The spring equinox is an annual event that actually occurs in the northern hemisphere.

Celebrating the coming of spring on the day of the spring equinox was first noticeably corrupted when the Latin adulterated the old English language by naming the earth goddess of spring, Eastre. Easter, by adroit manipulation of association, shifts the meaning from its primary attune to nature, to a Christian festival commemorating the resurrection of a god.

However this festival is always set on the Sunday immediately after the first full moon that occurs on or after the subtly neglected spring equinox. Commemoration of the totally unrelated bloody human sacrifice occurs on the preceding Friday.

I've always thought it odd that the early church leaders didn't set a specific date like March 30 or April 15. But those dates do not always occur on Sundays. That would ruin the whole biblical concept and a neat four-day holiday.

The word 'easter' is derived from the Latin, estres, meaning the period of reproduction in animals. Estrus is the peak of sexual cycle in animals, culminating in ovulation, heat or rut, especially in female mammals -- a violent or passionate impulse, craving or stimulus; specifically: erotic desire (Websters Comprehensive Dictionary, 1996). A celibate monk must have enlarged at the estrus concept to climax in the fulfilling ecstasy of the resurrection. A gaggle of horny monks, maybe.

During estrus the female is ripe for insemination. Women come into estrus once a month. During the height of estrus, the female body blooms and the female desires or 'itches' to breed. Spring brings renewed life, new growth, new excitement. Many animals bring forth their young. Females are inseminated weeks or months earlier when there was little evidence in the weather of rebirth or rejuvenation.

The fraud of the annual Christian celebration in 1997 was highlighted in the rapture of believers acclaiming the resurrection of a human body from a heinous death to the ascension into a nebulous unknown. The rapture was followed by the suicides of cult members who wished to be transported to the "other side" of life.

How many other multiple deaths brought on by such ecstasy can you find in history? Do you suppose these indicate mental instability of the ignorant duped by religious leaders?