I was looking at a few of the tech websites that I regularly visited when I came across this article by an author that I think is Hindu and even he finally gets it.
The perceived wisdom is that the “War on Christmas” is merely a right-wing delusion and in general companies themselves are deciding to be more inclusive in celebrating the holidays rather than responding to complaints from anti-religious people who are offended by Christmas decorations.
Microsoft sadly proves war on Christmas is real
It turns out Microsoft has proven that this was not the case, after responding to a complaint about adding a small Santa hat to VSCode, Microsoft’s open-source IDE.
Due to one complaint by an anonymous guy on the internet, the offending Santa hat was banished.
Here’s the complaint.
The Santa Hat on vscode insiders and pushing of religion is very offensive to me, additionally xmas has cost millions of Jews their lives over the centuries, yet even if that was not the case, pushing religious symbols as part of a product update is completely unacceptable. Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika.
Christian-Schiffer referred to an article on Sefaria listing the sins associated with Christmas which include:
- Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly. For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept away in the season’s festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the celebration’s intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.
- Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, a Christian god who came to rescue mankind from the “curse of the Torah.”
- At its origin, Christmas is a 24-hour declaration that Judaism is no longer valid.
- December 25 is a day on which Jews have been shamed, tortured, and murdered.
- Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of some extremely offensive and violent rituals
Microsoft responded to the complaint by saying:
@Christian-Schiffer we’re sorry we hurt your and other’s feelings. We’ll remote the Santa Hat.
The author of the article concludes:
In short, the war on Christmas appears to be very real.
Folks, I’m glad whenever other people agree with us—especially, that there really is a war on Christmas. The logical fallacies in the article cited as the reasons to oppose Christmas are frankly ill-informed, inaccurate, and just dumb.
First, the swastika is a Hindu religious symbol and is not the exclusive property or emblem of the Nazi Party as constituted in Germany. Hindus and others have used the swastika symbol for thousands of years before Hitler was born.
Second, a Santa hat is a winter symbol not a Christian one and people really wear similar hats in certain cultures. Oh, and there is zero proof that the real Saint Nicholas ever wore said hat.
Third, any holiday—Christian or not—can be celebrated by tradition and the real meaning can be forgotten. For example, in the United Stated we celebrate our Independence Day on July Fourth, but do you really believe that our people shun tyranny as a result? No. We have forgotten the reason and lessons of the Revolution. Our current government is much more tyrannical and oppressive than the British rule of the 1770’s. Our tax rates are way higher than those of the Stamp Act and tea taxes imposed by King George back in the day.
Jesus came to rescue mankind from the curse of sin not the Torah. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Torah and perfectly kept the Law. He ever said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” Matthew 5:17.
Christmas is a 24 hour declaration of nothing anti-Jewish. Where does that come from? Christmas is a 12 day celebration in the Church’s liturgical calendar beginning on December 25th and going thru January 6th. Twelve days of Christmas anyone? Messiah has come, first to the Jews—angels declare peace on earth and goodwill to all men on December 25th and January 6th—known as Epiphany—celebrates salvation coming to the Gentiles, as symbolized by the arrival of the wise men. Jesus was probably not really born in December although the 25th day of a month is mentioned in some early Christian literature. Since we don’t use the same calendar as they did back then, this discussion can’t go much beyond what I have just stated.
Evil doesn’t take a holiday and not all Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25th so what does the fact that someone of a certain faith might be killed on a particular date? I’m sure I could find examples of people from almost any faith group that were killed on December 25; especially, over a span of over 2,000 plus years. I don’t deny that Christians have persecuted Jews at certain points in history but it’s not a teaching of the New Testament or tenant of our faith. In fact, persecution of Jews is the opposite of Christianity properly understood. There’s that pesky command to love our neighbor thing that gets in the way of such behavior.
