Now That's Not Something You See Every Day

Once every several hundred years, we have a full Moon lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice. And that's approximately how often I will ever agree with anything that Ross Douthat has to say. So it's especially amazing that both events would occur within the same 24-hour period.

But I agree 100% with Douthat that:

Thanks in part to [a] bunker mentality, American Christianity has become . . . a “weak culture” — one that mobilizes but doesn’t convert, alienates rather than seduces, and looks backward toward a lost past instead of forward to a vibrant future. In spite of their numerical strength and reserves of social capital, . . . the Christian churches are mainly influential only in the “peripheral areas” of our common life. In the commanding heights of culture, Christianity punches way below its weight. [Cute phrase, huh?]

[T]his month’s ubiquitous carols and crèches notwithstanding, believing Christians are no longer what they once were — an overwhelming majority in a self-consciously Christian nation. The question is whether they can become a creative and attractive minority in a different sort of culture, where they’re competing not only with rival faiths but with a host of pseudo-Christian spiritualities, and where the idea of a single religious truth seems increasingly passé.

Or to put it another way, Christians need to find a way to thrive in a society that looks less and less like any sort of Christendom — and more and more like the diverse and complicated Roman Empire where their religion had its beginning, 2,000 years ago this week.

Exactly. I agree completely. Perhaps you guys would like to get started on that, well, now. Now would be good.

(Douthat says, as per usual, a lot of whiny, silly stuff with which not even an easily-confused four-year old would agree. For example, he snivels that Christmas is the season "when American Christians can feel most embattled. Their piety is overshadowed by materialist ticky-tack. Their great feast is compromised by Christmukkwanzaa multiculturalism." Really? Your piety can't stand up to sales of stuff? The same sales of stuff that, if they aren't accompanied by the sales clerk wishing you a "Merry Christmas" send you into a temper tantrum? So stop watching tv and stay out of the malls; go to church instead. Stay home and pray the rosary. And your "great feast" (by which I imagine you mean Christmas Mass) is "compromised" because other people are celebrating other holidays at approximately the same time? Really? If so, your "great feast" must celebrate a rather anemic god. Maybe you shouldn't have gone around appropriating other people's holidays if you've got such delicate feefees. Then you could have had one all your own. But, hey, as noted, it's not every century that I find something Douthat says not only correct, but quotable, so let's not quibble.)

Hat tip to Chas Clifton for the info on the lunar eclipse.

Picture found here.

What, There Weren't Any Hungry to Feed or Sick to Cure?

Good grief, Charley Brown.

SOLDOTNA - An Alaska store owner says a wooden cross wrapped to the store sign in Soldotna was an unwelcome act of vandalism that goes against her pagan and spiritual beliefs.
The Peninsula Clarion reported 45-year-old Rondell Gonzalez arrived Thursday at her store, the Pye' Wackets on the Kenai Spur Highway, and found a makeshift cross about 7 feet tall attached to her business sign with plastic food wrap.
Gonzalez says she believes in spiritualism rather than organized religion. She also said her father fought and died in Vietnam for religious and personal freedoms.
Her store specializes in wellness and self-help books, candles, oils and crystals.
Soldotna police say it may be the first vandalism of a religious nature in Soldotna.

So loving and full of light, these xians.

I'll just point out that I can't think of any story in even recent memory involving, for example, pentagrams painted on the outside of a Christian bookstore.

But it's the Christians who are persecuted.

Picture found here.

The War Over Xmas

As I've said before, it's my own humble opinion that the world would go round a good deal faster if we'd all act like adults and acknowledge that, at this time of year, there are BOTH a number of different religious holidays and a secular holiday related to giving gifts, getting together w/ friends and family, making snowmen, exchanging cookies, etc. For historical reasons, there's some overlap, both between the holidays of some of the newer (cough*Christian*cough) religions and some of the older (Pagan) ones. And there's some overlap between the practices of some religious groups and some of the practices of the secular holiday. But most thinking adults can figure those things out and go on about their business.

For an odd group of xian Dominionists, however, no December can be allowed to pass without an attempt to blur the lines and create a sense of persecution among their faithful. The problem is, sadly, not limited to America.

Will you be wearing a crucifix to work this morning? Have you pinned your "Not Ashamed" badge to your lapel to show the world you're proud to be a Christian? Have you noticed the concerted campaign of anti-Christian bias all over the nation? No, I hadn't either – but that may be more evidence of the attack on religion that's secretly under way, like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Or so some leading churchmen would have you believe.

