DM: As you walk through the hallways of the calendar, you are ambushed by horrific Christmas monster! Roll for initiative.
Player A: I attack with my + 5 flaming red sword of religious holiday slaying.
DM: Make your attack roll
* Roll Roll Roll*
Player A: Natural 20! Yes! Roll to confirm? 16 + 11 to confirm?
DM: It’s a crit, roll your damage
Player A: 87 points of flaming religious holiday slaying damage to the Christmas monster!
DM oh wait… religious holiday slaying?
Player A: yes?
DM: Oh yeah the Christmas monster doesn’t give a shit about your damage because its has secular.
….
DM: Best you can hope for is to cast a binding spell to trap it between Thanksgiving and New Years and even then it’s going to test those boundaries again and again
I’ve been asked by a friend of mine to talk a little bit about this red cup shenanigans. I didn’t want to, it feels wrong to even bring it up. But i was asked and sharing my thoughts to those that want to hear them is kinda the point of this blog.
So this is what I can tell you; from my point of view as a bad Christian I don’t care what color your cups are. I don’t care what color the Starbucks’s cups are. And I don’t care what “news” sources say, other Christians are upset about when it comes to cups.
It’s a cup, what does it matter?
Do you I believe that there is a war on Christianity in this country? Clearly yes. 70% of this country identifies as Christian, 2% practice Judaism, 1% in Islam, 1% Hindu, 3% other and 22% no religious affiliation. I’m totally fine with that and when a Jewish holiday is on the calendar, awesome! I’m glad for them. When a Hindu holiday is on the calendar, awesome! To say there isn’t a war on Christianity is just ignorant, Christianity is ridiculed on television and in Schools. It is easy to take pot shots at the big dog. But if there was the same level of freedom in other parts of the world that has a larger % of theses other religious believes don’t you think that they would also be part of the same war?
I said a couple days ago that every thought needs to be defended and Christianity and other religions are no different. But ultimately religion comes down to the question of faith. If you have faith no amount of proof is going to dissuade you from believing that which you believe. If you have faith that there is man made global warming no amount of evidence will prove to you that that is not true. If you believe that your job on this earth is to convert the infidels and if they will not convert kill them no amount of proof will tell you otherwise. If you believe people are generally good and kind people no amount of proof will dissuade you from that no matter what the proof to the contrary might be.
What irritating me right now is that what I am seeing is one very small group of Christians particularly one guy says and I’m paraphrasing here: ‘The fact that there are no symbols of Christmas on this holiday Cup tells me that they are symbolically removing Christianity from the holidays.’ When you wrap it in the little bow of it somebody’s opinion then it’s not a big deal at all. Now this guy makes YouTube videos about his faith to stir up the conversation. And I have no problems with that. But are large numbers of Christians upset? Not that i can tell. But if you look at the social media and the “news world” it almost acts as if Christians are up in arms over the fact that there’s nothing on this red cup and I just don’t think that’s the case. I just don’t think most Christians think that it’s a big deal because it’s not.
Christmas has become a secular holiday meaning that Christians to Hindus in the United States are probably celebrating Christmas even it if doesn’t have the same meaning to one as it does to the other. And that is great!
You’re going to hear remember the reason for the season, and that is a great slogan for Christians to remember Christ this holiday and that’s the reason why as a Christian are celebrating this day not the gifts or the food but Christ. But we also need to remember that we as Christians co-opted this holiday from other pagan traditions. Making it a secular idea even before Starbucks.
If you are mad over the cup get over it; if you are telling people that Christians are mad over a cup, stop it! It is aggravating for no reason other then to try and shame Christians. Would to share an article on how Starbucks put a bomb on a cup to remember Guy Fawkes and how it actually attacks Islam???
Oh and remember the remember the reasons for the season!
<3s
Samius Gurobo 
I agree – this is largely about getting people talking by rolling out an easy push-button news article during an important pre-holiday news cycle, rather than an actual issue being brought up by large numbers of Christians. it’s the AP Wire effect: Shock Jock says X, some news outlet writes an easily-digestible sound bite of a story, sends it to the AP, and now “everyone’s” talking about it because so many outlets depend on wire services for their content. It’s also easy click-bait in that it pushes buttons about the “true meaning” of Christmas, the upcoming holiday retail season, a merchant whose stores are seen all over the place, and a story that leads to “easy” conclusions: Are ya fer it or again’ it?
The non-Christian folks saying “Christians are mad about this” on Facebook aren’t doing any actual work to see if it’s true or not; they’re just sharing an easy-button article that spread widely and loudly online and in the media. It’s a reality of the world we live in, and takes place in many different groups.
Starbucks is probably enjoying the free publicity.
I don’t have a strong opinion about the “secular” change in Christmas. I have read some interesting things indicating that the holiday part of Christmas was meant to be largely a community celebration instead of a religious one – Puritans and early Republicans fought for the holiday to remain secular. That said, it also marked the start of an important religious time for Christians; it was only over time that the two things merged. But the history of Christmas is pretty clouded, so a lot of the “facts” are skewed toward whoever’s doing the looking.
It’s pretty accepted fact that the timing of Christmas was a deliberate merging of the pagan winter solstice holidays with religious scholars’ attempts to assign a Roman Calendar date for Jesus’ birth. Whether Jesus was actually born on December 25th is pretty up in the air – even many religious scholars think it’s a arbitrary decision – but the timing aligns to various beliefs from history over the way the sun moved with the seasons, and the idea that Jesus’ birth marked the start of a new era.
I personally think of Christmas as a secular holiday that coincides with a religious one. It does bug me that people use the holiday to bash each other over religious and political differences, and this year’s going to be particularly bad in the United States due to the upcoming Presidential election.