Usually I don't have any objection against the word Christmas. But in this case I think it is abusive: this talk is not about Christmas and it is not on Christmas day or even close. It seems just a random way of adding the word Christmas to a seminar, maybe only because the speaker happens to be Christian... I would like to believe that Stanford is above this kind of behavior, but sadly it is not.
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic, held since 1825, presented scientific subjects to a general audience, in an informative and entertaining manner. Michael Faraday initiated the first Christmas Lecture series in 1825.
As he says in the first 30 seconds of the video, the lecture has been called the "Annual Christmas Tree Lecture" for 20 years, and it was always a lecture about trees in computer science as a bit of a pun. Dr. Knuth said - again, right at the start - that he had trouble finding a good tree-related subject, so he dropped "tree" from the name.
Why should the Christian speaker drop Christmas from the seminar title? It's his seminar, and he gets to decide what to title it. In fact, I think it is offensive to suggest that Christians should sterilize Christian history and iconography from anything they produce.
If Donald Knuth decided that his Christian iconography was interfering with the message he wanted to send, then it's his talk and he gets to decide to change the title.
If a Jewish/Christian/Muslim professor wants to talk about the 9 Lifos of the Menorah, I don't see a problem with that, either.
The concept of a Christmas Lecture (or lecture series) as an accessible exposition of a topic is very well established - Faraday kicked them off in 1825 at the Royal Institution.
Probably you had a rough Monday and wanted to take it out on HN. If you're being serious, why do you think such trivialities merit discussion? or even a second of your attention? it boggles my mind.
We all have intrusive thoughts from time to time, but it is extremely bad form to voice them.
