Yesterday (before going up to the cottage), several people had copied on facebook a little thing about how Easter is actually named after the ancient Assyrian Goddess Ishtar, goddess of sex and fertility and stuff like that, and the eggs and the rabbit are symbols thereof. Then, today, I found this, from a site called The Belle Jar.
Rebirth of Spring, by Pable Montes
Well, it ticked me off for a couple of reasons. First, she said it came from the page of “noted misogynist and eugenics enthusiast Richard Dawkins.” I am a supporter of Dawkins because, seriously, we’ve got few enough atheist spokespeople out there and that’s what he’s really drawing flak for. He’s not a “noted misogynist,” he’s a “noted atheist” and people who don’t like him say he’s a misogynist. I don’t know. Never met the guy. And eugenics gets a bad rap because the Nazis believed in it, but there are degrees to these things. When eugenics is used to mean “consciously trying to improve the future of the human race by paying attention to breeding” it is a very positive idea. I married a smart woman because (among other reasons, obvs) I wanted smart kids. Cows and pigs have made far more evolutionary headway over the last 200 years or so than human beings have, and it’s all down to breeding. But when eugenics means breeding a blonde haired, blue eyed master race and killing everybody else (which I’m sure Richard Dawkins has never suggested) it’s a very bad thing.
The other reason it ticked me off, though, I must confess, is that it debunked something I had swallowed whole. As I read through her piece (I’m assuming that a site called The Belle Jar is written by a woman), looking for things to attack her with (because I do that), I realized that her basic premise is probably correct. Easter is probably not named after Ishtar, and we really have no idea how that was pronounced, because we weren’t there and there were no recording devices.
However (and she doesn’t disagree with this), Easter is a co-opting of ancient pagan festivals by Christianity (and quite possibly named after the Goddess Eostre). Of course, there is going to be a Spring festival. It’s the end of winter, flowers are blooming, creatures who lay eggs are laying eggs, and rabbits (and sheep, and many other animals) are having babies. Humans can be born at any time. Many animal babies are born in spring, so they will be able to consume lots of grass and get big and fat before winter.
One thing she said that I strongly disagreed with was “Most Christians…. know that Jesus wasn’t really born on December 25th, and they know that there were never any actual snakes in Ireland, and they know that rabbits and eggs are fertility symbols.” Certainly not the Christians I’ve been hearing from. They believe that Noah’s Ark is a true story, that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and that we atheists are waging a war on Christmas, because it’s Jesus’ birthday and that’s that.
Still, she was right about more than she was wrong about and I give her credit.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
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Regards Easter = Ishtar.
Actually, Easter and the Easter-egg came from the Egyptian Isis.
In Egyptian Isis was called Ast or Est, from which we derive Ester or Easter (referring to a star or the heavens). And remember that Isis-Est was a fertility goddess, as much as she was the Queen of Heaven.
And the Easter-egg came from the spelling, because Est was spelt with the easter-egg glyph. So yes, there are associations with fertility in the symbology of Est (Isis). Oh, and Ishtar (Isht-ar) came from the Egyptian Est (Isis), and not the other way around.
Ralph
(See: Cleopatra to Christ)
“And eugenics gets a bad rap because the Nazis believed in it, but there are degrees to these things. When eugenics is used to mean “consciously trying to improve the future of the human race by paying attention to breeding” it is a very positive idea. I married a smart woman because (among other reasons, obvs) I wanted smart kids. Cows and pigs have made far more evolutionary headway over the last 200 years or so than human beings have, and it’s all down to breeding.”
In reply to him:
Personally selecting a mate of your own free will and making voluntary, consensual personal choices together about reproduction is not eugenics, even if you hope to produce healthy smart children: that is the very opposite of eugenics. “Eugenics” implies an authority exerting influence, control, or coercion over peoples’ reproductive choices, in order to improve the genetic lot of the species. The definition you gave does not fit.
Definitions:
“The study or practice of attempting to improve the human gene pool by encouraging the reproduction of people considered to have desirable traits and discouraging or preventing the reproduction of people considered to have undesirable traits.”
“a science that tries to improve the human race by controlling which people become parents.”
“A pseudoscience with the stated aim of improving the genetic constitution of the human species by selective breeding”
Note the repeated use of words like “controlling” or “preventing.” Selective breeding implies someone other than the breeders making choices about whether, when, how and with whom to breed, which is fine for cows and pigs but it is evil to exert the same level of control over people that we do livestock. People deserve to make their own sexual and reproductive choices. Providing them with opportunities is great, but depriving them of autonomy to make mating and sexual choices is not.
There have also, historically, been some very bad opinions about what traits are considered desirable versus undesirable, and about what features should be preserved. Such decisions are probably best left to the parents.
I believe allowing people the freedom to make their own reproductive choices, with as many options as possible, will achieve the stated goals of eugenicists better than any policy dictating who may or may not mate with whom. And if it doesn’t, so what? People decide what to do with their own bodies anyway.
No species makes very much “evolutionary headway” in 200 years – 200 years is an insignificant span of time for much change to take place via natural selection, and arguably, there is no “headway” to be made – evolution by natural selection is a goal – less natural process. There is no finish line to cross, no ultimate goal towards which evolution steers us.
Selective breeding of cows and pigs to be more easily exploited by a smarter and more technically sophisticated species doesn’t sound much like “progress” from the livestock’s point of view. They may be healthier in some ways thanks to artificial selection, but they are more dependent on man than Koalas are on Eucalyptus, and are far less fit to survive and pass on their genes, absent the sustaining pressure of human influence, than their ancestors were..
Whether it is or ain’t “all about Jesus” is important to atheists and certain young earth creationists / biblical literalists because both groups wish to treat religion as a hypothesis about how the world works: they disagree about the validity of religious claims, but both groups want them to be claims of fact and they want them to be logically consistent. Most religious people, and certainly most Christians, are not so invested in making every detail of their faith logically consistent. The young earth creationists types you refer to are a distinct minority of Christians. This minority reacts to pagan practices co-opted by the early church in one of two ways: they either deny the pagan origins of those practices, or they forbid those practices in favor of what they consider biblically prescribed practices.
Most other Christians just shrug and treat the fact that some of their holiday celebrations involve co-opted pagan traditions as an interesting historical footnote about their religion, and get on with their lives. This latter variety of Christian has less traffic or argument with atheists, because they have less investment in “bible as journalism” or scrupulous orthodoxy than do zealots and fundamentalists. Nevertheless, they are the majority.
Apologies. Just noticed this was two years old. The “ishtar/easter” meme is circulating again, made me think this was current.