Easter - Its Pagan origins

Origins of the name "Easter":

The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similarly, the "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos." ₁ Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: "eastre." Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime. Some were:
-Aphrodite from ancient Cyprus
-Ashtoreth from ancient Israel
-Astarté from ancient Greece
-Demeter from Mycenae
-Hathor from ancient Egypt
-Ishtar from Assyria
-Kali, from India
-Ostara a Norse Goddess of fertility.

An alternative explanation has been suggested. The name given by the Frankish church to Jesus' resurrection festival included the Latin word "alba" which means "white." (This was a reference to the white robes that were worn during the festival.) "Alba" also has a second meaning: "sunrise." When the name of the festival was translated into German, the "sunrise" meaning was selected in error. This became "ostern" in German. Ostern has been proposed as the origin of the word "Easter". ₂
There are two popular beliefs about the origin of the English word "Sunday."
-It is derived from the name of the Scandinavian sun Goddess Sunna (a.k.a. Sunne, Frau Sonne). _5,6
-It is derived from "Sol," the Roman God of the Sun." Their phrase "Dies Solis" means "day of the Sun." The Christian saint Jerome (d. 420) commented "If it is called the day of the sun by the pagans, we willingly accept this name, for on this day the Light of the world arose, on this day the Sun of Justice shone forth." ₇

Pagan origins of Easter:

Many, perhaps most, Pagan religions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a fictional consort who was believed to have been born via a virgin birth. He was Attis, who was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period MAR-22 to MAR-25. "About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill ...Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection." ₃

Wherever Christian worship of Jesus and Pagan worship of Attis were active in the same geographical area in ancient times, Christians "used to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on the same date; and pagans and Christians used to quarrel bitterly about which of their gods was the true prototype and which the imitation."

Many religious historians believe that the death and resurrection legends were first associated with Attis, many centuries before the birth of Jesus. They were simply grafted onto stories of Jesus' life in order to make Christian theology more acceptable to Pagans. Others suggest that many of the events in Jesus' life that were recorded in the gospels were lifted from the life of Krishna, the second person of the Hindu Trinity. Ancient Christians had an alternative explanation; they claimed that Satan had created counterfeit deities in advance of the coming of Christ in order to confuse humanity. ₄ Modern-day Christians generally regard the Attis legend as being a Pagan myth of little value. They regard Jesus' death and resurrection account as being true, and unrelated to the earlier tradition.

Wiccans and other modern-day Neopagans continue to celebrate the Spring Equinox as one of their 8 yearly Sabbats (holy days of celebration). Near the Mediterranean, this is a time of sprouting of the summer's crop; farther north, it is the time for seeding. Their rituals at the Spring Equinox are related primarily to the fertility of the crops and to the balance of the day and night times. Where Wiccans can safely celebrate the Sabbat out of doors without threat of religious persecution, they often incorporate a bonfire into their rituals, jumping over the dying embers is believed to assure fertility of people and crops.

References used in the above essay:

1. Larry Boemler "Asherah and Easter," Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 18, Number 3, 1992-May/June reprinted at: http://www.worldmissions.org/Clipper/Holidays/EasterAndAsherah.htm
2. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Q & A Set 15, "Why do we celebrate a festival called Easter?" at: http://www.wels.net/sab/text/qa/qa15.html
3. Gerald L. Berry, "Religions of the World," Barns & Noble, (1956).
4. J Farrar & S. Farrar, "Eight Sabbats for Witches," Phoenix, Custer, WA, (1988).
5. "Sunna," TeenWitch at: http://www.teenwitch.com
6. "Dies Solis and other Latin Names for the Days of the Week," Logo Files, at:
7.   http://www.logofiles.com/
8. "Sunday Observance," Latin Mass News, at:  http://www.unavoceca.org/

Copyright 1999 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2007-APR-11
Author: B.A. Robinson


http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter1.htm


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Internet filter blacklist leaked on web

By News Online's Nic MacBean


The communication regulator's blacklist of banned internet sites has apparently been leaked, prompting an internet advocacy group to accuse the Government of making it easy to access child pornography.

The Government is planning to introduce a mandatory internet filter that will block access to a list of dangerous websites.

The list of sites - managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) - is designed to catalogue sites containing child pornography or other criminal content.

Wikileaks, an organisation that aims to reveal secret information, today published what it claims to be the ACMA blacklist.

