The War On St. Valentine's Day Has been won!

[cosmik debris]

We may never win the war on Christmas, but we beat St. Valentine in to the ground!

The once Holy Day for Catholics has become a day for chocolates, jewelry, Hallmark cards, and sex.

I think that is a victory all secular humanists should be proud of. I know I will be celebrating tonight! :)

[Psephos]

1. How romantic. n/t

[cosmik debris]

2. That's the spirit!

St. Valentine died so that you can get romantic with your honey.

Nothing says romance better than sacrificing yourself for religion.

[Psephos]

3. Nothing says romance better than leaving politics out of it, IMO

As for the religious part of it, I don't have a problem with St. Valentine any more than I have a problem with St. Louis or St. Augustine. They're just names from long ago.

Meanwhile, I definitely like that a day is set aside each year to honor those we love. How that came to be doesn't really matter.

Peace, and Happy St. Valentine's Day to you. :-) No offense.

[Mojorabbit]

4. No No No!

Whip My Roman Sex Gods
You want the true Valentine's Day? Forget roses and candy, sweetheart, and kneel before the Lupercalia

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, February 14, 2003


Hot pagan sex and lustful gods and ancient wolf goddesses and potential marriage and more sex and more than a little crazed giddy divine animal blood sacrifice.

All followed by some nice light whippings administered by nearly naked grinning boy-men, casual flagellations by goat-skin, some joyful thrashing in the name of fertility and purity and, you know, sex. Ahh, Valentine's Day.

The original, that is. Before it was called Valentine's Day, back when it was called Lupercalia, a big Roman festival in honor of the fertility god Lupercus, before the ever-scowlin' church got a hold of this ancient and rather odd and blood-pumped Roman lust-fest, co-opted it and de-sexed it stripped it of its more salacious and admittedly libertine joys, as the church is so tragically wont to do.

Because as everyone knows, the church is nothing if not all about rigid joyless dogma and romantic abstinence and mountains of little chalky candy hearts. Mmm, sanctimoniousness.

Tried to convert it into a mildly consecrated (read: bland, not naked) day, the church did, "Christianize" that naughty pagan fest, and failing that because no way are you gonna trump ancient sex and lust with uptight chastity and faux-purity, they tossed in Saint Valentine to the mix, invented some nice legend, tried to turn this most funky of pagan holidays into an homage to saccharine romantic love and cherry nougat chocolates and Hallmark schmalz. Did they succeed? Sort of.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2003/02/14/notes021403.DTL&nl=fix

[toddaa]

6. Pagan holidays KICK ASS

Christians couldn't invent a cool holiday even if they were hopped up on Benzedrine and Southern Comfort.

[Mojorabbit]

7. So true :) n/t

[TallahasseeGrannie]

14. What??

The Feast of the Circumcision isn't cool enough for you?

Geez...

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. FEH! to St. Valentine and his supporters!

The Church is just a group of wanna-be players. Lupercalia... now THAT is a holy day! :hi:

We will worship Aphrodite,
'Though she's kind of wild and flighty -
We will see her in her 'nighty
And that's good enough for me!

Give me that Old Time Religion,
Give me that Old Time Religion,
Give me that Old Time Religion ...
It's good enough for me!

[bryant69]

8. Congrats - I look forward to your victory over all religious holidays

Nice of you to put your cards on the table like that.

Bryant

[LiberalEsto]

9. Pagans have religious holidays too

Yule, Candlemas/Imbolc, Ostara/Spring Equinox, Midsummer, Lammas, Mabon/Fall Equinox and Samhain/Hallowe'en.

:hi:

[bryant69]

10. Well presumably after they eliminate the Christian Holidays

They'll get around to the pagens.

[Evoman]

12. You gotta start the destruction and persecution with the big name religions.

The pagans are last...they aren't quite as repressed, so they can hang around...at least until after we finish of the Jainists.

[Meshuga]

13. The pagans lost Halloween a long time ago

So they have been hit.

[cosmik debris]

11. Just wait until Easter

The day set aside to bite the heads off of chocolate bunnies!:)