In which case Easter is a pagan festival and you are a hypocrite for celebrating it in any other manner than a pagan one.
I'm afraid not. There's actually no evidence that Christianity co-opted a Germanic festival for what we call Easter. The name may have arisen because it happened in the Saxon month of Eostre, but, of course Latin countries call Easter something totally different. In fact, in most languages, the name for Easter derives from "Pesach", which is, of course, the real name of the Jewish festival we call Passover. Easter is co-opted from the Jews and totally logically when you consider the story.
Sorry Jeremy but you are wrong - there is evidence.
The starting point being the entirely different etymology of Easter - the term used in English and Pascha (and its derivatives), used almost everywhere else. Pascha etc clearly derives from a Jewish root (as you say), but Easter doesn't. So the question then arises to its origin and there is evidence, both direct and indirect, that it relates to a spring deity, variously referred to as Eostre, Ostara, Austro etc etc.
And there is direct evidence from Bede who refers specifically to the derivation of Easter as a term relating it to Anglo Saxon festivals during Ēosturmōnaþ (Eastro's month) in honour of the goddess. And don't forget that Bede was writing very soon after the Christianisation of Anglo Saxon England, so very close to the actual events. Indeed when Bede was born Anglo Saxon England was still ruled by a pagan worshiping King and it is likely that at the time of writing pagan festivals would still have been very much in evidence even if Christianity was taking an increasing hold. And also in terms of partiality, don't forget that Bede was a Christian so there isn't any reason why he would create 'histories' that aren't actually very favourable toward Christianity (i.e. borrowing a pagan name for their most important festival) if there wasn't truth in them.
Sure there is controversy over the writings of Bede, but that doesn't mean there isn't evidence, merely that not everyone agrees on the significance of that evidence, as is pretty well always the case for historical evidence from such a long time ago.
But what we can be sure of is that there is nothing in the etymology of Easter that is remotely Christian - which is of course why most other languages uses a completely different term (e.g. Pascha, Pasches, Pasen, påske, påsk, páskar etc). Spot the odd one out.
