Happy Easter!

[Amaury]

Happy Easter, everyone!

[Shinji Kazuya]

Thanks! Happy Easter to you Amaury and to everyone else of course.

[Ryno]

Happy Easter

[TheFantasticGarden]

For those of you that care.
What are YOU doing on this holy day?

[Mordi]

The same thing as any other day.

[TalHex]

considering I don't celebrate easter, same thing as usual.

[TheFantasticGarden]

Same here. I'm just doing whatever i feel like doing. It may be a special day and all, but i guess it ain't very special to the community.

Then again, God is a choice on whether one believes, or doesn't believe in him.

[Mordi]

To this day I still don't understand this whole easter decoration deal. I've driven past countless houses with little plastic eggs in their bushes or hanging from trees in front of their house. What exactly is the purpose for this?

[Emp]

Happy Easter. I want some marshmallow rappies :D

[TheFantasticGarden]

That's be for easter egg hunts.
Really, i don't understand the relevance of putting eggs in bushes and how it's related to Jesus and how he overcame temptation.

And who thought up the easter bunny? That's what i'd really like to know.

Although i have no complaints with easter egg huntin', cause if it ain't filled with candy, it's got money inside it. Hooray for a quick 20-50 dollars.

[TalHex]

To this day I still don't understand this whole easter decoration deal. I've driven past countless houses with little plastic eggs in their bushes or hanging from trees in front of their house. What exactly is the purpose for this?

Capitalism.

[Mordi]

Capitalism.

Lose the fixie it's 2011.

[Orange_Coconut]

It's the one day of the year where kids get to pretend they're the heroes of an RPG and loot houses and yards for consumable items and money. It's preparing us for the day that the world succumbs to the idea that living life like an RPG would be much more thrillingly dangerous than our current lifestyles could ever be. Without the proper looting skills, how is anyone going to know how to survive in a world like that?

In all seriousness, though. I <3 Easter. It's probably my second favorite holiday. Happy Easter! :)

[Amaury]

To this day I still don't understand this whole easter decoration deal. I've driven past countless houses with little plastic eggs in their bushes or hanging from trees in front of their house. What exactly is the purpose for this?

My mom told me that it apparently celebrates the day that Jesus came back to life, which is impossible, of course, as once a person is dead, they're dead.

[SpikeOtacon]

Happy Peep-Jousting day, everyone!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCeKvW-HAFo

[Nitro Vordex]

Still researching, but it looks like the tradition with hares and rabbits and eggs came from pagan traditions, and Easter maybe have come before Jesus, in the form of orgies and celebrations of life. And sacrifices.

[Sinue_v2]

To this day I still don't understand this whole easter decoration deal. I've driven past countless houses with little plastic eggs in their bushes or hanging from trees in front of their house. What exactly is the purpose for this?

According to South Park theology, it's to remind the generations of the secret hidden in DaVinci's Last Supper... the egg denoting Peter's place at the table. And Peter was a rabbit, because rabbits can't say shit about how you should live or worship, which is why he was made the first pope. The secret of the church protected for the ages by the Hare Club for Men.

As for the real reason why Eggs and Bunnies are Easter symbols, I have no clue. I know the Christian scholar Bede attributed the name and season of Easter to Eostre, a germanic pagan goddess of spring and fertility. Then again, it may just be the name of the season which may have come from her, since many religions with closer proximity to early Christians also celebrated spring equinox related festivals... such as Hathor, Venus, and Ishtar/Asherah (lol, God's wife).

Regardless, Bede was a late-first century scholar, and by the time he wrote his treatise the Roman Empire had already long outlawed the worship of pagan gods (which started under Theodosius I) 300+ years prior. And, if I'm not mistaken, Christianity already had a paschal celebration starting late in the first, early second, century to give the early Christians a "passover" celebration of their own while differentiating themselves from "those other Jews" (especially during and after the Bar Kokhba revolt). This was around the time the Gospels were being written, the earliest of which (Mark, around 80A.D.) simply ends at the empty tomb and doesn't have all the post-resurrection fluff often associated with Easter. (verses 9-20 were added later).

