this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026

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The True Meaning of Easter (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by ccunning@lemmy.world to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world

79 comments fedilink hide all child comments

ALT Text: Scene is WAITROSE. Behind it is a staff member, whose name we will soon learn is BECKY. She is dealing with a customer, for now out of shot, while talking to her manager on the phone.

BECKY [on phone]: Yeah, hiya...

2 BECKY: Yes I have a customer here who wants to complain about the Easter eggs.

3 BECKY [putting hand over receiver while addressing the customer stood at the desk in front of her]: Sorry what was your name again?

4 [Pull back to show the customer is a very tall, green-skinned, PAGAN GODDESS, festooned with flowers. Stood next to her is her son, a normal human teenager in a hoodie, who looks mortified by his mum.]

PAGAN GODDESS: Eostre the Pagan Goddess of Fertility

5 BECKY Sorry - Your name is Easter…?

PAGAN GODDESS: Eostre.

[Vicky pauses, trying to take this in].

VICKY: Your name is Easter and you want to complain about the Easter eggs.

7 PAGAN GODDESS: Sorry love, what’s your name?

BECKY: Becky

PAGAN GODDESS: Well, Vicky -

8 PAGAN GODDESS: If it was you who’d shagged the solar god of the Equinox to give birth to an actual living god - my son Darren here -

TEENAGE BOY: Muuum…

9 PAGAN GODDESS: ….only to have all your efforts totally forgotten by history, you’d have a complaint too!

10 PAGAN GODDESS: Aisle four is full of products, with no hint of the true meaning of the festival!

11 BECKY: You mean… Jesus…?

PAGAN GODDESS: I mean shagging, Vicky.

12 PAGAN GODDESS: Is it too much to see just a little bit of pre-Christian sex in Aisle 4?

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[–] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 52 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I love the passive-aggressive move of Ēostre intentionally getting Becky's name wrong

[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Vicky had it coming tbh…

[–] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 54 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What better way to symbolize shagging in a kid-friendly way than an egg hunt? Look at all those little sperms go, trying to find the egg as quickly as possible after all being released at the same time?

[–] starchylemming@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

mind🤯blown

[–] metallic_z3r0@infosec.pub 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It's a nice idea, but eggs were associated with the Christian Easter (Pascha in Latin, which is roughly the name for Easter in most countries that celebrate it), probably as a custom from Persia going through to what's now Eastern Orthodoxy and from there to Catholics/Protestants as a way to celebrate the end of Lent (eggs being prohibited during that time). It's still possible it was also Pagan and forgotten, decorating eggs is at least 60k years old, but its association with Easter was only (re-?) initiated through Christianity.

[–] Semjeza@fedinsfw.app 1 points 2 days ago

The thousands of years old tradition from non-Abrahamic Persia, (in fact a proto-IE region with shared religious rites with Slavic, Celtic and Germanic Europe), predating not only the splits of Christianity into Eastern Orthodox and Other, but of Christianity actually existing, doesn't show it was a Pagan tradition?

What else do you call non-Abrahamic religious rites?

(And apparently new evidence has since backed up Bede's account of Pagan Oestra in the British Isles, too.)

[–] 1dalm@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They don't care. They need their anti-intellectualism as badly as fundamentalist Christians.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 58 points 2 days ago (1 children)

transcription for the visually impaired?

Baaaased

[–] SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz 33 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Slightly differs from the actual comic, though.

"Give birth to Spring itself" and "hang on, Spring" vs "give birth to an actual living god - my son Darren here"

And ends with TEENAGE BOY: MUUUUM

[–] ech@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Methinks it was generated. Shame.

[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I got the comic and the Alt Text from this mastodon post which specifically says the author does the alt text himself. I couldn’t find evidence of that though I didn’t look tooooo hard…

[–] ech@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Hmmm, maybe they were going off an earlier script *shrug*

[–] SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz 5 points 2 days ago

Entirely plausible.

[–] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It also says he's a "normal human teenager," which he clearly is not.

[–] SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 days ago

Point; I meant to include that one. Is also green like mum but wearing a hoody.

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Think of all of the millions that Christians butchered over this... then, they destroyed every single trace of any other religion, erasing centuries of cultural history.

Today, Catholics alone own over 170 million acres of land, much of it stolen from those same people, and they enjoy tax-free status all over the world. Horrifying.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 20 points 3 days ago

Interesting stuff!

More:
https://imginn.com/stephencollinscomics/

[–] ech@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 days ago

That's not even a checkout line, so the man behind Spring is just there to watch the drama.

[–] rapchee@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

"normal human teenager" hmmmmmmmm

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Was eoster really worshipped? I thought they were just made up.

[–] Davel23@fedia.io 42 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fun Fact: They're all made up.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 days ago (4 children)

🤣.

This will sound insensitive but I look at the Bible like I look at Harry Potter or Lord of the rings.

[–] addiks@feddit.org 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Be careful saying things like that, you might summon the wrath of the zealots upon yourself. Lord of the Rings fans are not to be messed with.

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[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That is really insensitive, how could you say that about LOTR?

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[–] Tehhund@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The Bible is more like of you took HP, LotR, and 20 other series and mashed them together.

[–] greyscale@lemmy.grey.ooo 6 points 2 days ago

the bible has multiple books of fanfic

The mormon dlc is all fan service

Its all fictive.

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[–] metallic_z3r0@infosec.pub 3 points 2 days ago

There's some evidence Eostre (or Ostara, Austra, definitely Aušrinė in Lithuania) was worshipped, but the evidence is scant and mostly based on linguistic reconstruction by Grimm in the 19th century. There is evidence of votive offerings to the "Austriahenae" (a collection of matron goddesses) discovered in 1958, but little else.

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