The "Not Ashamed" campaign is the work of Christian Concern, a pressure group whose most vocal spokesman is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey. He has been sketching out an alarming, totalitarian scenario in which Christmas cards are "censored" because some don't feature mangers and oxen, school Nativity plays are "watered down" because they dramatise festive mice and squabbling baubles as well as baby Jesus, and Christmas lights have become rubbishy "winter lights" with no angels anywhere.

"Christmas has become something of which some are ashamed," Carey thunders. "A new climate hostile to our country's tradition and history is developing." Gosh, how nostalgic the ex-Archbish makes me feel. I'm pitched back years to when, as a tiny child, I listened to our local priest, Fr Smith, smiting the pulpit and declaring to his Battersea flock that the "real meaning" of Christmas had been lost in a haze of Morecambe & Wise TV specials and the American way of calling Yuletide "the holidays".

. . .

Not even Lord Carey's own people believe in his awful warnings about anti-Christian discrimination, the censorship, the undermining. The heads of the Christian think-tank Ekklesia say they can find no evidence to back up the "Not Ashamed" campaign, although "we have found consistent evidence, however, of Christians misleading people and exaggerating what is really going on, as well as treating other Christians, those of other faith and those of no faith in discriminatory ways".

John Walsh proposes a possible reason that the xian Dominionists are so worried:

The sad truth, Lord Carey, is that people aren't hostile to religion or passionately devout about it; just increasingly indifferent. They may send religious cards, sing carols, attend Mass, inspect the crib, as they've always done – but more as a style choice than an expression of devotion. They haven't been nobbled by Christianophobes. They just don't feel any atavistic twitch of veneration any more.

When the philosopher AC Grayling was introduced on a recent radio show as "a devout atheist", he corrected his host: "That's like calling me a devout non-stamp collector." What bothers Christian Concern, and the like, is that many people just aren't disposed to collect the stamps any more.

And I can't say that I believe that acting like a petulant child who can't understand the concept of overlapping holidays is one likely to make many people likely to WANT to start collecting your stamps, but, you know, whatever works. Me, I like the quoted bit of Dickens, describing the way I like to think of the secular holiday:

"a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely..."

Picture found here.

It's More Like a War on Logic

So, I'm already seeing holiday displays at most local retailers. When you build your economy not on the needs of the planet and the true nurturing of humans but on getting people to buy (often on credit) increasingly larger and larger amounts of plastic stuff created in 3rd World sweat-shops, well, it's important to start in as soon as possible on the selling. But this post isn't about the economy.

This post is about the upcoming battle in the "War for Xmas." No, not the "War v. Xmas," that's a fundie lie; there never was and there is no such thing. Let's act like grown-ups for a moment, grown-ups possessed of some simple reasoning abilities and a basic understanding of how language works.

Right around the Winter Solstice, quite a number of different religions have a holiday of some form or another. In my religion, the Winter Solstice (Yule, as we sometimes call it) is the holiday. For Christians, the religious holiday is Christmas, a day (conveniently) located just a few days after the Winter Solstice, when they celebrate the birth of Jesus. Zorastrians celebrate Deygan. In Mali, they celebrate Goru, the arrival of their god, Amma. More: here. Those are religious holidays with, often, deep religious meaning for those who keep them.

And, at the same time, here in America, a secular holiday occurs around the period from December 25th through January 31st. It's not at all religious; in fact it's quite material and commercial. It's about enjoying winter sports such as ice skating or building snow men, about getting together with friends and family, about exchanging gifts, about decorating our houses and town squares (and, yes, our stores), about having a big feast, and, more and more, about watching sports events on tv. This secular holiday is celebrated by people of all different religions and by those who do not belong to any religion and who do not celebrate any religious holiday. I celebrate Yule on the Winter Solstice with the women in my circle and, a few days later, I celebrate the secular holiday with G/Son and his extended family. I get a lot of spiritual strength from doing the work of a Witch -- helping to turn the Wheel -- with my sisters. And, I get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing family, watching G/Son enjoy the decorated tree and his presents, catching up via cards with old acquaintances, and being able to pause for a moment before the new calendar year (my liturgical year starts on Samhein, October 31st, the occasion of yet another secular holiday). But I don't imagine that I need to force family members to be willing to celebrate the darkness, as my circle does, nor does, for example, my DiL's mother imagine that she must make me pray to Jesus. So what's the problem?

The problem comes from the fact that the secular holiday often, due to historical developments, goes by the name "Christmas," which is also the name of the Christian religious holiday. (And from the fact that there is a growing xian Dominionist movement in America.)

