• @RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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

    • mvilain
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      91 month ago

      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.

      • @cfi@lemmy.world
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        41 month ago

        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?

    • 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.

    • @LePoisson@lemmy.world
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      361 month ago

      Jesus Christ what is wrong with people… Microsoft giving in to a clear troll, surprised they didn’t just lock and ignore that shit and move on.

      • @BangersAndMash@lemmy.world
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        271 month ago

        Jesus Christ is not my Lord and saviour. I demand you delete this post immediately and apologise. This is as insulting to me as pineapple on a pizza

    • @MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      101 month ago

      Nice. Honestly, pretty well corralled, I would say.

      Incidentally, I’m amused that one of the more popular responses includes the classic phrase

      “Why can’t we all just get along”

      Which I tend to notice after having had it explained well to me once by someone with more empathy than my own.

      I won’t belabor it, but they pointed out to me that being tempted to say “Why can’t we all just get along” is usually a sign that we haven’t actually listened effectively.

      So now when I hear or read “Why can’t we all just get along”, I see that [X] and hear the buzz from “Family Feud”, and hear one of the Family Feud host kindly say “No points. Let’s try again.”

    • @nialv7@lemmy.world
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      61 month ago

      not supporting the complainer but it is kinda scary how much control western culture has over tech…

      there are so many holidays over the world. why christmas but not, say, Songkran or Chinese New Year?

    • @Ansis100@lemmy.world
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      181 month ago

      Love the fact that this spawned new issues complaining about the debugger icon promoting violence against insects.

      • @timestatic@feddit.org
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        11 month ago

        What, the gear or the snowflake? I mean I know they are trolling but how do they make a connection to insects with that? That insects die in winter from cold temperatures?

        • @Ansis100@lemmy.world
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          41 month ago

          I meant the debugger button, not the settings button. In the issue it showed up as an bug with a line going through it, as if saying “no insects allowed”.

    • @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Wait, did I read that correctly and they replaced the hat with a snowflake?? Hahahaha

      And yes, people often forget that generally offense is taken. When it’s intentionally given, it’s pretty clear.

  • @josefo@leminal.space
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    841 month ago

    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

  • @Imacat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    91 month ago

    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.

    https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/51928?lang=bi

      • @kata1yst@sh.itjust.works
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        161 month ago

        The “real meaning” of Christmas was getting the pagans on board with Christianity, don’t let anyone lie to you otherwise lol.

        • @barsoap@lemm.ee
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          41 month ago

          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.

          • Matěȷ
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            113 days ago

            Which earlier sun gods does Jesus’s life story have parallels with?

            • @barsoap@lemm.ee
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              113 days ago

              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.

              • Matěȷ
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                112 days ago

                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.

                • @barsoap@lemm.ee
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                  112 days ago

                  I’m not even Christian what would I care about depictions or inspiration being “problematically Pagan”.

                  What I can say is that it’s unlikely that much of the parallels (like the Osiris thing) existed before Rome became Christian as over in staunchly monotheist Palestine people wouldn’t have taken inspiration like that, while turning multiple gods into one sounds quite reasonable for a people going from polytheism to monotheism.

                  For modern Christian, I think, the question is “How much did the Romans change”. That is, how different was early, pre-Roman, Christianity to what’s now considered authoritative, like the Bible, which wasn’t brought down from a mountain by Jesus.

        • @0x0@programming.dev
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          21 month ago

          I read pagers for a sec and was confused… then again, god is the biggest mass murderer of all time.

  • @0laura@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2481 month ago

    Christmas is no longer a holiday that honors the Christian god, it’s a holiday that honors the god of capitalism, money.

    • M137
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      21 month ago

      We’ve stopped with presents in my family, except for the kids. And they don’t get showered in them, a few things they really want, preferably cheap. Everyone else just wants nice food and family coziness.

    • Tiefling IRL
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      1 month ago

      Cool, so it’s still worth eschewing /s

      I would like to note though that xmas is a very sore time of year for a lot of people (mostly queer, but others too) who do not have a good relationship with their family

  • @Randelung@lemmy.world
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    331 month ago

    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.

        • @jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 month ago

          That’s how it always goes. It’s not that I’m offended. Is that it is offensive, objectively. It’s silly.

          • @Randelung@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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”.

    • @AlmightyTritan@beehaw.org
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      21 month ago

      Ehhh better to be safe that have a discussion on religion and persecution in the issues board. Then it doesnt linger as an open ticket.

      I feel like discussion about something like this is better suited for like a forum or a dedicated discussion channel. They discuss in a followup on the issue thread that they think even one offended person is too many, and they want to be as neutral as possible, which I think is commendable.

      I think even if its a troll, its better to err on the side of “what if it is a real person, and they are offended.” Obviously, this needs to be taken within reason, like intolerance is not a valid reason etc etc.

    • @BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works
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      11 month ago

      I’m no fan of Microsoft but I get it… In the current political climate nobody wants to take the risks of being the subject of a backlash involving Judaism. The cost of keeping it was way greater than to remove it.

      I act the same every time I meet a lunatic claiming whatever I’m doing is “offending” them: I politely apologise and go on with my day without a fuss in order to be left alone.

  • PureTryOut
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    571 month ago

    Christmas is religion yes, but Santa doesn’t really have anything to do with religion other than being on Christmas right?

    • Riskable
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      261 month ago

      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.

      • @P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br
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        21 month ago

        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

        • Scary le Poo
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          11 month ago

          There were probably thousands of others named Jesus as well. What is this supposed to prove?

        • Riskable
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          31 month ago

          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?

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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        251 month ago

        You have to start off believing the little lies like the Hogfather before you can believe in the big lies like justice

    • @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      391 month ago

      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.

      • Aatube
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        151 month ago

        The modern depiction of Santa is based on Coca-Cola.

      • @ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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        131 month ago

        “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.

    • @TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub
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      1 month ago

      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.