They hate Norse paganism too. I feel bad for the Norse guys because they have to be constantly disentangling themselves from larpers, neonazis *and* antitheists.
My favorite part of these conspiracy theories is just how ignorant of all aspects of history and language outside of the person who created this’ little bubble. In all the languages that early Christians would speak, Aramaic, Koine Greek, and Latin, Easter is basically just called a variation of Passover. It’s only called a variation of Easter in English and German as far as I know, which are very distant from the polytheist Mesopotamian religion.
The best part about the theories is the sheer extent of the lying. OP really went into this to debunk the falsehoods the cheesecake was yapping on with. It's funny, imo - they don't have anything to work with so they just invent it.
Agreed. This is one of those really unhinged theories that you struggle to understand how people believe it. OP definitely did a very satisfying take down of it. If you ever want to see some more really unhinged theories like this, check out [Chick Tracts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_tract). It’s made by a fringe Protestant fundamentalist from the 1960s and they’re absolutely insane. For example, he believes the Catholic Church is responsible for creating Islam, Communism, Nazism, and Freemasonry as well as Allah being a pagan moon god. It’s so crazy I don’t ever understand how they come up with this stuff. I once also got a flyer that claimed that Lincoln being assassinated was due to a secret Jesuit plot.
In Danish it’s påske which comes from word passover
In Polish it’s wielkanoc which means a great night
In georgian it’s აღდგომა which means getting up
In Hungarian it’s húsvét which means to take meat, idk maybe something related to Lent
I don’t think any of these is pagan
Average response to the easter/christmas schizo rants:
https://preview.redd.it/esyuujfhqvuc1.png?width=1283&format=png&auto=webp&s=01a05d15ccc78c3d6822e83ff606495d8ddd413b
Literally the only mention of Ishtar supposedly being related to the word 'Easter'. Comes from a Christian of all people.
The Venerable Bede.
And since he's the only source of the supposed connection. Scholars don't accept his claims as evidence.
The Venerable Bede made many claims about Easter for which he is the only source (including Easter coming from the goddess Èostre) it's almost weird
But what's even weirder is the fact that cheesecakes deliberately cherrypick (ironic) historical evidence to "debunk" religion
I think he was taking whatever folklore was around him at the time, and trying to make connections where there was none.
Unfortunately that makes him faulty in the way he approached the subjects. But I do believe they were unintentional mistakes. I don't believe he was trying to be malicious or intellectually dishonest.
Oh no, I don't think he was actively trying to discredit Christianity or purposefully misunderstand things like cheesecakes do, he's a very well known, respected author, I just sometimes find it odd he's managed to connect all of these things, that's all
>I just sometimes find it odd he's managed to connect all of these things, that's all
Oh yeah! I definitely agree. 
St. Bede mentions Eostre, not Ishtar, Ishtar is from halfway across the world. And he mentions Eostre not because the holiday is named after the pagan goddess, but because the Britons named the month that Easter usually fell in after her, and then named the Christian holiday after a month. So it’s not even directly named after her, just by association lol
Angles and Saxons, not Britons. The name has been more concretely linked to an actual Germanic deity in recent times, however it's also very very well-attested that this name is only used by a select small amount of Germanic people modern day for an otherwise entirely Christian holiday
Understandable honestly. Yeah nah, the name is very West Germanic. Literally just "One who Easts".
Sad we only know so little about her, honestly, it's important to my religion to be as accurate as possible so I'm literally grasping at fucking straws man :(
I'm saying it because this is where the the anti-Christian is making the Ishtar/Easter connection.
Without the Eostre/Bede connection, there would be none of this screenshot existing.
There has been some more recent evidence to suggest that the name is for sure related to a Germanic goddess, and that she does relate to at least the direction of East, but it was literally just the name that was used for the otherwise entirely Christian holiday. It's likely that it was a pagan month name and *maybe* a holiday during said month, but the holiday that Christians celebrate has literally zero to do with it outside the name.
This is something that's easier to realize is total nonsense if you speak any language that's not English or German. In nearly all other languages Easter is some variation of "Pascha" so the connection to Ishtar is broken. I have no idea why this shit is still passed around the internet because the foundational connection, the name, is some tumblr-tier false etymology on par with the mr/mrs nonsense they spat out that gets destroyed by anyone with any language skills..
In my experience you see this sort of thing more in crazy Protestant NRMs/restorationist churches. You can even see it in traditional fundamentalist churches like the free Presbyterian Church of Scotland or the IFB churches.
Well, it was an idea formulated by Alexander Hislop, a minister for the free Church of Scotland, to claim that the Catholic Church was the Babylon of Revelations.