So I have no reason to suspect that Easter is just a stolen pagan holiday as some people like to claim, though it was certainly draped in such secular and pagan decor later. If it was stolen from anyone, it was the Jews, and none of the old ceremonial trappings have survived afaik. If you take the bible as truth, then the origin of Easter certainly doesn't need to be suspect of being a transplanted version of Passover, since the bible explains internally why the crucifixion happened (purposefully) over passover. (Christ was the passover lamb, the blood sacrifice, to god for the forgiveness of sins)

So happy Easter, guys. And as Stan Marsh learned, just color the eggs and keep your mouth shut. :)

[Nitro Vordex]

^Well, at least my small dabble into history wasn't completely wrong.

[Zarode]

I hate religions! Happy Easter, everyone! :roll:

[Delete]

Besides working, I've slept like 7 hours. Pretty intense day >_>

[Chukie sue]

Yeah, have a good day ladies and gents.

I'm just stocking up on Starburst Jellybeans and spending time with my dysfunctional extended family. Not really a huge fan of this holiday, especially when people at church insist I put a happy face on.

[washuguy]

My mom told me that it apparently celebrates the day that Jesus came back to life, which is impossible, of course, as once a person is dead, they're dead.

While I believe Jesus/Yehoshua resurrected on "Sunday", You should let her know that Easter (Or Ishtar) Is a holy day that has NOTHING to do with Jesus or God. They've got as much to do with each other as a peanut butter and meat glue sandwich. t's a evil commercialized satanic holiday... Yeah i said it...


Yeah, have a good day ladies and gents.

I'm just stocking up on Starburst Jellybeans and spending time with my dysfunctional extended family. Not really a huge fan of this holiday, especially when people at church insist I put a happy face on.

Good, you shouldn't be a fan of this holiday, it's origins aren't to good... You've got a better idea than the people at the so called "Church". When it comes to Easter, there's not much to smile about.

[Chukie sue]

Good, you shouldn't be a fan of this holiday, it's origins aren't to good... You've got a better idea than the people at the so called "Church". When it comes to Easter, there's not much to smile about.

Well in all fairness their intentions are clean. Whether the original purpose of the holiday was to celebrate Christ's triumph over the grave or not, that's what they choose to focus on today. I try to walk in remembrance of this everyday, so Easter Sunday doesn't feel much different than any other.

[Sinue_v2]

Good, you shouldn't be a fan of this holiday, it's origins aren't to good...

Er, It's origins are Judeo-Christian. Bishop Melito of Sardis, who lived in the middle second century, provides the earliest (afaik) textual evidence on the matter, suggests that a type of "Easter" celebration was already well established in his time as an extension of the Passover celebration. By the time any centralized church authority formed which could dictate a canon for religious observances and traditions (about 325 AD), the only controversies about the observance of Easter were in reconciliation with the Jewish calendar and figuring out which date it should be held on. In the earliest writings, "Easter" is referred to as Pascha - derived from the hebrew word for the passover feast.

"Easter" probably comes from Ēostre, not Ishtar, and the worship of Ēostre was already archaic by the time of Bede's writing. The name probably derives, not from a pagan festival hijacked, but from the month in which Easter is celebrated, which in German at the time was Ēostur-monath - the Month of Ēostur. By that time, Easter was already long, long, established.

Whatever pagan influences crept into the celebration along the way, the origins of Easter ARE Judeo-Christian. Even if the Eggs and Rabbits and what-not can be traced back to specific worship of Ēostur (and I don't think they can), rather than culturally associated later, Chuckie Sue makes a point that the vast majority of people decorating their homes have no idea of the history of the tradition... which takes the intention (the "evil") out of it.

Symbols are only powerful when they have meaning. Take away or obscure the meaning, and the symbol loses it's purpose and definition. Claiming rabbits and eggs as Easter decorations are "Evil" because of their association with paganism is about as idiotic as claiming Buddhist priests are Nazi sympathizers because their temples display swastikas.

(Fun Fact: The celebration of Easter is actually older than the bible itself. While the four Gospels of the NT were largely already written by time of Melito of Sardis's "Peri Pascha", they weren't consolidated into a single book yet at this point. There are, I think, around 32 known Gospels, and each early christian community had their own unique mixtures of Gospels which were taught at their temples/churches. The most popular of these; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and a handful of apocrypha eventually formed the core of the canon sometime before The Council of Nicaea in 325. Works that weren't included or deemed heretical were banned and their adherents persecuted. This includes the Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, and the infamous Gospel of Judas.)

