Is this another front in the War Against Christmas? Does Starbucks hate Christians?

How funny that I just posted this article about that very thing on my Facebook page.

My favorite quote: “When Christians start to lose sight of gratitude and instead develop a major persecution complex then we have a huge faith crisis on our hands that is far bigger than whether the red cups at Starbucks make any reference to Jesus.”

I couldn’t give two shits. These are problems for people who are not me.

It’s an attempt to please everyone that will please no one. I never go to Starbucks since I declared war on them 10 years ago.

Secular “war” against christmas: red coffee cups.
Christian war against heretics: burning people alive at the stake.

Give something that people will bitch about, and they will happily take up the cause whatever that cause may be.
I think Starbucks is trying to make everyone happy and in that ,they pissed off a certain few.

When Christians do not make reference to Jesus in their daily deeds, why should they panic about Starbuck’s cardboard not making reference to the Savior’s name?

Oy! For this people are getting riled up? Are the Evangelical beliefs so fragile that lack of a design on a disposable coffee cup will shatter their faith?
Please. The cups look beautiful and are $0.005 cheaper because of the simple printing.

All the ruckus is just a chance for them to blow their horn and attempt to show that they are still relevant.

Why bring out a special cup for Christmas that has no relevance to Christmas? It is highly illogical.

Does this mean that they are going to cut back on all that awful holiday music? Probably hoping for too much.

I have oftentimes wished that Firefox had an app that would block The New York Daily News. Or at least a pop-up warning that I’m about to view content that may be biased and can’t be taken at face value.

Create my own, kind-of list:
Huff
Faux News

Are you certain it’s not embedded advertising for Mexico??

It’s stupid. First of all it still red. It isn’t blue for Chanukah, it isn’t their every day color, it flipping is a traditional Christmas color! I like seeing the festive decorations, and even cups, during the holidays. Starbucks went very bland this time, so what? It isn’t an afront against Christmas. Those crackpot religious leaders make the rest look bad, and use fear to rule up their followers to increase loyalty and recruit. It’s stupid, but they aren’t stupid.

It’s probably just money. Cheaper to print. I thought the Evangelicals put capitalism and greed next to Godliness? They should be preaching the greatness of the business acumen.

Not that I put all Evangelicals in the same bucket with the people starting this ridiculousness about the cups.

Can we drop the cup color thing and go back to complaining about how bad the coffee is?

When I read the link all I could manage is a hearty laugh.

Why any Christian in their right mind would expect a company whose original logo was a representation of a bare breasted, twin-tailed, Mermaid emblematic of the sirens of Greek mythology to have any meaningful connection to Christianity in any way shape or form is too ridiculous for words.

I didn’t see any such outrage when that figure first made its appearance on their cups. Why should there be any now?
It’s a secular company who can do as they please. Its not as if theyre being hypocritical about anything. Why should there be any religious expectation of them at all?

It’s a tempest in a teapot (or coffee pot, if you will.) what a waste of energy and news time. How about these “super duper, holier than thou,” Christians expend some energy helping the poor in the community or set up a food pantry or do something that might reflect what Jesus was all about while on earth.

This stupid caviling about a non issue just makes them look foolish to everyone (including other more sensible minded progressive Christians) What jerks!

And @Seek is right about the coffee.
Their coffee really is execrable. So over-roasted that the burnt taste overpowers
everything else.

Hey,Hey I like their white Moca, but as for the coffee yeah your right it is a bit on the gag side.

It’s ridiculous and so very petty and minor on the scale of things to worry about.

Looking at some of the other designs, it looks like they had things like ornaments and snowflakes on them. I’m sorry, but ornaments and snowflakes have nothing to do with Jesus. It’s pretty funny how people actively try to be offended.

Clearly this is a First world problem. The ministers complaining need to look at the plight of others, Syrian refugees, for example, and hang their heads in shame.

And parishioners should kick them in the balls for making them look like idiots.

Since they never created coffee cups with religious themes before, they haven’t taken anything away.

@Dutchess_III Well, some would argue that the Christmas tree is a symbol of a holiday celebrating the birth of baby Jesus and is therefore a minor religious symbol in itself by association. I know there are some because if there weren’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

But we’ve already established that not all people are sane, rational beings too.

Right.

@Seek I don’t drink the shit or believe in jesus…. hence, not my fucking problem.. I still can’t get over the fact that people think it is good coffee. Have most of the population never experienced good coffee? If so we are a sad nation indeed. It’s at least marginally better than folgers brewed using cat piss (my old office coffee station).

