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Giving up is unforgivable.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

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Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

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The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

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This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Explain This

Explain This

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I’m working with a young woman from India who hasn’t been in the US for a long time. After giving her a few of these:

I had to explain how they were related to this:

which was difficult enough, but then I also had to try to explain what those two things had to do with this:

And, at that point, I gave up. Consider this an open thread.

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    Linda Featheringill

    And happy Easter Bunny to you, too.

    The spring fertility symbols [eggs and rabbits] have been around much longer than the Christian story. They will probably be around long after Christianity has come and gone, unless we humans do ourselves in before that happens.

    The chocolate eggs, of course, are wonderful.

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Simple. Jeebus Bunny pushes a huge coloured egg away from the entrance to the cave, looks outside, sees his shadow = Easter!!

  3. 3.

    Jrod the Cookie Thief

    That’s simple.

    Both eggs and rabbits are symbols of fertility. Rabbits because of how rapidly they pump out kids, and eggs because… well, that should be obvious. Since they’re both symbols of birth and rebirth, they are associated with the ancient spring holiday, Easter. Spring is the time when the whole world is reborn. That was how pagan Europeans saw it, anyway.

    Christ, who came back from the dead, is another symbol of rebirth. That’s why the already existing holiday Easter was appropriated as the day that Christ rose from the dead when Christianity conquered Europe. Even though Easter was now Christian, some of the pagan traditions stuck around, like bunnies and eggs.

    In short, the Easter bunny is the tattered remains of the pagan tradition that was overtaken by Christianity. Fun stuff.

  5. 5.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    american pop religion, creates american popular icons in order to mass market ancillary tie in products, in order to increase awareness and participation.

    its like offering collectible toys and commemorative cups with fast food meals to coincide with the release of a hollywood blockbuster.

    done and done.

  6. 6.

    grumpy realist

    Yah, you can explain to her how the early Xtians decided to swipe Easter from a fertility goddess.

    And for good measure, the whole Jesus/Mary iconography was filched from Isis/Horus.

  7. 7.

    Jrod the Cookie Thief

    As for why we have chocolate eggs, it’s because chocolate is delicious. Any excuse to eat chocolate is a good one.

  9. 9.

    scav

    and then try to explain my favorite yard art one year in Chicago (Lincoln Square more exactly) which consisted of a crucified inflatable bunny.

  11. 11.

    Linda Featheringill

    @scav:

    a crucified inflatable bunny

    LOL!

    Speaking of spring, I woke up to at least 4 inches of snow, the really wet and sticky stuff. And it’s still coming down. It might just be too heavy for me to deal with. Fortunately, the animals and I have plenty of food in the house.

    I gotta get to work. You folks have a nice day.

    [Crucified inflatable bunnies, indeed. Oh, my!]

  13. 13.

    Arclite

    There was a huge earthquake off the shore of Japan a few hours ago. Hawaii is under tsunami warning, but we’re evacuating and should be fine as everyone has plenty of warning. However, The devastation in Japan looks horrendous, especially the tidal waves that slammed the north eastern coast, like the city of Sendai. Just on the TV images I saw dozens of buildings and hundreds of cars inundated. The official death toll right now is 32, but it will be hundreds before the counting is done. Damages will be in the billions easily. I’m not sure what charities will be operating there, but I imagine the Red Cross will be at the very least. Please consider donating if you have some to spare.

  14. 14.

    JPL

    Two years ago I found a dead baby bunny in my backyard on Easter morning. What does that mean?

  17. 17.

    gene108

    The Indian Christians I’ve met have not picked up the pagan emanations that have permeated European Christianity, such as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

    They also don’t practice the Germanic custom of cutting down trees to put in your house during period leading up to Christmas.

  18. 18.

    dr. bloor

    Just tell her that chocolate eggs, the Easter Bunny and Jeebus all hate Islamofascist abortionists.

  19. 19.

    JGabriel

    @JPL:

    Two years ago I found a dead baby bunny in my backyard on Easter morning. What does that mean?

    That your local Mafia couldn’t afford a horse’s head?

    .

  20. 20.

    gnomedad

    Easter evening a few years ago, our cat brought in the “Easter Bunny”, apparently uninjured. Eventually we managed to catch and evict it.

  21. 21.

    Craig Pennington

    A giant rabbit gives people chocolate eggs to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. You can’t explain that.

  23. 23.

    suzanne

    I had a similar experience once, trying to explain to an Indian classmate about Halloween. I summed it up with, “well, all that historical shit is very well and good, but it’s really a holiday all about CANDY.” Easter can be similarly discussed.

    Man, I am going to have to keep myself away from any Cadbury Mini-Eggs. Those are the best holiday candy EVAR. Peeps ain’t too bad, either.

    For extra fun and merriment, I got to explain to my daughter why I call Ash Wednesday “Jesus-Hump Day”.

  24. 24.

    suzanne

    @JPL:

    Two years ago I found a dead baby bunny in my backyard on Easter morning. What does that mean?

    Well, I found a dead rabbit in the road the day I found out that I was pregnant with Munchkin #1. So maybe you’re knocked up!

  26. 26.

