Easter

Did you know that the word Easter has its roots in a pagan goddess of fertility and Spring? And yet this one website tries to say it has its roots in the religiousness of the Jews and Passover: "'Passover' comes from the Hebrew word 'pesach,' which means to pass or spring over. And in most European languages, the word for 'Easter' also has this root."

Like, dudes, it's okay if your religious holiday doesn't have 100% of its roots in religion. It doesn't need to. It's fine. But some people get so hung up on the pagan origins of some Christian holidays that they freak out.

Like, Christmas was created around a pagan holiday in order for it to be a big deal. "Around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25." This huge celebration was happening, and so the church leaders decided to celebrate Christ's birth on that day to make the holiday more important.

As a result of these pagan roots, some, uh, let's just say "interesting" people on my mission were completely turned off from celebrating Christmas. So much so that they wouldn't even consider getting baptized, because our living prophets celebrated Christmas. (It was pretty funny and sad to watch as they tried to prove to us that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints celebrated Christmas, and I'm just like, yeah bro, I already know.)

The moral of this story is: an unhealthy or unnecessary fixation on one point could prevent you from embracing the fullness of the gospel. Those guys on my mission were too over-fixated on Christmas not having purely Christian roots, which led to them not joining the church.

Don't be dumb. Easter is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ, even if the roots of the name are pagan.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.