The bunny trail

Tomorrow is Easter, the most important celebration of the Christian calendar, a time when believers are reminded about such things as eternal life and redemption and salvation.  Also, therefore, time for the wacko fringe element to remind everybody that they better not get their kids chocolate bunnies, because this will cause children to hippety-hop right to hell.

[image courtesy of photographer Josef Türk Jun and the Wikimedia Commons]

At least, this is the claim of "Shirlee" of the site Real Bible Stories, in her post "Easter Bunny Brings Satan's Communion."  And I'd like to be able to tell you that this is a parody site, but "Shirlee" appears to be entirely sincere.  Here's what she has to say:

Easter. For many, it conjures images of a basket-toting rabbit bearing chocolate bunnies. The White House hosts an Easter Egg hunt, as do many churches.  What’s wrong with that?  It’s a celebration of spring, and fertility, and...  Yes, fertility. I’ll bet you didn’t know Jesus was a fertility god, did you? 

What’s that you say? He’s not? 

Then why are you worshiping rabbits — an unclean animal, consumption of which is abomination to God — and hunting for colored eggs on the celebration of His Resurrection?

Yes, well, in Leviticus 11:6 the bible also says that rabbits "chew the cud," which they don't.  But don't let that stop you from taking the whole thing as the literal truth.

And wait until you hear who is responsible for this perversion... you'll never guess.

It's... the Catholics:

Yes, Catholics. The inheritors of the Babylonian religion, who have perverted every aspect of Christianity with the ways of Nimrod and Semiramis (Ishtar)! 

Satan has found a very clever way of perverting Christianity...  He used the Catholic cult to inject his own rituals — those directed at any number of false gods, and even a false Savior — into Christian worship!  Think about it...  Whenever you idolize the Easter bunny, or trade eggs, or even fast at Lent, you are worshipping Satan!

Huh.  I was raised Catholic, and even back then, I was always in it for the chocolate.  But I suppose that's only to be expected from a former cult member who made it worse by giving up religion entirely.

"Shirlee" then goes into a long diatribe on the origins of Easter and how the "Catholic cult" (her words) has twisted the whole thing into a fast-track into hell.  She also more than once uses the phrase "Bunnies of Satan," which I think would be a great name for an all-girl metal band.

She ends with a scary question:

Will your kids be chomping on chocolate eggs and rabbits tomorrow, taking the Devil’s Communion?

In all seriousness, I find it hard to imagine living my life in such perpetual fear.  The idea that there's this evil guy who is constantly trying to find ways to grab you, and that even something like a Russell Stover Chocolate Bunny Rabbit could provide him ingress, is so horrid that if I believed it, I wouldn't want to leave my house.  Ever.

It does make you wonder what's appealing about this world view.  Once you've bought in, though, it's clear why people stay.  If you have let yourself become convinced that everything is a threat, and the only way to avoid burning in agony forever is to follow the bible word-for-word, it's unsurprising that it's difficult to cut free.

Unsurprising, too, that people like this get their knickers in a twist over anything that's different.  Which is why an elementary school in Kennesaw, Georgia has cancelled a yoga program designed for  alleviating student stress because parents thought it was "sorcery."  Kids and staff are now forbidden from saying "namasté" to each other.  One parent wrote:

Now we can’t pray in our schools or practice Christianity but they are allowing this Far East mystical religion with crystals and chants to be practiced under the guise of stress release meditation.  This is very scary.

Yes indeedy.  We don't want students de-stressed.  We want them scared.  We want them to be aware, 24/7, that anything they do, any tiny misstep, could potentially lead to their spending eternity in hellfire.

The administrators, of course, caved; no way could they push back against the people who raised the stink, because then you'd have Fox News blathering on for weeks about the War on Christianity even though Christians make up 55% of the population of Kennesaw.

So anyway.  Me, I'm just looking forward to next week, when all of the remaining Bunnies of Satan are gonna be on sale.  It may be the Devil's Communion, but it sure as hell is tasty.

Ishtar vs. Easter vs. the truth

There has been a rather unfortunate upswing lately in sites that have names like "The Dark Truth About ____," and which try to put us all in a state of shock and dismay by informing us about the rather sketchy origins of some of our most cherished institutions and traditions.

Because, apparently, such institutions and traditions never change.  At all.  If you decide to participate in a May Day celebration next week, you are not just having a party to welcome in spring -- you are actively participating in a tradition that comes from the medieval witches' celebration of "Walpurgis Night" and are therefore you are directly guilty of paganism, devil worship, sacrificing virgins, and who knows what else.  (Actually, for the record, I like Jonathan Coulton's take on this tradition, as he describes in his song "First of May." WARNING: this is SERIOUSLY NSFW, and not for those who are easily offended.  But also funnier than hell.  You have been warned.)