    Alwhite

    @scav:
    I believe Landover Baptist Church (Where the Worthwhile Worship. Unsaved Unwelcome) has a card for this. A crucified bunny with “The Easter Bunny did not die for your sins”

  27. 27.

    Woodrowfan

    the annoying thing about the “Christians stole this from Isis or the Pagans” etc, is that it assumes that the Egyptians, or Babylonians, or Celts, etc, were the ones to come up with the idea first. No, I’m not saying the Christians did, but some of the symbolism is so obvious (Spring-rebirth, eggs-new life) that I suspect ancient religious now gone used the same symbolism. It’s a bit like claiming “Red and Rover ” is a ripoff of Calvin and Hobbes because they both have a boy and his pet without looking at all the earlier cartoons that had the same theme.

  31. 31.

    merrinc

    @suzanne:

    I haven’t had to explain it to illegal immigrant co-workers (JUST JOKING) but when I became a parent, I refused to indoctrinate my kids with that stupid Easter Bunny nonsense. They got a basket on Easter morning (candy only, I refuse to make it a mini- Christmas like some do) but it was always clear that it was parent provided, not left on the table by a giant fucking rabbit.

    That was Practical Mom. As Heathen Mom, I took the opportunity to discuss the meaning of allegory versus literal interpretation of certain ancient texts.

  33. 33.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @diakron: Oh yes, who can forget the “Hare Club for Men.”

    There’s also the lovely mistranslation of how when the three Marys saw Jesus near the tomb after the ressurection, they thought he was the gardener. Rembrandt’ version shows Jesus with a big floppy hat and gardening tools. It’s all about spring.

  37. 37.

    fourmorewars

    I hope her first question was ‘what the fuck is up with this guy from Palestine looking like that?’

  38. 38.

    gelfling545

    Well, you see, once upon a time the Catholic Church wanted to, well, hmmm, take over the world; and they saw that people who believed other things had neat holidays and probably wouldn’t want to stop celebrating so they said, see, we’ll tell them that THEIR holiday is REALLY all about Jesus and so we ended up with a totally nonsensical (albeit amusing) mix up of traditions but Jesus was never really the reason for the season.

  41. 41.

    Boudica

    We had a bunny get in the back of our (less than a month old) dryer through the vent hole. My husband thought that turning on the dryer to create noise would scare out the critter. Instead we had a decapitated bunny that we then spent two hours cleaning out of the back of the dryer.

  43. 43.

    Janet Strange

    @gene108: I have a student from Ivory Coast. He says that Ouattara did not win the election, that he is a Chalabi type supported by the French. He also says that the “massacres” are faked and sends this link to back up what he is saying.

    My French is not good enough to follow the explanations at the video, but my student says that woman in the video appears to have had palm oil poured on her to simulate blood and as you can see in the video she seems to be being told to lie back down as if they are not through filming her “killing.” (My student says you can hear someone saying in the local native language, “no, lie back down.”)

    My student also says that some are trying to portray what is happening as a religious conflict between the Muslim north and the Christian south, but that religion has nothing to do with it. Rather it’s all about the money from cocoa, cashews, oil, gold. He blames the French who have a history that goes far past the colonial era according to him. We became “independent”? Ha! is his attitude.

    He says he’s not particularly a Gbagbo supporter but is clearly angry about what he sees as outside attempts to install Ouattara by election fraud and a manipulated media narrative.

    I don’t have any idea what is really happening there, and that’s kind of the point. What to believe? But I am wondering if we are seeing Judy Miller type “reporting.”

  46. 46.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @homerhk: Yes but it’s a bit different in some of the trappings that are absent, as India is not Europe:

    The Indian Christians I’ve met have not picked up the pagan emanations that have permeated European Christianity, such as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.
    __They also don’t practice the Germanic custom of cutting down trees to put in your house during period leading up to Christmas.

    As gene108 noted.

  47. 47.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @SiubhanDuinne: @gelfling545: Or as a kid (then ~4 years) whose parents I know reported to his Jewish father after his Christian mother took him to Sunday school:

    Jesus died on the cross and they put his body in a cave then after 3 days the Easter Bunny saw his shadow and Christ was risen.

    Seemed pretty comprehensive an understanding for his age.

  49. 49.

    EriktheRed

    mistermix, there’s a South Park episode that will clear it all up. Just have your Indian friend watch that.

  51. 51.

    quaint irene

    I believe what you’re looking for is David Sedaris’s’s’s’s’ “Jesus Shaves”

    Yes. He nice, the Jesus.

  52. 52.

    MysticalChick

    @MikeJ:

    Oh damn! You beat me to it! “He calls hisself Jesus and then he be die one day on two morsels of lumber. He nice, the Jesus. He make the good things and on Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.”

    There’s more but yeah, hilarious.

  53. 53.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    I attempted at one point to explain to an Indian coworker of mine the cosmology behind “The Year without a Santa Claus” – the Rankin-Bass puppet movie with the Heatmiser and the Coldmiser.

    He’s a very smart guy and picked up pretty quickly that the whole thing was nonsense, despite my fumbling explanation.

