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[scriver]

A huge percentage of "pagan festivities being coopted" are just as strong a case of retroexplanation as anything else. The Christmas Tree is one of my favorite such - they are often said to be a cooption of Germanic Paganism, but the earliest examples don't show up until the early 15th century - long after Germanic Paganism was driven to near extinction and the main debate was over the details of Christianity.

This is very relevant and true, but one must also take into account both that the customs of the common and rural folk (which are the ones that would have carried on pagan customs) much less commonly had their customs taken to the page, and that customs may have changed direct expression while retaining the purpose of the custom -- for example Christmas trees where the purpose is very likely to bring in and decorate with a bit of greenery and life in the darkest and deadest season of the year; can one really make a difference between if one brings in an entire tree, or just braid a wreath from branches, or use other wintergreen plants like mistletoe or fruits like winter apples?

Then again we know the germanian cultures were extremely heavy into worshipping trees and tree symbology so retrofitting Christmas trees into pagan narrative is very tempting and can of course be too hasty.

[Lord Shonus]

A huge percentage of "pagan festivities being coopted" are just as strong a case of retroexplanation as anything else.

What a polite way of saying I'm snorting the equivalent of evolutionary psychology. Very history of the victor centric. There was a teacher at one of the schools I went to, catholic school super strict but with good reputation, who met with a bunch of other grown ass men on his weekends to celebrate and study celtic druidism. Furthermore it's quite the coincidence how much our holidays still relate to bronze age astroNoMy; and quite the indication the church felt the need to coopt such things... Wasn't St Patrick's day the doing of missionaries?

Of course our holidays strongly relate to bronze-age astronomy. Most of them are derived from a bronze-age religion called "Judaism", which strongly influenced Christian traditions because Christ was supposed to be the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. Not sure what you're referring to with St. Patrick's day - it was the "doing of missionaries" in that St. Patrick was a missionary credited with converting Ireland (the "snakes" in the legend were probably the druids displaced by Christianity due to his efforts) and the celebration is the alleged date of his death.

A huge percentage of "pagan festivities being coopted" are just as strong a case of retroexplanation as anything else. The Christmas Tree is one of my favorite such - they are often said to be a cooption of Germanic Paganism, but the earliest examples don't show up until the early 15th century - long after Germanic Paganism was driven to near extinction and the main debate was over the details of Christianity.

This is very relevant and true, but one must also take into account both that the customs of the common and rural folk (which are the ones that would have carried on pagan customs) much less commonly had their customs taken to the page, and that customs may have changed direct expression while retaining the purpose of the custom -- for example Christmas trees where the purpose is very likely to bring in and decorate with a bit of greenery and life in the darkest and deadest season of the year; can one really make a difference between if one brings in an entire tree, or just braid a wreath from branches, or use other wintergreen plants like mistletoe or fruits like winter apples?

Then again we know the germanian cultures were extremely heavy into worshipping trees and tree symbology so retrofitting Christmas trees into pagan narrative is very tempting and can of course be too hasty.

These are legitimate arguments. What I am arguing is not "nothing was ever coopted", but "far too often people claim cooption purely due to a chance similarity or because it feels "right" to challenge the dominant view".

[Vector]

I wasn't going to post this, but Pesach (Passover) is close to Easter and includes eating a hard-boiled egg. I've wondered for a long time whether these things had something to do with each other.

Tu B'shvat is the New Year of Trees and not that far away from Christmas.

[heydude6]

Jesus was jewish. Passover was a jewish tradition which he practiced. Passover supper was his literal last supper. In the Bible, he was killed shortly afterwards and since Easter commemorates the day he died, it makes sense that the two dates would be close together.

I don't know if the egg connection means anything. I'm sure it predates the Easter bunny though because in the Ukrainian orthodox church, we make Pissanki (Писанки) which are decorated hard-boiled eggs that have no association with a rabbit.

[Caz]

I don't know if the egg connection means anything. I'm sure it predates the Easter bunny though because in the Ukrainian orthodox church, we make Pissanki (Писанки) which are decorated hard-boiled eggs that have no association with a rabbit.

I got taught the egg rolling thing was to represent the stone rolling away from the cave on Jesus' resurrection. :L

[scriver]

Easter is still called Pesach in Swedish -- although bastardised to Påsk

[martinuzz]

I wasn't going to post this, but Pesach (Passover) is close to Easter and includes eating a hard-boiled egg. I've wondered for a long time whether these things had something to do with each other.

In the wonderfully garbled celebration traditions in the Netherlands, which are kinda the same for both cristians, jews and non-religious alike, hard boiled eggs are part of the common Easter tradition, painted by the children, and hidden by the Easter Bunny.

Matzes are a common Easter thing too.
They traditionally are a reminder of the jews' exodus from Egypt. They had so little time to prepare to leave, they made flatbreads instead of normal breads (no yeast), to lose no time waiting for the dough to rise.

EDIT: Easter in Dutch is Pasen, which is also derived from Pesach

[dragdeler]

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[Maximum Spin]

While I was browsing I just kinda thought we probably don't know for sure when St-Patrick died, though the date celebrated is close'ish to spring equinox,

One thing that has to be taken into account with respect to that is that the medieval hagiographic tradition wanted to have a saint for every day of the year, and there were even a couple mutually inconsistent ways of doing this. Having a saint's day coincide with an unrelated day therefore cannot by itself be significant.

[methylatedspirit]

My friends were replacing a phone battery, and they did the one thing you should never do with Li-ion batteries: punctured it trying to remove it with a flathead screwdriver. Damn thing just burst into flames. I don't know if the phone's still working, but the internals are... crispy. I warned them. Goddamn it.

[Eric Blank]

Isn't it great when people ignore safety warnings? Told my brother not to use gasoline on a bonfire once, set the lawn on fire and burnt off his eyebrows/hairline. Then he had the nerve to be mad at us!

[methylatedspirit]

Update: that phone's still working. The fuck? Granted, the screen has bright and dark regions, the capacitive button on the bottom of the screen (that acts as Back, Home, and fingerprint sensor? I ain't too familiar with Huaweis) stopped working, and the bottom speaker + mic are dead (microphone especially), but it's "working". I'm just hoping that it taught them a valuable lesson in not being an absolute fool around dangerous items, but the guy specifically responsible seems oddly pleased with himself.

[Mech#4]

How hard do you have to hit a battery to pierce it with a screwdriver? In phones they just drop out or maybe need a clip pushed in.

[methylatedspirit]

The battery's glued down in this case. To remove it, you need to use some thin tool, preferably a card or one of those guitar picks. The absolute fool, instead, against my warnings, used a fucking flathead screwdriver bit that was part of my screwdriver set. It didn't end particularly well.

[wierd]

Credit card works quite well.  Just about everyone has one these days.  Failing that, a good stiff card from a deck of cards will also work.

Being held down with a strip of adhesive is about what I have come to expect from Alcatel and pals. (Huawei being another noteworthy offender)