NATURE WORSHIP

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 935, 31 March 1930, Page 16

NATURE WORSHIP

ORIGIN OF EASTER ADDRESS BY RATIONALISTS The seating capacity at the Majestic Theatre was taxed to its utmost last evening, when the New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Rationalism held its weekly picture entertainment and lecture. Mr. E. J. B. Allan was the lecturer for the evening. He prefaced his remarks by mentioning an anonymous letter that he had received regarding his previous lecture. Mr. Allan then dealt with the subject of his address, ‘ Easter.’’ The lecturer said that as the Christian religion, like other Asiatic religions, had originated in the northern hemisphere, it was only natural that it should bear traces of its remote origin, really dating back to nature worship. The fable of the resurrection was but the adaptation of the fact of the planting of seed in the ground and its apparent rebirth later on. The very name “Easter” was derived from the pagan goddess Eastre, whose festival was held in the spring equinox. Practically all the variants of the Asiatic religions were based on nature worship, no matter how much they were disguised in later years or how much they were repudiated by the apologists for the Christian religion. The real pagans worshipped nature, not as slaves obeying an austere deity or trying to propitiate him with prayer and sacrifices, but by endeavouring to gain a clearer knowledge of nature's laws and make their lives conform, with them. For the laws of man may be broken, but the breaking of the laws of nature exacts a terrible retribution, lie said. Th© address was followed by the screening of a fine drama entitled “Sunrise,” featuring Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien.