In view of this, why are people celebrating easter?

Regardless of the pagan attachments, Easter is a holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ. The pagan facets of the holiday speak volumes about the history of Christianity. You'll notice that Easter is not the only important Christian holiday with deep pagan ties. Christmas is celebrated around the winter solstice and shares common traits with the Sol Invictus celebrations of older pagan religions. The Christmas tree and the yule log, in particular, are Germanic pagan traditions. These connections show how Christianity evolved as a gr-roots religion, arriving in communities all around the known world at about the same time, where Christian holidays were often tailored to be more like traditional pagan celebrations. People were attached to their age-old practices and simply adapted the Christian holidays to fit them. The hybrid traditions ociated with Easter and Christmas are representative of some very interesting religious trends in the early middle ages.