The article they share in the issue to explain why Christmas is so offensive is absolutely wild. To quote:
Imagine that between 1933-45, the Nazi regime celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday – April 20 – as a holiday. Imagine that they named the day, “Hitlerday,” and observed the day with feasting, drunkenness, gift-giving, and various pagan practices.
That analogy seems a better fit for a lot of Jewish holidays then Christmas. Passover is about the mass death of innocent Egyptian children. Chanukah is about a revolt against Greek rule where:
Christmas is just about some baby being born ( on probably a different day)
VSCode doesn’t commemorate Passover or Chanukah, though.
The “real meaning” of Christmas was getting the pagans on board with Christianity, don’t let anyone lie to you otherwise lol.
Yep the birth of Christ just coincidentally coincides with the end of Brumalia, which of course noone noticed when the emperor suddenly insisted everyone become Christian and had the bible written by committee. And it’s of course a coincidence that that was (back in the day) exactly the winter solstice. And it’s also just a coincidence that Jesus’ life story has quite some parallels to that of earlier sun gods from the general area.
Most current Christmas traditions are more Germanic in nature, though, e.g. the Christmas tree. While in the current form a quite recent invention, decorating the house with evergreen stuff was common through the ages – branches, wreaths, not whole-ass trees. The needles btw are fine smudging material don’t just sweep them away.
Which earlier sun gods does Jesus’s life story have parallels with?
Sol Invictus, in particular it’s also where the halo in depictions comes from… which isn’t really “other sun gods”, it’s in particular the Roman sun god. Misremembered the resurrection part, that’s Osiris who isn’t a sun god and the Horus parallels have been shown to be bunk, aside from getting nursed by Mary depictions being inspired by Horus getting nursed by Isis.
I read something about them (mainly in Wikipedia), and I see some parallels in artistic style or symbolism, but I don’t see a substantial parallel in their stories, although I didn’t find much about the story of Sol Invictus. I don’t see that someone was nursed as a significant parallel because almost every human was nursed.
I focused on parallels in their stories because I don’t see parallels in the style of art depicting them as problematic to Christianity. But most of your previous comment was about artistic depictions, so, if you think that they are problematic, please, explain that more in details.
I read pagers for a sec and was confused… then again, god is the biggest mass murderer of all time.
What religious symbol? Saint Nicholas had nothing to do with the fat guy dressed in red that coca cola made up. The hat is fine goddammit
Isn’t capitalism a religion?
Haha you’re not wrong
Cult of the line must go up
touché
Well, they took inspiration from Clement Clarke Moore’s (1922) “Twas the night before Christmas” and illustrations from Thomas Nast (1881) showing him in red with the sack over his shoulder. Certainly, Coca Cola has solidified the modern image with their ad campaign though starting in 1931. Src
TIL coca cola didn’t create it, ty
He was a bishop, holy after.
I think you don’t get it, modern Santa is so far away from his origins, at the point is not a christian figure anymore. I mean, christmas elves? A flying pack of reindeer? To me, is just a very happy and oversized leprechaun. Not very christian if you mind me lol. Not bad per se, but it’s good to keep in mind christian symbols are different than this red hat.
It’s true that Christians have killed more people and commited more genocides, and are obsessed with putting their religion in everything… I think I’m on the side of this guy tbh
Of course you are…
As an organisation they have historically been and continue to be, truly shitty.
But what are you using for sources here ?
About Christians in general? History books. About Christians inserting religion into everything? Gestures vaguely at the USA
I just hope the very level headed decision by Microsoft to remove the imagery is going to be mistaken for their tacit approval of the link that dude shared.
It makes sense Microsoft did the thing and removed it, the linked article is … political af
Christmas is religion yes, but Santa doesn’t really have anything to do with religion other than being on Christmas right?
Besides both being fairy tales, I would say it’s even anti religious, since religious Christmas clashes with it, yet he doesn’t bring gifts to baby Jesus. He brings commercial toys to all the other children.
Not to the poor children.
Now I’m curious, you know those gift spots where you can drop them off at like grocery stores and stuff to give to families in need? I wonder if the majority of those are labelled as from Santa, or from the parents? It’d be interesting to do a little survey.
I would think that in that kind of “unstructured” gift donation that parents/guardians would be able to come in and pick appropriate gifts for their kids, along with some wrapping paper, then wrap and tag them themselves.
