Christians: What's the deal with the history of Easter?

Neither Easter nor Christmas is a pagan holiday.  Show me where pagans worshiped the infant Jesus.  Show me where pagans rejoiced at the resurrected Christ.  If you can't do that, then admit it-neither is pagan.  It's an accusation sponsored  by the Devil himself.

Edit:  And once again we have the JW TeeM combining the trappings of commercial Easter with the Christian worship of the resurrection.  Sad how desperate he is to display his hatred.

Neither is a pagan holiday, they are both CHRISTIAN celebrations. 

Easter, before the establishment of a permanent ecclesiastical calendar (based on the Julian originally) was always celebrated in the Christian community on the weekend immediately after Passover, it was done this way as it is known from scripture that the crucifixion occurred on a preparation day (the day before a sabbath), and the resurrection was revealed to the disciples on the first day of the week.  As Passover was a lunar based festival, falling on the new moon, and occurred at the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, it was decided that Easter celebrations using the Julian (and later Gregorian) calendar should use the lunar cycle.  The beginning of Passover is no longer associated with the weekly sabbath. 

December 25 was probably fixed as Christmas Day because the beginning of Hanukkah does at times coincide with that date.  The theological connection between the Jewish festival and the Christian festival is that the Holy Spirits presence was physically present in the temple complex, Christmas celebrates the physical appearance of Jesus on earth at the time o his birth, both celebrations include gift giving.  The religious symbols of Christmas also connect directly with the death and resurrection of Christ. 

Easter is set by the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This is the one day in the year when day and night are roughly equal!

It varies by more than a month over the years and so it simply cannot represent the date of anyone's death!!!

It is in fact a combination of several pagan festivals most notably the spring festival.

The name Easter comes from “Eastre” an Anglo-Saxon pagan goddess. Also the Norse goddess,Ostara who took her name from the Teutonic lunar goddess Eostre

Even the Chinese have the festival of Ching Ming where flowers and sweets are put on their ancestors graves!!

The egg and the rabbit are symbols of springtime and rebirth along with the custom of giving flowers etc!!

The Venerable Bede, an early Christian writer pointed out that the Christian church absorbed Pagan practices when it found the population unwilling to give up the festivals. Thus a lot of what Christians now see as Christians practices are in fact pagan!!!

The Pope said last year that Easter should now have a set date to make it Christian!

Fun to watch the Christians worshiping a pagan festival though - makes it just like Christmas when they do the same thing!!!

Easter is the Christian celebration of the eternal fulfillment of the Passover and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Only in the Germanic languages do we find "Passover", "Paschal" or "Pasch" translated into the equivalent of "Easter". Before Christianity, EVERYTHING except for Judaism, was Pagan. 

1) Christians: What's the deal with the history of Easter?

See: Wikipedia.


2) I have a question I want to post on Yahoo! Answers but I need info on the history of Easter.

See: Wikipedia


3) Easter, like Christmas, is a pagan holiday.

By definition
both claims are untrue.
See: any standard English dictionary, the words "Easter" and "Christmas".


4) Does Easter have a similar origin like Christmas does? Did it start out as a pagan festival in Europe and was decidedly made Christian to appease the European church before the Europeans brought it with them to North America?

No.
Unlike Christmas
which probably originated in the attempt to Christianize existing Pagan celebrations
Easter is directly derived from the Biblical New Testament
and the method of determining its date
is similarly *derived* from the Bible
(rather than replacing an existing Pagan holiday whose date is NOT derived from the Bible).

Catholics co-opted pagan spring festivals to make a Christian holiday.

You've asked the same question three times in less than 45 minutes.  Obviously, you're a Jehovah's Witness just looking for opportunities to bash Easter and we "Trinitarians."  I'm not wasting my time on you.

Let's see what does Christ have to do with bunnies and eggs?

Let's see what does Christ have to do with buying new clothes and proudly parading through town so people can see you.

Some are striving to get away from these 'pagan' celebrations by referring to it as 'The Resurrection Celebration'. Where they have special Church services. Afterward, many go home and look for hidden eggs, combining true with false.

The word Easter is an altering of the name of the goddess Ishtar, who was worshiped with bunnies and eggs.

As to Christmas, there isn't anything 'Christian' in this celebration, other than the name.

The date is some 2 months off, and is based upon the celebration of pagan birthday celebrations.
.

Here the answer: https://www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=E&docid=502013125&srcid=share

Many people believe that they are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus when they celebrate Easter. But actually, the celebration of Easter has been linked to Eostre, the Anglo Saxon goddess of the dawn and spring. The 'Dictionary of Mythology' explains that she was also a fertility goddess. Some Easter customs are connected with this. For example, eggs "have been prominent as symbols of new life and resurrection," (Encyclopoedia Britannica). Also, rabbits have long been used as symbols of fertility in pagan worship. Philippe Walter, a professor of medievel literature, explains how such customs became part of the Easter celebration. He wrote that "in the process of Christianization of pagan religions," it was easy to associate the pagan festival that celebrateed "the passage from the death of winter to the life of springtime" with Jesus' resurrection. Walter adds that it was a key step in introducing "Christian commemorations" to the pagan calendar, thus smoothing the way to mass conversion. This process of "Christianization" did not occur while the Apostles were still alive, because they acted as a "restraint" against paganism.(2 Thessalonians 2:7). The Apostle Paul warned that after his "going away," men would "rise and speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves." (Acts 20: 29,30) And late in the first century, the apostle John wrote that some men were already misleading Christians. (1 John 2: 18,26) The way was open for the eventual adoption of pagan customs. It is clear that Easter is not related to the resurrection of Jesus.
Mixing false religious customs with the resurrection of Jesus is not pleasing to Jehovah. (2 Corinthians 6: 17,18) 
The fact is, Jehovah never asked us to celebrate Jesus' resurrection.
Jesus himself asked his followers to commemorate his death, not his resurrection. The Apostle Paul called this occasion "the Lord's evening meal." 1 Corinthians 11:20; Luke 22: 19,20