It’s the Advent season and you know what that means! Christmas lights have been put up, trees have been trimmed, some beards not so much, and various other seasonal decorations are popping up everywhere, both in the physical world and in our digital social spheres. It’s all just so festive!

But our contemporary Christmas preparation would not be complete without the claims of a war on Christmas. The message of these claims aren’t always coherent, and in my experience often quite unfounded. Here’s one I spotted the other day:

Of course there isn’t any source provided, plus the idea of Facebook trying to take down a nativity scene, when religious images abound is quite odd. The only reason I could imagine the image being taken down from a profile is if the image was copyrighted and the creator was being difficult. In which case it wouldn’t be because it was offensive.

On the other hand, it could be offensive if the person posted it to a forum for Jews, atheists, or any other group that might find it offensive if someone just started posted their religious paraphernalia all over their wall. In which case it wouldn’t have been posted on the person’s profile. Doing this is kinda a jerk thing to do, though I have found it to be a very ‘human’ thing to do, as I also recently saw an atheist do the same thing on a Christian page. Being a jerk is being a jerk.

So basically I’m saying that the creator of the above meme is most likely lying. But that’s not the worst part in my opinion. Combine a probable lie with the typical guilt trip style ‘join us/post this’ found in many religious memes and it’s pretty bad. But, even if the accusations were true, it doesn’t excuse this phrase:

“…it is “offensive”. Let’s band together and prove them otherwise!!!!”

How does banding together prove something isn’t offensive? If something is offensive, wouldn’t banding together make it even more offensive, if not just terrifying?

For example, let’s say someone says:

“23 The jails are filled and bursting with these frustrated, violent black animals, not because we are unjust, but because Negroes can’t compete economically with White Men – and crime is the only way most of them can get what they are told they deserve.”

(Taken from the spine crawling publication ‘White Power’, Chapter 9)

Wow. Just. Wow. Offensive? Hell yeah. Now please tell me, how would MORE people saying this make it less offensive? I’ll give you your answer. It doesn’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying a painting of a nativity on your own wall is offensive. All I’m saying is that having more people do or say something doesn’t prove something isn’t offensive. Stop with the illogical statements already!

Oh, and stop lying. That’d be nice too.