My office used to be located on the third floor of an office building; Starbucks was on the first floor. For a while, I went there every day. Two things happened that changed by ways:

- their prices were eating me alive. I was paying $3.25 for a cup of coffee that I could have made in the office kitchen for nothing. (well, not nothing – the company had a Keurig machine and I used their coffee)

- their coffee was too bitter – too strong, and it tasted bad.

I’ll do Starbucks now only on hot days (Frappucino).

Definitely the two biggest reasons I avoid Starbucks like the plague are 1. the exorbitant price and 2. the nasty, burnt flavor.

Back ‘in the day’, I believe Gevalia mail-ordered some of the best mass-produced ground coffee on the planet.
You could make Lisa Douglas [Green Acres, American TV show], – aka, chocolate syrup – coffee from it, and there was no bitter taste.

I doubt that’s true today, since Gevalia is in supermarkets, but it’s worth a try if you’re a coffee drinker.

I went in a Starbrinks once. I was looking for a coffee cup for a friend. They didn’t have it.

On behalf of all Seattlites, I would like to apologize for Starbucks.

It should be a clue that many of us locals don’t drink the stuff unless we’re doing it ironically.

Maybe the people that are upset about these pretty red Xmas cups would rather see a graphic 3D picture of a priest forcing a little kid that looks like the baby Jesus giving him a blow job. That would be a more accurate Christian symbol.

@Kardamom The people causing the ruckus probably don’t even acknowledge the Catholics are Christians.

@JLeslie You’re probably right.

I wonder where the Starbucks cups with Menorahs are…

@jerv Those crackpots would probably be more ok with menorahs than nothing. I think their biggest fear is secularism/atheism. Who knows how they think. It’s crazy talk. It’s a coffee shop! It’s so stupid.

Seriously.
Can anyone source this story from any place but The NY Daily News?

@ibstubro How about Or how about right from the evangelist that started it all? Or people further out there? (The last one has a headline, “Starbucks Helps Lesbians Declare War on Christmas, Place ‘Lillith’ The Goddess of Lesbianism on Christmas Cups to Replace Jesus”, so you know it’s a good read!) Trust me, even the blatantly and unapologetically biased Conservative sites are in on this.

Now, if you want a reputable source, then you have to take your filter off and go to Liberal media like Snopes but with the caveat that some take the Tea Party at face value and would never trust anyone more liberal than Breitbart. Seriously, look around you it’s not hard to find sites across the political spectrum of all levels of reputability covering this.

A few seconds reveals a great partisan divide here though. Most of your “usual suspect” conservative/fundamentalist sites are all getting ready to incite a riot and take America back from the heathens while “Liberal media” is just bringing to our attention that many people are unhappy with the Starbucks cups because they see it as yet another sign of a war on Jesus and leaving it at that and a lot of your non-US media doesn’t even consider it a blip on the radar.

Joshua Feuerstein is an idiot. I have a friend that is in a long-running Youtube video battle with him, and it’s damned tiresome. Why do people continue giving him attention?

My link wasn’t to the NYDN, @jerv, but to a Christian site that was quoting the source of the brouhaha… NYDN.

As near as I can tell, the Snopes citation traces back to NYDN, via a Facebook link Breitbart saw.
I contend that, once again, NYDN just made shit up and started a shitstorm.

I agree. Somebody just making stuff up to get attention. But the sheeps jump on it gleefully, crying “Persecution! Persecution!”

It would not surprise me in the slightest if Feuerstein made it up and someone from the NYDN saw it.

Seriously, the guy is nuts. It sounds like one of his rants.

Did you know that Feuerstein is German for ‘Flintstone’?

Yabba dabba do.

Bam Bam.

That’s his son, Val.

Was Bam Bam not the adopted son of his neighbour, Barney?

Yes, it was. In this case, I am indeed referring to Flintstone’s unfortunate spawn, who has been informed beyond doubt that his father would rather him play with a loaded handgun than a doll.

I guess his name should then be “Blam Blam”

@ibstubro If that were even possible, then that would mean that society has problems far beyond media bias; problems large enough to make NDNY moot.

I don’t see how you got that causal chain though. Snopes gave a link to a Christian site in the context of, “This is what some are claiming.” that in turn cited Breitbart (not the NDNY), but beyond that, a few links to various parts of Starbucks’ site, and a square where a video has been pulled down, I’m not seeing anything else, let alone anything that looks anything like what you claim on the Snopes page.