As well as child pornography, the list of 2,395 pages also includes online gambling sites, YouTube links, regular porn and fetish sites, and websites of a tour operator, Queensland boarding kennel and a Queensland dentist. It also includes the Wikileaks website.

"We now find Australia acting like a democratic backwater," the Wikileaks site says.

"Apparently without irony, ACMA threatens fines of up to $11,000 a day for linking to sites on its secret, unreviewable, censorship blacklist - a list the Government hopes to expand into a giant national censorship machine."

ACMA says it is likely to make a comment on the matter later today.

Wikileaks has previously published similar lists from Thailand, Denmark and Norway. The blacklist includes the Wikileaks website itself.

Internet freedom advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) says the leaking of the list has confirmed their fears that the Government was creating a quick and easy database for dangerous sites.

"This was bound to happen, especially as mandatory filtering would require the list to be distributed to ISPs all around the country," EFA vice-chair Colin Jacobs said.

"The Government is now in the unenviable business of compiling and distributing a list which includes salacious and illegal material and publicising those very sites to the world."

Mr Jacobs also said the list revealed how many sites could be unwittingly dragged into the net of censorship.

"Now that we have seen the list, it is clearly not the perfect weapon against child-abuse it has been made out to be," said Jacobs.

"Many of the sites clearly contain only run-of-the-mill adult material, poker tips, or nothing controversial at all. Even if some of these sites may have been defaced at the time they were added to the list, how would the operators get their sites removed if the list is secret and no appeal is possible?"

The ABC has been unable to contact Broadband and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, but he is quoted by Fairfax as saying any Australians involved in the leak could face criminal charges.

"No-one interested in cyber safety would condone the leaking of this list," he said.


ABC 19-3-9

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/19/2520591.htm?WT.mc_id=newsmail

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Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day

Asher Moses
March 17, 2009 - 11:48AM

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark's list of banned websites.

The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA - an anti-abortion website.

ACMA's blacklist does not have a significant impact on web browsing by Australians today but sites contained on it will be blocked for everyone if the Federal Government implements its mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme.

But even without the mandatory censorship scheme, as is evident in the Whirlpool case, ACMA can force sites hosted in Australia to remove "prohibited" pages and even links to prohibited pages.

Online civil liberties campaigners have seized on the move by ACMA as evidence of how casually the regulator adds to its list of blacklisted sites. It also confirmed fears that the scope of the Government's censorship plan could easily be expanded to encompass sites that are not illegal.

"The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship," Wikileaks said on its website in response to the ACMA ban.

The site has also published Thailand's internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

Already, a significant portion of the 1370-site Australian blacklist - 506 sites - would be classified R18+ and X18+, which are legal to view but would be blocked for everyone under the proposal. The Government has said it was considering expanding the blacklist to 10,000 sites and beyond.

Electronic Frontiers Australia said the leak of the Danish blacklist and ACMA's subsequent attempts to block people from viewing it showed how easy it would be for ACMA's own blacklist - which is secret - to be leaked onto the web once it is handed to ISPs for filtering.

"We note that, not only do these incidents show that the ACMA censors are more than willing to interpret their broad guidelines to include a discussion forum and document repository, it is demonstrably inevitable that the Government's own list is bound to be exposed itself at some point in the future," EFA said.

"The Government would serve the country well by sparing themselves, and us, this embarrassment."

Last week, Reporters Without Borders, in its regular report on enemies of internet freedom, placed Australia on its "watch list" of countries imposing anti-democratic internet restrictions that could open the way for abuses of power and control of information.

The main issue raised was the Government's proposed internet censorship regime.

"This report demolished the Communications Minister's contention that Australia is just following other comparable democracies," Greens communications spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam said.

"We are not. The Government is embarking on a deeply unpopular and troubling experiment to fine-tune its ability to censor the internet.

"I agree with Reporters Without Borders. If you consider this kind of net censorship in the context of Australia's anti-terror laws, it paints a disturbing picture indeed."

EFA said the Government's "spin is starting to wear thin" and it could no longer be denied that the ACMA blacklist targets a huge range of material that is legal and even uncontroversial.

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has repeatedly claimed his proposed mandatory filters would target only "illegal" content - predominantly child pornography.

"As time goes on, pressure will only mount on the Government to expand the list, while money and effort are poured into an enormous black box that will neither help kids nor stem the flow of illegal material," EFA said.

"If the minister truly believes that children are seeking out, or being bombarded with, child pornography, then there's a dearth of both common sense and proper research in the ministerial suites."

