@ JoC
" No Link"

You are asking me to provide all the research and evidence for you? Seriously? When you cannot post one skerrick of evidence for your resurrected Jesus?

Hers the deal JoC. I am going to answer your 'question' and, quid pro quo, you must answer mine at the bottom of this post.

Thousands of years before your nasty festival the people celebrated the Spring Equinox, That's when Day and Night become equal length: Here's some architectural sites that are built to celebrate and mark the vernal equinox. They are worldwide.

El Castillo, Chichen Itza
El Castillo, also known as the Pyramid of Kukulkán, is the 79-foot pyramid at the center of the ancient Mayan site of Chichen Itza. Built around 1000 AD.

Mnajdra
The Mnajdra temples on Malta consist of three structures built over a period of a thousand years beginning around 3600 BC

Angkor Wat
In Cambodia, Angkor Wat was constructed and oriented to interplay with astronomical events throughout the year. A 1976 article in Science detailed the discoveries of a group of University of Michigan researchers who numerically and astronomically analyzed the temple, constructed between 1113 and 1150 AD. On the spring equinox, the researchers wrote, “an observer standing at the southern edge of the first projection on the causeway (just in front of the western entrance gate) can see the sun rise directly over the top of the central tower of Angkor Wat.”

Hovenweep Castle
Hovenweep, situated on what is now the Colorado-Utah border, was built between 1200 and 1300 AD
Hovenweep actually reveals a slight quirk in the solar calendar developed by its builders. According to UCAR, “The equinox port at Hovenweep Castle points to the sunrise azimuth 4 days after the vernal equinox. This is precisely what one would have expected if the equinox azimuth was established by counting and halving the number of days between the winter and summer solstices.

Stonehenge
Of course, you know about Stonehenge and the alignment of the stones to observe and celebrate the vernal Equinox.. Access at dawn for each equinox and solstice event, so that druids, pagans, and other early-risers can watch the sun alight the ancient stones. Its quite a sight.

Easter goes back to the springtime ritual instituted by Semiramis following the death of Tammuz, who, according to tradition, was killed by a wild boar. Legend has it that through the power of his mother's tears, Tammuz was "resurrected" in the form of the new vegetation that appeared on the earth.
Ancient Babylonians believed in a fable about an egg that fell into the Euphrates River from heaven and from which Queen Astarte (another name for Ishtar or Semiramis) was "hatched."

The spread of Passover
After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE the Jewish Diaspora extended throughout Europe, they brought their religious customs with them. Remember Early Christians celebrated passover as the origin of Christianity was Jewish Only later did the Christian “Resurrection Day' become celebrated and even later “Easter” All of which absorbed various local pagan rituals. They were called in the romance speaking languages not Easter which is peculiarly Anglo Saxon and Germanic (see Bede) but a local version of passover e.g.Pascha/Pacques/Pasqua

"When you ask the Jews what the Passover is about, they aren't going to tell you something about the planting season or the mating season"

Of course not, I made the point that man has celebrated the Vernal Equinox for thousands of years. You can see that the church in the Phillipines (and the World) just took over local fetes and celebrations making them its own. Can you not see that whatever you call it, it is the old celebration of the Equinox, with its fertility symbols, resurrection from winter etc.

Was it coincidence that the "rebirth" of Israel is celebrated on the exact same days as the Vernal Equinox? On the same day that used to be dedicated to Semiramis/Ashira etc?

Then Christianity just took the Resurrection day and plonked it down at the end of Passover as a reference to rebirth. There is your connections and they go back a lot longer than your church traditions.

Now I have done my work..why do you, as a catholic celebrate Easter on those days? You claim your 'saviour' was resurrected on the Monday..now what evidence do you have that those events happened?

By evidence I mean: contemporary accounts, Roman records, independent sightings. Take your time.

(Edited for errors)

""This fact is I believe agreed upon by almost all Christians."
Well that is no recommendation. Most Christians seem to have a knack for believing bullshi"

Priceless, I just spat tea all over my desk. That really was funny fair play.

And of course Jo's claim was a common logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum. It doesn't matter how many people believe something, objective evidence is what determines if the claim is valid. The earth was never flat, and was never the centre of the universe, even when most people believed it was .

@Sheldon Re: To JoC - "just relax take a deep breath, and then think..."

Sheldon, you might as well ask a fish to breathe outside of the water. From the VERY BEGINNING of the whole shebang, Christians are severely admonished for questioning and thinking critically for themselves. Just ask Adam and Eve (if they existed). From the very first bite of an apple all the way to our modern day society, it has been driven over and over and over into the heads of faithful followers that questioning anything about the bible and "God's words" is one of the most heinous atrocities one can commit as a Christian. I know this, because it took me a large portion of my life to get past that one particular hurdle that stood between me and freedom. And I was not anywhere NEAR as dedicated nor indoctrinated into it all as badly as ol' JoC seems to be. It is a horrible thing, to be sure.

It's actually not. Allow me to explain a bit further. Christianity is a monotheistic religion. This is not one contested by anyone really. Even atheists know this much about Christians.

Take the mormons. They believe that God the Father was once a man living on another planet which had it's own "god". He was then elevated to God-hood by that God and he started populating the earth. Jesus came about and attained godhood as well. From this narrative, I've already mentioned 3 gods. The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints isn't a monotheistic religion.