Now, you know, sensible grown ups can figure this out and deal with it.

We use the word "bank" to describe the place where we deposit our savings and to describe the the sloped ground that borders a stream. And, yet, no one expects the bank president to get upset when people use the word bank to discuss the place where they like to stand and fish, nor do we insist that all bank buildings contain a stream. We use the word "dear" to describe someone we love and the word "deer" to describe a forest animal, but no one insists that you love the deer in the forest or that your beloved is, in fact, a forest animal.

So it's time for the Christians to stop pretending that they can't understand the difference between a secular wintertime holiday and their own religious holiday simply because the same word is used for both of them. Frankly, I'd be quite happy to see a different term develop for the secular holiday, which is what I think has been happening for a number of years with the word "Holidays." (And, again, we don't insist, when someone in mid-December wishes us a "Happy Holiday" that they must mean the Fourth of July, just because the Fourth of July is a holiday). But that's precisely the thing that drives the xian Dominionists batshit insane: How dare the store employee wish them a "Happy Holiday" when they make their purchase! She should have said, "Merry Christmas!" "After all," they say, deliberately conflating their religious holiday with the secular holiday, "Jesus is the REASON for the [holiday] season!"

Really? Really?

Let's forget the fact that the sales clerk is mouthing something she's been told to say and that, honest, having done this job, the only thing that woman really wishes is that she were home, off her feet, and not dealing with grumpy shoppers. She doesn't know you and she's got zero interest in your religion, your secular holiday, or anything else about you. If she were told that one of her job duties was to wish you a "Merry Christmas," she wouldn't care a whit about how your religious holiday went and she'd do it even if she wishes that the baby Jesus had never been born. If she were told to wish you a "Joyous Goru," she really wouldn't care whether Amma arrived, or not. Let's forget the fact that a god whose power is threatened by what a store clerk says or by a secular holiday isn't much of a god. Let's forget how weird it is that you insist that your religious holiday be honored by commercial establishments. And, let's forget the fact that no matter how many times you say differently, America is not a "xian nation."

Let's just talk about acting like adults and recognizing that forcing your religion down everyone else's throat is not, shall we say, the best way to win converts. Let's talk about the fact that it is entirely possible for me to not believe in a friend's religion nor his religious holiday but to, still, in good will, wish him a happy secular holiday and to hope that his religious holiday is full of meaning for him. Let's talk about the fact that it's pretty hypocritical to dump on liberals for being "too politically correct" and then run around policing how people wish each other an enjoyable secular holiday.

Time are tough. A lot of people are out of work, can't afford needed medical care, have lost their homes, are watching their planet die and their kids face a grim future. We could all use a few days of friends, family, whatever feast we can scrape together, a few gifts for the kids, an excuse to build a snowman or watch the Nutcracker (Hecate's least favorite ballet, ever, but, still). Could the xian Dominionists for once drop the pretense that just because two words sound alike they must mean the same thing? Because, honest, you're not fooling anyone; you're just making yourself look absolutely ridiculous.

Let The Annual War To Enforce Xmas Commence!

Here's an interesting article about Leesburg, Virginia, struggling amidst the Summer heat over what to do about displays on government property, come next December.

When the Courthouse Ground and Facilities Committee voted last November to prohibit all displays on the lawn of the courts complex in Leesburg it sparked an outrage from a number of residents and community groups, spurring the Board of Supervisors to quickly reverse that action during a special meeting only weeks before the December holidays.

As a result, several traditional Christmas displays, along with a couple aimed at testing the boundaries of free speech demonstrations, were erected in Courthouse Square.

While dormant, the controversy has not been settled.

This week, the courthouse committee urged supervisors to reinstate its prohibition on displays so that government leaders won't be in the position of determining which requests are for "appropriate" use of the grounds and which are not.

. . .

The board's compromise policy that has been in place since December allows 10 display areas on the courthouse grounds, with one display per area, and applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-serve basis.

By changing the committee's policy, supervisors allowed the annual placement of a Christmas tree and creche in the square, as well as a display by Loudoun Interfaith Bridges that included a Menorah, crescent, and Sikh display, a banner from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and [a] mocking of the "12 Days of Christmas" from Sugarland Run resident Edward R. Myers.

. . .

[Some] supervisors were not happy that the committee was pushing for the same policy that had caused residents to get upset in the first place. Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) said a lot of work already had gone into examining the role of citizen advisory committees by an ad hoc board committee in the board's first year in office.

