seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna (S.M.) Watson) asks:
 > What is the objection to celebration of Easter?
 
       The objection naturally is in the way in which you phrase it. 
Easter (or Eashtar or Ishtar or Ishtarti or other spellings) is the pagan
whore goddess of fertility.  Therefore, your question to me is "what is
the objection to celebration of the pagan whore goddess?"  When phrased
that way I suspect (or at least I would HOPE) that it becomes immeadiately
apparent what my objection to "celebrating" her would be.
 
 > It is celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.
 
      No, you are thinking perhaps of "Ressurection Sunday" I think. 
(Though I'm not too crazy about the word "Sunday", but I certainly like
this phrasing much better than envoking the name of the whore goddess.)
     For that matter, stay Biblical and call it Omar Rasheet (The Feast of
First Fruits).  Torah commands that this be observed on the day following
the Sabbath of Passover week.  (Sunday by any other name in modern
parlance.)  Why is there so much objection to observing the Resurrection
on the 1st day of the week on which it actually occured?  Why jump it all
over the calendar the way Easter does?  Why not just go with the Sunday
following Passover the way the Bible has it?  Why seek after unbiblical
methods?
 
 > I don't recall a command in Scripture for us to celebrate
 > the resurrection, but it is the sole and only reason that
 > we are Christians--how could we not celebrate it?
 
      So what does this question have to do with Easter (the whore
goddess)?  I am all for celebrating the Resurrection.  Just keep that
whore out of the discussion.
 
 > If it is only the name which is a problem, I suggest that if
 > we are too concerned about etymology, there are a lot of
 > words we are going to have to drop.  (As an aside, some
 > terminally PC people here in Ottawa want dictionaries to be
 > altered so that there are no negative definitions associated
 > with the word _black_, so as not to offend people of colour.
 
       Yes, I have heard of your newspapers speaking of the need to repave
streets with "Afro-Canadiantop".  <grin> (I still think "blacktop" sounds
better though.)
 
 > As a short person, I hope they will also remove the definition
 > "curt or surly" associated with my physical description.)
 
       Fine by me.  And while we are at it, the left-handed people are
both "sinister" and "gauche" so we probably will have some objections from
that quarter as well.
 
 > In Quebec French, the word for the celebration of the
 > resurrection is "Pa^ques"--this is etymologically related
 > to Pesach (Passover) and the pascal lamb.  So is the
 > French Canadian (mostly Roman Catholic) celebration better
 > because it uses the right name?
 
      Yes, that sounds much better to me.  Is there anyone out there would
thinks that phrasing sounds worse?
 
 > So from this I infer that there are different rules for
 > Christians of Jewish descent?  What happened to "there is
 > neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for
 > all are one in Christ Jesus"?
 
      Read the letter to Philemon.  Now tell me, was Philemon's "slave"
returned to him?  Were there different rules upon the slave than upon
Philemon?  How about male and female?  Are there different "rules" that
apply to them as well?  Or if there is no more "male and female" can Adam
and Steve get married to each other in your congregation?  Yes, there are
differences in form and function.  But the way we come to Salvation in
Messiah remains the same no matter what our position in life.
 
---------------------------------------

[I am in general not in favor of continuing this discussion, as it
seems repetitive, but this particular point is one that I believe is
new -- the objection is not to having a holiday but to its name.

I'd like to suggest that people think very carefully about this
argument.  Words often change their meaning over time.  The days of
the week are of course originally based on pagan gods.  Some
Christians prefer to refer to "first day", "second day", etc.  However
the majority of Christians have not been persuaded.  The question
seems to be whether it makes any difference what the dictionary shows
as the derivation of a word, if what people mean by it and think when
they use it is different.

Indeed I'd like to suggest that postings like this could themselves be
dangerous.  Suppose people in general use Easter to mean the
celebration of Christ's resurrection.  Postings trying to convince
them that they really mean a celebration in honor of some godess run
the risk of creating exactly the situation that they claim to oppose.
They are doing their best to *create* a linkage in people's minds
between their celebration and the pagan goddess.  It's not clear that
this is a healthy thing.