Friday the Thirteenth is yet another example of Christian Misogyny

I did some digging into the origins of the Friday the 13th myth, and guess what... It's Christian misogyny. No... really.

Short version: 13 goes back to ancient timekeeping -- 13 x 28 lunar cycles... which, incidentally, is also women's menstrual cycle, which... as we all know, is pretty much evil if you're a Christian. Friday is Freya (Or... ironically, Frigg), a fertility goddess that was turned into a witch.

Long version: I've got a full length article on the subject at Atlanta Examiner.

http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-atlanta/what-s-so-scary-about-fr...

Tags: 13th, Ancient, Christian, Friday, mythology, the

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Permalink Reply by Avicenna on May 14, 2011 at 12:29am

I don't think people were that... insane. 

 

By that logic most days could be construed as evil whenever 13th came up or indeed any number. 

 

No I am afraid it is a simple case of either "13 people at Jesus's table" or "In some years when there are 13 full moons instead of 12 making it awkward to calculate dates using roman numbers like the church used to resulting in errors and conflict."

 

Sometimes it has nothing to do with religion but plenty to do with superstition of a group of people. 

Permalink Reply by Hambydammit on May 14, 2011 at 1:39pm
Avicenna, I don't think anyone's suggesting that anything about this was "simple." The number 13 as a significant or magical number is ancient. I picked one of the threads of history that was relevant to our current culture, and does trace through our direct forbears. There are plenty of other angles, twists, and turns. The point wasn't to show a direct line of X and only X caused Y... well... that wouldn't be good history...

But having said that, the superstitions surrounding 13 do have to do with religion. That much is pretty much historical fact.
Permalink Reply by Richard Healy on May 14, 2011 at 1:51am
You've reminded me I was  taught 13 was evil because a witch had 12 in her coven and the devil made 13.
Permalink Reply by Hambydammit on May 14, 2011 at 1:40pm
Yep, yep. That was a Christian "adaptation" of the Freya legend. Good goddess becomes evil witch.
Permalink Reply by Pat on May 14, 2011 at 9:13am

I always thought it had to do with Friday, October 13, 1307, when King Phillip of France had the Knights Templar arrested and destroyed.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar

Permalink Reply by Hambydammit on May 14, 2011 at 1:42pm
Yeah... I've heard the Knights Templar story, and I suppose it's possible that this was "The" Friday the 13th. But my little post was designed to show that it's much older than just a random event in the 1300s, and that it is part of a larger theme in history -- Christianity taking "positive" indigenous customs and twisting them.

If you think about it... that's really the entire theme of Christianity. Jesus is good. Everything else is evil.

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