Now before you all go jumping down my throat about this supposedly being offensive, let me first explain my precise meaning behind this satirical controversy. First it is important to note that this piece is about a year old (the video I link to at the end is even older). This was originally part of my old gallery before my account was hacked. Since the time of this comics creation my research has led me to alter my view of the man, St. Patrick. However my attitude regarding the holiday and history behind it remains the same. The man, St. Patrick, is credited with bringing Christianity to the Emerald Isle (more commonly called Ireland). He is also praised for supposedly running the snakes out of Ireland. Now when I first heard of this story I thought it was referring to actual snakes...which caused me great confusion when I learned that Ireland is not climatically conducive for serpents or really any reptile species. It was after a bit of research that I found out snakes was an analogy for the pagan druids, and of course being myself a pagan (whos practices bear slight resemblance to the Druidic faith) I understandably took a degree of offense to the holiday and the man used to symbolize it...it didnt help any either that this day appears to have been created as an attempt to erase the Pagan festival of Ostara (not unlike pratically every other holiday on the Christian calendar). However further research suggests that the snakes spoken of in the myth more specifically refer to the worshipers of Crom Cruach, an evil blood-thirsty Irish Pagan deity to whom certain members of the Druid faith would perform human sacrifices in the name of. This forces me to alter my view of the man, St. Patrick, but the holiday, the history behind it, and the symbolism still earn my bitter scorn. While I fully support the termination of Crom Cruach worship and human sacrifices, it is important to keep in mind that as bad as certain parts of the Pagan faith were (and still are) Christianity was no golden ray sunshine. Human sacrifice is bad, but cultural genocide is even worse, and though it would appear I cannot justly place blame on the head of St. Patrick I do still nevertheless condemn the evils Christianity brought in its wake as it spread throughout Europe, for with the coming of the Christian faith came also what many pagans call The Burning Times, or Witch Burnings. Its very hard to feel sympathy for the plight and suffering that Christians underwent throughout history when the blood spilled in the name of the cross greatly exceeds any spilled in the name of any other faith. As a Pagan myself, I am one of the first to admit that many pagans of centuries past did many terrible and evil things, but while there were wicked witches, priests, and druids who worshiped horrible beings like Crom Cruach there were also those who didnt, and that is were Christianity made its mistake. As the cross and the bible spread throughout Europe, people did not attempt to make any discrimination between the good pagans and the bad ones. If you were a Pagan, you were either forced to accept Christianity or you were killed. Putting things into perspective the Crom Cruach sacrifices were dwarfed considerably by the numbers of Pagans who were imprisoned, tortured, and killed simply because they did not accept the cross. Furthermore, this holiday like so many others has become little more than a commercialized farce. It began like so many other Christian holidays to overwrite and erase from memory the Pagan festival which preceded it. Ostara, celebrated around the time of the Spring Equinox, to welcome the rebirth of life to the soil and the land became St. Patricks Day, a time to supposedly celebrate the coming of Christianity to Ireland. Of course now St. Patricks Day serves as little more than an excuse for morons to get shitfaced, caught up in bar-fights, and hugging a toilet the next morning. Though I should say I find a bit of humor in the fact that the guy this holiday is named after does not receive anywhere near as much attention as a certain little leftover from the Pagan culture this holiday was meant to replace. Somehow this Christian-spawned holiday has managed to become overrun with the little impish trickster fairies from Ireland, the Leprechauns. One might use this as evidence of the tenacity and endurance of the old Pagan ways and beliefs. The religions of old may just be the fairytales of today, but its rather amusing how they outshine the religions of these modern times even on their most holy of days. Follow this link to see the video I made on YouTube... https://youtube/watch?v=x4EaVjtGFlA
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:32:07 +0000
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