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

[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.