The War on Christmas 2015 (They shot first!)

Once again it's that time of year. The air is getting cooler, the leaves are changing color, the days are getting shorter, and there are already battle cries about a war on Christmas. Recently, in a viral video, YouTube evangelist  Joshua Feuerstein went on a tirade about Starbucks. Not that they seem to be everywhere, but instead they didn't put Merry Christmas on their holiday cup. In his video on Facebook, he says that they are taking Christ and Christmas off of their plain red cups and that employees aren't allowed to say Merry Christmas.

They aren't plain red, they do have the companies logo too.

 I personally don't recall ever seeing Christ on their cups, but then again, I don't go to Starbucks that often. I'm sure some of their more talented baristas could do it in the foam, if you asked nicely. And as far as I can tell, there aren't any specific rules about their employees not being allowed to tell people Merry Christmas. They may not have said it because It's not even Thanksgiving yet, Dumbass! (The video came out in early November) He then goes to claim that he "tricked" Starbucks by telling them his name was Merry Christmas and getting them to put it on his cup. Ohhh, very sneaky Mr. Feuerstein. No one would ever figure out what you were trying to do.I'm imagining the barista just staring at him, shrugging, and as they write Merry Christmas on his red cup, they think "Whatever weirdo. Halloween is just wrapping up." The video ends with him saying that he knew it would offend Starbucks, so he wore a jesus christ shirt into the store and because they "hate the second amendment", he carried his gun, which he then pulls out and displays to the camera. Even in an open carry state, I think this may have been slightly illegal. His first comment under the video says that he pranked them, and they hate it! In all caps, of course. Then a bunch of posts, and he tries to tag such luminaries as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and The Blaze. Basically, he's being a media whore. Trying to read all the comments, it would seem that a lot of them have been deleted. Gee, I wonder why. Needless to say, this joker has been laughed at and taken apart everywhere he's gone. I've already written about the so-called War on Christmas in the past, and I will admit it wasn't my best post, though it is still one of my most popular. Much like every other year, it is the vocal, right-wing, conservative christians that actually started the War on Christmas by saying there is a War on Christmas. (Historically, the Protestants started it by making it illegal) I have been seeing ads for Christmas sales, gift ideas, decorations, and recipes since before Halloween. So, 3 months of Christmas noise, and as soon as 1 business doesn't have something that is representative of their ideals on their merchandise, all hell breaks loose. Luckily, most of the claims this year have been laughable and fairly pathetic, but I am going to imagine that as the holiday gets closer, they'll get more and more vocal and determined. Personally, I feel that all this noise these folks make about how the liberal atheist LGBT commie agenda is going to destroy christmas just shows their fear that the world is becoming more secular, and soon the radical christians may become obsolete. 

I know that this was a more rambling post than they have been lately. I just wanted to write a bit about Feuerstein and his latest loud mouthed bit of stupidity. I've seen this guys videos a few times, and I always get angry, wanting to know how anyone can believe these things. This war on christmas bullshit just irks the hell out of me, and trying to put everything into a single coherent post is rather difficult for me. There are so many different angles and subtopics that I would like to approach. The problem is that the research tends to overlap quite a bit and the narrative weaves back and forth a lot. This is a topic that would probably be better suited for a book. I will simply say there is no war on christmas, the Religious Reich are simply over reacting to little things, and I personally enjoy celebrating a secular christmas with my family. I'm going to leave this as a relatively short post. This one is more of a cathartic release than any sort of deeper look into a topic. I'm not sure I would want to look very deep into Feuerstein.