This is going to make me some enemies, but I'm too cranky to care.

[kellinator]

Dear Everyone Who's Whining About What a Terrible Man St. Patrick Was and How Pagans Are So Oppressed,

I was looking forward to an evening of St. Patrick's Day fun with friends, so forgive me for being a little bit cranky about all the vitriol being launched on here today.

Are we Christians supposed to spend the day apologizing for St. Patrick converting Ireland fifteen hundred years ago? I'm no expert in Druidic practices, but how do we really know that the Druids were happy-love-everybody people and St. Patrick was a jerk determined to make sure no one was having a good time? It's not as simple as pagans good/Patrick bad (nor, I suppose, as simple as Patrick good/pagans bad). Imagine you're the person who got picked for the human sacrifice and see if you still think so.

Christianity is not all about hate and oppression, no matter what Jerry Falwell tells you. It's got some good ideas about kindness to one's fellow man. Many terrible sins have been committed in the name of Christ, but much good has been done too.

A lot of people out there seem to demand toleration for everyone but Christians. I almost didn't make this post because I knew it would piss people off, but that would be denying what I feel and what I believe. If it's okay for you to express your faith, then it's okay for me to express mine. I may be a lousy excuse for a Christian, but I still am one. If you want religious toleration, I think that's terrific, but you ought to have some for the Christians too. We progressive Christians have got enough to worry about with retaking our faith from the Pharisees currently in charge without having to constantly apologize for being Christian.

And I'm fucking terrified of snakes, so St. Patrick, you're okay in my book.

Comments

[ilexx.livejournal.com]

i have not read your bazillion other comments to this entry, and i don't care. i just have two things to say:

1) Christianity is not all about hate and oppression, no matter what Jerry Falwell tells you. - i LOVE you and i am so stealing this.

2) what you wrote about "If it's okay for you to express your faith, then it's okay for me to express mine," helped me realize something i've not been getting about myself and why i am such a religious outsider. while i can be "okay" with that expression, ultimately i'm not comfortable or interested in ANYONE expressing their religion to me - this means christian zealots, this means airy fairy pagan flakes, anyone. one's faith should be just that - one's own. i don't want people to share that with me - it somehow makes me feel like the whole thing is cheapened and mustn't actually have as much personal value if people are so comfortable shoving it onto me. *shrug* just a self-observation and i hope it doesn't come off as ANY sort of argument or anything, it was just helpful to me personally in an almost totally unrelated way and now i am babbling. sorry.

so thanks for expressing yourself. i personally don't really care either way. except that if it's not scottish it's CRAP!

Hmmm.

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

Wasn't St. Patrick just another pagan god or demigod who got incorporated into the Catholic hierarchy?

Irregardless, you're right. It's a day to celebrate all things Irish, and if one's not Irish, a day to get pissed in the good sense.

Or, if you're me, a night to run out to a Chalice gathering, eat corned beef and hash, read a bad joke in an atrocious Irish, accent, then run back to work to face the Dreaded Deadline Doom yet again.

(I'm agreeing with you, in other words. What a lot of pagans don't realize is that we know fucking little about historic paganism; most of their "old religion" was made up in the mid-20th century.)

Re: Hmmm.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

You're very close. :) It was the goddess Brighid, who became "St. Brigid." Whatever you want to call her, goddess or saint, her sacred spring is still a popular site for visitation.

[polychromatic22.livejournal.com]

Here's my beef with st. patrick. He was english. There was more than one irish family that had suitable priests that could have been used (st patrick was not the first catholic to enter ireland) by the archbishop to convert ireland, but, instead, they used an english guy. Once again, they deemed irish people second class citizins only to be saved by their english betters.
In many ways, it wasn't just paganism that was driven out of ireland, but irishness, something the english continued to do up until the later part of the last century.
Proseltysing is one thing, forcing an entire other culture underground is a completely other.

That said, I still wore green today. Got me a green t-shirt that says "Dublin" on it, and wore it like anyone who grew up in a town named Dublin would.

Oh, and one more thing, before you start throwing that human sacrifice bone around, let's remember that christians practiced human sacrifice at one time, also, they just called it witch burnings. All peoples at one time have had human sacrifice, it's a part of dark human nature. We endeavor to do better now, but pointing fingers is silly.

[raptorgirl.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. I'm so sick of hearing people whine about how Christians are all a bunch of sheep and stupid and blah freaking blah. I've even seen my own friends do it. Some of the most narrow-minded people I've met are atheists. I'm not a crazed fundie, I just happen to believe that there's more to life than what we see.

[lyneidas.livejournal.com]

The main problem with atheists is that they all seem to be evangelical.

[raptorgirl.livejournal.com]

:lol:

[jerel.livejournal.com]

If it weren't for the Irish monastaries, much of early European culture and history would have been lost; during the so-called Dark Ages, the monastaries became repositories for artifacts and manuscripts.

And no religion should be about hate. Even Jesus said to "love the sinner, but hate the sin." I respect other people's faiths. I don't want to be preached at, but if someone wants to talk--really talk--about their faith, I am willing to listen. I go about my own beliefs quietly, but if someone asks, I will tell them. (I'm an Irish reconstructionist pagan, meaning that my beliefs are based around what we are trying to reconstruct from vague and/or scarce historical records.)

[vertigomac.livejournal.com]

Heh... I have a pagan friend who calls those sorts of whiny folks "cyrstal suckers".

RIGHT SAID!

[spikepage.livejournal.com]

I feel your rage on this too. I'm not what you'd call a Christian really. I guess I am one of the heathen, but that's no cause for utter intolerance. I was online a while back asking somebody if they celebrated St Pats..and I got a fucking lecture!

Now..do I begrudge my parents for their christmas traditoins? .. Oh shit.. wait..don't answer that.

But...do I still not go around pissing on everybody's picnics because their religion of choice offers them happiness.

Okay...so I like to poo-poo the Promise-Keepers and the folks who badmouth the pagan traditions of halloween (though their easter traditions are just as pagan).

Ah fuck it. I'm not doing real well with rhetorical questions tonight.

St Patrick was the coolest Druid to ever live. You'd think folks could just stow their fucking intolerance just once and get along the way God/Goddess intended.

[lyneidas.livejournal.com]

I like snakes.

In any case, it's St. Urho's Day. Nobody could object to some Finnish lad booting poisonous frogs out of chilly Nordic climes, could they?

Or was it grasshoppers? I keep forgetting.