Anyone for a Spring Egg?

recedite

Easter quietly dropped from Easter Eggs.

Easter is of course primarily a Christian festival, but also probably supersedes earlier pagan festivals, including perhaps a festival dedicated to the god Eostre.
And I suppose its also a particular time of year, and a holiday period.

Should we lament the demise of the name "Easter" or is this a victory for atheism? Or is it more a victory for Islam? Or perhaps its simply capitalism, and the chocolate egg makers have realised they are nowadays selling into a multi-cultural market, where it does not pay to offend the customer.

Anyway, if you're going in to Dublin city centre for the Spring Rising parade, don't forget to bring a few chocolate eggs to munch on.

Hotblack Desiato

Crazy really, especially as the origins of easter (and even its name) have nothing whatsoever to do with christianity.

looksee

? I've seen this thread somewhere else here, not sure where!

Hotblack Desiato

Here

Pherekydes

Was George Hook ranting about this earlier? I missed most of his program.

So long as these Eggs are made of chocolate I don't think anyone who eats them will care. Except the usual: Fidelma, Breda, David, Rónán, etc.

recedite

IMO its a bit like the name "Thursday" (you don't have to believe in Thor to call it by its historical name).

Sometimes the barmy revisionism itself is more annoying than any possible insult or grievance caused by use of a traditional name.

frostyjacks

It's all very sinister. Who would make a conscious decision to hide the Christian moniker from an Easter egg, and to what end? I can understand in America, with it's melting pot of cultures. But not Christian nations like Ireland and the UK. Most peculiar.

lazygal

frostyjacks wrote: »

It's all very sinister. Who would make a conscious decision to hide the Christian moniker from an Easter egg, and to what end? I can understand in America, with it's melting pot of cultures. But not Christian nations like Ireland and the UK. Most peculiar.

Yes, given that its the job of chocolate manufacturing to protect Christian beliefs from any attacks it's very sinister.

recedite

I think Cadbury's was bought up by Kraft last year, hence the deterioration in the taste of their chocolate. And Nestle own a lot of brands, so all are continental european owned now. I suppose the marketing people in the UK dictate the packaging on the English language eggs which we get.

So really we are just seeing the result of moves being made abroad.

Here's something bizarre; Mo's Bacon Chocolate bar.

Hotblack Desiato

frostyjacks wrote: »

It's all very sinister. Who would make a conscious decision to hide the Christian moniker from an Easter egg, and to what end?

Explain to me what is christian about the word easter? or the tradition of eggs? Nothing that's what.

You should be glad that a pagan celebration is being downgraded :pac:

lazygal

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Explain to me what is christian about the word easter? or the tradition of eggs? Nothing that's what.

You should be glad that a pagan celebration is being downgraded :pac:

Or upgraded, given that the Christian bandwagoning is being eliminated.

Links234

It's all a bit "War on Christmas" isn't it?

frostyjacks

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Explain to me what is christian about the word easter? or the tradition of eggs? Nothing that's what.

You should be glad that a pagan celebration is being downgraded :pac:

Easter is the Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, and the egg symbolises the empty tomb. It seems the manufacturers want to profit from the festival without having the courtesy to even acknowledge it.

Kiwi in IE

frostyjacks wrote: »

Easter is the Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, and the egg symbolises the empty tomb. It seems the manufacturers want to profit from the festival without having the courtesy to even acknowledge it.

Well I guess no one has to buy chocolate eggs from manufacturers that don't acknowledge Easter. You could always use real eggs with the contents removed to symbolise your empty tomb. If you want chocolate ones however, you will have to either put up with how the manufacturers decide to label them, find a brand that refers to Easter, or make your own. There's really no point whinging about confectionary manufacturers not naming their products the way you want them to.

Pherekydes

frostyjacks wrote: »

Easter is the Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, and the egg symbolises the empty tomb.

Lollers. Did the empty tomb have little packets of smarties inside?

GLaDOS

Does eating the egg symbolise the opening of the tomb?

uck51js9zml2yt

Pherekydes wrote: »

Lollers. Did the empty tomb have little packets of smarties inside?

I remember when the smarties were on the inside.
I also remember seeing easter eggs in the weeks before Christmas the previous year.

lazygal

Jamal Shallow Self-righteousness wrote: »

I remember when the smarties were on the inside.
I also remember seeing easter eggs in the weeks before Christmas the previous year.

Was this also in THE TOMB?