Wait… I see where Breitbart mentioned Facebook… and still no citation (or even mention) of NDNY, only an undisclosed post from one of their FB friends that sent them off into a tizzy. So let’s trace the other branch and try vetting the NDNY just for giggles… and they cite a Facebook post from Joshua Feuerstein, the evangelist; I will presume that it’s the post Breitbart alluded to (or a re-post of same).

Interesting. Could you please clear up my confusion and tell me what you see that I don’t? Are you refuting that that Christian site made that claim? Was Snopes in error when they cited them as an example of a claim that Starbucks hates Jesus, or was Snopes accurate in their assertion that some people are saying that? Is Breitbart a pseudonym for NDNY, or did you accidentally get a couple wires crossed the same way I do when I type “teh” instead of “the”? I’m trying to follow you but just don’t see it.

What I do see is that if there is any plausibility to your theory that someone is just trying to stir up a shit-storm, then it was either Breitbart or Joshua Feuerstein that started it, not the NDNY. The objective evidence points in that direction, so the only way they could both be innocent is if there is no sinister plot by anybody to cause unrest while the NDNY is innocent regardless.

How is it that we’re not seeing the same thing?

Also, this.

By the way, the NY Daily News sidetrack is a red herring and not really relevant. The Starbucks issue has been written up an many more places than the NYDN.

@elbanditoroso Yes, which is what makes @ibstubro‘s position all the more confusing to me.

I just had to post the latest….
Trump Suggests Starbucks Boycott – ABC News http://abcn.ws/1NGgiIo

Joshua Feuerstein may very well have been the source, @jerv. NYDT seems to be the one that ‘legitimatized’ it.

All the stories I opened that sourced were citing NYDT, including the religious fanatics. My guess is that they knew citing Feuerstein directly would cause a lot of people to dismiss it.

This is not an issue that anybody in “real life” has even mentioned to me, not at work, not with my friends. So petty…..

I so agree @jca. I think we, on the other side, are the ones making fools of ourselves this time.

It’s bizarre.
Like we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

But what outstanding PR for Starbucks! Think of the advertising revenue saved!

Things like this do make me wonder what we are being distracted from. What real issues aren’t making the news because airways are filled with fluff like this.

But we are the very ones doing the distracting @Judi. They may just throw the rumor out there, but if it catches on like wildfire, that’s our fault.

It really is fun to make fun of it though. I think that th instant reaction might be a really good deter ant for those who want to start screaming “WAR ON CHRISTMAS!” Actually, I haven’t seen anyone supporting this crazy guy and I have a lot of conservative friends.

And we need to give them kudos for that @Judi.

deter ant. What does a deter ant look like? Poke poke!

@ibstubro I thought people like you legitimized it. See, my first take on this story was, “So, Starbucks has a plaid red cup for the holidays and that has some people getting their panties in a bunch. Big shock.” and that was about the end of it.

Then along came the conspiracy theorists that think it’s all a Liberal conspiracy despite all credible evidence leading to one of two alternate theories; that there is no conspiracy, or that someone other than the Liberals are behind it.

Personally, I am still of the opinion that this particular incident was not orchestrated, but merely an inevitable result of human nature. If there is a conspiracy, then this itself is either merely a ripple effect from some other operation (a total red herring) or part of something bigger that deserves more attention than a disposable coffee cup. And since you seem to be of the opinion that it is part of something bigger, then why the hell do you care about a coffee cup?

@jca I’ve seen a little bit here. Not much, but enough to say that it’s not completely false. Then again, if you knew the sort of people on Aurora, you’d know that crazier things happen here almost hourly. After a while, one gets a little jaded and more likely to sigh, shake their heads, and just move on with their lives. Yes, it’s petty, but it’s also human nature.

@Judi Now you know why so many people go overseas for their news coverage; BBC, Al-Jazeera, or some such international source. Usually the “Bread and circuses” things is a sign of an empire moving from decadence to decline. A strong case could be made that the US is precisely that; strong enough that our current wave of “Bread and circuses” could be regarded as simply history repeating itself again.
Also, it’s quite possible that your conservative friends are also sane, rational people. Most people don’t have crazy friends unless they themselves are crazy. I have had some strange acquaintances, like a coworker who tried to organize a boycott of the local newspaper because they showed a wedding photo from the first legalized same-sex marriage, but the people I actually consider friends are a bit more rational; regardless of their views on LGBT issues, they saw it as the paper reporting on state-level current events. I’ve never had to explain to a friend why having a first cousin who is also your half-sister isn’t normal, But I have had that conversation before so I know there are some people out there with some strange ideas.

