A Pagan’s Comments on Saint Patrick’s Day

English Catholic missionary known as Saint Patrick

In spite of my Irish ancestry, I’ve never paid much attention to Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17), except as a day to stay off the roads if possible. But today, I ran across some interesting comments about the true origins of Saint Patrick’s Day, thanks to Claire Mulkieran, who describes herself as a systems security designer and a pagan descended from a long line of witches.

Given that cultural perspective, Mulkieran has an interesting contrarian take on “Saint” Patrick, a fifth-century English Catholic missionary to Ireland, regarded as the patron saint of Ireland. Mulkieran makes some fascinating claims about Patrick. It would be interesting to look into them further, although I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they are historically accurate. In her 17 March 2009 blog post, “Pagans and Saint Patrick’s Day: The Real Meaning of the Holiday,” Mulkieran writes:

If most people know anything about Saint Patrick, it’s that his one claim to fame is that he drove the snakes from Ireland. What most people don’t realize is that the snake is a Pagan symbol, and that the snakes referred to in the Saint Patrick mythos are not meant in the literal sense, but refer to Pagans; i.e., Saint Patrick drove the Pagans (specifically, the Celts) out of Ireland (although it could be said, and has been argued, that much has been done in Saint Patrick’s name, but that the man himself was relatively unimportant). So what is celebrated on Saint Patrick’s Day with drinking and much cavorting is, ironically, the spread of Christianity throughout Ireland and the subjugation and conversion of the Celts.

She also makes a connection between Saint Patrick’s Day and Easter, writing:

It wasn’t arbitrary that the day honoring Saint Patrick was placed on the 17th of March. The festival was designed to coincide, and, it was hoped, to replace the Pagan holiday known as Ostara; the second spring festival which occurs each year, which celebrates the rebirth of nature, the balance of the universe when the day and night are equal in length, and which takes place at the Spring Equinox (March 22nd this year [2009]). In other words, Saint Patrick’s Day is yet another Christian replacement for a much older, ancient Pagan holiday; although generally speaking Ostara was most prominently replaced by the Christian celebration of Easter (the eggs and the bunny come from Ostara traditions, and the name “Easter” comes from the Pagan goddess Eostre).

I’ve already written about the connection between Easter and older pagan practices in my entry “Is Easter named after the pagan goddess Eostre?” Mulkieran also credits Patrick with using the shamrock to teach people about the triune god worshipped in christendom’s religions.

ARK — 9 March 2013

Anomalistics, Pseudo-Skepticism, and the Discovery of a 300-Million-Year-Old Aluminum Machinery Part

I recently learned about the field of anomalistics, that is, the study of scientific anomalies. This is a little-known area of investigation that attempts to take an even-handed approach to extraordinary claims. I found a good explanation of the field at the web site Skeptical Investigations. In an article, “The Perspective of Anomalistics,” by the now-deceased Marcello Truzzi (sociologist at Eastern Michigan University), Truzzi explains that anomalistics has “two central features”:

1. Anomalistics’ “concerns are purely scientific,” so “it deals only with empirical claims of the extraordinary,” rather than metaphysical or religious ideas. Thus “it insists on the testability of claims (including both verifiability and falsifiability), seeks parsimonious explanations, places the burden of proof on the claimant, and expects evidence of a claim to be commensurate with its degree of extraordinariness (anomalousness).”
2. Anomalistics is interdisciplinary in that an anomaly “is not presumed to have its ultimate explanation in a particular branch of science” and that it “seeks an understanding of scientific adjudication across disciplines.”

Truzzi popularized and possibly coined the term “pseudo-skeptic,” which he described in an article, “On Pseudo-Skepticism” as:

Since “skepticism” properly refers to doubt rather than denial — nonbelief rather than belief — critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves “skeptics” are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping that label.

I encountered the field of anomalistics reading an article claiming that an aluminum gear was found in a 300-million-year-old coal deposit in Russia. The article referred to “anomaly researcher and biologist Valery Brier, who took microscopic samples of the aluminum for testing.” I hadn’t heard previously of the term “anomaly researcher,” so I looked into it and encountered the anomalistics field, which seems useful and interesting. The discovery was also discussed in an article on The Voice of Russia web site.

ARK — 24 January 2013

Howard Zinn on the Common Problem Between History and Historical Fiction

I was struck by this quotation from Howard Zinn in The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction, by James Alexander Thom:

Historical fiction and nonfiction are both abstractions from a complex world of infinite fact. Both can tell the truth; both can lie. The “lies” (that is, distortions, omissions, exaggerations) in historical fiction may have two advantages over the “lies” (that is, omissions, exaggerations, distortions) in nonfiction. First, that they are at least entertaining. Second, that they do not make the same claim of being truthful.

