What does Easter mean to you?
438748
most kids think easter bunny when they think of easter.  It is supposed to be a day of religion but most people eat chocolate and hide eggs.
591472
Easter comes from a Babylonian celebration of Ishtar the goddess of fertility in mesopotamia. That is also where the bunny and eggs come from the idea of fertility new life etc... This was related to the Resurrection of Jesus when Consantine made Christianity the state religion in Rome (ca 300ad) and pagan holidays began being adopted by the church. So I don't really celebrate Easter I celebrate the Resurrection of my Lord. No baskets eggs or bunnies in my home. Just Jesus and He is all we need.
957546
First, it is only called Easter in Germanic language countries, in the rest of the world, it is called pascha which means passover from pesach.  Oestara had a celebration during the equinox and Pascha tends to fall near the equinox.  Gradually Christianity destroyed the religion of Oestara but the name remains as a vestige.\n\nSecond, eggs have nothing to do with Christianity, however eggs are a sign of life.  The original Easter eggs were called pysanki and had Christian images on them.  All animal products were banned during the Christian fast to replicate the pre-Noah period.  Easter was the first day Christians could eat eggs so they dedicated them to Christ through art.  The practice of decorating eggs preceeds Christianity but Christianity coopted it.  In fact, Easter basked with eggs, cheese and meat are blessed every Easter morning following the Resurrection services for the first meal of the day.\n\nRabbits reproduce at extraordinary rates, they are a symbol of life and innocence.  It also is the case that a handful of societies worshipped animals and Easter falling near the solstice happens to overlap many other observances.  Christianity co-opted other people symbols to destroy their religion.  They took the bunny over in the process.
314658
I'll tell you what i was taught\n\nan egg represents birth and is tied into jesus ressurection\n\na rabbit symbolizes fertility and thus more life\n\nnow i read that easter was actually a pagan holiday to begin with (much like christmas) and christians changed it around to be apart of the bible.\n\nso I'm sure the rabbit and the eggs may stem from that, but that's what i was taught and what i teach
853152
We celebrate it because it is the birth of Jesus Christ. We (Christians) also celebrate Easter because it was then that Jesus awoke from the dead, three days after He was crucified.
413219
Easter is the day Christ left for heaven after completing his mission on earth.that day i went church.
350758
Yep. And Easter is a pagan celebration of spring.
309926
My church is having Easter service the Saturday before Easter for the members and on Easter Sunday all of the nonmembers are invited to come to our church. Happy Easter to you too!
136642
Not a thing. Before Christians appropriated it, Easter was a fertility festival, and it is clear how bunnies and eggs would factor into that. The paganism of the holiday never really went away, even after Christians began calling it Easter.
386472
We christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On Good Friday he was crucified and on Easter he was resurrected.
396464
i spend my easter in the church.\nafter praying to the god i reached home \nate my easter food thats it
42327
I and my family do every Easter. We do it to suffer along with Jesus during lent. It brings us to understanding his sacrifice.
1045743
Only with great difficulty.\n\nSee http://www.davros.org/misc/easter.html
444232
is the spring holiday,celebrated the Sunday following Easter. It is the celebration of the passage of another cold winter,accompanied by ( hopefully) warm weather and trees which are starting to bud. It is a popular day for getting married.
326826
Actually, there is a mixture in your mind. Easter, the Resurrection story as celebrated by the Christians is a Christian celebration. However, when the Holy Roman Empire was making it's way across Europe there were several pagan holiday traditions that couldn't be stamped out, no matter how they tried. Therefore, the Catholics took a page out of the Romans' book and just adopted them into their own celebrations and glossed them over as Catholic rituals. \n\nI could go on forever with examples of these, but I'll limit myself to the Easter rituals. Easter was named after a Norse goddess named Ostara, a goddess of fertility. She had certain symbols sacred to her, the hare and the egg. During the Spring Equinox, the adult women would decorate and hide eggs for the men to find. Whomever found the woman's egg, was that woman's partner for the feasting and activities after (think fertility ritual). For this day, marriages were set aside so that the ritual could be enjoyed by all. \n\nSince the Catholics couldn't get rid of this festival entirely, they kept the Easter Bunny and the Egg Coloring and got rid of the fun stuff like the feasting, drinking and fertility ritual. \n\nAnd that's the story of the origin of the Easter Bunny and the colored eggs folks.
425480
Easter has nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is pagan sun worship. Read Ezek 8:16 this is talking about Easter Sun worship! God calls it an abomination. Jesus didn't resurrect on Easter Sunday Morning. I challenge anyone to prove it to me! When you email me make sure I can email you back if your not afraid of the truth! \n  Passover: read Revelation 13:8. The passover is a memorial of the death of Jesus Christ who died for our sins. Easter is Satans counterfeit. Read Matthew 26:26-28. Jesus gave Christians new symbols for the passover the bread and the wine. Read 1St Corinthians 11:23-26 Jesus was killed on the passover. Why is it that Christians want to keep Easter which is not commanded in all the bible, but don't take much thought in what Jesus said to do to remember Him, a memorial of His death. The Passover.
420919
Easter is derived from an ancient Germanic name for the month of April, Eostremonat--or rather Eostre Month, in dedication to the goddess Eostre. Eostre, or Ostara was a German goddess of fertility and her return was marked by the coming of spring and the sun. The Ost in her name refers to the East--the rising of the sun. The rebirth of the day and the rebirth of the spring were her specialties, and her celebrations occured during the vernal equinox--the first day of spring. Of course calendar dates have gotten juggled about for quite a few different reasons over time and now April is no longer where it once was on the calendar at what is now March 21st.\n\nThe rabbit was a traditional symbol of the goddess because of its great fertility, and the fact that the coming of spring marked the time when all of the little bunnies were seen starting to be born.\n\nWhen Christianity became the predominant religion it was an easy transition to introduce the rebirth of the Christ figure into the already extant birth and rebirth tradition. Old ways die hard, and the bunny stuck around. \n\nAlthough there are several explanations for the eggs the Easter bunny brings, (other than eggs are another traditional symbol of birth/rebirth) the most likely is that eggs were forbidden during the fast of lent, and were decorated and eaten in abundance to mark the end of the fast.\n\nGerman protestants, although breaking with Roman Catholocism and the tradition of the lent fast, liked the egg tradition and kept it. And when German immigrants came to America, they brought with them the traditions of the Osterhase (Easter hare) and his eggs.\n\nInasmuch as Christianity has stolen the ancient goddess' name for their own holiday, it seems only fitting that its original mascot still puts in an appearance each year.