It’s irrational that freedom-loving people should celebrate the subjugation of the Irish people to one of the most corrupt autocratic institutions in Western Civilization: the Roman Catholic Church.

When the southern 26 counties of Ireland gained independence it rushed in to fill the power void from the British departure, introducing censorship, suppressing freedom of speech, blocking the advancement of women, workers, and religious minorities; even enslaving people. “Independence” merely replaced one tyrannical government with another.

When the Irish came to the New World many stayed in the large cities of the east coast such as Boston and New York, many others went off into the frontier to places such as Kentucky or Missouri. These were the luckiest of the Irish because they were scattered too far apart for the Catholic Church to keep its grip on them. These were some of my ancestors.

I hate to think of what my ancestors must have suffered under the Catholic Church: continuing to have one child after another when you and your existing children are already hungry. The crowded and filthy conditions they must have lived in. The fear of hell overshadowing any autonomous thought.
They gained a reputation for taking to drink because alcohol was one of the few escapes from their miserable lives; this and their overpopulation made them outcasts in the New World.

No, this is no occasion to celebrate, and certainly not with the alcohol with which it is frequently associated. Think about this when you are drinking green beer.

Because it will be a Friday during Freedom Season (my definition of “Lent”) I do intend to have a steak to show my profound disrespect for the Catholic Church.

And st patricks day commemorates what exactly ?

just more roman cathoholic B.S.

I have never known what this holiday meant.

It's the feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Therefore it has become the de facto holiday for celebrating all things Irish, including one's Irish ancestry.

It's not just the Catholics who have feast days for saints. The Orthodox churches celebrate them as well. I remember reading in Tolstoy's War and Peace that the feast day for the saint one was named for was as big a deal as one's birthday.

The Church of England also celebrates many of the traditional feast days, along with some others, although it seems to have dropped the honorific of "saint" in forming its calendar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_of_saints_(Church_of_England)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2017 05:55AM by summer.

Most of Ireland's problems are due to the British.The church has its faults certainly, but the British occupation of Ireland starting in the 1100s is a bigger issue. Maybe the OP should boycott all things British while he is at it.In the New World the Irish had trouble fitting in precisely because they were Catholic and there was a lot of anti Catholic prejudice here. And this lasted until the 1960s. You might want to read about the 1960 presidential election for starts.
As Summer says, SPD is more a celebration of Ireland than Catholicism anyway. If the OP doesnt want to celebrate, fine, but there is nothing wrong with celebrating it or being Catholic for that matter.I think we could do with less demonizing. Catholics and Muslims get a lot of crap on this board and I, for one, find it offensive. Criticism when it is due is one thing, but demonizing whole groups is wrong.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2017 10:29PM by bona dea.

bona dea Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most of Ireland's problems are due to the
> British.The church has its faults certainly, but
> the British occupation of Ireland starting in the
> 1100s is a bigger issue. Maybe the OP should
> boycott all things British while he is at it.



Hear hear, bona dea! Fookin' Brits!

Éirinn go Brách!

Human

Nice to hear from you, Human.

bona dea,

My intention was not to demonize a whole group but to criticize a corrupt institution that has victimized that group as well as others.

Any religion that bans birth control or otherwise encourages high birth rates in today’s world deserves to be criticized for it. You can put the LDS church and many fundamentalist Protestant sects in that category too.

I realize that the vast majority of American Catholics ignore the birth control ban, but in places where it is still taken literally such as the Philippines and Latin America it is subjecting people to the same kinds of conditions I described in my post above. And since overpopulation has an adverse effect on the economy and the environment it is affecting people who don’t even belong to the religion. And American Catholics are providing financial support to the same church.

Face it – this is an unnecessary tragedy we need to overcome.

Since most Catholics today ignore birth control and dont have big families and since birth control was limited in the past for everyone, I dont see this as a huge problem even though I disagree with the church policy. Besides, that is only one issue. The Catholic church does a lot of good. For instance, they are big supporters of refugees and put their money where their mouth is. Like most things, it isnt black and white. I wasntbreferring only to your post. This one sided view comes up frequently

Mourned with a wake featuring Guinness, Jameson and Irish coffee.