Already, the head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, has said he hopes the sex industry will go broke as a result of the censorship scheme.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon previous expressed his desire to have online gambling sites added to the blacklist but has since withdrawn his support for the scheme, saying it was dangerous and could be "counter-productive".

The Greens and Opposition also oppose the scheme, meaning any legislation to implement it will be blocked.

The Opposition has obtained legal advice that "legislation of some sort will almost certainly be required", but others have said it may be possible to implement the scheme without legislation.

Speaking at a telecommunications conference last week, Senator Conroy urged Australians to have faith in MPs to pass the right legislation.

Despite previously saying his scheme would be expanded to block "refused classification" content that includes sites depicting drug use, sex, crime, cruelty and violence, he said opponents of his plan were spreading "conspiracy theories".

The Government's internet censorship trials are due to begin shortly but critics have said they may not provide much useful data on the real-world implications because none of the major ISPs were chosen to take part.


SMH 18-3-9

http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technology/banned-hyperlinks-could-cost-you-11000-a-day/2009/03/17/1237054787635.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1


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Australia Day

To me Australia Day is a day to think a little more about the people who made Australia what it is. A decreasingly semi free country.

The Australian states started as English prisons. We still don't have any guaranteed ' rights ' and any that were part of English law can be legislated away by state or feral governments. We may have signed UN treaties, but they depend on feral law for there application here.

It has been more than fifty years since the feral government has acted in accordance with our constitution's written word. eg taxation.

Consider these events and people:

Reverend Samuel Marsden ( the flogging Parson ), assistant to the chaplain of the colony, then the chief Anglican clergyman in New South Wales, he recognized no other religion or denomination. Unsuccessfully tortured Irish prisoners for information at Toongabbie.

Vinegar Hill 5-3-1804 Irish political prisoners tried to escape from English imprisonment. Philip Cunningham was hung without trial by the New South Wales Corps ( Botany Bay Rangers).

The Currency Lads, born free in the colonies. They had no ' Ticket of Leave ' because they were not convicts and no identification because they were free. However under the ' Bushranging Act ' anyone could be arrested on suspicion of being an absconder. Since there weren't many police most arrests were made by ' farm constables ', ' trusty ' convicts. So it was common for free men to be arrested and chained and shackled by convicts. They then had to travel to somewhere with records, often Sydney. So it was not uncommon for a fee man to march in handcuffs 250 miles or more to prove they were not convicts.

The Eureka Stockade 3-12-1854 A clash protesting the denial of civic rights and excessive taxation.

Rottnest Island 19-4-1876 An English ship fires in an attempt to stop an Irish political prisoner escaping on a US whaler.

Rothbury 16-12-1929 Several men were shot, one died, by police during a union protest.


So for the benefit of all the people who say ' It can't happen here. ', it already has.

Here in Australia there are Australian's that have been in solitary confinement for more than two years now, on remand. That's right, they have not been proven guilty, yet they are in solitary confinement here!

Australians are much better off than most of the people in the world. However we cannot be ' free ' till we have rights. Rights that are simple to understand. Rights that can not be misinterpreted by lawyers. Rights that can not be changed by governments.

"Effectively, Australia is now the only modern Western country that must face the challenges of the present age and the changes in the institutions of government without a constitutional, or even statutory, charter of rights to temper political autarchy with occasional judicial reminders of fundamental freedoms that must be respected," Justice Kirby.
http://smh.com.au/news/National/Call-for-human-rights-to-be-protected/2006/02/21/1140284066164.html

"Human rights have taken a battering by two forces - terrorism and terrorism laws," NSW Attorney-General, Bob Debus. "In some sections of the community, human rights are viewed with as much suspicion as a van with blacked-out windows parked near an embassy."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/human-rights-now-a-dirty-idea-says-angry-debus/2006/05/19/1147545529286.html

The New South Wales Police Minister wants to search every ones' SMS messages without a warrant.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1831129.htm

And you may not be able to board a Qantas aircraft if you are wearing clothing that they object to.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1831156.htm

Powers handed to Australian intelligence agencies to combat terrorism have been misused. Powers brought in because of the ' War Against Terrorism '. This simply looks like the feral government playing follow the leader with Bush. In fact in 2003 the Australian Government won the Most Egregiously Stupid Award for ' a litany of pointless, irritating and self-serving security measures '.


Stephen

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
Freedom is a well armed sheep.

................

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