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

[harleen.livejournal.com]

*nods* I agree with you.

I am Buddhist/Pagan, so I know exactly what you mean. there are some Pagans out there who are unaccepting of what I believe....I too am sick of having to deal with that.

Kellinator makes a great point, that I applaud...people really do need to just deal with the reality of it all.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

none of which means any pagan, particularly an irish/celtic (not the same thing) pagan, has to like st. patrick.

personally i get angry at the idea of christian missionaries going in and converting any culture. by all means try to nudge them away from inhumane practices, but for pete's sake don't destroy them. which is what he did, or began the destruction anyway.

for what it's worth, there were never any snakes in ireland--it's thought the snakes st. patrick "drove off" were symbols either for some unnamed goddess religion (the snake is a goddess symbol) or for the druids.

also, i personally am annoyed at all of pagandom being blamed for the words and actions of a few hundred eclectic wiccan newbies. lemme say it the fifty zillionth time for the uninitiated and unacquainted: WICCA IS NOT THE WHOLE OF PAGANDOM, any more than catholics are the only christians.

[hooper-x.livejournal.com]

Either that or St. Patrick beat the shit out of Cobra Commander.

-HX, WAS A MAAAAN.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

that would have made a really cool g.i. joe episode.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

p.s., we don't know the druids did human sacrifice. we only have the romans' and christians' word for it.

[hooper-x.livejournal.com]

But you know, in your heart of hearts, that they were SO MUCH COOLER THAT WAY. I'd rather be a part of some badass cult that killed people and burnt shit and terrorised the countryside as opposed to a bunch of hippies sitting in a circle talking about love and flowers and boolshit like that.

-HX, it's like the Aztecs. The Aztecs were so fucking hardcore that it took biological warfare to drop their shit. They were AWESOMELY unapologetic about the human sacrifice.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

eh, i'd rather be part of something that fell somewhere in between. of course, i don't like the death penalty either.

in any case, the romans were guilty of headhunting (and may have taught it to the celts), and the later christians who populated europe were guilty of the witch hysteria and the murders it engendered. few if any cultures are innocent of such things.

[hooper-x.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so why not be out in the open about it? People try to talk about these events like they never happened or they're some mythic bullshit that will never happen again, when just this decade, we were pretty much one collapsing building away from lynching DUNE COONS in the street, you know? Acts of senseless violence are pretty much part of what I'd rather not call "human nature", but there it is.

-HX

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

You do know the Celts swept through Rome (and many other areas of Europe) before they made it to the British Isles, right?

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

sheeit... they were in most of europe. the gauls were celts too.

you maybe don't know that the state of louisiana has adopted a state tartan, and the reasoning behind it was the shared celtic heritage of the scots-irish in the north of the state and the cajuns and creoles in the south.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

You didn't really think I'd post something that inflammatory without fact-checking it, did you?

http://www.digitalmedievalist.com/faqs/sacrific.html

I'm not referring to anything the Romans, the Christians, or my mom said. I'm going strictly on the archaeological evidence.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

it looks like they fell into two classes: willing sacrifice, and the death penalty.

let's not forget the christian penchant for executing those who broke certain laws, either. or what were those stakes and gallows for?

(by the way, there are other interpretations for the cauldron scenes they cite. the official neopagan party line seems to be that the cauldron is a symbol for rebirth. dunno.)

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Many of the practitioners of human sacrifice viewed the victim as undergoing a kind of rebirth. So, really, that doesn't contradict the evidence. :-)

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

just because i don't like your lil' lj friend doesn't mean i'm talking out my ass about everything.

what i should have added and didn't 'cause this has been one long day of distraction-by-baby (she's going through a growth spurt and wants to eat constantly) is, that scene on the gundestrup cauldron may have been souls going into a cauldron rather than living human beings.

i don't know. neither does the guy who wrote the article. neither do you.

thing is, i'm just as annoyed by the folks who think st. patrick Enlightened The Emerald Isle as kellinator is by the folks who think he was Teh Ev0l. for pete's sake, the celts had the most gender-equal society in that particular time period. and they had knowledge that surpassed anything the christians could muster up during the dark ages. and then they all became catholic, and... poof.