The claim that popular Christmas customs are all the result of offensive and violent rituals is silly. We give gifts to others as a symbol of peace on earth and goodwill towards men—we keep circling back to this phrase—because God gave us His greatest gift in the form of sending His son to become a man and fulfill the requirements of the Law (Torah) and be the once and for all time sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Santa Claus is a composite of many traditions but Saint Nicholas was a real man that was best known for two things, giving gifts to the poor in the name of Christ and hitting a heretic (Arius) at the Council of Nicaea in about 325 AD. This was the first recorded time that any Christian decked someone in the halls.
Folks, the fact that one anonymous complaint can force a trillion dollar company to change something as trivial and innocuous as a Santa hat should really bother you and I hope it does. Especially when the same company is perfectly willing to repeatedly attack my Christian beliefs on issues of marriage and family and doesn’t care what I think.
I’ve been watching this unfold since the beginning. I’m atheist and normally I ba-humbug all month long, and even troll on Christians myself, but this is ridiculous. Literally one user complained and got them to remove a feature that didn’t bother 99.9% of other users. And that majority voiced their opinion to Microsoft by issuing over 100 bug reports pointing out how asinine this was or asking to have the feature reinstated, while Microsoft ignored and blocked it’s users opinions. I use VSCode, and GitHub. It’s the only two Microsoft products I use. Even being a staunch atheist myself that little red hat didn’t bother me. It was cute.
First of all, it is not at all about attacking your believes, I could not care less what santa claus you prefer to worship, fact of the matter is, this symbol has indeed historically been used by xtians murdering and and torturing Jews and other non xtians each and every xmas for hundreds of years, great tradition you guys have, I must say! is currently being used as an excuse to mount some of the worst racist and anti-semitic attacks online I have seen in modern times. Would you like me to send some of the beautiful xmas greatings those nazimonsters have sent me, i.e a Santa making the Hitler Salute, messages and I quote: “6 million was not enough sandnigger”, one of those naziclowns sent me a picture of his rectum, spread wide open to illustrate the accompanying hate message. Others found it to be in the xmas spirit to try to hack my dev server, launch a ddos attack against it oh and adding “Jesus loves you” to those hate messages. Wow pal, I can do without that kind of “love”. And this is just a tiny selection of the thousands of friendly xmas greeting you people “blessed” me with.
Now unlike many others you actually did some research into the issue, you found out I told the truth and that it is a real issue for many. Your Jewish friend told you he was afraid of it as a child, some grown ups, especially Holocaust survivors still start shaking all over their bodies when subjected to those “warm memories” from seeing their loved ones go into the the oven. When Hitler pronounced that xmas was the perfect time to hunt down some Jews, or rather, to instigate the endlösung.
Now while it is commendable you actually did some research before shooting of your mouth off and partaking in the hatefest against my person and the Jewish people firing up the good good ol’ xmas spirit, you just dismissed to pogroms of old, other people’s fears as childish while yourself partaking in it. And then you have the nerve to pull the victim card here? Are you for real? Unbelievable!
Now religious symbols, santas and swastikas have been used as symbols to murder people, and as you correctly state also for some of you are symbols of peace and love. I am not waging a war against xmas, you are waging a war against me as a proxy for your hatred of the Jewish people, that is the truth. I do not care what religious symbol it was, it does not belong on a global developer product, period.
Now I do regret having added your persecution of Jews as one of the reasons for my request to remove it, not because it is not true, but because you people take whatever you can get to justify hating Jews. I never expected that on Github though, it took me completely by surprise.
As to few even daring to speak out in my and the Jewish peoples defence diven all this, it’s not surprising at all, who wants to subject him or herself to a nazmob of thousands of homicidal and genocidal maniacs holding a hatefest? I certainly did not ask for this, had I known, I would simply have referred to that we do have religious freedom and that religious propaganda on such a product is completely out of place. See absolutely nothing would have happened, nothing but a few thumbs up and down, but you people saw JEW and exploded in rage. Unbelievable to experience that in 2019.
So now, unfortunately, the xmas spirit of old is not dead, not dead at all. You should be ashamed of yourself!
