I stopped in WalMart today, looking for a pair of cheap running shoes. I eventually found them piled in a corner of the Garden Center, next to the relocated displays of cat toys and lingerie. They weren’t renovating, as it turned out. In desperation, someone had moved the items there to make room for the Easter chocolate.
Long gone are the days when Easter candy decision making boiled down to “hollow or solid, bunny or chicken”. While I expected the traditional chocolate bunnies and eggs, I was wholly unprepared for the sheer volume and choice before me.
Take the eggs, for example. They came in dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate, There were peanut encrusted, creme-filled, caramel dipped, and brightly colored candy-coated masterpieces that looked for all the world like Ukrainian pysanky, but with tastier shells.
There were foil-covered hummingbird eggs hanging with 365 to the little mesh bag, with labels advertising “A Year Of Easter!” There were post-nuclear apocalypse ostrich hen behemoths that required the assistance of a stock boy to roll to your vehicle.
Others had toys inside. There were “transformer eggs” that certain gifted children could convert into Ninjas ready to be devoured. A few played music and in the electronics department, one could shell out $159.99 for an realistic looking egg with a hidden camera inside – to be doubly sure the nanny is paying all due attention to the children on this most special of family holidays.
I considered venturing into the chocolate bunny department, but I was pressed for time. Instead, my attention was drawn to those newcomers to the Easter tradition.
Alongside the chocolate kittens and basset hound puppies and baby chicks, chocolate vampires stood atride chocolate tombstones while chocolate Viking ships roamed in search of plunder. There was a Creamy White Chocolate Barbie[tm] , a 3-cherry chocolate slot machine, and a chocolate mudder Jeep with raised suspension. The Amazing Hulk, Superman, Britney Spears, Star Jones, Bart Simpson – all were available in chocolate. (Michael Jackson was offered in both dark and white.)
Cadbury and Hersheys had “Special Edition” Easter chocolate bars wrapped in fancy purple paper, with calligraphy and golden foil peeking out the ends that sparkled like the setting sun over choppy water.
It was mesmerizing.
So, imagine my shock when I was told;
“Sorry ma’am, but we don’t have a chocolate ‘Jesus On A Cross’. Try Canadian Tire.”
I had to settle for a chocolate Santa Claus.
(Meanwhile, this can’t be good, either.)
Hey BCL. You obviously haven’t figured it out yet but us Christians have been secretely engaged in taking over the country for some time. Some of us pretend to be atheists to work behind the scenes unnoticed. We really fooled the masses during the last election…didn’t we? Our next move is to convert…by force if necessary- all federal public sector employees.
Can’t wait until we grab Ontario from the libs and begin the provincial public sector conversion. Imagine all those wickan teachers going to mass every sunday……..
“mindless trollery” I like that.
So Christians are dangerour, eh? BCL obviously doesn’t read about history at all. North America as we know it today, was basically explored and settled by those nasty God fearing souls. Deal with it. If you want to rant about how the nasty Christians robbed the natives that were here at the time then also check into what they belived in.
Just for giggles BCL, try to spout your athiest beliefs is other countries around the world and tell me where else you could your beliefs (or lack thereof.
Although sad, it doesn’t seem particularly surprising to watch a religious Holiday turned into a commercial enterprise in North America. After all, a true honouring of Easter would have nothing whatsoever to do with eggs, rabbits, or chocolate, just as a true celebration of Christmas wouldn’t include evergreen trees, Saint Nicolas, or any of that stuff, n’�st-�e pas? We forget our Pagan roots, which may have a lot to do with the origin of capitalism …
On that note, however, the Italian Bakery in Victoria has the most remarkable chocolate eggs in sizes from a few centimeters in length up to about half-a-meter high. They are all hollow, and the larger ones are filled with little prizes (e.g., hand puppets, biscotti, etc.). All are decorated with chocolate or coloured icing artwork. They are beatiful. Kate, you would surely appreciate them …
Big City Liberal, I see you think Christians are “probably the most dangerous people on the planet” and “They have taken over (America)”. Much like how the Joooooooos took over Germany, according to your good buddy Hitler’s Mein Kampf, eh?
In another post you said Christians should be “rounded up”. Tell me: do you think the Muslims were right to fry the Christians? And would you say Christians are like a disease?