Links234

Girlfriend got me one of those Aldi 'Banoffee' Easter Eggs

frostyjacks

It's more to do with the free ride their getting off our faith. If they want to celebrate Easter, then just celebrate it. Don't pretend it's a chocolate eating festival.

What do atheists believe the egg represents? I must have got my facts mixed up.

recedite

Jamal Shallow Self-righteousness wrote: »

I remember when the smarties were on the inside.

That was real magic. Atheists have taken all the magic out of Easter Eggs :mad:

Links234

frostyjacks wrote: »

What do atheists believe the egg represents?

Rampant consumerism. HAIL CORPORATE!

lazygal

frostyjacks wrote: »

It's more to do with the free ride their getting off our faith. If they want to celebrate Easter, then just celebrate it. Don't pretend it's a chocolate eating festival.

What do atheists believe the egg represents? I must have got my facts mixed up.

The egg represents yumminess. Like a Hawaiin pizza, for example.

recedite

Eggs and lambs are symbols of the spring and fertility, so are symbols going way back before Christianity.
Lent is also an old word for springtime, interestingly, and not specifically religious (unless it was attached to a pagan spring festival, which is also possible).

Kiwi in IE

frostyjacks wrote: »

It's more to do with the free ride their getting off our faith. If they want to celebrate Easter, then just celebrate it. Don't pretend it's a chocolate eating festival.

But it is a chocolate eating festival to me. Little Kiwi gets lots of chocolate eggs and an Easter egg hunt and maybe a bunny, chick or lamb related toy. We see it as a celebration of Spring, nature and the end of winter. Jesus and his alleged Zombie transformation don't get a mention.

frostyjacks

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

But it is a chocolate eating festival to me. Little Kiwi gets lots of chocolate eggs and an Easter egg hunt and maybe a bunny, chick or lamb related toy. We see it as a celebration of Spring, nature and the end of winter. Jesus and his alleged Zombie transformation don't get a mention.

Well then you're deluding yourself and your offspring. It's only fair to tell them the truth about our Christian festivals.

wil

recedite wrote: »

That was real magic. Atheists have taken all the magic out of Easter Eggs :mad:

But wasn't it the atheists who invented the Easter Bunny. Or was he in the tomb too?

uck51js9zml2yt

lazygal wrote: »

Was this also in THE TOMB?

Why would it be, unless you call the warehouse I worked in a tomb, which would be strange

recedite wrote: »

That was real magic. Atheists have taken all the magic out of Easter Eggs :mad:

That was the Master foods marketing department. You can't have all the credit:)

Pherekydes

frostyjacks wrote: »

What do atheists believe the egg represents?

Fertility, of course. All of the eggs must be fertilised eaten. :P

frostyjacks

Easter, St.Patrick's Day, Christmas...we should be invoicing you people for celebrating these festivals.

Hotblack Desiato

frostyjacks wrote: »

It's more to do with the free ride their getting off our faith.

I hope that's a consenting, adult, ride - not like religion you know who.

The Randy Riverbeast

complain when religious festivals become commercialised, complain when it stops. Some people are never happy.

I might have more sympathy if it wasn't pagan stuff that the Christians took over so people would care.

mickoneill31

frostyjacks wrote: »

Easter, St.Patrick's Day, Christmas...we should be invoicing you people for celebrating these festivals.

I'm not sure if your posts are serious or deliberately ironic
They're either smart and humerous or deluded. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Easter. Named after the goddess of spring Jesus Eastra.
Christmas. The winter solstice celebration.

Cabaal

frostyjacks wrote: »

It's all very sinister. Who would make a conscious decision to hide the Christian moniker from an Easter egg, and to what end? I can understand in America, with it's melting pot of cultures. But not Christian nations like Ireland and the UK. Most peculiar.

But the name easter and the whole bunny/egg thing doesn't even come from Christian beliefs, if anything you could champion Cadbury etc for removing Easter as its hiding something that started with those "devil worshipping pagans!"

Surely you don't support the pagans now?

The Randy Riverbeast

Cabaal wrote: »

But the name easter and the whole bunny/egg thing doesn't even come from Christian beliefs, if anything you could champion Cadbury etc for removing Easter as its hiding something that started with those "devil worshipping pagans!"

Surely you don't support the pagans now?

No, it's all part of the plan. Step 1: Allow companies to name their products. Step 2: send frosty and friends to a concentration camp.

