19 March 08
Ah… Easter… shops full of tinsel-covered chocolate eggs… an ancient tradition of our forbears who celebrated the end of a bleak and hungry winter with a festival to welcome spring. Australians, of course, are not starving and are probably celebrating the end of a heat wave or rain, rather than looking forward to winter. But a bellyful of chocolate might cushion the blow of another interest rate hike.
Christianity puts its own spin on the ancient celebration. Instead of celebrating the ‘death’ of winter and the ‘rebirth’ of spring, Christians celebrate the murder of a god/man on Friday, and his re-birth the following Sunday. And if this isn’t miraculous enough, this sacrificial victim is also a ‘scapegoat’.
Instead of sacrificing goats and sheep to keep god happy, Christians sacrificed a living human, so their god would forgive the sins of everyone else!
We should be happy about this, but the morality is troublesome. If someone does an ‘evil’ act, is it ok for the courts to send an innocent man to jail instead? If not, why not? The Christian god did it. It’s scarcely a good example to set children. Wouldn’t it be better for people to take responsibility for their own actions and enjoy the cycles of nature without symbolic sacrificial murder?”
Peter Taylor
Public Relations Team
Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc
Private Mail Bag 6
MAITLAND SA 5573
Phone: (08) 8835 2269
Website: https://atheistfoundation.org.au
E-Mail: [email protected]
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