking why am I buying easter eggs?

[Nbg]

For some reason its really bugged me this year.

I dont believe at all, tbh I think its a load of old clap trap.
However I respect that other people do have beliefs, just before you all jump on me

But I wondered why on earth are my childen getting easter eggs?
I dont believe it, dh although he is catholic and must have some sort of belief in him somewhere, doest care less about it and dd although only 4 has been to church with school on a few occasions and quite clearly has no interest.

This got me thinking about christmas too.
But I see christmas as a time for being with your family and the commercial side now rather than a religious festival if you like.

Has anyone else thought the same things?

Message withdrawn

I'm a secularist, it's all about chocolate for me!

But I wouldn't buy easter eggs anyway till the day after easter, chocolate tastes better when it's 50% off!

I'm an atheist too and as pruners said eggs were never part of the christian religion anyway. Easter and Xmas etc are fun for the kids plus a chance for family to get together.

Well the chocolate part is good obviously

Like Christmas, Easter is basically an ancient, pagan festival, which had a Christian ceremony plonked on top of it to make the transition to Christianity more palatable for early pagans when the missionaries arrived.

It is even named after the pagan goddess Eostre and the eggs, rabbits and cakes are all to do with the traditional springtime celebration and feast, nowt to do with christianity at all.

As an atheist I really enjoy these festivals - to me they are all about nature, the seasons,natural cycles and the urge you get to celebrate in the depths of winter when the days start geting longer (xmas) and in spring when the flowers come out (easter). as a non-christian of course I don't go to church and celebrate christ's birth or the resurrection but I feel totally entitled to do the rest!

As a Christian I struggled to connect Jesus dying on the cross and being resurrected with foil covered chocolate eggs

So I really don't think you are alone

You're right katymac - actually it is Christians who should not be buying chocolate eggs, as they originate in a pagan celebration.

I do tend not to - but they maybe due to having lived above a sweetie shop half my life - Plus Easter Egg Chocolate isn't even nice!

DD got half a wet suit (G'parents bought the other half) but that was more a 'now your taking sailing seriously we'll buy you the kit' type present really

Thats really interesting Snowleopard.
I never knew any of that so thank you

But the egg shapes are to do with the stone arent they?

ooh - what stone?

Obviously eggs are a springtime thing - new life, birds laying eggs etc - though the egg theme might have been linked to aspects of the resurrection story too - is it the stone over the cave (sorry my bible knowledge is sparse to say the least).

Don't think there is any connection at all really. Just that everyone had already been celebrating spring for centuries when the church came along and tried to change its meaning.

After jesus was crucified, he was taken into a cave and they closed it with a big stone that was shaped like an egg.

No?

Has my brain just made that up?

When Christianity came along and hijacked the pagan spring festival, they "borrowed" a lot of the symbolism and tried to give it new, Christian, meanings. So the fertility symbol eggs became the stone they rolled across Christ's tomb. Same with Christmas Yule logs etc ...

By the way I am a Christian, so I do believe in celebrating Christ's birth and the Passion & Resurrection, but I'm happy to admit the timing had more to do with taking oer the midwinter and spring festivals than anything else....

We've just had our street Easter Egg hunt in which we had 12 children and 20 (ish) adults. You find the egg, get the clue that leads you to (my dh this year) the dad holding a box of party bags for each of the children. The parents sort out what goes in the bag so it could be eggs, it could be not. My ds had a pirate bag this year.

For us it's about communtiy coming together, making sure the children -who go to 4 different schools (sore point in our road) have something fun to do with those that live near them.

We don't go mad with eggs (ds got 1) but we use the custom to our own ends. We also do a hallow'een night and Christmas party.

I do agree that it's daft to go too mad on choclate eggs -our neighbour's children had around 10 each the year before last...

Muppet thats a really lovely thing that you do.
How weird though that all your kids go to different schools.

I had no idea about all this pagan stuff.
We were never taught any of this at school.

Nbg - that's 'choice' for you!

It worries me all this school selection.

My dd starts school in September and we will find out at the end of April whether she gets into our local infant school.
There are only 40 places though.

we didn't get our 1st (0.4m) or 2nd (0.5m) choice school -same as our neighbour.

Oh jeez thats bad.

What area of the country are you?
[worried emoticon]