Fighting, breakups, and the flu...in 24 hours I became sick, single, and searching for a new roommate. Boo.
I always thought it was Eostre... Are there lots of variations?
Me too! Yay!
Did you plant?
GuessWho, you must be a mindreader!
This guy's comments on universal conscription/draft were reported in the UK. Was it maybe last year sometime he said this? I thought he made a very good point!
Actually, thinking about it. Even the rebirth of Jesus could have some grounding in ancient fertility rites. (It brings to mind the "death" and life cycle of the Greek underworld queen, Persephone.) I didn't get this from anywhere -- just from thinking.
As for me, I haven't celebrated Easter for years. (At least since I moved to Japan didn't even know when Easter was while I was there.)
Not that I am disparaging or denying the existence of Jesus, I was not there, so who knows, BUT, the death and rebirth of the God is very common since the beginning of forever. The God has many names, but the story is basically the same. So yes, you are correct!
This is an interesting discussion and I don't want to be seen as nitpicking, but Jesus died and was raised. Christians talk about people being reborn, but Christ was resurrected. There is no single theology or Christology, but various ways of thinking about the whole human/divine issue.
Having got that off my chest, phew, yes, loads of biblical myths and accounts have parallels in the ancient world. The flood is another one.
For me, it is a different way of looking at the same thing. I do not, per se, believe in Jesus as deity. A cool guy, but not deity, to me. I also do not believe in the Bible except to say it is a very interesting piece of literature.
I am a kitchen witch and pagan all the way.
But I strongly believe in your right to believe in Jesus and his ressurrection!
"A cool guy" will do for me. 
So what's a kitchen witch? I've not heard of that before.
You are awesome!
Heehee, thanks. I know I'm not going to get anywhere with it, but I just can't not say anything. It makes me ANGRY. I don't hold anything against christians, in fact a lot of of my close friends & people I look up to are christian; what I can't stand is people who are clueless about their own religion's history and CHOOSE to be that way.
It's true that a lot of "rediscovered" ancient traditions were actually invented in the modern era- a lot of them before 1960 actually. Wicca was introduced in 1954, a lot of it based on material from an earlier revival in 1920. Some of that was valid, based on the few surviving pagan traditions we have, and/or extracted from the adaptations the Christians made to Pagan traditions; some of it was conjecture. A small fraction of it was entirely invented.
In reference only to the festivals, from wikipedia:
The quote at the end is a little inaccurate. We do know that both equinoxes were probably celebrated by the ancients, based largely on the astronomical alignments
towards the Equinoctial sunrises/sets in many stone circles throughout Great Britain.
My personal approach is not to exclude a practice if it isn't "authentic", but merely to accept that it's not ancient and practice it anyway. Take handfasting, for example. That's a modern invention, but it's a beautiful practice that I identify strongly with, so I incorporate it into my own practices (my bf and I were handfasted on the holy day of my patron deity, Brigid, on February 2nd). On the other hand, the concept of four elements aligned with the directions that was introduced by Wicca strikes me as silly, so while I am perfectly happy to let other people do it, I personally do not. To me, whether or not something is old is not the deciding factor in "authenticity"; it's whether or not it rings true. And it's perfectly valid to begin new traditions. My family didn't celebrate any holidays until about four years ago, and we've already established new family traditions based around the holidays we now celebrate. But I do like to know the facts about the traditions I am celebrating.
Were not ignornant of our own religions history, if you look at the bible its all there. I have several copys of them. You on the other hand are trying to skew my religion to make it look like an attack on your own. Much like a wolf in sheeps clothing.