the passing of passover/easter

Let me tell you a story. Our country (the United States of America) celebrates Abraham Lincoln as the “great emancipator” who spearheaded abolishing slavery, etc. What if Abraham Lincoln had stood up there, and delivered the Emancipation Proclamation and said “okay, this is how we’re going to free the slaves. I’m going to go down to the south and kill every firstborn person in the south. Men, women, children, whether they own slaves or not. In the south, I’m going to kill every firstborn person regardless. When I’m done with that, I’m going to kill all the firstborn goats, cows, animals of all kinds. There’s not going to be a single family that does not have at least one death. Then, I want you to go and take one of the dead animal bodies, sheep if you will – and I want you to take that corpse and smear the blood on your door so that when I make my second pass to make sure I didn’t miss anyone, I’ll recognize that you’re on my side and I won’t kill your firstborn, too.”

I’m pretty sure that, had Abraham Lincoln done that, he wouldn’t be remembered as the hero he is today. We have a figure in history who committed mass-scale genocide like that. Adolph Hitler is deemed one of the most evil men in history. He’s hated, reviled and spit upon because of his actions. Yet when a god does it, it’s good. In all the old-testament movies, you see this mass slaughter as a GOOD thing, because god freed the slaves. He freed his chosen people from slavery, and the Jews celebrate Passover today to remember god’s deliverance.

But the really twisted thing in all of this? The reason why it was necessary for god to kill all the firstborn in the first place. The part that not a lot of people talk about. Pharaoh was ready to release the slaves after the first couple plagues. Except: GOD HARDENED HIS HEART Here was a ruler who was ready and willing to do what god wanted – and god made him change his mind, so he could be punished more for NOT doing what god wanted him to do. And the Jews celebrate this feast to this day. Jesus himself celebrated this. It’s a big party, the remembrance of this mass slaughter. Here’s the question though – how exactly is it that an all knowing deity couldn’t manage to recognize his own people without having lamb’s blood on the door? Is he that easy to fool? Or that full of blood lust that once he gets his slaughter on, he just can’t be stopped? Hence the name “Passover”. He literally “passed over” their houses in search of non-bloodstained houses to slaughter the firstborn in. This is something worthy of praise and remembrance? Really?

The more and more I read these stories, the more I cannot accept that they are anything more than the stories passed down from an archaic, tribal, warring people who, in order to make their laws and rituals more acceptable, claimed they came from an invisible, all powerful being, instead of just from other human beings. These stories are ridiculous. The apologists’ excuses for them are ridiculous. Of course, all of this is contingent on the fact that the Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt to begin with – which we have NO documentation of. And before you say that’s typical of an ancient people – the Egyptians were so careful about their written records, that they even kept records of nomadic tribal people who entered the edges of their territory to graze their cattle. They have no mention of a mass-migration of hundreds of thousands of people in a mass-exodus – or the fact that the red sea parted, or the fact that their pharaoh was killed in pursuit, or any such thing. Oh, and one more historical tidbit – incidentally, that mass flood that was supposedly worldwide and knocked out all life except for the 10 people on the ark and all the animals? The Egyptian pyramids were built about a hundred years after that supposedly happened. Noah’s family must have been REALLY busy to repopulate a whole different culture like that, don’t you think? Egypt is also completely unaware of a global, life annihilating flood.

Do you know where easter comes from? Easter is when christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is also celebrated by a gigantic bunny and a hunt for eggs. Easter is typically around the spring equinox, or “Ostara”. Name sound a little familiar? It is in celebration of the goddess of many things, one being fertility. All life begins anew. So in the council of Nicea, they decided that Easter would be celebrated on the first full moon weekend after the spring Equinox, no matter where that fell – it’s why the date isn’t fixed, and it’s always on a Sunday. It’s not the anniversary of christ’s death and resurrection. It is yet another example of christianity incorporating pagan ritual and celebration into their faith so it would not be wiped out by the pagans they were trying to reach/convert. I’ve seen a lot of christians do an easter egg hunt, not realizing that they’re in fact participating in a pagan ritual and paying homage to a deity that is not their divine, jealous, angry, murderous god. Funny, that. It’s not like anyone is claiming that jesus rose from the dead and rode a gigantic bunny scattering eggs around jerusalem. He DID however, create the first zombie uprising though. Upon his death, apparently, the dead walked out of their graves and roamed the streets of jerusalem. But no one, except one of the gospel authors saw fit to write THAT down either. I think it might have deserved a mention.

Turns out I can still celebrate Easter, since the root of it has nothing to do with the religion that’s taken it over. Too bad it’s a little late this year.

Fortunately, Beltane is right around the corner. Devon and I will thoroughly enjoy celebrating THAT one.