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

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

St. Patrick's Day is a day to celebrate your roots, not your religion. After all, Patrick is largely a mythological character. And it's a shame when we let our anger about what happened to our ancestors ruin a perfectly good opportunity to get sloshed.

As far as Christian-bashing goes...when did any group of people become perfect enough to judge the actions of another? We're all people, and we're all power-hungry, and we're all going to try to screw each other over if we get the chance. That sounds really cynical, but look at world history. So no one should say that things are so much worse now than they would've been otherwise, because it's all in degrees.

[juanfandango.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't see anyone celebrating their roots. It's a day that has been hijacked by big business to con people into the idea that they should go out together and "make merry" and get drunk on crap faux-Irish beer.

If I went up to any one of you and said, "You ARE going to go out on August 14th, because it's the special day of Azimuth of Balrog of the Cistern cult, and you're going to drink some beer you never normally drink." you'd tell me where to shove it. But big business, mass media, and the ovine mind of the masses, has conned you all into it under the semblence of the arbitrarily chosen day of a saint of a religion that most people don't practice.

R, partypooper. :-)

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

Well, it's different for different people. In Ireland, it really is celebrated as more of a cultural heritage thing than a boozefest. And personally, if I get out of work at a decent hour and feel like it, I'm planning to go to my local English pub tonight and have a pint and celebrate with a few local expats in a quiet way. It's just like Cinco de Mayo or Oktoberfest or Carnivale. Some of those have religious connotations, and some have been commericalized and carnalized, but they still matter as a celebration of where you came from.

[stress-rash.livejournal.com]

actually, I think if you said that to most people, they'd say "hell yeah!"

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

Well, we could also mention that St. Patrick wasn't even Irish... :-)