It was clearly outlined in both the atheist agenda and the gay agenda in section 4, the destruction of society.

mickoneill31

I'd say the companies have removed Easter from the name so we don't think it's stupid seeing Easter Eggs in the shops at Christmas.

PopePalpatine

frostyjacks wrote: »

Easter, St.Patrick's Day, Christmas...we should be invoicing you people for celebrating these festivals.

Sure, we can just deduct it off all the money the RCC owes victims of clerical abuse. Oh, and it could help pay off the invoices you get for the Moon's Day, Tiw's Day, Woden's Day, Thor's Day, Freya's Day, Saturn's Day and the Sun's Day.

lazygal

frostyjacks wrote: »

Easter, St.Patrick's Day, Christmas...we should be invoicing you people for celebrating these festivals.

Who's "we"?

iguana

frostyjacks wrote: »

Easter is the Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, and the egg symbolises the empty tomb.

Excuse me but maybe go learn a little more of your own religion before mouthing off about it. For one, how does that even make sense? Eggs are not hollow, they are full of yolk and albumen. It wasn't until the Victorian era that hollow egg shaped toys and confections became commonplace. First with toy eggs that opened to reveal gifts and then when chocolatiers realised there was big profits in making chocolate eggs for Easter. The supposed Christian correlation of eggs and Jesus' resurrection is that Mary Magdelene was carrying eggs when Jesus 2.0 appeared to her, so she went off to the Roman Emperor to tell him and the long and short of it is that he scoffed and said that was as likely as her egg turning red. And so the egg turned red. With an end result that Pontius Pilate lost his job, which doesn't actually seem very fair considering his good hand hygiene during crucifixions.

A story that is clearly a ridiculous 'retconned' add on to the resurrection story as a desperate attempt to attache eggs to Christian Easter. Because eggs have long been a widely held focal point of the spring celebration used by numerous human cultures for thousands and thousands of years, from the Indo-Iranian Zoroastrians, to the Persian originating Nowruz, to Egyptian Sham el-Nessim, to the Hebrew Pesach eggs on the Sedar Plate, to the European worship of the goddess Eostre. Additionally, during the middle ages European Christians were forbidden to eat eggs during Lent so in order not to waste the eggs the chickens produced, families boiled them and saved them for Easter. And in order to add to the fast breaking celebration decorating the eggs during Holy Week became tradition. The Mary Magdalene egg legend eventually came about to explain the connection. The spring celebration has long predated Christianity and will long outlive it. It's the normal human condition to create communal celebrations, to enjoy festivities together. So enjoy your spring eggs, just like my atheist family will. We'll be having chocolate eggs, plastic eggs filled with toys, having eggs benedict for brunch, egg fried rice with dinner and throwing Mexican cascarones at each other before bed.:D

(And if you can see my avatar, you'll see the dozen eggs Easter 'advent' calendar we've been working our way through since the 15th.)

Gordon

Here are all of the mentions of the egg in the christian bible.

Deuteronomy 22:6 wrote:

If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young.

Isaiah 10:13,14 wrote:

For he saith, “‘By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent; and I have removed the bounds of the people and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man.

And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people, and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.’”

Jeremiah 17:11 wrote:

As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.

Job 39:12-15 wrote:

Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home the seed and gather it into thy barn?

“Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? Or wings and feathers unto the ostrich,

which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust,

and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them?

Job 6:6 wrote:

Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?

Luke 11:10-12 wrote:

For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

Or if he shall ask for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

frostyjack 1:4 wrote:

And on this day which will be known as Easter, eggs of chocolate, and bunnies of fluffy shalt deliver the empty cave of Jesus, and thou shalt buy them and eat them.

Cabaal

So no mentions of chocolate eggs and bunnys with eggs (because bunnys with eggs would be just stupid)
Atleast for Jesus birth the kid got gifts so you could atleast try claim thats how gifts started at Christmas.

But Easter....zip, nothing, Claiming the egg stuff started with Jesus is laughable. Easter is pagan and we all know it...even frostyjack deep down.

endacl

frostyjacks wrote: »

What do atheists believe the egg represents? I must have got my facts mixed up.

Overpriced chocolate. More bang for your buck spending the same mount on slabs of dairy milk.

PMBC

endacl wrote: »

Overpriced chocolate. More bang for your buck spending the same mount on slabs of dairy milk.

Most pertinent - its for the kiddies. For me, at +60, a large bar of my favourite!!

