Dude! He is risen IS the basis of what Easter is...
Followers of Oester, Eastre, Ashtoreth, Astarte and Ishtar might disagree with you.
...just like Merry Christmas IS the basis of Christ being born.
I think you got that backwards. Anyway, my personal belief is that we should reinstate Saturnalia and move Christmas to October where it belongs.
Easter was yesterday in the USA as we all saw it and he responded..... appropriately. If this bothers you then we should adopt a closer on politics in this forum as well as these CHRISTIAN celebrations of which you are apart of!
Wow. I seem to have struck a nerve.
Did you mean we should ban religion on this forum, as well as politics? The only reason I would be in favor of such a ban is that, as you demonstrate, followers of Christianity tend to become emotional whenever their primacy is challenged. Followers of other religions, not so much.
My own personal participation in these holidays has nothing to do with Christianity (although I do enjoy a lot of religious Christmas music). I "celebrate" simply because they are holidays, and my manner of celebrating follows the pagan practices, such as giving and receiving presents (I never did have much to do with eggs).
The simple historical truth is that the early Roman Catholic Church appropriated pre-existing religious holidays in an attempt to deny them to various non-Christian communities. This was only partially successful, as various pagan symbols and customs were incorporated by the common people, such as gift giving, the Christmas tree, yule log, Easter bunny and Easter eggs.
Take Easter. There is no Biblical reason why it is celebrated sometime between March 22 and April 25, depending on the first full moon after the equinox. Similarly, scholars feel that Jesus' birth (assuming Jesus actually lived) would more likely have been in autumn rather than early winter, due to shepherds camping out with their flocks.
Point being, Jesus is *not* the reason for the season(s). If someone is allowed to say on here that he is, then I should also be allowed to say on herethat he is not. If, however, you want to ban religious discussion the same as politics is banned, I have no real objection providing that means all religious discussion and not just non-Christian.
This signature is intended to irritate people.