The fact that historical fiction is more entertaining can also make it more dangerous  because it is more seductive, enveloping the lie in a sweeter package than nonfiction. Bad historical fiction may wrap a false idea (that blacks are inferior, that war is good) in an attractive story and thus make it more dangerous.

Thom, who is a great American historical novelist known for his careful research and accuracy, also quotes Washington Irving as saying, “I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.” Thom then adds,

A historian, if he spoke candidly, should admit the same doubt. However capable and conscientious he may be, he is a storyteller, just like you and me and Washington Irving.

ARK — 8 January 2013

Why create a universe?

Sometimes you hear people say that God created other beings because he was lonely, but that makes little sense. Today I ran across a comment about 1 John 4:8, which says that “God is love.” In other words, that is his main quality, the essence of his being. The comment I read was, “Jehovah became the Creator as an expression of his endearing quality of love.” That makes more sense. The thought that comes to me, then, is that God created the universe and other intelligent creatures out of his love for everything and everyone that could come to exist.

ARK — 20 Nov. 2012

 

How I’m Learning to Read Biblical Hebrew

Over the past year and a half, I’ve been learning to read Biblical Hebrew. I should say that I don’t think anyone has to learn the original languages to benefit from the Scriptures — nearly everyone in the world now has the Bible available in his or her own language, either the whole Bible or part of it. A good translation, especially one that includes the Divine Name, should be sufficient for a sincere person to understand the written Word.

However, in connection with the Edhai project, I wanted to have a good feel for how people spoke in Bible times. While eventually Akkadian, Aramaic, and Greek will no doubt be valuable, I thought Biblical Hebrew would be a good place to start.

To learn the language, I’ve been using a similar process that I used some years ago to learn to read Spanish. My basic process is to first read the passage in English, then read the same passage in the new language, but taking the time to analyze the passage until I can actually read it out loud with understanding.

Biblical Hebrew presents some special problems that I didn’t have with Spanish — that is, the alphabet and the vowel points. I have some linguistic training, which has helped me to figure out the pronunciation of the consonants and vowels.

However, I found that I needed to add some other aids beyond a Hebrew Bible. By far the most valuable resource has been the superb Interlinear Scripture Analyzer (ISA) software available free from Scripture 4 All. The scripture provides a literal word-by-word interlinear translation, as you can see from the sample shown here.

 

 

As you can see, in the Hebrew text and in the interlinear translation, the authors have faithfully included God’s name; they have used the common formulation “Yahweh” in their English interlinear rendering.

ISA is the most important additional tool I’m using for my project, but I’ve also found it useful to listen to the Hebrew Audio Bible available from the Academy of Ancient Languages. I also have a Hebrew primer, which has been useful for understanding grammar; a Hebrew lexicon that I use occasionally to research words, and a set of flash cards from Zondervan to help build vocabulary.

At first, I found I had to struggle for 10 or 15 minutes just to puzzle out a single word. However, now in that same amount of time I can read seven or eight verses with understanding. In some cases, I don’t even need anymore to refer to the interlinear.

I’m now up to Exodus 19 in this exciting Bible reading project.

ARK — 20 March 2012

Where in the world is A. Roy King?

Just a note to followers of this blog that I still exist. Even though I haven’t written a lot on this blog lately, I do follow very closely the traffic and comments on the pieces posted here, especially the article  ”Have Archaeologists Found Skeletons of Biblical Giants in Greece?,” which has been read tens of thousands of times and is one of the top articles on the web on this topic.

In recent months, I have been doing a lot of writing on environmental topics under another pen name, so I haven’t been able to give a lot of attention to this blog. However, I am moving forward with the Edhai project, a long-term historical fiction series set in ancient times.

I do intend to continue actively writing on this blog and promise to do so more in the near future.

ARK — 20 March 2012

 

Reflection on Pascal’s Wager

I was reflecting on Pascal’s Wager about God, which as  I understand it goes something like this:

If you believe in God and it turns out that there really is a God, you win because when you die you get an eternal reward.

If you don’t believe in God and it turns out there really is a God, you lose because when you die you get an eternal punishment.

If you believe in God and it turns out there really is no God, you lose, but the worse that happens is you waste time when you are alive and when you die you are just dead forever.

There’s a lot to say about this whole chain of reasoning, but my basic thought is that it would be foolish to think simply believing in God is enough to get the eternal reward in any case. Accepting Pascal’s reasoning in a simplistic way could lead you to just throw in your lot with the first religion that comes your way — you could end up wasting your time while you are alive and then be dead forever anyway. It’s certainly worth investigating whether there really is a God and then making a diligent search and a reason-based investigation to find out who that God is and what he expects of us — that information is available.

ARK — 22 April 2011