Signed,
David Ahenakew
I’m also an atheist.
Unlike BCL, I –VALUE– all the great things that Judeo-Christian values have built.
I don’t feel the need to prove that I’m “open-minded”, “progressive” or “sophisticated” by trashing every decent thing Judeo-Christian society has built.
One example…..God-forbid the hardship that having stores “only” open 358 days a year might put on some people.
(and here I thought it was all the lefties under the “secular humanism” banner that were the most dangerous. If I wanted to destroy western society, I’d be funding every leftist organization around. There’re more than happy to take the money and do the job.)
Here I am a poor deprived senior citizen who has never in his whole life seen an edible Jesus outside of communion, chocolate or cake, on the cross or not, and Kate protests because they don’t stock one at Wal-Mart among the other Easter goodies?
Maybe we should tell our Muslim brethren that there would be a market providing Christians with chocolate means of blasphemy. On the other hand, they consider Jesus to have been a prophet, so they might not be interested. The demand will have to be met by Christians. Maybe Wal-Mart will be on the ball – ask again next year, Kate.
Maybe Easter is reverting back to the pagan festival it started as. Bring back the true meaning of Easter? Okay here it is:
Easter is the Christian celebration of the the death of Jesus Christ and it’s resurrection. It is also an ancien pagean Saxon festival, Eostre, that marks the spring equinox. It is also reported Eastre is the pagan goddess of spring and offspring.
So why eggs, chocolates and the Easter Bunny?
Stories vary but it seems the Eostre goddess was represented by a hare. The Egg, along with chicks, were also associated with these pagean rituals as they were symbols of fertility and re-birth. The egg soon became a Christian symbol of the resurrection of Christ and in some cases, a symbol of the ‘rolling away’ of the stone blocking the Sepulchre.
The pagans, with a big tip of the hat to the capitalist marketing machine, are retaking what was originally theirs. Jesus said it best when he said to “render unto Caesar that which is his”
So it looks like the Christians are letting the pagans have what was originally theirs.
Many of the statements that BCL spews out in this blog, have often made me question if he was just a simple fool, or if he simply only received the IQ of a fruit fly.
I happen not to be an athesist, but that is not my disagreement with BCL. Whether he believes in a higher power is his choice, however, I have never been able to understand the mental state that would lead anyone to believe that everything just “happened by chance’.
I would be the first to agree that there is much in modern day religion that is not based on anything except “man made rules” that have been imposed on it’s followers to control and manipulate. The fact remains that there is a God and there was a Jesus and…. there still is. I think there are many people of like mind, who consider themselves Christian, simply because they have the “basis Christian belief systems”, that being that there is a God who created, and there is life after death. These are not dangerous people. At least they believe in something and are not like BCL who believes in nothing.
To me, it is not the Christians who are the dangerous ones. It is people like BCL who truly portray a big danger to our society.If you look back on the civilizations of time, every society has been developed around a group of basic belief systems. Those civilizations that stumbled and were often destroyed, were ones that lost sight of what their society was based on. History continues to repeat itself.
Again, I would agree that there are probably some so called Christians who could be considered dangerous, but they are by far, a very small minority.
It may be time for BCL to grow up and smell the coffee. You really are not as smart as you think you are. You strike me as a person who would say that they have only been wrong once… and that was one time when you thought you were wrong.
Dear agitfact: I strongly suspect that Kate was being just a tiny bit facetious in her posting. I suspect that it was just an observation on the rampant commercialization…EVERYTHING (so it seems) in the world available in chocolate to be eaten in celebration of Easter except “the reason for the season”, as it were. Please don’t attribute her comments to foolishness or naivete when she was just exercising some healthy sarcasm.
Sorry, Kate…I’m sure that you can defend yourself far more eloquently that I…and further, I suspect that you don’t even need defending on this issue.
…not to be a party pooper and I agree with steved, things are returning to their origins.
If you really dig (aka: google) 99% of the religious holidays were created by the RC church in an attempt to curtail the pagean orgies and rituals.
Easter Eggs, let alone the name ‘Easter’ is occult in nature.
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t020.html
The egg was also a symbol of fertility; Semiramis (Easter) was the goddess of Fertility. The Easter egg is a symbol of the pagan Mother Goddess, and it even bears one of her names.
