Since the Christian world just celebrated Easter, I've been talking with folks about the holiday and its origins. Anyone who really thinks about it should be confused because what the hell do the name of holiday and eggs and rabbits have to do with the resurrection of Jesus?

Well, nothing. Easter was likely a pagan fertility goddess. Rabbits and eggs are symbolic of fertility and the celebration happens in the Spring.

It's always confused me that the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus would have such odd symbols attached to it. The resurrection of Jesus is undoubtly the most important aspect of the Christian religion as it is considered to be the proof of divinity as well as the culmination of the scapegoating sacrifice Jesus made to save everyone. (supposedly)

So, shouldn't Christians be very uncomfortable mixing pagan festivals in with their Christian traditions? Easter pagan rituals were adopted into Christ's resurrection. Other pagan rituals were adopted into Christ's birth. There seems to be a lot of pagan corruption of these holy days...

And indulge me in a bit of wanton speculation.. assuming Yahweh and Satan are real.. wouldn't it make PERFECT sense for Satan to do something like the above? What better way to draw people away from God by corrupting the Church itself so that the Church will corrupt people for you? The devout THINK they are all saved and protected when in reality Satan has injected pagan worship into all of the major Christian holidays.

Then after I think about that, I continue to stoke my conjecture train and wonder how far part it would have started? Well, let's talk about Saul of Tarsus... a guy who never met Jesus and was known for persecuting Christians. Let's say you hate Christians and, despite your best efforts, they keep growing. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em... and then change their beliefs. But they aren't going to believe you without a miraculous conversion story and you'll want to change your name to reduce some of the emotional effect of the name Saul (just like South Central in Los Angeles changed its name to South Los Angeles to avoid being connected to the Rodney King riots). Once you've convinced them you can start writing letters to the different congregations and giving them new rules to follow, tell them what to do, etc.

Like... women aren't allowed to talk in Church. Jesus never said anything like that... Paul did. Or that homosexuality is wrong. Jesus never said anything like that... Paul did.

But that's a naturalistic explanation of Paul's behavior, something humans would do to control other humans. Let's put Satan back into the mix. Satan, Lucifer, the most beautiful of all angels, the Morning Star. If he appeared to you on a road, claimed to be Jesus and struck you blind... Wouldn't you believe? Now he's got a fully devout, miraculously-converted patsy in the Christian church and he can start perverting the beliefs.

I know. Crazy. Like I said, indulge me in some wanton speculation... but if Satan is the ultimate deceiver, doesn't that seem like a great strategy for getting people to turn away from God? Get them to THINK they are worshipping God when in fact they're not? Around 300 CE the Christian church had a major schism over whether God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were a Trinity or three separate beings. Those who didn't believe in the Trinity were branded as heretics... if my wild, WILD conjecture is going in the right direction, it sounds to me like Satan just convinced all Christians to worship Jesus as God instead of Yahweh, taking a false god for themselves... and in a way becoming polytheists.

A crazy idea to be sure... but it's a damn good strategy to use.

To paraphrase and adapt the Usual Suspects... The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world they were worshipping the right God. ;)