Cabaal

endacl wrote: »

Overpriced chocolate. More bang for your buck spending the same mount on slabs of dairy milk.

Exactly, its as simple as that. It looks fancy but its over priced.

Its the same reason why washing power companys want people to buy tablets instead of just powder, per weight the company's make more money and the customer gets something they think is "fancy".

But the end product is exactly the same, it just looks different,

Links234

endacl wrote: »

Overpriced chocolate. More bang for your buck spending the same mount on slabs of dairy milk.

I always enjoy having a brief run about Aldi on the Monday and get discounted chocolate eggs

I really like Aldi's chocolate, had to stop buying those butterscotch chocolate bars, they were an addiction and a half!

Cabaal

Links234 wrote: »

I always enjoy having a brief run about Aldi on the Monday and get discounted chocolate eggs

I really like Aldi's chocolate, had to stop buying those butterscotch chocolate bars, they were an addiction and a half!

Lindt are nice, but I'd rather opt for Aldi bunny then Lindt due to the cost.

riffmongous

No chocoloate eggs in the german speaking regions, the tradition instead is to hardboil eggs and paint them. Plenty of chocolate rabbits though

The Randy Riverbeast

Chocolate eggs aren't a thing in the US either. They must have skipped over that part of the bible, filthy Protestants. Was probably one of the theses.

iguana

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

Chocolate eggs aren't a thing in the US either. They must have skipped over that part of the bible, filthy Protestants. Was probably one of the theses.

Yeah but they have Resurrection Cookies in the US. Made primarily of egg and not only is the finished product a representation of the hollowed out tomb but the whole baking process is a representation of the entire torture and execution of Jesus and the grieving of his loved ones. With added bible readings.
http://www.annieshomepage.com/resurrectioncookies.html

recedite

iguana wrote: »

The supposed Christian correlation of eggs and Jesus' resurrection is that Mary Magdelene was carrying eggs when Jesus 2.0 appeared to her, so she went off to the Roman Emperor to tell him and the long and short of it is that he scoffed and said that was as likely as her egg turning red. And so the egg turned red. With an end result that Pontius Pilate lost his job, which doesn't actually seem very fair considering his good hand hygiene during crucifixions.

Very entertaining. Its the first time I ever heard that story. I realise you are not saying its true, but...

First thing to notice; its not in the bible. Its probably more like a bedtime story.
Second, the idea that a woman who had been friendly with a crucified man in that time, would travel all the way to Rome to make a complaint about the Roman governor of Judea (the prefect) is ludicrous. Even more ludicrous is the idea that Emperor Tiberius would have even given her an audience, let alone sacked his representative in Judea on the basis of her complaint.

A quick check of wiki is good enough to indicate that Pilate's career was not interrupted or perturbed by any such events.

Pilate's term as prefect of Judaea ended after an incident recounted by Josephus. A large group of Samaritans had been persuaded by an unnamed man to go to Mount Gerizim in order to see sacred artifacts allegedly buried by Moses. But at a village named Tirathana, before the crowd could ascend the mountain, Pilate sent in "a detachment of cavalry and heavy-armed infantry, who in an encounter with the firstcomers in the village slew some in a pitched battle and put the others to flight. Many prisoners were taken, of whom Pilate put to death the principal leaders and those who were most influential." The Samaritans then complained to Vitellius, Roman governor of Syria, who sent Pilate to Rome to explain his actions regarding this incident to Tiberius. However, by the time Pilate got to Rome, Tiberius had died.

iguana

recedite wrote: »

Very entertaining. Its the first time I ever heard that story. I realise you are not saying its true, but...

First thing to notice; its not in the bible. Its probably more like a bedtime story.
Second, the idea that a woman who had been friendly with a crucified man in that time, would travel all the way to Rome to make a complaint about the Roman governor of Judea (the prefect) is ludicrous. Even more ludicrous is the idea that Emperor Tiberius would have even given her an audience, let alone sacked his representative in Judea on the basis of her complaint.

A quick check of wiki is good enough to indicate that Pilate's career was not interrupted or perturbed by any such events.

I know it's not true, it's why a couple of different times in the unquoted part of my post I gave my opinion that it was most likely 'retconned' onto/a legend that grew around the resurrection story in order to explain the high status of eggs as part of the Easter celebration. I also never said it's a story from the bible because I know it isn't. It's just a ridiculous attempt to tie eggs and Jesus together but it's a much older explanation than 'hollow eggs = empty tomb' and has been around a lot longer.