The rabbit is well known as a sexual symbol of fertility. In various parts of the world, religions which developed from Babel also associate the rabbit with periodicity, both human and lunar (Egypt, China, etc.).
Easter bunny symbolizes the Mother Goddess. Annual Spring time fertility rituals are associated worship of the Mother Goddess and Tammuz, the reincarnation of her husband Nimrod.
“The egg was a sacred symbol among the Babylonians. They believed an old fable about an egg of wondrous size which was supposed to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates River. From this marvelous egg – according to the ancient story – the Goddess Astarte (Easter) [Semiramis], was hatched. And so the egg came to symbolize the Goddess Easter.
——————–
The big point we have to remember is Christ has risen. Strangely this would be the best time of the year to give gifts to one another…instead of Christ’s mass or the date of December 25th which was a celebration of the Italic god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god.
Double irony the only place in the BIBLE about giving gifts to one another is in REVELATIONS where the two prophets of God are killed because they spoke the truth to the nations.
Rev 11:10
“And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.”
But hey, ignorance is bliss. I’m sure the wicca’s et all are miffed at RC’s in robbing their prime time celebrations.
BCL is typical Liberal. Point at others and say those are the cause of our nation’s problems.
Akin to farting and looking around at who did it…
Eventually the smell will go away…
hint hint.
and lets not forget, Atheism is as much a religion as any other belief founded upon faith.
So BCL is a religionist, just practices a different type of belief.
Easter is the Christian celebration of the the[sic] death of Jesus Christ and it’s resurrection.
1. Jesus Christ was a person; the word you should use is “His”. Less correct, but still acceptable would be “his”.
2. Even if “it’s” was the correct term, it’s spelled “its”. Handy hint: it’s is short for it is. When in doubt, use both words to determine accuracy.
Happy Easter to all.
…well he might have done a Freudian slip with the “its” as referring to Easter’s resurrection and not Jesus’.
Easter being the goddess easter…but I already killed that horse in a previous posting.
Re the comment above that BCL “has managed to enrage the christian element”: I’m not sure what the writer of these words is talking about.
I don’t hear any rage; I hear a lot of well-reasoned and restrained comments that disagree with BCL, but no vendective or rage.
I’m particularly appreciative of the generous and level-headed remarks by people who are atheists or “non-religious.” We have a lot to learn from those who do not share our faith, and vice versa, not a concept welcome in BCL’s world.
Like others, I find his intemperate comments about Christians being the most dangerous people on the planet absolutely RIDICULOUS and based on no facts whatsoever. Most of the Christians I know are feeding the poor and are living sacrificial lives to do so. I know of a Christian community of lay people whose motto is, “We live simply [no meat, coffee, butter, etc., except on Feast Days] so that others may simply live.”
I experienced a 7.4-on-the-Richter-Scale earthquake in Central America 15 years ago, and guess who was doing all of the EFFECTIVE relief work?: the Christian churches–Baptist, Pentecostal, Anglican, Catholic, Mennonite, etc. The government’s “relief efforts” (sic) were as corrupt as a $3-dollar bill; they were stashing the international monetary relief that was coming in, in their own bank accounts, while the Christians were doing the heavy work: building houses that had fallen down, clothing and feeding people, bringing them medicine, etc.
Really DANGEROUS people…
SteveD, good post on the pagan origins of Easter.
I am wondering if BCL isn’t someone’s alter-ego who posts inane crap here under the guise of a liberal to get everyone worked up (and increase posts on this blog).
So Wal-Mart’s marketing approach to Easter is the fault of liberals? Thats almost as crazy as David Ahenakew’s comments.
David Ahenakew – if that really is you, you’re not doing your appeal any good.
Fortunately, most Christians in Canada will solemnly observe today as the day Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us. No armies, no wars, no politicians, just one man/God fulfilling his promise to his God/father. Two days later, He prooves that there is life after death. Of course, our challenge is that we won’t know for sure if this is true until we die ourselves.
Kate – I think a person like you should stick to hot cross buns on Easter. All that sugar in the chocolate gets you too worked up!
Grant, very well said. On my way home from church today, I was thinking about the astonishingly ungracious comments by bigcitylib–how about small-mindedbib-boy?–regarding the figment of my imagination I’m stupid enough to worship.