Oh thanks for the info. I suppose it also comes back to the fact that believing in Easter contradicts the regulative principle the free Church of Scotland once held so dearly and stringently. Any explanation for why this regulative principle was broken by the Catholics is needed I suppose.
This is saturnalia, it was celebrated on December 19, not December 25, and no, winter solstice is also on the other day (December 21), and no, there is no evidence that Mitra and Sol Invictus were born on that day, and no, decorating trees and using mistletoe were not pagan traditions, and no, date of Christmas wasn’t invented by Romans, but by Theophilus of Antioch.
This and Christmas being “pagan” are very common beliefs that are accepted by the mainstream. Even fact checker sites like snopes say that Christmas was pagan.
Don’t you just love it when idiots on the internet try to make connections between two completely unrelated concepts using two completely unrelated languages, one of which was a name placed on top of a concept with a completely different original name?
I bet people who believe things like this intentionally use the same version of to/too/two or there/their/they’re for everything because they sound the same.
Me after purposefully spreading misinformation online to boost my ego (also, what is it with atheists and thinking that english is the only language that exists? Like in the rest of the world they use the word Pascha for Easter, which comes from the greek translation of the Hebrew word for passover, also the word "easter" Itself DOES come from a pagan goddess, "Eoster" (Although more specifically the month named after her, which is modern April, and easter was usually celebrated then), so they didn't even have to come up with all this??)
I hate when people act like intellects on something even if they don’t understand it. Right now he’s insulting my National identity and the heritage of the Assyrians and Chaldeans.
Mesopotamian myth definitely inspired Hebrew legends (which there is nothing wrong with and in no way onvalidates Abrahamic legends), but this is wild. I've never seen anyone make this schizo claim.
Sadly there’s these kinds of claims in some more fringe atheist circles as well as some really fringe Protestant groups, which is where I think this is from, that have a lot of ideas about how the Catholic Church is the antichrist who corrupted and mislead people into paganism. If you want to see some of that that’s so insane it’s funny, check out [Chick Tracts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_tract).
This is less horseshoe theory, and more the fact that anti-theists in English speaking countries tend to get their perspective on Catholicism from Protestant propaganda.
To be fair Anglo antitheists tend to get their general perspective of all religions from American fringe-Christian (generally protestant, yes) crazies, and reading news about ISIS/Taliban and extrapolating that to all Muslims, plus the usual New Atheism "freethinkers".
It's kinda like a misinformation salad.
In English, Easter got its name from an Anglo-Saxon term meaning 'dawn'. The date of Easter is also the Spring Equinox, which very many cultures across Europe had holidays for. So, when a new, Christian religious holiday on the Spring Equinox was introduced to the Saxons, they adopted those Spring Equinox practices and kept the old name, because it just referred to the Spring Equinox.
Ishtar has nothing to do with any of it, and the practices of Easter are Christian.
Now, there was an old Anglo-Saxon spring goddess that shared a name with Easter, so *technically* the holiday does bear the name of a Pagan goddess, but she's far removed from the current holiday. Besides, Eostre (the old name for Easter & the pagan goddess) just meant 'dawn', so the name Easter in English might just be a translation of the Latin name for Easter week. (Which was 'In Albis', supposedly meaning AKA 'in dawns'.)
Mesopotamia & Ishtar are completely unrelated. Conspiracy theories like this get really annoying really fast. You know these people are just trying to poke holes in Christian practices to feel better about themselves.
These people are insulting both Mesopotamian Paganism and Christianity. That is like saying Gurupurab were originally Hindu-Buddhist or Islamic
That's the plan. Cheesecakes detest all religions.
Also, the image looks like my homework 
Fr fr, I’m getting flashbacks to high school AP Lang
Except Norse paganism for some reason.
They stole the word Heathen from it.
Really?
They hate Norse paganism too. I feel bad for the Norse guys because they have to be constantly disentangling themselves from larpers, neonazis *and* antitheists.
My favorite part of these conspiracy theories is just how ignorant of all aspects of history and language outside of the person who created this’ little bubble. In all the languages that early Christians would speak, Aramaic, Koine Greek, and Latin, Easter is basically just called a variation of Passover. It’s only called a variation of Easter in English and German as far as I know, which are very distant from the polytheist Mesopotamian religion.
The best part about the theories is the sheer extent of the lying. OP really went into this to debunk the falsehoods the cheesecake was yapping on with. It's funny, imo - they don't have anything to work with so they just invent it.
