Thanksgiving

(Picture from here.)

Newt Gingrich wrote this article regarding to whom do we give thanks on Thanksgiving. In his usual silly way, he basically says we have to give thanks to God in order to be good Americans. It's a fatuous article and I wouldn't have anything to say about it (other to put it on the Wall of Idiots) except that the question he poses (and does not answer) is to what should an atheist give thanks?

The whole concept of "Thanksgiving" implies something outside one's self to give thanks.

Hm. This is a bit of a problem.

When I got married, Wendy and I had a discussion with the minister. I strongly did not want the ceremony to have any hint of deceit. The ceremony was, in and of itself, a binding promise and I didn't want to taint it by being in the position of listening to or proposing something in which I did not believe. But there is God and Jesus all through the ceremony.

Fortunately, we were dealing with Unitarians. The compromise we reached was that the use of the word "God" was permitted, since I could interpret that metaphorically, but we didn't use the word "Jesus". Seemed to work. We've been married 19 years next month.

But that concept doesn't work here. You can't give thanks to a metaphorical agency since the act of giving thanks implies a non-metaphorical being. Giving thanks implies something got done.

The idea of giving thanks is a little weird anyway. It's eerily similar to the idea of getting absolution from God for things you did to human beings. As if the sin against your fellow man is a lesser offense than violating God's law.

When I was studying Judaism the idea of repentance and forgiveness was managed differently. I was told that before participating in the rituals of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) you must make right the sins you have committed against your fellow man. Only then can you partake of the rituals before God.

Damn. I really, really liked Judaism. If only I believed in God...

Which brings us back to the whole giving thanks. You give thanks for a gift. In the case of God, it could be mundane things: good health, a good job, we're not starving and all of that. But that's a complex function of good judgment and random chance. I couldn't have known my job would weather the economic storm. And if I give thanks for a good job and not starving does that mean somehow those people who lost their jobs are are starving got shafted by the Big Guy Upstairs? I don't like zero sum games in human relationships and giving thanks is rapidly approaching that.

On the other hand, the act of feeling as if one must give thanks is a very human quality. It is a recognition that a large part, possibly the greatest part, of one's life is out of one's control. That good things come to you by grace more than by anything else. It is very like prayer, the act of giving up control to something else and by that act releasing the need for that control. This idea of prayer is, to me, a common ground between Christianity and Buddhism.

Or it's just a harvest celebration saying isn't it great we have enough to make it through the winter.

That's sort of the way I think of the original Pilgrims, staring at the bounty in front of them, much of it given to them by heathens, knowing that nearly half of them died the previous winter and that maybe, just maybe, their friends and family might live through the next one.

Maybe that's it. We did okay this year, not by grace or by God, but through a lot of luck and a little skill. Look at what we have and feel lucky. Look at who we're sharing it with and feel luckier. Next year could be worse. This year could have been much worse.

Thank each other for being there.
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Wall of Idiots
Drug advertising
Cigarettes: worse than you thought
Lead poisoning in Arizona
Hacked climate emails
Paternity issues
The Completely Evil Institute

Links of Interest
Creating your own online data portrait with Personas
Hacking the brain with light
V: The Pistol Shrimp
V: Going West paper craft animation
Darwin's effect on modern thought
More on Darwin
New approach to quantum gravity and here
Creatures of the deep and here
The future of trains
The history of wine
V: Orca vs Great White Shark
World of the blue whale
Crocs in the Cretaceous
V: Galapagos tortoise critter cam
IBM's Cat Brain
The results of the Stardust mission
People's response to life-like human models
The remains of life in a lava tube

DIY
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Scrimshaw etching
Crab cakes
Apple cider donuts
DIY Christmas
DIY Thanksgiving Dinner
Homemade gifts and here
Gifts for "Dad"
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Wire jewelry ring
Hydroponic drip garden
Glue bugs
Twice cooked scallops
Hexaflexagon
Repair a lawn mower engine
Pomegranate jelly
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Bruschetta
Built in book cases
Hand blown glass ornaments