A Pagan Easter
Jason highlights several stories about the “pagan roots of Easter”:http://www.wildhunt.org/2006/04/pagan-easter-post-plus-easter-war.html that ran in newspapers across the country. Also, towards the end, he notes the efforts of an evangelical _atheist_ group _Beyond Belief Media_ to sneak their tracts and films into Christian Easter services, something that strikes me as more than a little tacky.
!http://static.flickr.com/45/129595177_a645b87964_m.jpg! On occasion I stop by atheist hangouts — like “God is for Suckers”:http://gods4suckers.net/ — to see if anything’s changed in the discourse in the last fifteen years. Not really. The evangelical atheists are still setting up straw-men, and the radical theocrats still drop by to wave the straw arms about[1]. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of people so compelled to seek each other out just to talk _past_ each other as the radical right wing Christians and the evangelical atheists.
For my part, I’m on Spring break on a _quiet_ beach with a group of Christians, pagans, atheists, and agnostics. We’re all having a great time, enjoying each other’s fellowship and the ocean. I can’t help but think if more people could learn to tolerate ideas they can’t quite connect with themselves, we could all just relax a little.
fn1. I’m not real thrilled about that metaphor, but I’m hoping you understand what I mean anyway.
??For a change, the photo “is by me”:http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=129595177&size=s. My current back-yard view.??