It's not just religious traditions that evidently can't ever change.  Ann Coulter, that voluble purveyor of pretzel logic and ad hominems, has claimed outright that Democrats are all racists because the Democratic Party was a staunch supporter of the institution of slavery.

150 years ago.

Even worse, though, is when these claims tie a tradition to some dark origin... and then gets those origins completely wrong.

I.e., when people lie about stuff just to stir folks up.

All of this comes up because of a link that was sent to me by my pal and fellow blogger Andrew Butters, of the wonderful and entertaining Potato Chip Math.  Entitled "The Truth About Easter and the Secret Worship of the Annunaki," this site makes some rather astonishing claims.  Here, in a nutshell, is what the author says that you're doing when you celebrate Easter:

• Actually worshiping the goddess Ishtar, who was known to Germanic tribes as "Eastre," who was the goddess of sex and fertility.
• Revering Ishtar's grandfather Anu, who was a Babylonian god and also part of the Annunaki, who lunatics like the person who wrote this think are actual aliens who have visited the Earth in spaceships.
• Probably going to church services where ministers wear vestments, which are representations of the god Dagon's "scaly fish suit."  (For the record, I did not make that quote up.)
• Participating in an occult ritual (if all of the above wasn't enough).  All of the world's prevailing religions are actually run by Satanists.
• Hinting that you'd like to sacrifice children to the Phoenician god Moloch, and would do so if you had the chance.
• Taking part in "dark and gory rituals."

And here you probably just thought you were going to church, having Easter egg hunts, and coming home to a nice baked ham with mashed potatoes and steamed peas.

Okay.  So can we take a look at these claims, then?

First, there is no evidence that "Ishtar" and "Easter" are cognates, however they may sound a little bit alike.  Ishtar (and her Phoenician cousin, Astarte) seem to be names that have changed relatively little since their Proto-Indo-European roots.  To quote linguist Paul Collins on the subject:

The name of the goddess Eshtar (later Ishtar) occurs as elements in both Presargonic and Sargonic personal names.  It has been suggested that Eshtar derives from a form of 'Attar, a male deity know from Ugaritic and South Arabian inscriptions (Roberts, 1972: 39).  The corresponding female forms are 'Attart/'Ashtart.  The two names may have designated the planet Venus under its aspect of a male morning star ('Attar) and a female evening star ('Attart).  This would apparently account for the dual personality of Ishtar as a goddess of love (female) and of war (male).  In Mesopotamia the masculine form took over the functions of the female and a goddess developed contrary to its grammatical gender; perhaps under influence from the Sumerian Inanna who may have possessed similar attributes.

The origin of the word Easter comes from the name of a Germanic goddess of spring, Eostre, but her name has a different etymology, apparently completely unrelated to Ishtar.  The origin of the name is in the Proto-Indo-European root *aus-, meaning "shine."  (As such, the name is a cognate of the word "east.")

Okay, so maybe the Christians did adopt the bunnies and eggs and whatnot from a Germanic spring festival.  Can't see how that's a problem, really, if all of the Hoppin' Down The Bunny Trail nonsense floats your boat.  But it doesn't have anything to do with Ishtar -- and therefore neither has it any connection to Anu (and the Annunaki, who, by the way, are mythological figures, and therefore not real.  Cf. the definition of the word "mythological.").  Which means that any idea that Easter is secretly about sacrificing children to Moloch is three degrees removed from anything even resembling the truth.

And throwing in Dagon is just plain weird.  "Scaly fish suit," indeed.  I mean, all right, the pope's vestments are a little goofy-looking, if you regard them with an unbiased eye.  But I'm not seeing the "fish suit" thing.

The whole thing makes me nuts.  I mean, if you're going to dream up some ridiculous conspiracy theory, at least get the freakin' facts right.  Linguistics is not some kind of cross between free association and the Game of Telephone.

And don't claim that decent, ordinary people are actually participating in something they're not actually participating in.  You haven't scored any points in your favor by doing so, and you haven't proven anything except that you may be an asshole.

So to anyone who celebrates Easter, and who saw this floating around on the interwebz and was upset by it, you can relax.  Your festivities last Sunday were not somehow a thin veneer of good cheer over a "dark and gory ritual."  As for me, I'm waiting for next week.  The First of May sounds like more fun, all things considered.