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[–] 56 points 10 months ago (5 children)

If there's such a war, Christmas is winning. It's conquered Thanksgiving and is marching on Halloween.

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  • [–] 50 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Me. The SAM sites are armed. That magical son of a bitch won't get away this time.

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  • [–] 26 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Your mistletoe doesn't stand a chance against my tow missile

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  • [–] 63 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    The War on Christmas will continue until Christmas ends its illegal occupation of October.

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  • [–] 30 points 10 months ago

    Yes, unfortunately. Or at least seems to.

    This person was an eye-opener for me in terms of how deep political groupthink and unquestioning belief can go. He's an intelligent person in a highly technical position that requires plenty of reasoning and thought, but if the right political commentator says something, it is absolute truth.

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  • [–] 30 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    One of my coworkers is a militant atheist metalhead. He's also fully maga cult. He's been ranting about people saying 'happy holidays' all week. It's a bizarre contradiction.

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  • [–] 22 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    At least two people in my friends list have posted the 'It's not Happy Holidays, it's Merry Christmas' meme on Facebook. Unsurprisingly, they're both white guys in their 60s with bald / shaved heads. Both decent guys who help their friends and community, but are sliding more and more into this bullshit.

    It's fucking depressing

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    There's a reason Santa is tracked by NORAD.

    (No)

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    I know at least 5 and all of them believe Christians are a strongly persecuted minority group.

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    [–] 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    Well, there sort of was a war, but it was conducted by a Protestant group that famously helped settle America, the Puritans.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

    However, in 17th century England, some groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast".[50] In contrast, the established Anglican Church "pressed for a more elaborate observance of feasts, penitential seasons, and saints' days. The calendar reform became a major point of tension between the Anglican party and the Puritan party".[51] The Catholic Church also responded, promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old-style Christmas generosity.[42] Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647.[50][52] Oliver Cromwell even ordered his troops to confiscate any special meals made on Christmas Day.[53]

    Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.[50] Football, among the sports the Puritans banned on a Sunday, was also used as a rebellious force: when Puritans outlawed Christmas in England in December 1647 the crowd brought out footballs as a symbol of festive misrule.[54] The book, The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", old Father Christmas and carol singing.[55] During the ban, semi-clandestine religious services marking Christ's birth continued to be held, and people sang carols in secret.[56]

    Christmas was restored as a legal holiday in England with the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 when Puritan legislation was declared void, with Christmas again freely celebrated in England.[56] Many Calvinist clergymen disapproved of Christmas celebrations. As such, in Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland discouraged the observance of Christmas, and though James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, attendance at church was scant.[57] The Parliament of Scotland officially abolished the observance of Christmas in 1640, claiming that the church had been "purged of all superstitious observation of days".[58] Whereas in England, Wales and Ireland Christmas Day is a common law holiday, having been a customary holiday since time immemorial, it was not until 1871 that it was designated a bank holiday in Scotland.[59] The diary of James Woodforde, from the latter half of the 18th century, details the observance of Christmas and celebrations associated with the season over a number of years.[60]

    As in England, Puritans in Colonial America staunchly opposed the observation of Christmas.[61] The Pilgrims of New England pointedly spent their first December 25 in the New World working normally.[61] Puritans such as Cotton Mather condemned Christmas both because scripture did not mention its observance and because Christmas celebrations of the day often involved boisterous behavior.[62][63] Many non-Puritans in New England deplored the loss of the holidays enjoyed by the laboring classes in England.[64] Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659.[61] The ban on Christmas observance was revoked in 1681 by English governor Edmund Andros, but it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.[65]

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  • [–] 32 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Most of the people I know who endorse this view would assent to it because it is consistent with how they feel about the world around them, not because it is a proposition they have seriously considered.

    It just feels like everyone hates Christians, so if someone told them they were being persecuted, they would agree. In the same way, it just feels like nefarious forces are trying to "ban Christmas", so when idiots on TV claim that is whats happening, they nod their heads along. When challenged they just retreat into ignorance, saying things like "well that's what I've heard" or "I have no idea about that", because ideas like "the war on Christmas" are not factual claims about the world, they are expressions of sentiments about what the world is like.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    Persecution is baked right into the Christian religion. It's also deeply rooted in the Jewish culture, to the point if you're randomly walking down the street and trip over a duck, the duck was being anti-semitic.

    It's such a core part of identity for these people it's kind of sickening. Before you come at me, I was raised in a Christian household and I have Jewish roots from my maternal side.

    There's no hate, but I'm actually disappointed and continually revolted by the endless sense of persecution that doesn't really exist.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Certain christian groups push that narrative to make more of an in group and and out group. I attend a few different denominations of churches. You get a way to really see how different people view the world and their religion that way.

