All My Easters Are Coming At Once

Easter has come and gone in a flurry of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes.  I barely noticed except that I did remember not to go into work on Friday or Monday.  I did visit my parent's house on Sunday and we ate lamb thus symbolising that we were hungry or something.  I don't think I paid any more attention to it than that.

There is however big news on the horizon on the Easter front.  Apparently representatives of the various subdivisions of Christianity are moving towards agreeing a set date for Easter.  This is something that has been on the agenda for over a thousand years and preliminary discussions are almost completed.  The pope (Catholic), patriarch of Constantinople (Orthodox), Coptic pope (Coptic) and the archbishop of Canterbury (Anglican) are all on the record as saying that we should definitely have a set date for Easter rather than the somewhat chaotic mishmash that prevails at the moment.

All sorts of people are eager to have a set date for Easter.  Businesses looking for clarity as to when they can expect their employees to turn up for work, teachers looking for clarity as to when they can legitimately avoid contact with the children they're supposed to be teaching, and me looking for clarity as to when exactly I have to fake an illness if I want a four day weekend.  All these people have been agitating for a clearcut, unchanging date for Easter pretty much ever since the church produced its non clearcut meandering date for Easter back in 325AD.  Before that time people had celebrated Easter pretty much whenever they felt like it, something that might not go down too well today.

What I find amusing about all of this is that not one of the reasons for setting a date for Easter has anything to do with religion.  What Easter actually is and why it might be celebrated didn't seem to be of particular concern to anyone involved in the debate.  The Sydney Morning Herald had an article by a self proclaimed atheist telling the various churches to get their act together.  Excuse me?  You're an atheist, it's nothing to do with you.  Just work the two damn days whenever they fall in the year.  Alternatively if you don't want to do that then take the superstition induced holiday when it turns up and have sufficient good manners not to bitch about it.  Like me.

I shan't deny that if the various god botherers in chief get their act together and come up with a comprehensive, official date for Easter that would be helpful.  I wouldn't spend the first couple of weeks of March each year wondering vaguely if I should be in the office at all.  Aside from that I have no real investment in the matter apart from the fact that its made fuel for a rather inconsequential blog entry.  More so with Easter finally out of the way the church could get on with the issue of dealing with the paedophiles in its ranks which I believe was item number two on the agenda a thousand years ago right after setting the date for Easter.

I do have a suggestion though that should warm the hearts of lazy atheists everywhere.  If we can't agree on a set date for Easter (and the Russian Orthodox church is looking like a holdout at the moment) then possibly we could arrange to have the sequentially and celebrate the lot.  Easter would become a three week holiday from halfway through March until early April.  This would provide the certainty that business and education leaders have been lacking and most importantly of all might persuade some chocolate manufacturers that God does exist after all.