No one should commemorate St. Patrick's day who doesn't feel right about it, but for me, I take any opportunity to consume beer at face value. For that matter, I don't need a holiday or formal celebration to drink beer, but the holiday aspect just makes it seem more festive. A holiday is only what a person makes of it, anyway.

I agree, lets be glad that in the new world we aren't slaves to popeary and Catholic church anymore. Another reason the Irish are drowned in their sorrow is because they have always played second string to the English. Lets add the Brithish to the list of oppressors. Here in the West it was always the English who got the best land, who capitalized and pilaged the resources. The Irish came after and never have done as well. Poverty always seems to follow them. Maybe not as much as the Mexicans or Blacks but it's there...

JWs demand that no one should celebrate any holiday because of arcane historical history.

I think current and recent culture and tradition are important and the meaning of holiday celebrations counts as much or more than coming up with reasons from the long past to hate Santa, hate Easter, or any other holiday tradition.

Some Irish came here due to sore affliction by some divinity or Nature, causing severe Fortune troubles- as with The Great Plague and "Little Ice Age", the instigator of The Great Potato Famine was Aphrodite! She has been and is angry over the low quality and quantity of love and sex life! Poseidon and others also are sometimes involved in the afflictions. The Church did become sort of evil, causing problems as well as benefit. Priestcraft undoubtedly contributes to such natural problems. Actually, in this Reality where you live, quality and quantity of love and sex-life is about the most serious shortcoming or weakness. Weak Fortune also, of course... The Fortune goddess does not like war and bloodshed as much as you (pl.) do, quite relatedly! The terms Saint and Holy Saint are completely legitimate- the catholic church is in the lineage of and is the closest to the True Church which St. Peter founded.

Who the hell is this nutter who keeps posting word salad garbage? This is like the third post I've seen from this person that makes no goddamn sense. Suspect not a native speaker of English, but still.

Michael the Archangel?

It's almost like speaking in tongues, it rolls right over the tops of our heads!

what a load of splodge.

cant we just have fun and recognise that some stuff is past?

I dont think about the viking invaders who slaughtered my english ancestors, just because today is called Friday (Friga's day named after some viking goddess)

paddy's day has become a day for celebration.....forget the saint - he is a figurehead to provide an excuse for binge drinking

Like Jeebus and santa........ or chocolate eggs



and, just as an afterthought - I doubt there were many condoms available on the Kentucky frontier in the 1800's
I dont think that catholics had any more or less control over their fertility than protestants *at that time*

Exactly.

I'm wearing my green today!

;)

I'm not catholic, and I'm not Irish...

But is it OK with you if I have a beer, and raise a toast to the Irish *people,* from all ages?

OP, I stand with you.

Church-bashing in general, and TSCC and those with similar oppressive faith-based traditions in particular, is what we do on this board. Millions have suffered, often in mandated silence, at the hands of "an entire religion." I know of no law which prevents me from speaking about the abuses, especially since privacy is a requirement of abuse.

I have no problem denigrating religion. The British monarchs claim to be the head of "the church," and we all know of the religion, sex scandals and crimes which brought that about. The pain they inflicted on the nations they conquered were under the very banner of "an annoited sovereign." I don't see it as being very different than Joe Smith's behavior, centuries later. Had Smith been born a monarch, I can see it as exceedingly similar. "Wants power, wealth, new females, makes new rules, starts own church." Smith was no more than an ignorant thief by comparison.

But, we need not even look at ancient history. Catholic leaders in this century banned condems, behaving like the world's Typhoid Mary where STDs are concerned, ignoring solid medical evidence in favor of more, more, and more babies, human capital being the most valuable asset of all. Can we say that this behavior was innocent, that the leaders "feared god" to such an extent that entire continents and peoples were ravaged by disease?

They then had the brazen audacity, along with millions of their followers, to blame AIDS on homosexuals, further ostracizing (shunning) and adding decades and mountains of suffering to an already marginalized and suffering "entire group of people." Talk about creating "evil others" to detract from a churches' crimes against humanity, and we can easily bring up catholic leaders of this century.

