Yes folks, it’ that time of year again where, if you’ve forgotten, there are plenty of people out there who want to remind you what easter really means.
This year we’ve already had Cadbury and The National Trust scolded for dropping the word Easter from their advertising to “Join the Cadbury Egg Hunts”.
Now we’ve had Tesco crucified for promoting discounted beer & cider and saying “Good Friday just got better.”. The supermarket giant has pulled the ad and even apologised.
The great thing is that we’ve got good people like comedian Ricky Gervais making salient comments such as:
Churches can promise eternal life but it’s offensive for Tesco to claim that cheap booze can make Easter more fun? https://t.co/5169dLowiy
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 13, 2017
So, we’re all supposed to believe that the real meaning of Easter is that on “Good Friday” some chap who was the supposed “the son of God” pissed the Romans so much that they make a big public show of humiliating him before nailing him to a cross of wood. We’re now commemorating that story with a religious holiday and then we have “Easter Sunday” where this same chap’s body was placed in a cave and he miraculously came back to life because his dad is the divine being.
This all happened over 2,000 years ago, if it did happen at all.
It’s the same as St. George slaying the dragon. Or the tooth fairy. Or Santa Claus. They’re al made-up stories. Some, we know are not true. But the Christian story is believed by about a third of the world’s population, some 2 billion people, so that makes it a fact, right? I watched an old 1997 episode of The X-Files the other night, an episode titled “Folie a Deux.”
I’m just saying.
However, if you look at human history, you’ll notice that we’ve been around for more than just 2 millennia. Prior to all these “modern day” religions were the old skool ones. Let’s refer to them as Pagan. Pagans are believers other than those of the Abrahamic religions. So if you’re not a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim, then you’re a pagan, from Latin Paganus, or “country dweller” – a derogatory term referring to those who had rustic beliefs when there were more mainstream, populist ideas about make-believe powers in the large Roman cities.
I’m a pagan. A filthy heathen. A non-believer.I love this time of year because it’s Spring. Everything is coming to life again after the winter. The flowers are blooming, blossoms too, the buds in the trees are growing, the leaves unfurling, the animals are courting and the birds are… laying eggs!
Funny that – the birds are laying eggs. Eggs. The sign of Christian Easter. Or at least that’s what they want you to believe and nothing else otherwise they’ll be up in arms and flex their might because they have so much influence and fingers in so many pies. We’re a Christian country, didn’t you know that?
The Christians took the idea of eggs from the pagans and they draw their beliefs from their reverence for nature.
So THAT is what easter really means. Not the rebirth of just ONE character from a set of ancient mass-believed fables, but the rebirth of everything around us, the bursting forth into life of all plants and animals, the changing of the seasons, the lengthening of the days, the circle of life in its ascendancy.
Unfortunately us pagans, us filthy heathens, we don’t have a voice in the media. We don’t have vast wealth, churches, cathedrals etc, the daily religious spot on Chris Evans’ BBC Radio Two show that only ever seems to have Bishops and Rabbis, I don’t ever recall hearing a Druid speak on there (Please do correct me if I’m wrong).
But that’s OK, because it’s Good Friday, it’s my day off and the start of four days off. I’m not working for “the man” and no, I don’t mean THAT one 😉
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