Bib-boy seems to have no clue that it is the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of Western culture, e.g., democracy (lite), religious freedom (well, sort of, these days), and equality before the law (fast disappearing in our PC societies) that allow him to spout such crudities and get away with it, minus official sanctions. (Because his views are on the left, he’s safe from our kangaroo courts, the Human Rights [sic] Commissions.)
And, yes, this adult toddler should have the right to publicly air his mean spiritedness and lack of intelligence. Isn’t it fortunate for him that, under the Judeo-Christian dispensation, he can do so without causing riots or having his head hacked off with a blunt knife on video? It seems the worst that could happen to him is that someone might say, “Jesus loves you” or “I’ll pray for you”.
At this point in mankind’s history, it seems we have the choice to reinvest in the West’s Judeo-Christian roots and fight for the freedoms bequeathed to us from this tradition or to become serfs living in Dhimmitude, either self-chosen, via enforcing PC stupdity, or from outside. By default, e.g., not thinking through his pygmy-size opinions, it seems that bib-boy prefers to subscribe to the latter option. On the bright side, none of us will ever have to read his posts again. On the not so bright side, it will be because our overlords will ensure that we have no computers at all.
At Coyne’s a while back, where bigcitylib wrote “bitcitylibs go after Christians” and “Christians have the ability to learn, but it’s like teaching a donkey. You have to get their attention.”
Uh-oh. Blind spot the size of a life.
In light of the photo Kate posted as “this”, I offer the following…Keep the groans down, please:
A man was blissfully driving along the highway, when he saw the Easter Bunny hopping across the middle of the road. He swerved to avoid hitting the Bunny, but unfortunately the rabbit jumped in front of his car and was hit. The basket of eggs went flying all over the place. Candy, too.
The driver, being a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulled over to the side of the road, and got out to see what had become of the Bunny carrying the basket. Much to his dismay, the colorful Bunny was dead.
The driver felt guilty and began to cry.
A woman driving down the same highway saw the man crying on the side of the road and pulled over. She stepped out of her car and asked the man what was wrong.
“I feel terrible,” he explained. “I accidentally hit the Easter Bunny and killed it. There may not be an Easter because of me. What should I do? ”
The woman told the man not to worry. She knew exactly what to do. She went to her car trunk, and pulled out a spray can. She walked over to the limp, dead Bunny, and sprayed the entire contents of the can onto the little furry animal.
Miraculously the Easter Bunny came to back life, jumped up, picked up the spilled eggs and candy, waved its paw at the two humans and hopped on down the road. 50 yards away the Easter Bunny stopped, turned around, waved and hopped on down the road another 50 yards, turned, waved, hopped another 50 yards and waved again!!!!
The man was astonished.
He said to the woman, “What in heaven’s name is in your spray can? What was it that you sprayed on the Easter Bunny?”
The woman turned the can around so that the man could read the label.
It said: “Hair spray. Restores life to dead hair. Adds permanent wave.”
bruce:
boooooooooooooo hissssssssss!!!!
😉
steve d. and tomax7 have almost nailed it – how ironic it is, to protest about a religious holiday being hijacked to boost profits, when the whole eggs theme was originally a pagan fertility festival theme hijacked by the Christian church to teach the story of the resurrection.
And actually, eggs are much more fitting than “Jesus on the cross” on Sunday morning, when the stone is rolled away, the tomb holds nothing but folded graveclothes, and the cross stands empty to the sky.
Jesus was an innocent, good man who suffered an agonizing death. His death was public. His mother watched him die. Unlike suicide bombers who die out of hate, Jesus died out of love for the very ones who mocked and hated him.
Either he was a good man, but deluded, in which case we should at least sympathize with him, or he was who he claimed to be, and not only his mother witnessed his death, but his Father too. His death was a family affair.
It seems that a mocking attitude towards this man who went about doing good and healing the sick is not something limited to first century Palestine, that there is something about this man that compels people to mock him still.
Could it be?
Big City Liberal, I am an Atheist and a conservative. I agree that Christianity / all religions are dangerous. BUT the best parts of all religions are the good people in them. So while I think this whole chocolate Jesus thing is very funny, (And very silly) I hope that my Chrsitian friends know that I will fight for their freedom to worship who and what they may.
