A lot of people are celebrating St. Patrick's Day today and I challenged a friend of mine who loves the holiday to tell me what the holiday is about. She couldn't at first but we slowly worked to the "right" answer. We celebrate St. Patrick's Day because St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.
This, however, isn't true. It's complete bull. St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland. Snakes have never been present on the Emerald Isle. So, some people believe that they are out drinking green beer because a Saint somehow drove imaginary snakes out of Ireland. I love this. If you were to celebrate its intended meaning, St. Patrick's Day is a traditional day for spiritual renewal and offering prayers for missionaries worldwide.
I want to play a practical joke that turns into a holiday. Maybe I can have "Pull My finger Day." It's an oldie but a goodie, and if I could claim it for my own then it would be doubly impressive. St. Patrick's Day has entered the realm of Valentine's Day and Christmas as being so commercially driven that t looses its intended meaning and becomes useless.
That is all,
Newt
Saturday, March 15, 2008
St. Practical Joke Day
Posted by Trinity at 10:13 AM
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5 Ripples in the pond:
Most holidays celebrated in this country have nothing to do with the actual meaning of the holiday anyway. Easter is about finding eggs & such, not about the resurrection or Christ, Christmas is much more about presents & family, not the birth of Jesus, Presidents' Day is about no interest financing for 12 months, not the greatness of our past Commanders in Chief. One of the only holidays that still holds true to its meaning is MLK Day & I think it only still has meaning because the reason for the holiday only happened like 40 years ago.
thomas the only reason that MLK day is so popular is because the minority group that it represents would have a huge hissy fit if there was not one. no one seems to care that the good ol' US of A would rather close down the country on MLK day rather than prez day. and how many people are actually getting a holiday weekend to celebrate good friday and easter this coming week? everyone knows that you do not have the freedom to celebrate anything in this great nation unless you belong to a minority group or unless you practice a religion other than christianity ... so go have a good cinco de mayo and happy kwanzaa.
oh and thank you trinity for telling me the origin of St. Patty's day. i did not know why it was celebrated, i just thought it was an excuse to go out and get plastered on green beer.
i never heard the story about the snakes before either.
Gov'ment, I think I have heard these same types of arguments before. Where was it... where was it...? Oh! It was NAZI GERMANY!!!!
Also, most people will have off on Easter because it is a Sunday. If it fell on a Wednesday, we would have Wednesday off, just as we always have Christmas off. Don't blame your work for not getting an extra day off for Easter, blame Jesus! He's the one that rose on the third day, which just happened to be a Sunday! Well, OK, I guess you should blame the Pharisees or the Romans for crucifying him on a Friday!
Those guys were pretty ruthless, but I notice that most business follow their lead, because it seems that most people get laid off or fired on Fridays as well... interesting....
We don't get Good Friday off work because of separation of church and state. If we got Good Friday off, the government would also acknowledge other religions' holidays as well and everyone knows that would piss off a lot of people, mostly Christians. So gov'ment, quit acting like Christianity is the only true religion.
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