    Some groups as a core belief that they must struggle to bring the word of God to everyone. Struggle is the operative word. If they don't feel like they are behind 'enemy lines' they aren't completing the holy mission. The best way to get that feeling is puff up any small difference into an uncross-able gulf.

    There is so much rhetoric made on their communication channels to reinforce that view. They truly believe it because 'it's all around them' It's way cushier to run a mission trip from the Louisiana to California than it is to a truly under-served part of the world.

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  • [–] 28 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    Oh absolutely. Every Catholic I knew growing up definitely believed that, and very much thought that Christians were the most oppressed religious group in the country, if not the world. My family still have a “Keep Christ in Christmas” magnet on their fridge

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    I generally think of "Christ in Christmas" as a reminder about consumerism, not hate for Hanukkah, etc.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I would agree. It’s ironic though, Christians saying that we need to keep the focus on Christ and not secular consumerism, when the history of Christmas is really much more about the Catholic Church co-opting pagan traditions

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Yeah but I think it's also a lot about rejecting those pagan and secularly palatable traditions. The "keep christ in Christmas crowd" often use rejecting consumerism as a motte to defend the bailey of rejecting all non Christian elements of a holiday that's both fun and often socially expected.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I'm learning american catholics are a whole other beast. I don't see this in other countries.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    American Catholics are a very diverse group. Some (not many) are young Earth creationists but I was taught evolution in Catholic school. Most are amazingly ignorant of their own religion and just believe whatever they want then do mental gymnastics to make it fit.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Anyone who watches conservative media in the US and UK. Within the last week when the President of the United States was berating the country during a special address about how he's really doing a good job even though everyone's worse off, one of his points was that saying Merry Christmas was banned under the previous president.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    I think I'd just laugh if I heard that IRL, lol. You're gonna tell me I've been listening to Mariah Carey everywhere I go nonstop for a month for no reason?!

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    I take the Christ out of Xmas when and wherever possible…

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Which is funny, because even Xmas is a christ-centric spelling.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago* (4 children)

    Fine - I’ll take the X out of Ecs-mas too then…

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    My mother once said she didn't appreciate how "the gays have to be so in your face about it." I guess some gay guys trapped her and made her watch them make out. Cause, you know, they're so in our faces about it.

    I've never heard anyone actually say they believed in the war on xmas, but if anyone would, my mom proves they could be real. I cut her out of my life this year.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    I hate the whole every minority group x is awesome cliché bullshit, but honestly every gay person I've ever met has been awesome.

    Yea, yea sample size or whether and I'm sure there is plenty of gay assholes, but for some reason it just feels like there is less of them than the average group.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago

    When I worked at Borders, back when it existed, I was allowed to say whatever exit phrase when finishing registers. I always said Happy Holidays starting end of November.

    I had two people tell me no, it's Merry Christmas. To which both times I responded "I'm Jewish. Happy Holidays. "

    One of them just gathered her stuff and left without a word. The second got that puckered face like you ate a lemon and she fucking stormed out.

    No complaints though so. I kept saying it. I didn't care if people said Merry Christmas back to me.

    Er, in short, I'd think those two people would have thought I was warring against Christmas.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    The war is real, but the lines are just dramatically stupider than some think. It's the same culture war we're fighting elsewhere, the point of the war is establishing that one singular point of view is the default and the others are invalid.

    The war isn't about being able to say "Merry Christmas", the war is about whether it's okay to say anything else.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    No but I limit who I interact with based on how normal they are about me being trans. The war on Christmas is part of the culture war bs. Also I'm pagan and don't hide it

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    My stepdad, before he died. He simultaneously told me I was fighting a War On Christmas, while also telling I should volunteer to work instead of decorating and making a nice dinner, because "it's not your holiday."

    I used to tell my sociology classes, we Americans are very confused people. None more so than Conservatives.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    There is no war on Christmas as far as I know. So I'm going to guess it's another dumb American thing?

    I live in Denmark, and while the celebration is absolutely christianised, it's sill called "Juletide" here. "Yule" or "Yule-tide" in English. Which refers to the original winter celebration before it got subjugated.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    You have to remember, a lot of American Christians are descended from European Christians who were so extreme and weird that no one wanted them around, so they fled to the Americas to escape “persecution.” So, these Christian persecution complexes go way back. They’re a part of our history. Well, not all of ours, but some.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    Sam Seder seemed prwtty serious in his commentary years ago.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    No.

    Like “woke”, their wars on whatever are just stand-ins for everything they don’t like or might force them to exert brainpower that potentially endangers their mental gymnastics.

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