[trypticon]

i used to post my holiday reports every year here and on other forums I'd visit. I had a decent time travel report for Easter and where it came from. Last time I posted it here though, some idiot moderator replied with, "You could have just posted a link to it, rather than a wall of text." Dipshit didn't understand that posting a link to wasn't going to happen, since it was something I wrote myself, rather than found online, copied, and pasted to the forums.

But yeah, Christians didn't invent the holiday. it was well established before Christian missionaries came and claimed it was their idea in the first place. Mark it up as another example of typical religious BS.

Here's a link to it at these very forums from a few years ago, if anyone is interested in reading it. http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80782

[Sinue_v2]

Here's a link to it at these very forums from a few years ago, if anyone is interested in reading it. http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80782

That was an excellent and well-written explanation on the topic, but I don't think it can be substantiated. The problem (one that I referenced, but unfortunately never clarified) is that the goddess Ēostre may never have existed. Well, redundancy aside, never worshiped anyhow. The earliest mentioning of Ēostre comes from Venerable Bede, and Bede had two well known personality quirks. One, he liked to leave native traditions alone so long as they didn't contradict scripture... and two... he was a bit of a bullshitter. There is no known archeological evidence to suggest the worshiping of a goddess named Ēostre, and it's unlikely they were all destroyed in the pagan purges since areas which were far more heavily persecuted still turn up references and artifacts related to various pagan gods. Bede likely constructed the goddess out of whole-cloth as a means of piecing together via interviews and writings of the time, a lost history of the pagans. But, even if Ēostre didn't exist, the name of the season still comes from her... so you can attribute the name of the season to her, but her holiday was never stolen since she was apparently never worshiped.

This is why I don't think Rabbits and Eggs can really be attributed to pagan ritual. Or, at least her specific pagan rituals.

I'm still not clear on where rabbits come into the picture, but I think Eggs may have a link back to Zoroastrianism and Judaism. The egg may have come from the Beitzah, a hardboiled egg, a traditional dish eaten (among others) on Passover... and it's also traditionally served after funerals as part of a mourning ritual.

[spoiler-box]
From Jewish Funeral Guide.com (http://www.jewish-funeral-guide.com/tradition/condolence-meal.htm)
The meal of condolence should not be confused with the non-Jewish custom of a funeral repast — an elaborate feast with lots of fancy food served to the guests. The Jewish custom is that the mourners, and usually only the mourners, partake of this very simple meal, consisting of round bread or bagels and either hardboiled eggs or cooked lentils. This food has symbolic meaning. The bread is passed, from hand to hand to each mourner — a sign of grief, as it is written in the Book of Lamentations 1:17 — “Zion stretches forth her hands / פּרשה ציון בידיה”. This is never done at regular meals. Eggs are chosen, because the longer they cook, the more they harden. So the mourners must learn to strengthen themselves when death occurs. Additionally, both eggs and lentils, being round, symbolize the cycle of life that never stops and of which suffering and dying form a part. Furthermore, just as the eggs and lentils have no mouth, since they are smoothly rounded without any opening, so the mourners must have no mouth and silently accept their loss, realizing that it was the will of God.
[/spoiler-box]

As the early Christians were nearly indistinguishable from their Jewish counterparts, the symbolism of the Egg during passover would have added significance as they mourned the loss of their messiah.

Now, connecting the Egg's symbolism in Judaism to Zoroastrianism (if there is one) is going to be a bit trickier, since all I really know about that subject to date is that during the exile to Babylon - the Jews of the time were in very close proximity to a very strong Zoroastrian worshiping culture. Cyrus the Great, who freed the Jews from their exile and allowed them to return to Israel, was Zoroastrian... and it's suggested that his religious beliefs (in part) led him to his act of benevolence. Zoroastrians paint eggs (like we do easter eggs) as a part of their New Year's festival of Nowruz, but since this tradition never seems to have made the transition to the Beitzah eggs, I find it unlikely that it has any direct connection to the modern painting of Easter Eggs.

