If you were on Facebook this weekend, you probably ran across this meme, associated with that noted etymologist and Ancient Near Eastern historian, Richard (pronounced “Dick”) Dawkins through his foundation:
There are a couple of actual facts in the meme, which puts it ahead of some memes. There was a goddess Ishtar from Assyria and Bablyon. The image is almost certainly a frieze depicting her.
The rest? Uh, no. Her symbols were lions and eight pointed stars, and as a lover she had some drawbacks:
"Woe to him whom Ishtar had honoured! The fickle goddess treated her passing lovers cruelly, and the unhappy wretches usually paid dearly for the favours heaped on them. Animals, enslaved by love, lost their native vigour: they fell into traps laid by men or were domesticated by them. 'Thou has loved the lion, mighty in strength', says the hero Gilgamesh to Ishtar, 'and thou hast dug for him seven and seven pits! Thou hast loved the steed, proud in battle, and destined him for the halter, the goad and the whip.'
Even for the gods Ishtar's love was fatal. In her youth the goddess had loved Tammuz, god of the harvest, and—if one is to believe Gilgamesh —this love caused the death of Tammuz.[3]
Oh, and she was also the goddess of war — not a particularly salient aspect of Easter. “Ishtar” is pronounced the way it looks, or perhaps as eh-shtar, but no linguistic gymnastics can permute it into Easter.
Constantine has quite a bit of blame to shoulder but Easter is not part of that burden. Christians were discussing when to celebrate the resurrection in the early second century (that is nearly two centuries before Constantine, for those with fluid chronology). Quartodecimans wanted to celebrate it on the 14 of Nisan, while most of the churches celebrated it on the first Sunday after Passover. This timing explains why most called the feast παςχα, a transliteration of the Aramaic for pesach or Passover. This root is still visible in most European languages. The Jewish celebration of Passover has never been connected to Ishtar to my knowledge though I always welcome new information.
Others have debunked this at greater length here and here. A linguist has pointed out how Anglo-centric the meme is (and no one is more Anglo than Sir Richard). A pagan has pointed out that the meme is anti-Semitic in its erasure of the Jewish roots of Christianity. Humorously, the meme is as popular with biblical literalists as it is with anti-theists.
What disturbs me even more than the sloppy scholarship of the meme is how the foundation responded to having its errors pointed out. Did they post a prominent correction and apology, and pin it to the top of their page? No. Did they post any correction? No. The meme was simply deleted and dropped into the oblivion box.
A true sceptic is sceptical even about their own beliefs. A true rationalist is eager for reasonable answers, even when it means admitting they were wrong. To propagate a total fabrication and then to ignore all corrections is despicable.