I was just thinking that it should also probably be mentioned that another reason some non-Christians would celebrate it is that it's actually not exclusively a Christian holiday. Much like Christmas, it is pre-Christian pagan holiday that was co-opted by Christians. Undoubtedly there are still pagans around today who celebrate something akin to its older form.

So you are saying that pagans had both holidays for the birth of a Messiah and the resurrection of a Messiah?

I sometimes wonder if this guy is the best wind up merchant around or he really doesn't have a clue.

better question: is christianity still relevant?

Seconded.

You and everyone else.

Pretty much this.

I wondered about this myself...the numbers are still strong so you will obviously get people arguing for Christianity. Me, though, I go with George Carlin, "I was a Christian until I reached the age of...reason."

Is to me.

According to the monk Bede who wrote a treatise De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time) in 725, the english term Easter itself comes from the old english name Ēostre or Ēastre - the name of a germanic goddess who was celebrated at march equinox.

Modern easter and march equinox don't overlap perfectly (it was march 20th this year), but I would assume that christianity has just taken over a different religious holiday and if that was not the celebration of Ēastre, a feasible hypothesis it seems to me, then it could have been a different one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ēostre

I don't celebrate easter, but I appreciate time off work. The only negatives for me (for purely selfish reasons) are the holy days when the shops close.

Yep, and don't forget the pagan origins of the fertility symbols associated with Easter like rabbits and eggs.