Why Does Easter Move?

[WillRiker]

OK, as I'm in no way whatsoever Religious, here's a question for any MTW'ers out there that maybe are Religious.

Why does Easter move?

It's usually somewhere around my birthday (April 5th for those that want to buy the presents in plenty of time ) but it's well early this year 21st-24th March and that got me thinking about it's supposed to be to do with Jesus getting all hung up and then dropping dead and then deciding he wasn't dead after all...right? So why does the date move?

Now I know there's a possible argument that maybe "people don't know exactly when this fictional event was supposed to have taken place", but if that holds true, then why doesn't Christmas change every year...I mean it's supposed to be the day he was born and it's always December 25th.

Enquiring minds need to know....well I do anyway.

[Maximal]

Easter is termed a movable Christian holy day because it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. Easter falls at some point between late March and late April each year (early April to early May in Eastern Christianity), following the cycle of the moon

As for christmas, This Jesus person was actually born sometime in the summer, but christianity took over a pagan holiday (known as yule) in oder to bring more people into the christian fold.

[WillRiker]

In which case...fuck it...I'm not gonna have my birthday on April 5th this year...I'm gonna move the bastard around in accordance with the cycle of the moon and which ever other holiday I feel like hijacking...i always thought my birthday should be a national holiday so maybe I'll hijack May Day and have my birthday then.

[Maximal]

more info from Wikipedia

The precise date of Easter has at times been a matter for contention. At the First Council of Nicaea in 325 it was decided that all Christians would celebrate Easter on the same day, which would be a Sunday. It is probable that no method of determining the date was specified by the Council. (No contemporary account of the Council's decisions has survived.) Instead, the matter seems to have been referred to the church of Alexandria, which city had the best reputation for scholarship at the time. The Catholic Epiphanius wrote in the mid-4th Century:

"...the emperor...convened a council of 318 bishops...in the city of Nicea...They passed certain ecclesiastical canons at the council besides, and at the same time decreed in regard to the Passover that there must be one unanimous concord on the celebration of God's holy and supremely excellent day. For it was variously observed by people...".[19]
The Council of Nicaea, however, did not declare the Alexandrian or Roman calculations as normative. Instead, the council gave the Bishop of Alexandria the privilege of announcing annually the date of Christian Passover to the Roman curia. Although the synod undertook the regulation of the dating of Christian Passover, it contented itself with communicating its decision to the different dioceses, instead of establishing a canon. Its exact words were not preserved, but from scattered notices the council ruled:

that Easter must be celebrated by all throughout the world on the same Sunday;
that this Sunday must follow the fourteenth day of the paschal moon;
that the moon was to be accounted the paschal moon whose fourteenth day followed the spring equinox;
that some provision should be made, probably by the Church of Alexandria as best skilled in astronomical calculations, for determining the proper date of Easter and communicating it to the rest of the world.
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In which case...fuck it...I'm not gonna have my birthday on April 5th this year...I'm gonna move the bastard around in accordance with the cycle of the moon and which ever other holiday I feel like hijacking...i always thought my birthday should be a national holiday so maybe I'll hijack May Day and have my birthday then.

sounds like you are starting a religion to me

[WillRiker]

I always take everything that I read on wikipedia with a large pinch of salt..I know a lot of it is right..but a lot of it is shite.

As for the Religion...that gives me an idea.......

[Maximal]

in this case I actually can verify all of the above based on a book I have all about christianity

[WillRiker]

It wasn't "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins was it...great book that questions organised religion.

[Maximal]

no it is actually a history of christianity book

[WillRiker]

I figured...I was just being facetious.

[Purple Dragon]

I figured...I was just being facetious.

does that mean you were telling a terminlogicalinexactude??