Wednesday, March 18, 2009

I celebrate Saint Pelagius Day by avoiding group think activities.

Murchiú's life of Saint Patrick contains a supposed prophecy by the druids which gives an impression of how Patrick and other Christian missionaries were seen by those hostile to them:

Across the sea will come Adze-head, crazed in the head,
his cloak with hole for the head, his stick bent in the head.
He will chant impieties from a table in the front of his house;
all his people will answer: "so be it, so be it."

Gee who does that sound like, hey wait I know, any fundamentalist/evangelical. The druids were not wrong about so called Saint Patrick, he went to Ireland to try to convert those darn pagans, which is a derogatory term made up by christians in the vein of heathen. Due to his lack of education and complete lack of the language of the land Saint Patrick wasn't necessarily as successful as he claimed in one of his letters that exist to this day. His numbers were somewhere in the thousands of people baptized and thus converted to the religiosity of the catholic dogmatism, but this cannot be verified and so his impact is somewhat in doubt.

Now let's consider for a minute why they had to convert the pagans?

Characteristic of pagan traditions is the absence of proselytism and the presence of a living mythology which explains religious practice.

Wait you mean they didn't even preach their heathen ways? No wonder the christians won, all they had to do was borrow some symbolism and pretend that hey it's pretty much the same thing anyways :::wink,nudge:::

It is widely accepted that the Celtic cross has ancient, pre-Christian origins. It is similar to the so-called "sun cross", which can be found in Bronze Age Europe (Nordic Bronze Age, Urnfield culture). The archaic English word for cross as an instrument of torture is rood (literally "pole", cognate with rod). The word cross in English derives only indirectly from Latin crux via Old Irish and possibly Old Norse, introduced in the 10th century.

In Ireland, it is a popular myth that the Celtic Christian cross was introduced by Saint Patrick or possibly Saint Declan during his time converting the pagan Irish. It is believed that Saint Patrick combined the symbol of Christianity with the sun cross, to give pagan followers an idea of the importance of the cross by linking it with the idea of the life-giving properties of the sun.

Oh how wonderful, the sun gives life and you have a cross as part of that symbol hey uhh Jesus died on a cross so it's the same thing, we're not that different you and I, now just ignore all the other bullshit, while I slide more premises past you.

It wasn't just the pagans that needed the cleansing breadth of deceit, those dirty non guilt ridden christians, had to get rid of those too, or as it was known at the time Pelagianism. These heretics didn't believe in original sin at least not in the way they were supposed to.

Pelagianism is a theological theory named after Pelagius (ad. 354 – ad. 420/440). It is the belief that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without special Divine aid. Thus, Adam's sin was "to set a bad example" for his progeny, but his actions did not have the other consequences imputed to Original Sin. Pelagianism views the role of Jesus as "setting a good example" for the rest of humanity (thus counteracting Adam's bad example) as well as providing an atonement for our sins. In short, humanity has full control, and thus full responsibility, for obeying the Gospel in addition to full responsibility for every sin (the latter insisted upon by both proponents and opponents of Pelagianism).
In case you're getting confused, they believed that if your dad does something against god, this does not mean you did it, the actions of one don't condemn their offspring, you choose to be good or bad. What an amazing idea, sure the church now has had to concede that yes free will is important to make sure we are still guilty taking the responsibility off gods unnecesary shoulders for creating us so poorly that we need this constant faith testing and repentance and hail marying.

Now how about we sum up some conclusions, so called Saint Patrick goes to Ireland proselytizes his little heart out no doubt converting at least a few pagans. He steals their symbolism, and pretends it was christian all along. After his death they decide he's a saint, though no pope actually makes him one, as it would take 2 miracles to be considered a saint. In the present day idiots who were not born in Ireland and who's parents were not born there and likely not even their grandparents, but they still celebrate by doing what, oh yes drinking and wearing green, and sporting symbols that belonged to the pagans while praising so called Saint Patrick for converting them. Not that they know that, that would be giving them far too much credit, I dare you to try it next year, go ahead go up to someone wearing green drinking a beer and sporting a sun cross tatoo, and ask them, who is Patrick and what did he do?

Also just a wild guess but the method they used in central europe might be more the way the christians also capture Ireland.

As for the remaining pockets of resistance, they were overcome region by region - primarily due to the work of the quickly expanding network of monasteries.

The Frankish church of the Merovingians was shaped by a number of internal and external forces: it had to come to terms with an established Gallo-Roman Christian hierarchy entrenched in a culturally resistant aristocracy; it had to Christianize pagan Frankish sensibilities and effectively suppress their expression; it had to provide a new theological basis for Merovingian forms of kingship, which were deeply rooted in pagan Germanic tradition; it had to accommodate Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionary activities on the one hand and papal requirements on the other. The Carolingian reformation of monastic life and teaching and church-state relations can be seen both as the culmination of the Frankish church and a transformation of it.

Ever wonder why is the Irish flag green, white and orange? There is some debate as to the meaning of the colors, but it is generally understood that the green stands for the Catholics, the orange for the Protestants and white for peace between them. I feel the orange stripe should be much smaller than the green and the white even smaller than that, I mean if we're trying to be accurate here.

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