Also, as said, the quatrodeciman controversy (the date Easter should be observed) has more to do with distancing (by 325AD) an overwhelmingly gentile Christianity from it's Jewish roots, which is evident from the writings and correspondence we have from the time. For example, from Emperor Constantine I to the absent bishops:

[spoiler-box]
Found in Eusebius, Vita Const., Lib. iii., 18-20. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/const1-easter.html)
When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it was universally thought that it would be convenient that all should keep the feast on one day; for what could be more beautiful and more desirable, than to see this festival, through which we receive the hope of immortality, celebrated by all with one accord, and in the same manner? It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of all festivals, to follow the custom[the calculation] of the Jews, who had soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes, and whose minds were blinded. In rejecting their custom,(1) we may transmit to our descendants the legitimate mode of celebrating Easter, which we have observed from the time of the Saviour's Passion to the present day[according to the day of the week]. We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Saviour has shown us another way; our worship follows a more legitimate and more convenient course(the order of the days of the week); and consequently, in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews, for it is truly shameful for us to hear them boast that without their direction we could not keep this feast.
[/spoiler-box]

Easter was taken from Passover, not the Pagans.

[washuguy]

That was an excellent and well-written explanation on the topic, but I don't think it can be substantiated. The problem (one that I referenced, but unfortunately never clarified) is that the goddess Ēostre may never have existed. Well, redundancy aside, never worshiped anyhow. The earliest mentioning of Ēostre comes from Venerable Bede, and Bede had two well known personality quirks. One, he liked to leave native traditions alone so long as they didn't contradict scripture... and two... he was a bit of a bullshitter. There is no known archeological evidence to suggest the worshiping of a goddess named Ēostre, and it's unlikely they were all destroyed in the pagan purges since areas which were far more heavily persecuted still turn up references and artifacts related to various pagan gods. Bede likely constructed the goddess out of whole-cloth as a means of piecing together via interviews and writings of the time, a lost history of the pagans. But, even if Ēostre didn't exist, the name of the season still comes from her... so you can attribute the name of the season to her, but her holiday was never stolen since she was apparently never worshiped.

This is why I don't think Rabbits and Eggs can really be attributed to pagan ritual. Or, at least her specific pagan rituals.

I'm still not clear on where rabbits come into the picture, but I think Eggs may have a link back to Zoroastrianism and Judaism. The egg may have come from the Beitzah, a hardboiled egg, a traditional dish eaten (among others) on Passover... and it's also traditionally served after funerals as part of a mourning ritual.

[spoiler-box]
From Jewish Funeral Guide.com (http://www.jewish-funeral-guide.com/tradition/condolence-meal.htm)
The meal of condolence should not be confused with the non-Jewish custom of a funeral repast — an elaborate feast with lots of fancy food served to the guests. The Jewish custom is that the mourners, and usually only the mourners, partake of this very simple meal, consisting of round bread or bagels and either hardboiled eggs or cooked lentils. This food has symbolic meaning. The bread is passed, from hand to hand to each mourner — a sign of grief, as it is written in the Book of Lamentations 1:17 — “Zion stretches forth her hands / פּרשה ציון בידיה”. This is never done at regular meals. Eggs are chosen, because the longer they cook, the more they harden. So the mourners must learn to strengthen themselves when death occurs. Additionally, both eggs and lentils, being round, symbolize the cycle of life that never stops and of which suffering and dying form a part. Furthermore, just as the eggs and lentils have no mouth, since they are smoothly rounded without any opening, so the mourners must have no mouth and silently accept their loss, realizing that it was the will of God.
[/spoiler-box]

As the early Christians were nearly indistinguishable from their Jewish counterparts, the symbolism of the Egg during passover would have added significance as they mourned the loss of their messiah.

Now, connecting the Egg's symbolism in Judaism to Zoroastrianism (if there is one) is going to be a bit trickier, since all I really know about that subject to date is that during the exile to Babylon - the Jews of the time were in very close proximity to a very strong Zoroastrian worshiping culture. Cyrus the Great, who freed the Jews from their exile and allowed them to return to Israel, was Zoroastrian... and it's suggested that his religious beliefs (in part) led him to his act of benevolence. Zoroastrians paint eggs (like we do easter eggs) as a part of their New Year's festival of Nowruz, but since this tradition never seems to have made the transition to the Beitzah eggs, I find it unlikely that it has any direct connection to the modern painting of Easter Eggs.