"I am not against discussing the policy change, but frankly we've already done a lot of work," Delgaudio said. "These citizens are really truly devoted to something that we are truly devoted to in an opposite direction. They are acting in a way that I think is contrary to our position."

By consensus, a majority of the board agreed to take up the recommended policy changes at its next business meeting.

Honest to Goddess. With all the budget shortfalls and other problems we've got here in the Old Dominion, I wish our government officials would quit wasting time and just announce that government facilities are not an appropriate place for religious displays. People who want to erect religious displays in their yards, on their church grounds, on their privately-owned shopping malls, etc., knock your socks off. The more the merrier. Let a million flowers bloom. Government property has a different purpose.

However, as long as this nonsense goes on, I hope the Leesburg Pagans get in an early application for a Yule display

Now The Xians Are At War With Easter

You can go mad trying to figure out any consistent theory behind a lot of fundie wailing, until you realize that it's all really just about their need to feel persecuted and to impose rules, including rules they want to impose on each other. That's the only explanation for this phenomena.

Hold on to your hats, folks. The Worldnutdaily, which has been a central clearinghouse of "war on Christmas" bullshit, has now declared their own war on Easter. Joe Kovacs, the executive news editor for the Worldnutdaily, has a column declaring that Easter is a pagan holiday that should not be celebrated by Christmas.

"Most Christians, whether knowingly or unknowingly, violate this very first commandment of God each year by placing before God the actual name of a pagan goddess of fertility and the dawn.
In case you haven't figured it out by now, her name is - believe it or not - "Easter."

That's correct, folks. The word Easter is actually the name of an ancient, heathen goddess who represents fertility, springtime and the dawn.

Some of her symbols are flowers, bunnies, eggs, the sun and the moon. Who'da thunk?"

He's right, of course. Easter is a pagan fertility festival that was coopted by Christians centuries ago. But the same thing is true of Christmas (one of the reasons why the Puritans made it a crime to celebrate Christmas in the early days of the American colonies) and the Worldnutdaily is one of the loudest voices denouncing the entirely mythical "war on Christmas" every year.

I can't wait for Matt Staver and the American Family Association to condemn the Worldnutdaily for their vile attack on a venerated Christian holiday. Nah, that's not likely to happen. The real threat, as everyone knows, is a store clerk saying "happy holidays" to someone whose religion they don't know; merely calling a Christian holiday satanic and pagan, that's perfectly fine.

Maybe if they'd appropriated less, they'd have less cause for aggrievement.

PS: Dear Mr. Brayton, love your blog, but if you're going to capitalize "Christians," then you should also capitalize "Pagan." And even Mr. Kovacs didn't, in the section you quote, call Easter "satanic" -- is there a reason you're conflating the two?

Picture found here.

When There Were Wolves In Wales

I like maybe two or three things about xmas. One of them is this poem:



And one of them is this music:

.

And one of them is this book:



And, of course, who, among us, has not seen that blue light?

But, other than that, well, other than that, I like this, too:

Love Him Or Hate Him, Lon Milo Says What He Thinks

Peregrin is not impressed.

The Latest Victory In Our Glorious War on Xmas

So, I'm just going to say this, and I can't think of a "nice" way to do it.

Anyone stupid enough to have a Gap credit card to cancel is, well, too stupid to be a Pagan.

I could have a bit of respect for xians who wanted to disassociate their holiday from commercialism, but 'Merkin xians, are just that stupid that they think the answer to their miserable lives is to make store clerks, who will, trust me, I've been one, wish you a merry fucking xyouzourshs day if that's what they're told to say and won't, for one minute, really want you to have a merry xyouzourshs day, mouth the words "Merry Christmas."

Jesus wept.

Keep Your Nativity Scenes On Church Property: How Difficult Is That?

The same scenario apparently needs to play out over and over again before people get the message.

The latest battle in the "war on Christmas" has come home to Franklin County's seat, and it comes down to the baby in the manger.

The borough has a decades-long tradition of allowing the local garden club to place a Nativity scene, depicting nearly lifesize statues of a kneeling Mary, Joseph and a swaddled Jesus, shepherds and kings, on the ground surrounding the Memorial Fountain. . . . Earlier this month, PA Nonbelievers Capital Area director Carl Silverman wrote the borough a letter stating its intention to erect [a sign reading "Celebrating Solstice -- Honoring Atheist War Veterans."]