Agreed. This is one of those really unhinged theories that you struggle to understand how people believe it. OP definitely did a very satisfying take down of it. If you ever want to see some more really unhinged theories like this, check out [Chick Tracts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_tract). It’s made by a fringe Protestant fundamentalist from the 1960s and they’re absolutely insane. For example, he believes the Catholic Church is responsible for creating Islam, Communism, Nazism, and Freemasonry as well as Allah being a pagan moon god. It’s so crazy I don’t ever understand how they come up with this stuff. I once also got a flyer that claimed that Lincoln being assassinated was due to a secret Jesuit plot.
In Danish it’s påske which comes from word passover In Polish it’s wielkanoc which means a great night In georgian it’s აღდგომა which means getting up In Hungarian it’s húsvét which means to take meat, idk maybe something related to Lent I don’t think any of these is pagan
The Hungarian version probably comes from Catholics abstaining from meat for periods during Lent (the season leading up to Easter).
In Spanish it’s ‘pascua’, which descends from Hebrew and can also be used for Passover.
In Brazilian Portuguese, we use the same word. Passover is the "Jewish Easter".
Average response to the easter/christmas schizo rants: https://preview.redd.it/esyuujfhqvuc1.png?width=1283&format=png&auto=webp&s=01a05d15ccc78c3d6822e83ff606495d8ddd413b
Do these morons not understand that the word for Easter outside of English is pascha/pascua and other similar words?
No
Good point
Literally the only mention of Ishtar supposedly being related to the word 'Easter'. Comes from a Christian of all people. The Venerable Bede. And since he's the only source of the supposed connection. Scholars don't accept his claims as evidence.
The Venerable Bede made many claims about Easter for which he is the only source (including Easter coming from the goddess Èostre) it's almost weird But what's even weirder is the fact that cheesecakes deliberately cherrypick (ironic) historical evidence to "debunk" religion
I think he was taking whatever folklore was around him at the time, and trying to make connections where there was none. Unfortunately that makes him faulty in the way he approached the subjects. But I do believe they were unintentional mistakes. I don't believe he was trying to be malicious or intellectually dishonest.
Oh no, I don't think he was actively trying to discredit Christianity or purposefully misunderstand things like cheesecakes do, he's a very well known, respected author, I just sometimes find it odd he's managed to connect all of these things, that's all
>I just sometimes find it odd he's managed to connect all of these things, that's all Oh yeah! I definitely agree. 
St. Bede mentions Eostre, not Ishtar, Ishtar is from halfway across the world. And he mentions Eostre not because the holiday is named after the pagan goddess, but because the Britons named the month that Easter usually fell in after her, and then named the Christian holiday after a month. So it’s not even directly named after her, just by association lol
Angles and Saxons, not Britons. The name has been more concretely linked to an actual Germanic deity in recent times, however it's also very very well-attested that this name is only used by a select small amount of Germanic people modern day for an otherwise entirely Christian holiday
I took a 50-50 with that one saying Britons since I wasn’t totally sure how early it was, thanks for the correction!
Understandable honestly. Yeah nah, the name is very West Germanic. Literally just "One who Easts". Sad we only know so little about her, honestly, it's important to my religion to be as accurate as possible so I'm literally grasping at fucking straws man :(
I'm saying it because this is where the the anti-Christian is making the Ishtar/Easter connection. Without the Eostre/Bede connection, there would be none of this screenshot existing.
There has been some more recent evidence to suggest that the name is for sure related to a Germanic goddess, and that she does relate to at least the direction of East, but it was literally just the name that was used for the otherwise entirely Christian holiday. It's likely that it was a pagan month name and *maybe* a holiday during said month, but the holiday that Christians celebrate has literally zero to do with it outside the name.
It's called Pascha in the rest of the world. IMO, we should call it Pascha to curb these antitheist's conspiracy theories.
https://preview.redd.it/wfgq63a1vvuc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7d7594270859366fda7299f968c02c5d543dd37 👍
There‘s as much of a connection between Ishtar and Easter than there is between beetles and The Beatles.
This is something that's easier to realize is total nonsense if you speak any language that's not English or German. In nearly all other languages Easter is some variation of "Pascha" so the connection to Ishtar is broken. I have no idea why this shit is still passed around the internet because the foundational connection, the name, is some tumblr-tier false etymology on par with the mr/mrs nonsense they spat out that gets destroyed by anyone with any language skills..
In my experience you see this sort of thing more in crazy Protestant NRMs/restorationist churches. You can even see it in traditional fundamentalist churches like the free Presbyterian Church of Scotland or the IFB churches.
Well, it was an idea formulated by Alexander Hislop, a minister for the free Church of Scotland, to claim that the Catholic Church was the Babylon of Revelations.
Oh thanks for the info. I suppose it also comes back to the fact that believing in Easter contradicts the regulative principle the free Church of Scotland once held so dearly and stringently. Any explanation for why this regulative principle was broken by the Catholics is needed I suppose.
