Easter

While I am usually quite upfront about my atheism when asked about my faith, 2 days ago, I held my tongue. The story follows ....

It goes like this. I was grocery shopping and getting some chocolate eggs for my kids. They may not believe in god but by damn any excuse to get their hands on some mini eggs is ok by them. So anyway we were talking about kids and eggs as I checked out and the young girl packing my bags pointedly looked at me and asked *this* about my kids:

"Yeah but do they know the REAL reason for Easter."

Wow. Caught me right off guard she did. But I was up for the challenge .... or was I. I looked her straight in the eyes and replied firmly and a little incredulously ....uhhh NO. She seemed a little taken aback herself and blurted out why?

I was in a grocery store with a line of people behind me, everyone of which was now intently listening to this exchange. The cashier would not look at either of us and her lips were pursed tightly together. So what did I say?

I said "It's not my religion" So sue me. I could have told her the truth, that I am an atheist but I didn't really think it was any of her business. She was obviously one of the rapturists and I didn't feel like getting into a big philosophical discussion about my atheism while in line at the GROCERY store.

She was a little taken aback by my reply and I could tell she was dying to ask me WHAT my religion was, as determined as I was NOT to tell her. Instead she tried to backtrack by babbling on about how it was ok with her that I was not a christian. She believed in live and let live and that people were free to believe whatever they wanted as long as they believed in SOME sort of god, yada yada yada.

At this point I was dumbstruck but managed to squeek out that I didn't think it was any of my business what people believed, whether they belived in a god or NOT. It didn't phase her one bit and she continued to yammer on asking why I was having turkey if I didn't observe easter. I decided to lighten things up a bit and said that any excuse to have a turkey was a good enough reason for me and besides it was a nice to have a family dinner once and a while. This didn't stop her and she moved on to Christmas complaining about how angry she had been that she had trouble getting HER family to visit at Christmas .... gee I wonder why? At this point I was obviously getting delerious because I mentioned something about having my family visit for Christmas. She looked at me kinda wierd and uttered her umpteenth challenge of this miserable few minutes.

"You don't celebrate Easter but you DO celebrate Christmas? To which I glibly answered "well I don't, but THEY do" (the truth) That seemed to satisfy her and the ordeal almost over she cheerfully wished me a happy long weekend as I walked out of the stored stunned.

I wondered why I didn't just tell the girl I was an atheist. I usually do and it's usually a conversation stopper. I think it was because it was early in the morning, there was a long line of people behind me and frankly I just didn't want the hassle. I could have said so many things, all of which she would have taken as an insult, like how easter is really a pagan holiday celebrating fertility, just another day hijacked by the christians to serve as one of their most holy of holidays. But really what was the point. Would it have changed her mind? Nope. This girl is usually very sweet and naive. Just a kid really. She honestly saw nothing wrong in what she did and I saw nothing to be gained by lecturing her on the inappropriatness of her inquisition. Besides from the look on the cashier's face I suspect she is in for a major tongue lashing by her boss in the near future. So why the post. Well her question has been bugging me these past couple of days.

Do my kids know the real reason for Easter? They do now.

THE PAGAN ORIGINS OF EASTER

IA