They have given safe harbor to pedophiles while ignoring the cries of their child victims, demanding, buying and guilting them, and those employed by society to protect children, into silence. I don't think it even a matter for discussion that they belong in prison.

Catholic leaders, past or present, are not "saints." The are the Q with obscene wealth and power to enforce their evil will across an entire planet. The glittering gold, velvet robes and dead languanges full of sacred secrets cannot shield us from the stench of rotting corpses and ruined lives left in their wake. If and when they wash the blood and pain from their revered temples, maybe we can discuss "the good" that they do.

I would not question that like TSCC, it is a tiny fraction of what they hold in their coffers. Show us the financials. Like that would ever, ever, happen.

Religious freedom does not impede my freedom of speech, not in this country, not yet. I would no more tithe or pay honor to the Catholic faith than I would to the Mormon faith or any other. I will not "watch" my language where evil, under a shield of "faith," is concerned. If someone chooses to ignore the evil in favor of warm fuzzies or "community" with others who are able to avert their eyes while dining cafeteria-style on god, well, that is the very definition of "religious freedom." Have at it, but don't expect that good people do nothing and hold their tongues.

On the other hand, I have no problem celebrating a day for the Irish, but would favor taking the "Catholic" out of it.

A ramle . . .

Thank you OP. I have never thought about St.Patrick's day as anything other than wearing green in order not to get pinched and hoping someone will bring green iced sugar cookies in the form of shamrocks to work. The thought of green beer pops up too even though I don't like beer and am not about to dye my favorite chardonnay a nice emerald hue. Never thought once about who the heck this St. Patrick was. Wasn't he the one that ridded the snakes out of Ireland?

You make me wonder. Are consumerism and pop culture the numbing of the conscience?

When you hear about Easter what pops in your mind first? Bunnies, chicks, brightly colored eggs in a shredded plastic grassed basket, or a tortured Jesus?

And Christmas? Presents, presents. Lots of presents and deck them halls. Jesus who? Oh yeah.

Thanksgiving. Yay Turkey, relatives slinging passive agressive barbs as they cut the pumpkin pie. And the Native Americans who were slaughtered by the thousands? Hmmmmmnnn. Forgot about that.

Columbus Day? Don't even get me started.

Holidays don't have any real meaning anymore besides the fun part, the stuff you buy in stores part, the stuff that comes out of the oven part. We love to forget our sordid pasts or maybe consider that giving them a quick nod is enough without really knowing the details.

Perhaps it is good that holidays really are about just forgetting the ugly political past, the religious dogma that separates and punishes, the hurt and violence man has done to man, and just put on some green and have a good time with anybody in your range of vision. Anybody.

I asked my Catholic co worker today about St. Patrick and he said, "Well, he wasn't canonized." I thought that was interesting considering some would like him canonized by the Pope and some others would perhaps like to shoot him out of a cannon. Shamrock cookies are still a better option than either of those.


Rather than holidays, I would like to see more study on fact and history in our schools regarding the reasons for the holidays in the first place. I ask some young kids some questions about these things sometimes and find they know almost nothing. So important to have the knowledge so as not to repeat history.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


> You make me wonder. Are consumerism and pop
> culture the numbing of the conscience?


Nothing to do with conscience
what conscience are you numbing, by having a feast at the darkest time of year - that is the real meaning of the season
co-opted by the early Christians and made into the pretend birthday of the god-man

> When you hear about Easter what pops in your mind
> first? Bunnies, chicks, brightly colored eggs in a
> shredded plastic grassed basket, or a tortured
> Jesus?

I will celebrate easter with my Catholic partner. we will have coloured eggs & chocolate eggs. Jesus can go hang himself


> And Christmas? Presents, presents. Lots of
> presents and deck them halls. Jesus who? Oh yeah.