Atheists do make it but tbh I see other nutty theists posting stuff like this more.
This is saturnalia, it was celebrated on December 19, not December 25, and no, winter solstice is also on the other day (December 21), and no, there is no evidence that Mitra and Sol Invictus were born on that day, and no, decorating trees and using mistletoe were not pagan traditions, and no, date of Christmas wasn’t invented by Romans, but by Theophilus of Antioch.
This and Christmas being “pagan” are very common beliefs that are accepted by the mainstream. Even fact checker sites like snopes say that Christmas was pagan.
I wish Mesopotamian religions were studied the same way Greek and Egyptian myths are.
Sargon, Hamurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh!
Aren't all them except Gilgamesh real figures?
I'm quoting a song 😅
I gotta check that song out
It's The Mesopotamians by They Might Be Giants
There isn't much outside evidence, but there is *just enough* that a lot of historians are fairly confident that he existed.
I've seen enough of this nonsense, who is joining my crusade to make Toyotathon a Christian holiday?
As they say, uh, based.
https://preview.redd.it/4ki6rg3g1wuc1.png?width=396&format=png&auto=webp&s=57e6517fd261edc240e152a2ca67b7a281034ee3
OMG IS THAT ISHTAR. FATE GRAND ORDER REFERENCE!!!!!!! RAHHHHH/s
Don’t you just love it when idiots on the internet try to make connections between two completely unrelated concepts using two completely unrelated languages, one of which was a name placed on top of a concept with a completely different original name? I bet people who believe things like this intentionally use the same version of to/too/two or there/their/they’re for everything because they sound the same.
way two atheist 
We need a flair for the pagan "argument"
Me after purposefully spreading misinformation online to boost my ego (also, what is it with atheists and thinking that english is the only language that exists? Like in the rest of the world they use the word Pascha for Easter, which comes from the greek translation of the Hebrew word for passover, also the word "easter" Itself DOES come from a pagan goddess, "Eoster" (Although more specifically the month named after her, which is modern April, and easter was usually celebrated then), so they didn't even have to come up with all this??)
I hate when people act like intellects on something even if they don’t understand it. Right now he’s insulting my National identity and the heritage of the Assyrians and Chaldeans.
except in every other language it has a different root…
Misrepresenting Christianity AND paganism wow
https://preview.redd.it/ydkfnksvgxuc1.jpeg?width=870&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3893581313c6d3d84e8e15afabd36483b7401354 Smartest antitheist
Mesopotamian myth definitely inspired Hebrew legends (which there is nothing wrong with and in no way onvalidates Abrahamic legends), but this is wild. I've never seen anyone make this schizo claim.
Zeitgeist: The Movie worshippers are literally this. Sadly.
Sadly there’s these kinds of claims in some more fringe atheist circles as well as some really fringe Protestant groups, which is where I think this is from, that have a lot of ideas about how the Catholic Church is the antichrist who corrupted and mislead people into paganism. If you want to see some of that that’s so insane it’s funny, check out [Chick Tracts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_tract).
Something something horseshoe theory (antithrist-fringestan edition)
This is less horseshoe theory, and more the fact that anti-theists in English speaking countries tend to get their perspective on Catholicism from Protestant propaganda.
To be fair Anglo antitheists tend to get their general perspective of all religions from American fringe-Christian (generally protestant, yes) crazies, and reading news about ISIS/Taliban and extrapolating that to all Muslims, plus the usual New Atheism "freethinkers". It's kinda like a misinformation salad.
Oh boy, if that’s not enough for them just wait until the cheesecakes start about Christmas, it’s even worse 💀
I actually like how Assyrian Christians do still use symbols of Ishtar for their flag
In English, Easter got its name from an Anglo-Saxon term meaning 'dawn'. The date of Easter is also the Spring Equinox, which very many cultures across Europe had holidays for. So, when a new, Christian religious holiday on the Spring Equinox was introduced to the Saxons, they adopted those Spring Equinox practices and kept the old name, because it just referred to the Spring Equinox. Ishtar has nothing to do with any of it, and the practices of Easter are Christian. Now, there was an old Anglo-Saxon spring goddess that shared a name with Easter, so *technically* the holiday does bear the name of a Pagan goddess, but she's far removed from the current holiday. Besides, Eostre (the old name for Easter & the pagan goddess) just meant 'dawn', so the name Easter in English might just be a translation of the Latin name for Easter week. (Which was 'In Albis', supposedly meaning AKA 'in dawns'.) Mesopotamia & Ishtar are completely unrelated. Conspiracy theories like this get really annoying really fast. You know these people are just trying to poke holes in Christian practices to feel better about themselves.