@Dutchess_III Memetics isn’t an exact science… yet. While I doubt that it will be anything like the sci-fi setting for Transhuman Space, social engineering is a thing, and it can be used offensively in many ways. It also pays to remember that a person may be smart, but people are dumb; individual psychology and group psychology are so different that they are almost totally unrelated to each other.

But what I like so much about this is that NO Christians are jumping on board. That is so unusual and so cool.

@Dutchess, auto correct sucks.

I know! I was just channeling GailCalled. :)

@Dutchess_III No, but Bristol Palin is on her soapbox echoing @ibstubro that it’s a Liberal conspiracy to make Christians look bad. However, her position I can partially agree with. Just read this and remember that that particular source is pretty far left.

Hmm…. they show her decrying taking the opinions of a small minority and attributing that to the whole of Christianity… telling people to not buy the media hype… yeah, they really made her look like a fruitcake.

Well, often times Christians do enough shit all by themselves to make themselves look bad. No need to make stuff up.

@Dutchess_III ~Yes, but they only do it because us amoral heathens corrupt them.

Good grief I can’t believe the response to this question, and all over silly red cups.

It’s bullshit. People are losing their jobs, people are losing their homes and this crap is an issue?

@jca Yep. Welcome to the world of Bread and Circuses. If you think it’s ridiculous now, just wait.

/goes to make popcorn

I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, @jerv.

My idea was that the NYDN broadcasts inflammatory fringe rants in the hopes of being in the center of just this kind of mindless mass hysteria.
“Enquiring minds need to know!”

I don’t think there’s any conspiracy. I think it’s another business day for NYDN.
I started by saying that it there was a way to make my computer warn me before I opened a story from NYDN, National Enquirer, Faux, Huff and a number of other sources, I would engage that filter. Not to block them, but warn me that I might want to take the story with a gain of salt or skip it.

I can’t believe so many people were citing NYDN like it’s a trusted news site. Still and again.

@ibstubro Since your mind was made up on this years ago, I suppose you wouldn’t.

It’s not that we trust NYDN, it’s that we (or at least I) don’t trust you, at least not on something where the evidence points somewhere else. It may be a matter of me having seen it elsewhere and mostly in places that either cited only right-leaning sources or are merely reporting that this is a thing that is happening.

It may be a matter that I see nothing showing NYDN really doing anything nearly as egregious as other sources (like Breitbart), or possibly the fact that I’ve back-traced things to somewhere other than NYDN, but your dogged insistence that the entire thing about the cups is an NYDN smear campaign despite everything… I can’t help put get a mental picture of a tin-foil hat. I can even smell the aluminum in my nostrils when I read your posts in this thread.

I too would like that filter, but I suspect that nobody much to the right of me politically would even accept the reality that the media isn’t as left-leaning as they think; that would require admitting that America is pretty strongly right-wing.

I didn’t ask anyone to trust me, @jerv.
It’s my opinion that shit like this goes viral because marginal ‘news’ sources make the story mainstream.

Breitbart could scream about this all day every day and chances are I’m never know anything about it unless I search for, say, “Starbucks Christmas”. It certainly wouldn’t show up on the Google newsfeed. NYDN has the circulation to assure that any drivel they report will show up on major news feeds, unfiltered. I see headlines all the time that seem barely credible and when I open them they are, indeed, incredible as I can tell just by the source.

We were warned:
“Soft news and critical journalism penetrate newspapers, news magazines, and network and local newscasts. Though once regarded as a quick fix to fallen ratings due to heavy competition, these two news vices could cause the breakdown of the once superior American press.”

Junk Food News

@ibstubro “It’s my opinion that shit like this goes viral because marginal ‘news’ sources make the story mainstream.”

If you left it there, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I agree with that. I would even go so far as to cite Sturgeon’s Law and say 90% of news sources are crap.

But you didn’t. Instead, you opened wide, bent in ways that would make chiropractors cringe, and managed to put both feet in your mouth.

“NYDN has the circulation to assure that any drivel they report will show up on major news feeds, unfiltered.”

As do quite a few others, but one wouldn’t get that impression from listening to you. Of course, there are even larger ones who don’t need to show up on major news feeds because they ARE major news feeds, but lets blame NDNY anyways.

Your seeming eagerness to home in on the only source that isn’t batshit-level conservative despite evidence leading away from them set me off. If you simply left it at feeling the media is trying to overblow this story for the sake of ratings, I would have just agreed with you and moved on.

Now, I’m growing tired of giving Cupgate more attention than it deserves, so if it’s all just the same with you, lets just agree to disagree and move on.