The Wearyall Hill Thorn Tree

Well the religious nutters are wasting no time. When someone perpetrators an act of vandalism they're quick to point the finger, because tradition demands that when a tragedy happens that they blame atheists, Jews, homos, darkies, or whoever else they hate this month.

Given that the Wearyall Hill Thorn Tree was considered holy by some christians this certainly could be an act against christianity. But no group is more likely than any other to have done it. Heck, it could be some misguided christian who considered the respect that the tree was held in to be a form of idolatry.

There is, at this point, just as much reason to think that someone did this for the same reasons that people sometimes destroy natural wonders and art as from a religious motive. People do these things sometimes out of the same motive that inspires small children to knock rocks off cliffs or stomp on flowers; it makes them feel powerful in a very basic monkey sort of way.

I'm an atheist or perhaps an agnostic depending on if the wind is southerly, but I love old things and traditions. I am very sad to learn of this particularly as I happened to search for this today because I was thinking of the traditions around A Christmas Carol and The Lord of the Rings. Things change, trees die, but I wish people would not hasten the end of things other people enjoy no matter what the motive. If it was an atheist who did this I would dearly love to give him a good kick in the balls for giving the religious nutters the excuse.

I will not be linking to the nutters who are blaming atheists. If you want to read about what happened and the tree in better times here are some links.

The Attack:
In the Telegraph
In This is Somerset
In The Guardian (page down a bit)
On NPR

In Wikipedia