Like I said. A feast day which has been co=opted by the christians


> Holidays don't have any real meaning anymore

That's probably what the Pagans said when christians stole Yule from them


> besides the fun part, the stuff you buy in stores
> part, the stuff that comes out of the oven part.
> We love to forget our sordid pasts or maybe
> consider that giving them a quick nod is enough
> without really knowing the details.

There are many days - not usually called Holidays - when it is fully proper to remember our sad past - Holocaust day, International womens day, international freedom day

> Rather than holidays, I would like to see more
> study on fact and history in our schools regarding
> the reasons for the holidays in the first place.

Feast days are fun. that is the real meaning of the season, whatever mythology lies behind them..... can stay behind as far as I am concerned

Thanks for telling me nothing new. I was just musing on the subject, not making any life shattering pronouncements.\

Enjoy your holidays any way you wish.

According to my Dublin born sister in law no place celebrates St. Patrick's Day with more silliness than the US. For myself, I'm not Irish and I'm not Catholic so why would I even acknowledge the day? I barely acknowledge St. George's Day, the patron saint of my own birth country.

OK, perhaps I do give more than passing acknowledgement to St. George's Day, after all it is the same day as Shakespeare's birthday. Oh, and Irishmen I know would not taint their Guinness with green dye.

Then wear orange today.

OP,

Do you do the whole St Valentine's day thing? Christmas? Easter? Marti Gras?

I know it pisses people off, but there is a religious heritage here in the USA, and in other parts of the world. And the remnants have come down thru the years.

So, get pissed off, or whatever. I get tired of religious people belly-aching, and I get tired of atheists and agnostics belly-aching.

Many western people have just become wusses when it comes to either religion or non-religion.

Maybe some humans have a genetic need to complain......or just have thin skins

Yup, both sides need to live and let live.

In most places this day has become secular holiday having nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church and much to do with drinking alcohol. Its like suggesting that St. Jean Baptiste day in Quebec is a holy day while it is a secular celebration of Quebecois nationalism.

I'm half Irish, but I do wear some green, along with a bit of orange as I'm not Catholic. I'm not really a fan of corned beef, but I do like potatoes as long as they're not the "funeral" kind. Actually, corned beef was something Irish immigrants acquired from their Jewish neighbors, so it's more of an American tradition to have that on St Patrick's Day, along with that green beer Americans use as an excuse to drink beer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2017 02:55PM by adoylelb.

>>Actually, corned beef was something Irish immigrants acquired from their Jewish neighbors

I just learned that today. Then apparently it became a pub food in America.

I remember my mom occasionally making an awesome meal of corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes. She was probably making it for my dad on St. Patrick's day. His mom's parents were born in County Cork. His mom was a very petite woman who gave birth to several tall, brawny sons.

When I asked my Irish co-worker a decade ago about St Patrick's day and explained the American traditions of corned beef and cabbage and so on, she was pretty disgusted as she detests cabbage and thought the meat sounded awful. It made me laugh and gives one a perspective of Americanized holidays appropriated from other cultures, kinda like Cinco De Mayo. She told me it's really not that popular of a day in her part of Ireland and didn't understand the popularity of it in the USA.

I'm craving some good old fashioned St. Patrick's corned beef today, with cabbage.

That sounds so yummo!

And here I thought it was de to the extinction of leprechauns.

Leprechauns are resourceful creatures. They only want you to believe they're extinct.

They like to fly under the radar!

;)

<<It’s irrational that freedom-loving people should celebrate the subjugation of the Irish people to one of the most corrupt autocratic institutions in Western Civilization: the Roman Catholic Church.>>

Right.. because THAT'S what everyone is celebrating at the pubs today: the subjugation of the Irish people. LOL.


<<When the southern 26 counties of Ireland gained independence it rushed in to fill the power void from the British departure, introducing censorship, suppressing freedom of speech, blocking the advancement of women, workers, and religious minorities; even enslaving people. “Independence” merely replaced one tyrannical government with another.>>

What exactly are you talking about here? The Catholic Church RUSHED IN and FILLED THE VOID? First of all, why was there a void? Why didn't the Irish people fill that void themselves? Why was there a void in which the Catholic Church could rush into? When the catholic church rushed in to fill the void, why didn't the Irish tell them to get lost?