i just keep seeing that pattern, and not just in llewellyn books, half of which subject matter is made up anyway. but seriously. the vast majority of the technological advancement the west has made has come from secular thought, not religious. as for everyone else... being converted to one of the book religions has usually led to a degeneration in the culture, and a worsening of the people's lot in life. i want to believe this is because the ones doing the converting had a vested interest in keeping their converts poor and enslaved... but you still can't dispute that converting EVERYBODY to abrahamic religion reduces spiritual diversity in this world, with a concurrent loss of language, art, and perspectives which teach us something about the world we live in.

basically i just wish the Big Three would learn their lesson and leave the rest of us the fuck alone, and quit complaining when we get mad because they haven't.

it isn't like non-christians only hate christians (when they do; not all of us do) Just Because They're Christian. this isn't like hating black people because they're black. there's a longstanding pattern of bad behavior that we've all noticed, and of which some of us have been victims. i understand not all christians are guilty of that bad behavior. i just find it ironic that people of the abrahamic religions tend to self-police and purge people who are good, who bring positive changes to their faiths, but when someone's acting like an asshole and misrepresenting the faith that way? oh, we'll just make excuses and say "we're not ALL like that" and let the fuckers get away with it. when are y'all gonna burn fred phelps and jerry fartwell and Pat ROBert$on at the stake? priorities, people! priorities!

p.s. i LOVE the story about st. patrick teaching the irish about the trinity using a shamrock. funny, last i checked the irish celts not only understood the concept of a trinity, they worshipped several of their deities in that form. *shrug*

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Well...you may not be talking out of your ass about everything, but THAT was the most content-free rant I've read in a good while. Vituperative, pointless, rambling, and not even on topic.

I nominate you for an Asbestos Cork award.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

Actually, Irish Catholicism was quite equal in terms of gender. There were monasteries that housed entire families. Many other differences as well. It was the Synod of Whitby that started codifying things and made the Irish Church conform to the Roman Church. And that was approved by an Anglo-Saxon king.

And honestly, I've met many more Pagans who hate Christians because of their religion that the other way around. And yes, just because of their religion. It's why I stayed away from any organized group for years. And I find it extremely hypocritical. It's inherent in the big three religions that there's one way. Too many Pagans claim not to believe this, but when it comes down to it, it's "oh, I feel sorry for x, because s/he's Christian and doesn't understand." Yet a religion, according to them (Pagans), shouldn't determine how you feel about someone.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

Untrue. Very untrue. The archaeological evidence shows quite clearly that the Druids practiced human sacrifice. Miranda Green's books are a good place to start.

I say this as a neo-pagan Druid.

I put the neo in there purposely because today's paganism is not the paganism of our removed to the nth degree forbears. That paganism was bloody and violent, just like everything else. The Celts very likely had a head cult--the commonly took heads in battle and made both trophies and weapons out of limed brains. Brain balls. Again borne out by archaeological evidence.

btw, not all the classical writers were antagonistic toward the Druids.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

it's cool. and i'm not one of those people who thinks the druids were all smiley happy and perfect pollyanna people. oh gods no. i just see this pattern of conquerors justifying their conquests by painting the vanquished people as [take your pick] (1) headhunters or (2) cannibals or (3) practitioners of human or animal sacrifice as if that sums up the reaosns why they had to be conquered and mistreated. it pisses me off.

i guess i didn't bother trying to keep up with the scholarship because i assumed there wasn't any, and because i know that researchers can sometimes inject bias into their "findings." my fault.

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

Er... not to speak for her, but I think this comment just epitomized everything Kelly was complaining about.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

so you don't think any group of people has the right to dislike any historical figure? curious. so what do we have the right to do?

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

She spoke not of rights. She complained that it pissed her off. That is not an attack on your rights, it's just expression of an opinion.

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

I think you should re-read her original post carefully, because you don't seem to get the point of it. (hint: it's not about whether you have the right to dislike historical figures)

[harleen.livejournal.com]

you are right...not all Pagans are Wiccan. this is why I do not claim to be Wiccan (not that I have any problems with Wicca, it's just not what I practice).

I too dislike the idea of anyone trying to convert someone else, as everyone is entitled to worship whatever God(s)/Goddess(es) they choose. which is why, even if I do not agree with what soneone believes, I will defend their right to believe in it.

right or wrong...what St. Patrick did is in the past, and it cannot be changed. all we can do is learn from any mistakes made in the past, focus on what is happening now, and work towards a better future....

[marigold.livejournal.com]

your icon is my tattoo

[harleen.livejournal.com]

it is a picture of my pendant, actually! very cool. :-)