Yea, Santa is the more secular icon. There are even Christians that take issue with the Santa character (which is a combination of “Pagan” and Christian mythos). I put Pagan in quotes, as that’s a Christian term for certain non-Christian beliefs.
Santa is a stand-in for Jesus… for children. They’re both magical beings that can perform miracles and have similar methods: Both Santa and Jesus have naughty lists and forms of punishment that come later; much later (both are equivalent lengths of time to a child though 🤣). Both bring “gifts”. Both have traditional appearances. Both have followers that wear silly hats and strange clothes. But most importantly…
Both are imaginary.
If you believe in Santa as an adult you’re ridiculed. If you believe in Jesus as an adult you’re just labeled, “Christian”. Yet the fact that nearly every child eventually finds out Santa isn’t real is quite disturbing to a lot of Christians. After all, if they could stop believing in Santa–who is so similar to Jesus in every way–then they could stop believing in Jesus.
After all, if they could stop believing in Santa–who is so similar to Jesus in every way–then they could stop believing in Jesus.
This is a laughably bad faith interpretation of the issue. Please, please leave this r/atheism exaggerated strawman rhetoric out of this website. I’m pretty sure most people on Lemmy are already atheist anyways.
You have to start off believing the little lies like the Hogfather before you can believe in the big lies like justice
Zamn
You mean turtles don’t hold the world?
You might not believe about what the Bible says about Jesus, but historically, there was at some point a person named Jesus. Whether or not he was like the Bible describes is another story. /lh
Historically, there were probably tens of thousands of people named, “Jesus” around that time. There were also loads and LOADS of people crucified by the Romans. If you were to make up a story and try to make it believable wouldn’t you pick a likely starting point?
Santa is based on Saint Nicholas of Myra, so he definitely has something to do with Christianity.
“Based on” and what people associate with now are vastly different. Most people don’t even know if Saint Nick is based on a real person.
The modern depiction of Santa is based on Coca-Cola.
They popularized it, but didn’t truly invent the classic depiction. Related fun fact, Santa used to commonly be green, and he looks pretty cool that way too!
Guess loosing his project didn’t deter him from using vscode.
I guess “ghost” is just placeholder for deleted accounts
In fact, in the issue they even refer to another username that doesn’t exist anymore
TIL
Same lol
That makes more sense…
I don’t think an actual Jew would equate a religious symbol with a swastika
But I do agree that religious imagery should never be in public
Removed by mod
Or equate a santa hat to a religious symbol.
This is nothing new, people expect religion not to be part of the “professional” environment. Dunno if VS code applies.
At the office (big corp) they don’t call it the “Christmas Party”, it’s “the holiday party”. They put lights and stuff up but no more Christmas trees/stars etc… not everyone celebrates christmas so that’s fine by me. If Microsoft wants to put a little santa hat on their product that’s fine by me too. If I was using some service based in Mexico and they put a little hat on a product for cinco de mayo i wouldn’t care. Christmas has other implications so it might be different, dunno
Back in the mid-80s, when I got an email from HR about the Christmas Party at the local office, I sent a reply to the district HR manager complaining that not everyone in the company celebrated Christmas. Later that day, another email came out announcing the Holiday Party. So glad I had a hand in educating HR.
Company’s used email to that extent in the 80s? I get that tech jobs, unis, and research groups used it, but there was a company using it widely enough that HR used it?
Glad they didn’t cancel it after that lol
Personally, I’d rather we started celebrating everyone’s religious holidays instead of tiptoeing around Christmas. More parties and we get to learn about different cultures.
Hell yeah
Santa is pagan, they put that dude on cereal boxes.
The ‘ghost’ of Christmas past.
Wait till they see the vlc logo during christmas …
What is it like?
If I remember correctly it switches to this logo during christmas
Anyone else get the urge to pull the hat down?
It’s always baffling how people can define something as unacceptable. Says who? You? Who are you to just make that decision so unilaterally?
You can have your opinion, but it’s just that.
And their opinion is that this is unacceptable and outrageous.
I guess. The way it’s formulated purposefully removes them from the statement, though.
That’s how it always goes. It’s not that I’m offended. Is that it is offensive, objectively.
Yes, that’s what I’m challenging. Who do people think they are to think their subjective opinion is objective truth?
It usually goes hand in hand with not justifying themselves because “everyone agrees it’s unacceptable”.
I hope they never walk past a church…
Did they make it their top priority though!?
