A Secular Easter March 24, 2008

A Secular Easter

By Guest Contributor
March 24, 2008

Ben‘s immediate family isn’t religious. Neither is his uncle. His aunt is religious, but just barely.

So what happens when they all get together on Easter Sunday?

… the religious nature of it was completely missing. I only heard one reference to God the whole time, and that was when my dad made one of his usual faux pas comments, asking “Nobody here really believes Jesus died for our sins, right?” I didn’t hear anyone with an affirmative answer. I suppose that could be incredibly offensive at other people’s Easter celebrations, but we just sort of groaned at him a bit and continued eating.

Secular celebrations on religious holidays can and do happen!

(via Cyde Weys Musings)


[tags]atheist, atheism, Christian[/tags]

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  • Chaim Krause

    I celebrated easter by nailing a bunny to a cross.

    Oh!…

    and I ate a baby.

  • BowserTheCat

    We had a nice supper and discussed the nature of delusion with my 12 year old. All in all a good excuse for a good meal, no deities required…

  • celebrating easter without religous context is quite easy. It’s all about eggs, hares and small gifts, occasionally even large fires. Oh yes, and snow, of course.

    Additionally it helps to remind oneself that easter derives from ancient celebrations of spring, new year (celebrating end of winter) and fertility stuff (Hares and Chicken are fast breeders…).

  • Great, great blog! I’m a staunch atheist and a strong one living in a Christian society. My mom is a Lay Reader in the church and my father is the Treasurer of his cathedral and a Knight of St. Christopher. Still, I stand to my atheist beliefs.

    Check my blog soon, thanks!

  • Many popular holidays are so secularized now that is a great excuse for everyone to get together and have fun, without having to worry about any religious divide.

  • Alycia

    I had someone tell me that it was so sad that her husband didn’t know about Jesus dying for our sins and coming back to life. You know, the “real” meaning of Easter. Instead, he thought it was just about candy, eggs and the Easter Bunny. He wasn’t raised in a religious family, you see.

    So I asked if he knew about the origins of Easter, about how it is a celebration of spring, life, and all things reproductive (hence the eggs) a la traditional Pagan rituals. That even Easter Sunday itself is chosen according to the spring equinox, a full moon, and all that jazz. No, and she’d never heard of that before, either, and sat there rather shocked after I told her as much.

    I told her that maybe she needs to watch the History Channel to learn more about her religion’s holidays. I said it in a polite way, of course.

  • Louis Doench

    Heh, I forgot it was Easter until my wife got Friday off…

    My mom made Easter baskets for the kids and 3 year old Abby was all excited about coloring eggs, but we did not once mention the dead carpenter on a stick.

  • Chaim Krause

    Oh!

    I forgot to mention the drinking!

    Lots of drinking.

    Well, at least that’s what the pictures on my cellphone claim happened. 😉

  • One of my favorite parts of Easter is all the deviled eggs we get to eat in the following days. I’m sure there’s a pun lurking somewhere in there.

    At one point, my mother mentioned that Easter was the day when Jesus was rose from the dead. And then she added something like, “or that’s how the myth goes,” as if to show her tolerance of other views. If I cared one way or another, I might have told her it was unnecessary.

  • Karen

    Two words: Chinese Food. It’s not just for Christmas anymore!

  • stogoe

    My family’s pretty religious, so we hiked it out to the suburban megachurch and sat through some tepid pablum. For their sake.

    Afterwards, though, we went to a restaurant that had an amazing buffet, with neverending mimosas and a chocolate fountain with Peeps. It was crazy delicious.

    Also, I got mountains of clearance chocolate on Monday. I forgot all about clearance chocolate in October and February, so this haul makes up for it.

  • Christophe Thill

    What’s the problem with Easter? It really is a celebration of rebirth. Look around you and open your ears too! Birds are singing everywhere. The cherry tree in my garden has just had its first blooms. Everything is coming back to life. Of course, all this doesn’t have much to do with Christianity. Actually, isn’t that a bit suspicious that Jesus chose that day precisely to be reborn? There were springs, flowers and birds nests before him, right? It didn’t appear at that time of the year just to pay homage to him, right? Hmmm… think about it…

  • Luccathomas

    LOL

  • Luccathomas

    Hole Sad Fulla

  • Lukaz

    Hole Sad Fulla