Christian Schiffer, Author of the issue in question.
Mr. Schiffer,
I’m grateful that you took the time to respond to my recent post concerning Microsoft banishing the Santa hat. Since your quotes were featured in the post that I used, I think it’s only fair to post your response in full. Please note that I have not edited your lengthy response; however, I wish to briefly respond to your comments.
First, I have never seen “Xtians” used as an abbreviation for “Christian” in any Catholic or Protestant literature. Neither have I seen anyone opposed to Christianity use this before, but I guess in this age to texting and emoji’s somebody must be using it.
Second, I am not anti-Semitic; that you would accuse me of that simply because I call myself a Christian is unfair, untrue, and a grave misunderstanding of the Christian faith. I would like to respond to this assumption of yours in a couple of different ways and hope you will grant me the charity of making my defense. In this response, I am trying to have a dialogue with you on the basis that we are both image bearers of God.
One of my wife’s best friends and her husband are both Jewish; not just cultural Jews but faithful to the Book and following all the rules of keeping Kosher and worshipping weekly in the Synagogue. We respect them and their beliefs. My wife goes out to eat with her Jewish friend at least once per quarter. They have been friends over 25 years. This relationship has also been a way for my wife to better understand the roots of her Christian faith by learning more of the beliefs and culture of Jewish people. My wife has learned much about the Old Testament and the Jewish understanding of it from her friend.
I really don’t get anyone equating Nazi with Christian. I know others do and you have wrongly accepted that this is possible but it is not. Anyone can call themselves anything they want but you need to distinguish between people that culturally call themselves “Christian” and someone that really is. The problem is that from the outside, the difference may not be easy to see.
Suppose someone was circumcised as an infant and gone thru Bar Mitzvah. They may call themselves a “Jew” but if they embrace views contrary to the Commandments, are they really? Faith is not an outward thing but an inward one. This is true for Christians as well. Anyone can call themselves “Christian” but if they don’t have a relationship with God and obey what we have been taught in Scripture then they are not. This is not to say that anyone is perfect but we should be striving to godliness.
Scripture commands us to love our neighbor not kill them. Given this, how does anyone justify persecuting Jews? The answer is by taking something out of context and twisting it.
The truth is that tens of millions of Christians went to war to stamp out Nazis and their evil ideology. It is sad that many of their grandchildren and great grandchildren now believe many of the same lies taught by the Nazis including socialism and eugenics. Heck, we have a whole political party here in the United States advocating some of their same core beliefs. You should be concerned that this party also has the overwhelming support of people that self-identify as Jews.
Sir, I have no doubt that you have been bullied and mistreated for the stand that you took; however, the way you responded to the Santa hat—by attacking everyone different from yourself (not Jewish) and claiming that we accept as true things that are repugnant to what we believe—has caused offense to folks that heretofore wished you no ill will. Thus you fired the first shot and attacked us without provocation. You demanded that Microsoft ban the hat instead of just give you the option not to see it. You trolled this topic in the most inflammatory terms possible and then signed your name. What did you expect? Especially, since your attack was reported in media all over the world.
Associating Christianity with socialism—be it national (Nazi) or international (Communist)—is simply incompatible with reality. Millions of Christians and Jews were murdered by Mao, Hitler, Stalin, et al.
We believe that a Jewish guy born over 2,000 years ago is Messiah. C.S. Lewis said that he is either a liar, lunatic, or Lord of all. Calling him a “good teacher” is not a valid option. Those that follow Messiah are commanded to love their neighbor be they Jew or Gentile.
I’m sorry that you are such an angry person. God’s love is supposed to transform people to be more like Him. My hope is that someday you may experience that love. Meanwhile, stop projecting ideas and beliefs on whole groups of people that you don’t even know. MLK once talked about judging people by the content of their character and not how they look. I think that’s good advice.
Lastly, many years ago, some Jewish shepherds were told “…behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” Christmas is about love not hate. This “good news” was for the Jews first and also the Gentiles.
Sincerely,
William