Len Hanley: Commercial bunny, egg products do not reflect true meaning of Easter

To The Daily Sun,

According to pagan beliefs, Easter eggs and the Easter bunny both featured largely in the spring festivals of the goddess Eostre. The bunny was her sacred animal, and brightly colored eggs were all used at festival time to honor this goddess of fertility. Many people worship Ostara today and make altars in her honor around the same time as Easter.

Are readers aware that the pagan fertility goddess Ostara is celebrated with the Easter bunny, colored eggs, and baskets of toys and candy, only which happen to make up 98% of what is sold and advertised during so-called Easter by retailers and advertisers who market it mostly toward children?

See the photo of the goddess or an Ostara basket online. Readers can also view "Ostara: Why Does the Easter Bunny Give us Eggs?" on YouTube and see for themselves. How can this be acceptable?

The commercialization of Easter began around 1870-90. So for over 150 years this has been happening. What this says is that the retailers and advertisers knowingly sold and advertised a pagan fertility goddess as Easter in 98% of their holiday merchandise and promoted it in their advertising despite only 0.3% of the U.S. identifying as pagan and almost 70% as Christian.

Yet retailers and advertisers claim they are being inclusive with the dictionary-defined Easter, the celebrating of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Unless they want to purposefully go after and attempt to erase the foundation of the Christian faith, the Resurrection, things aren't adding up. Or maybe they are and they hope individuals continue to be conditioned to buy Easter bunny items and pay for mall photos without questioning them. It's worked for over 150 years after all.

Len Hanley

Barnstead