Sounds like you're really mad that your Irish ancestors surrendered to the catholic church and didn't embrace or cherish their newly-found freedom.

That's not the catholic church's fault; that's the fault of the Irish.

I have Irish ancestry and I'm not self-loathing like the OP. I'm no fan of any religion but you can't blame a church for taking over a void nobody else wanted to fill. That's what churches do. And I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone a holiday that literally nobody thinks about beyond wearing green and drinking too much.

Or would the OP prefer that we all lie down on March 17th and feel bad for people who've been dead for a long time?

Ain't nobody got time for that!

Actually my ancestors were already in the Midwestern US when the independence happened. I am just grateful they ran away so I didn’t wind up Catholic. Having been a second-generation Mormon was bad enough.

I think it must have been that the Irish people were constantly ordered around by the British and having almost everything they have taken from them that they didn’t know how to handle freedom when gained it. And of course they succumbed to the irrational threat of hell.

It is probably sort of the same reason some women go from one relationship with an abusive man to another or how ISIS rushed in to fill the power void when we destroyed the government of Iraq and left the place after we realized we never should have been there in the first place. History always seems to repeat itself.

Part of my ancestry is Irish--Reilly-- and I will damn well celebrate St Paddy if I want to!

I remember several decades ago, before Guinness stout was widely available, the James Joyce Pub in Calgary would air freight 50 kegs of Guinness direct from Dublin and the lineups would stretch around the block. This evening BTW, I'm enjoying a pint of the Guinness in a real Guinness pub glass.

I have never had the urge to celebrate this day.

Holidays are fun events celebrating the traditions and diversities of our civilization. If some in our society like to delve into the history of each holiday, that's fine. If others love a party and like the trappings, that's also fine.

Life can be hard and cheerless. If a little lighthearted coming together lightens the load, I'm for it. Wiping out holidays undermines our humanness and undercuts our sense of tradition and culture.

Those who don't want to join in, don't have to. Those who enjoy decorations, gifts, and special food can carry the traditions on for others to enjoy or not.

It doesn't bother me a bit that Cinco de Mayo or St. Patrick's Day are celebrated in the US differently than in Mexico or Ireland. They are days when those cultures are highlighted here and that's a good thing. If other segments of society want the same recognition, I'm in favor of it.

If party poopers are more saddened than usual, that isn't a problem for me. That's their choice.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2017 11:55AM by Cheryl.

I bet OP gets invited to a lot of parties. :-/

A few plugs for Ireland:
I heard former President Mary Robinson of Ireland speak at Weber State yesterday. I had never heard of her (which just proves I really need to get out more!), but she spoke with great eloquence (on environmental sustainability, at Weber). If you also don't know about her, here's what I consider a pretty remarkable bio. She became a woman president of a country every bit as conservative and patriarchal as Utah, and I think was instrumental in changing Ireland to what it is today (see below)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Robinson

Ireland held a referendum on approval of same-sex marriage in 2015. People had to vote in person, so Irish citizens from all over Europe flew home to vote on the issue. There was a huge sense of celebration in the air, a sense of "we're going to make this happen". They did in fact make it happen, and Ireland was the first nation on the planet to approve gay marriage by popular vote. The vote wasn't even a squeaker.

Just two weeks ago, Northern Ireland held an election, and Sinn Féin came within about a thousand votes of outpolling the ruling Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). There are a fair number of people in Northern Ireland who would like to dump the UK and join the Republic, so they could stay in the EU, among other things. Considering the many decades of bitter antagonism between the two sides in Ireland, this is a jaw-dropping development of the "dogs and cats, sleeping together" variety.

Ireland has much to celebrate these days. Keep an eye on them. Interesting developments are afoot.

sláinte mhaith, y'all :)

I am Scotch-Irish & Norwegian, and I wear a shamrock button every year that upon closer inspection reads:

KISS ME
My Pagan Heritage
was EXTERMINATED
by the
Catholic church