Also, as said, the quatrodeciman controversy (the date Easter should be observed) has more to do with distancing (by 325AD) an overwhelmingly gentile Christianity from it's Jewish roots, which is evident from the writings and correspondence we have from the time. For example, from Emperor Constantine I to the absent bishops:

[spoiler-box]
Found in Eusebius, Vita Const., Lib. iii., 18-20. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/const1-easter.html)
When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it was universally thought that it would be convenient that all should keep the feast on one day; for what could be more beautiful and more desirable, than to see this festival, through which we receive the hope of immortality, celebrated by all with one accord, and in the same manner? It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of all festivals, to follow the custom[the calculation] of the Jews, who had soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes, and whose minds were blinded. In rejecting their custom,(1) we may transmit to our descendants the legitimate mode of celebrating Easter, which we have observed from the time of the Saviour's Passion to the present day[according to the day of the week]. We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Saviour has shown us another way; our worship follows a more legitimate and more convenient course(the order of the days of the week); and consequently, in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews, for it is truly shameful for us to hear them boast that without their direction we could not keep this feast.
[/spoiler-box]

Easter was taken from Passover, not the Pagans.

Not knocking you or anything, just saying you're field of vision isn't wide enough, you're standing to close to the picture to scan it. Eostre stems from the Babylonian Queen Semeramis who was pretty much worshiped as a Goddess. Her claim to fame was pretty much that she came from the moon in an EGG... And that when she died she'll return back to the moon, and her husband back to the sun and their spirits will rest there. OF COURSE this doesn't happen but people believed it, and she was worshiped in other countries by different names. (Her story gets deeper than this)

Istar, Astarte, Catholic Virgin Mary, Isis, Aphrodite, Venus, Indrani, Ashtaroth, Devaki, Fortuna, Disa, Nana, ETC. I can't remember anymore, I want to say Mithra, but I'm not sure. The eggs and the rabbits have NOTHING to do with the worship of Jesus/Yehoshua, they're fertility symbols, straight up. Basically, a ritual for Astarte was, if a man wanted to enter a temple of Astarte and meet a prostitute in a temple, they had to give up their man-hood in some way to participate in a ritual, whatever it was, and meet them. You see the connection? I don't think I know who Bede is, but he was on the right track.

[Sinue_v2]

Eostre stems from the Babylonian Queen Semeramis who was pretty much worshiped as a Goddess.

Istar, Astarte, Catholic Virgin Mary, Isis, Aphrodite, Venus, Indrani, Ashtaroth, Devaki, Fortuna, Disa, Nana, ETC. I can't remember anymore, I want to say Mithra, but I'm not sure. The eggs and the rabbits have NOTHING to do with the worship of Jesus/Yehoshua, they're fertility symbols, straight up. Basically, a ritual for Astarte was, if a man wanted to enter a temple of Astarte and meet a prostitute in a temple, they had to give up their man-hood in some way to participate in a ritual, whatever it was, and meet them. You see the connection? I don't think I know who Bede is, but he was on the right track.

So far as I'm aware, there is no real archeological, sociological, or linguistic evidence to substantiate that claim. It seems to have originated with Reverend Alexander Hislop during the late 19th century as a means by which to tie Roman Catholicism with Paganism and thereby denounce the Roman church. I tend not to take such bias sources at their word without at least some substantiating outside lines of evidence. For the same reason, I don't take Socrates Scholasticus's accounting of the persecution of the Pagans in Alexandria as a necessarily truthful account since he was receiving second hand accounts of his fellow scholar who were fleeing the city after the Library was occupied and burned. While his Historia Ecclesiastica is generally pretty detached and secular, his accounting of the events in Alexandria and the murder of Hypatia (which is where my interest lies) were rather one sided accounts of traumatized pagans.

Regardless, as I said earlier, even were it the case that Eggs and Rabbits were traditionally symbols of pagan gods, they do not hold that meaning anymore. To condemn a holiday because it uses symbols borrowed from the pagans and re-purposed, is to give universal/elemental power to what are merely constructs of human imagination and culture. Symbols have no innate meaning, but only have meaning assigned to them by human observers. Once that meaning is lost or forgotten, the symbol becomes just an arbitrary arrangement of lines or items. So even if Christianity took pagan symbols, their very act of re-purposing those symbols to Christian theology makes them Christian symbols.