While the group believed it did not need the borough's permission because the creche required none, it was submitting a proposed design in "the spirit of cooperation," the letter said. . . . "We didn't want to take Jesus out of the public square," Silverman, of Camp Hill, said. "We want to put atheism in the public square."

Bill McLaughlin, president of the Chambersburg Borough Council, said that after discussion with the borough solicitor, two practical options emerged -- officials could allow everything or allow nothing to be displayed at the fountain.

The council chose to allow nothing, he said.

McLaughlin said he took PA Nonbelievers' letter as "a demand, with an implied threat of legal action."

The council came to the rather unstartling, but apparently difficult-for-xianists-to-comprehend conclusion that: "The downside of 'everything' is it means everything," McLaughlin said. And, [t]hat was something council could not live with, he said.

I've recounted before the story about a xian group that sued the local public school system and won the right to force the local public schools to send home announcements about church activities in kids' bookbags. Yet, when a group of local Pagans took advantage of the same ruling to send home notices about a Yule celebration at the local UU church, the xians went ballistic. Eventually, the school system decided, reasonably, to just not send home any kind of non-school notices.

In Chambersburg, as everywhere, there's a simple solution to the xians wanting to put up nativity scenes: Central Presbyterian Church, located on the square directly across from the fountain, is considering construction of a perch on its property where the creche could be displayed. That won't satisfy the xianists, though, because what they really want is to impose their religion, and only their religion, on everyone else via government property and action.

Xians upset over increasingly vocal atheist organizations might do well to consider that their own attempts to force their religion on everyone else is likely the cause for what is starting to look like an increasingly organized and vocal atheist movement.

Another Dispatch From Our Glorious War On Xmas

Ya Think?

[W]hy do Christian groups insist on this campaign year after year? I think the answer to that question may be, alas, crass commercialism. A 2006 story from the Religion News Service reported that the American Family Association sold more than 500,000 buttons and 125,000 bumper stickers bearing the slogan “Merry Christmas: It’s Worth Saving.” The Alliance Defense Fund sold about 20,000 “Christmas Packs” that same year. The packs, available for a suggested $29 donation, included a three-page legal memo and two lapel pins.

The bottom line here is, well, the bottom line: The Christmas wars are a financial windfall for the organizations that whip up this frenzy. The Christmas wars have become, ironically, the ultimate commercialization of Christmas.

I’m not saying that there are times when we Christians shouldn’t stand up for our rights, but when we fire all our weapons in such a meaningless skirmish, we alienate potential allies, and we have no ammunition for the battles that matter.

Yes, Let's All Get Worked Up Over The Pleasantries We Exchange With Shopkeepers

I agree: Epic Fail. And if Bill O'Reilly is a Pagan, I am the Queen of Romania.

Yesterday, I was in line at the local sandwich place and the guy at the counter handed the woman in front of me her order and said, "Have a happy holiday." The woman, clearly a tourist and completely delighted to have a chance to get pissy said, "It's Merry Chirstmas, if you please!" Counter Guy said, "Oh, I meant the Thanksgiving holiday. It's tomorrow." Good on him.

Picture found here.

Really, Some People Are Just Assholes.

In the Glorious War on Xmas, I am on Athenae's side. And it takes an entire boatload of stupid not to understand that Scrooge at the end of the story was happy, while Scrooge at the beginning of the story was mean, unhappy, petty, miserable. Kind of like today's "conservatives" and "libertarians." There's a message hidden a sixteenth of an inch deep there, boys. See if you can find it.

Picture found here.

War On Xmas

USA Today asks: What about a stamp for Yule? Countdown to fundies screaming persecution in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, . . . .

Picture found here.

Sunday Trakl Blogging

So the xmas decorations and sale items were up even before Samhein. Forget the old custom of waiting until after Thanksgiving. There's a note of desperation in the window displays of the gift store and the pyramids of xmas comestibles in the aisles of the grocery store. People are unlikely to buy as much useless stuff from China this year. And, O'Reilley's begun his ridiculous defense of xmas, daring anyone to wish him a "Happy Holiday." Every year, they start earlier and, by the time that the holiday comes, I'm overwhelmingly relieved to see it gone.

Which is sad, because there really is a lot of value to a holiday of light and warmth and plenty during the deep, dark, cold of winter. Trakl captured the feeling involved in the good such a holiday can do in his poem, A Winter Evening:

A window with falling snow is sprayed.
Long tolls the vesper bell,
The house is provided well,
The table is for many laid.

Wandering ones, more than a few,
Come to the door on darksome traces.
Golden blooms the tree of graces,
Drawing up the Earth's cool dew.