All in all I find the christian hand wringing over all this a lot nicer than the neck wringing done by the Islamofacists.
“Do you accept him, or reject him?”
That depends. Is he pure milk chocolate, or does he contain walnuts? I’d have to go with reject if the chocolate dead guy nailed to some wood comes with walnuts as those get stuck in my teeth. I hate that.
Dear Robert Mein,
Nothing Evil the Islamofacists ever did can equal the Evil of the music of Creed, or POD.
What would you rather do, be tortured by Abdul with his nut-cruncher or listen to a whole side of Chistian Metal?
You know the answer. Unfortunately, we all do.
Chocolate crosses
small-mindedbib-boy (aka, bcl):
I don’t know the answer. Heck, I don’t even understand the question. {I guess you know Robert. Unexplained private musings aren’t really fair in this forum.)
Thank you, anon, now I have seen everything.
As a former dyed-in-the-wool Catholic who has vacillated between agnosticism and atheism for decades, I nevertheless am sad to see proof that nothing is sacred anymore.
“Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” seek Jesus at the empty tomb. +
Matthew
Chapter 28
1
1 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, 2 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
2
3 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.
3
His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow.
4
The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men.
5
Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.
6
4 He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
7
Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ Behold, I have told you.” +
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew28.htm
Pacifist Gobbledygook at Toronto Star
James Loney, one of the Christian Peacemaker Teams ex-hostages, has a piece of empty-headed pacifism about his kidnapping in the Toronto Star that has to be read to be believed.
He describes his captivity as like being in a �tomb.�
And then he describes the cramped US Army personnel carrier that took him to freedom as … you guessed it: From the tomb. (Hat tip: Scaramouche.)
On March 23, at about 7:30 in the morning, our tombstone was rolled way: not by angels garbed in heavenly robes, but by a unit of British Special Forces in full battle gear. There were the sounds of boots on concrete, the door being smashed open, gunfire, voices in English shouting, �Get down! Stay away from the door!� Then a roomful of commotion, soldiers telling us �You�re free, it�s okay, it�s over.� And hands, shaking with excitement, cutting us free with a bolt-cutter.
They led us past the smashed-glass threshold of our tomb and out. Out into blue! Beautiful all sky blue! Fresh flowing air and a palm tree and good morning sunlight! They led us through a smiling gauntlet of soldiers and, with a big step up and a big hatch down, we were entombed again.
This tomb was a bland desert-camouflage colour. It was squat, constructed of impregnable steel, moved on a rolling tread of metal plates. The passenger section was dark and cramped and crammed with carefully tooled metal shapes (each with an exact purpose) and little signs that told you things like what to do in the event of a rollover. A young soldier named Rob kept watch through a tiny slit of super-thick plate glass. Through it, you could see a small, distorted rectangle of the world outside.
The armoured personnel carrier in motion was excruciatingly loud. The roar and staccato-grind of it pounded in my bones. It brought us to a helicopter armed with a fixed, heavy-calibre machine gun, and the helicopter brought us to the Green Zone � the sprawling, blast-wall lock-down that houses the offices of the fledgling Iraqi government and the occupying forces of Britain and the United States.
Yes, we went from one tomb to another.
It could be worse, I guess. Unlike the other two CPT members who survived, at least he thanks his rescuers. Sort of.
I am learning many things from my captivity, and have a universe of things to be grateful for. Among them is a new and deep appreciation for the women and men who wear the uniform of military service. I likely would not be writing this today if it were not for them. Thus, I am confronted with a great paradox. I, the Christian pacifist peacemaker, am alive, am free because of the very institutions I believe are contrary to Christian teaching. +
via LGF
Breaking: Easter Bunny in Trouble at Red River
The Easter Bunny hops for his life while being chased by an ultra-extreme left-wing Political Correctness Gestapo officer sent to the Red River area to bunnynap him and hold him for ransom. What’s their problem, taking the Bunny out of Easter? Not en…
bigcitylib,
“They have taken over your country and I will not allow them to do the same up here.”
Well, lets put those big words into action ‘big city’, ’cause I feel just as strongly about Liberal filth ever taking over anything again.
I’m in Toronto, born here and lived here all my life. So, as I asked you on a previous post – where and when?