  54. 54.

    quaint irene

    I believe what you’re looking for is David Sedaris’s’s’s’s’ “Jesus Shaves”

    And forgot to add. How about trying to explain the French tradition of a BELL bringing the Easter chocolate! As Sedaris said, at least the Easter bunny has a face!

  55. 55.

    scav

    @quaint irene: I don’t know: competitive unrealities are so very hard to judge and mark consistently. At least a good solid bell would have a place to store all the chocolates during transport and wouldn’t make the kiddle-liddles think of bunny pellets.

  56. 56.

    Origuy

    @Ija: The bunny is pretty much European; Wikipedia says it came from Alsace and spread through the Holy Roman Empire. Eggs are more widespread. In Eastern Europe, they go all out with the decorations; none of this “dunk them in some Paas dye”.

    Wikipedia lists a lot of Easter traditions I’d never heard of, including the Burning of the Jew.

  58. 58.

    gene108

    @homerhk:

    Indians don’t celebrate all the holidays.

    The government officially recognizes all the holidays, because they have to. Christmas in India is a one day holiday for everyone.

    The Christians get together with family and go to church.

    Outside of Christian households, there’s no celebration. It’s just one day in the week to stay home and relax.

  59. 59.

    jacy

    Don’t make me tell you the story of the “resurrection eggs” they tried to foist on my kids at Catholic school. I put a stop to that right quick.

    (I’m sure there’s a special file in the principal’s office with all my “crazy” missives in it.)

  60. 60.

    Less Popular Tim

    @@quaint irene:

    How about trying to explain the French tradition of a BELL bringing the Easter chocolate! As Sedaris said, at least the Easter bunny has a face!

    and a bunny can, like, move by itself. I mean, I suppose a fair amount of magic would be required in either event, but it seems like a bunny would need less help in that regard. So it’s way more believable…

  61. 61.

    Origuy

    Think Progress is reporting on some masterful snark from Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) in the climate change hearings:

    Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to a bill that overturns the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet.
    __
    However, I won’t physically rise, because I’m worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating about the room.
    __
    I won’t call for the sunlight of additional hearings, for fear that Republicans might excommunicate the finding that the Earth revolves around the sun.

    Go read the rest.

  62. 62.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @jacy: Can I ask politely for the resurrection eggs story? Suddenly the Easter bunny seeing his shadow makes a bit more sense.

  64. 64.

    PurpleGirl

    @Ija: Not really. It’s more a Germanic, northern European thing. And it wasn’t rabbits, it was hares. Eggs are more European in general and through the Mediterrean.

  65. 65.

    twiffer

    @suzanne: i’ve already eaten a bag of mini-eggs. i have not yet had my annual creme egg (i can only eat one of those a year).

    mini-eggs are evilly good. dark or milk.

  67. 67.

    Shoemaker-Levy 9

    The eggs and bunny are secular symbols that were invented by the Jews, Kenyans, and Islamofascists who control the media and hate Jesus for his freedom. Feel free to pass this along to your friend.

  68. 68.

    Kathy in St. Louis

    The egg is a symbol of new life, as is the season of spring. The Resurrection is also about a new life after death. The easter bunny….honey, you are on your own on that one….never did get the tie-in.

  70. 70.

    Tanya

    I totally get the eggs-rabbits-Easter correlation; but what I don’t quite get is, why *chocolate* eggs (or chocolate Easter bunnies or even the chocolate crucifixes I’ve started seeing?)

  71. 71.

    Darien Large

    C: Mummy, the Easter frog left Lincoln logs in me sock drawer!
    P: That’s the story of Jesus.

  72. 72.

    Ken in Sequim, WA

    @Linda Featheringill:

    The Easter Bunny hides its eggs because it doesn’t want anyone to know it has been fucking chickens. So we started celebrating interracial animal affairs early

  73. 73.

    Ben

    That’s why the already existing holiday Easter was appropriated as the day that Christ rose from the dead when Christianity conquered Europe.

    This isn’t true. The timing of Easter is based on the timing of Passover, and not an appropriated pagan holiday. The name “Easter” in English, unlike in most European languages, comes from the old pagan name for the month roughly equivalent to April.

  77. 77.

    skippy

    in college i did a radio comedy show about christmas where the typical family was sitting around the dinner table.

    son: dad, why do we celebrate christmas?

    dad: well, son, a long time ago, god came down as his son. then people got mad and killed him, but he came back.

    daughter: we celebrate christmas because they killed god?

    mom: no, dear, we celebrate christmas because god was born. we celebrate easter because they killed him.

  78. 78.

    Draylon Hogg

    When I were a lad it were all making palm crosses for Palm Sunday and egg blowing. Nowt dodgy, just put a pin sized hole through an egg use a straw to blow out the inside then paint your egg, nice and jazzy like and put it in the Easter Basket with all the other kids’ eggs. Saw a dead mixi rabbit the other day and another one yesterday aimlessly hopping around next to the road. I thought, that rabbit’s not long for this world. Years ago a hare ran under my car. Broke it’s back. It were laid there back legs kicking. I had to finish it off with a wheel brace. Couldn’t leave it suffering.

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