A wanderer quietly steps within;
Pain has turned the threshold to stone.
There lie, in limpid brightness shown,
Upon the table bread and wine.

This poem reminds me of the Five of Pentacles, especially with its clear references to church. Heidegger saw even more in this poem.

Picture found here.

Here's Joanna Colbert's take on the Five of Pentacles. And, here's Lunea Weatherstone's. For me, the Five of Pents will always be mostly about being blind to the warmth and riches available to you. So maybe Trakl's wanderer has already moved beyond the Five of Pentacles and on to the six of pents, where we are all able to both give of our bounty and receive from our need.

Switch to LED Xmas Lights And Save 400,000 Tons Of CO2

From today's EEI newsletter:

DOE Says Conventional Christmas Lights Add to GHG Emissions

DOE has estimated that using conventional Christmas lights produces significant amounts of CO2, the Columbus Dispatch reported. "The fact of the matter is, you're generating a fair amount of pollution to run your incandescent lights," said an energy specialist with the EnergyIdeas Clearinghouse at the Washington State University Extension Energy Program. The Electric Power Research Institute estimated that consumers could eliminate 400,000 tons of CO2 and reduce energy bills $250 million by switching to LED Christmas lights.
Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch , Dec. 1.

NTodd Talk

You Listen

The War On St. Valentine

I'm just beginning to recover from the annual push by the Christianist to force everyone to observe the Christianists' winter holiday. You know, the one where they run around pretending to be persecuted because not everyone says "Merry Christmas" every damn time that they sell you a stick of gum or complete a telephone call. Where they scream about not being able to erect their religious symbols all over public land. Where they've come up with lots of cute, if not necessarily true sayings such as: "Jesus Is The Reason For The Season!" and "Merry Christmas: It's Worth Saying!"

So I wonder what the deal is with their complete silence concerning the War on St. Valentine's Day?? They used to be so serious about celebrating the Saint's day! For example, Wikipedia notes that: On St. Valentine's Day in 1349, roughly 2,000 Jews were burned to death by Christian mobs in Strasbourg. These mobs, led by nobles who owed large sums to Jewish moneylenders (usury being a sin for Christians), blamed the Jews for poisoning the city's wells and causing the bubonic plague.

Of course, The feast of St. Valentine was first decreed in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." As Gelasius implied, nothing is known about the lives of any of these martyrs.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the saint whose feast was celebrated on the day now known as St. Valentine's Day was possibly one of three martyred men named Valentinus who lived in the late third century, during the reign of Emperor Claudius II (died 270):

a priest in Rome
a bishop of Interamna (modern Terni)
a martyr in the Roman province of Africa

Various dates are given for their martyrdoms: 269, 270 or 273. The name was a popular one in Late Antiquity, with its connotations of valens, "being strong".

. . .

The Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, compiled about 1260 and one of the most-read books of the High Middle Ages, gives sufficient details of the saints and for each day of the liturgical year to inspire a homily on each occasion. The very brief vita of St Valentine has him refusing to deny Christ before the "Emperor Claudius" in the year 280. Before his head was cut off, this Valentine restored sight and hearing to the daughter of his jailer. Jacobus makes a play with the etymology of "Valentine", "as containing valour".

The Legenda Aurea does not contain anything about hearts and last notes signed "from your Valentine", as is sometimes suggested in modern works of sentimental piety. Many of the current legends surrounding them appear in the late Middle Ages in France and England, when the feast day of February 14 became associated with romantic love.

But, as we know, there's been a terrible war on St. Valentine. Nowadays, no one says, "Happy St. Valentine's Day!" No, it's "Happy VD Day!" or "Will You Be Mine!" when we all know that the Saint Is The Reason For The Pink Paint! You never get a card with a picture of a beheaded St. Valentine on it; why, you're likely to get a card with a picuture of Pagan Cupid! In fact, people seem to have completely secularized this holiday! In fact, the day has been taken over by those who are far more interested in getting laid than in losing their haid! By those who are more concerned with being in love than in St. Valentine above! By those who want chocolate and roses more than they want Jesus and Moses! (~Slaps own face~ OK, got a little carried away, there.) And when was the last time that a huge plastic statue of St. Valentine getting beheaded was erected in front of your town hall?

And yet, the Christianists seem perfectly happy to have ceded this holiday to Hallmark and the florists. Come on, Christianists! You're not just going to let evil secularists win this one without a fight -- are you? What's up with that?