Besides, if you really want to get down to it, the origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are in the Pagan polytheistic belief systems of the early Hebrew/Canaanite people. Yahweh was originally just one god out of many, who served largely as a war god (similar to Ares) after being promoted to "Elohim" by Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.. and credited with the deliverance of the Jews and success of their conquest. Though it took the form of Monolateralist Polytheism for much of it's early history, it wouldn't be an actual monotheistic faith until the expulsion from Israel at the hands of the Babylonians. I believe it was Second Issiah who attributed the coming exile to Babylon to lack of worship of Yahweh/YWHW. This means Zoroastrianism and Atenism promoted monotheistic religions long before the Abrahamic faiths ever made such claims of monotheism. In fact, the promotion of Yahweh as the only single god of the universe may have been lifted from the Zoroastrian religion which was prevalent at the time in Babylon/Assyria while the Jews were exiled there.

[washuguy]

So far as I'm aware, there is no real archeological, sociological, or linguistic evidence to substantiate that claim. It seems to have originated with Reverend Alexander Hislop during the late 19th century as a means by which to tie Roman Catholicism with Paganism and thereby denounce the Roman church. I tend not to take such bias sources at their word without at least some substantiating outside lines of evidence. For the same reason, I don't take Socrates Scholasticus's accounting of the persecution of the Pagans in Alexandria as a necessarily truthful account since he was receiving second hand accounts of his fellow scholar who were fleeing the city after the Library was occupied and burned. While his Historia Ecclesiastica is generally pretty detached and secular, his accounting of the events in Alexandria and the murder of Hypatia (which is where my interest lies) were rather one sided accounts of traumatized pagans.

Regardless, as I said earlier, even were it the case that Eggs and Rabbits were traditionally symbols of pagan gods, they do not hold that meaning anymore. To condemn a holiday because it uses symbols borrowed from the pagans and re-purposed, is to give universal/elemental power to what are merely constructs of human imagination and culture. Symbols have no innate meaning, but only have meaning assigned to them by human observers. Once that meaning is lost or forgotten, the symbol becomes just an arbitrary arrangement of lines or items. So even if Christianity took pagan symbols, their very act of re-purposing those symbols to Christian theology makes them Christian symbols.
I don't blame you, you're a thinker, I respect that. BUT, I ask that you look into this Semeramis chick some more, the parallels are interesting to at least look at if you like studying this type stuff... I don't condemn the holiday because of the symbols. Don't get me wrong, I love rabbits, especially the ones with the long floppy ears :) LOL But I do condemn it because of what I believe its connected to, thats my beef. And the WHY these symbols are there. And if we celebrate a holiday, WHY do we do it? Who is profiting from all of this? Just want people to ask questions and not do stuff just to do it.

And just sharing my beliefs, Jesus is explicit as is God when they say not to worry to much about symbolism. Symbols take away from giving love to them. So as far as Christianity, or being a follower of Jesus goes, there shouldn't be to much symbolism or symbols. Give glory to the creator, give thanks for the creation. I hope yo don't feel I'm being combative or anything, just expressing my beliefs.

[Sinue_v2]

I ask that you look into this Semeramis chick some more, the parallels are interesting to at least look at if you like studying this type stuff...

Well, like I said, I've never seen any real evidence that such is the case... but if you have some links and sources on the subject, I'll look them over. Just keep in mind that parallels do not necessarily imply connection. Similar people with similar circumstances and similar psychology inhabiting similar environments can produce independent customs that share similarities. In many ways, you see the same phenomena in biology wherein both bats and birds have adapted similar parallel methods of flight - but did not inherit those adaptations from a common ancestor. They both arose independently, and the similarities are due to similar body structure and similar environmental niche to exploit.

Remember, by definition, parallel lines do not intersect.

[Randomness]

Well, like I said, I've never seen any real evidence that such is the case... but if you have some links and sources on the subject, I'll look them over. Just keep in mind that parallels do not necessarily imply connection. Similar people with similar circumstances and similar psychology inhabiting similar environments can produce independent customs that share similarities. In many ways, you see the same phenomena in biology wherein both bats and birds have adapted similar parallel methods of flight - but did not inherit those adaptations from a common ancestor. They both arose independently, and the similarities are due to similar body structure and similar environmental niche to exploit.

Remember, by definition, parallel lines do not intersect.

Hey, that's the main argument most of the "aliens came to earth back in B.C." people use you know. That it's not possible that you get pyramids on seperate continents without some kind of collusion going on. I mean, its not like pyramids aren't just a hemisphere (pile of dirt, lol) reduced to four sides... or obviously stable (and thus suited to giant monuments).