It's Not For Me To Say

Well-spoken! To say that Thanksgiving is this and that is to say that certain people are not welcome at the table. Harvest time in all cultures has always been to take stock and enjoy a good feast with friends and neighbors. By making it more inclusive, we are forming a basis for a world where we can all get along together.

Raymond Lang,

Thanks for your great reply. You're exactly right that no religion can lay claim to the heritage of Thanksgiving. James Loewen has suggested that the Pilgrim Thanksgiving story arose from a desire to mythologize our nation's origins. From my reading, groups who insist that American law should be based in Biblical principles often point to the Pilgrims and Puritans as justification.

Thank you Rev. Tully for a refreshing answer. I do agree with some writers, to little respect for"non believers". What does that really mean? We all believe, just in different concepts.Also Rabbi Art Gould puts things into order very well.

Thanks, Bill. You always make us think and meditate.

The strongest faith is one which can be maintained in the recognition - and acceptance - of other faiths and beliefs.

Neels, I'm sorry, but your warning to non-Christian shows that your faith is weak, and your understanding of G-d is impoverished. Why is it necessary for your belief system that I believe as you do?

Do you think that the G-d in whom you believe is so limited in power that G-d cannot speak in different languages and tell different stories? Is G-d not powerful enough to reveal G-dsself in one way to Jews, another way to Christians, a third way to Moslems, and in untold ways to Hindus, Buddhists, Sufis, and the rest of the list of belief systems?

I'd like to join Reverend Tully at the one Thanksgiving table where we all could sit together - theists, atheists, and agnostics too. I'll bring the bread, so I can thank G-d according to my tradition at the beginning of the meal. Others can thank G-d according to their traditions, or not thank G-d, but express their appreciation of the gifts that we have. Let's all pray, each in our own way. G-d can listen, and sort it all out.

A retrospective Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I accept Tully's view that non-Christians are as free to decide what to believe and how to celebrate Thanksgiving as Christians. Of course, I am free to remind non-Christians who reject Jesus as Saviour that there is a hell waiting for them. Do you believe this, Rev Tully?

Neels Malan

Pretoria

I appreciate Rev. Tully's inclusiveness. I'm afraid that intolerance, bigotry, anger, and hatred are going to tear the whole world apart unless people everywhere reach a point where they can accept everybody else with respect and "inclusiveness." On the subject of giving thanks, I think maybe being thankful ought to be a process of optimistic, positive living, taking note of all the good things we notice as we live day by day. If we appreciate a cool breeze on a warm day, a brilliant evening sunset, a rushing stream, a lush green hillside, birds singing, a tiny baby cooing, or a child laughing --- then we can feel thankful. On things like that, I believe nearly everyone in the world could agree. And if we could concentrate more on what we agree on, de-emphasizing our differences, and then accept one another as we are, I believe the world would be a better place for all; and I would be thankful for that.

"Everyone is due as much respect as anyone else."

So I'm supposed to respect those who believe in myths like Christianity and Islam. Sorry, Charlie. I have similar disdain for those who believe in Zeus, the Billy Goad and Bambino curses, and other hokum.

Think about it. Try to prove your God exists. I'll wait ...

Tonio - The concept of giving thanks was already well established in European culture, primarily German and English. These festivals predate the introduction of Christianity, but have been associated with the church since the 1800's. In addition, the Jewish holiday Sukkot is also a similar giving of thanks for the harvest and it dates back to pre-Christianity. Many of these are centered around the first full moon of Autumn, usually in September as opposed to the secular set date for Thanksgiving that is used in America.

The truth is that Christianity cannot lay claim to the heritage of Thanksgiving. The concept and the practice are far older than the church, and it is this heritage that we should be honoring. Whether you believe in God, Allah, Jehovah, Gaea, Odin, Zeus, the Jade Emperor or White Buffalo Woman, they are all simply aspects of the same coin, the universe made manifest in our thoughts and minds.

Excellent statement by Tully. I suspect humans have a basic need for formal rituals of gratitude for the good things that happens to us, and this need transcends any religious doctrine. If Christianity didn't exist, or if the Pilgrims chose to stay in Holland, American culture might have found another tradition to create a Thanksgiving holiday.

My wife and I enjoyed Thanksgiving with her daughter and son-in-law and their family. While they gave thanks to their Christian God, I gave thanks to Mother Nature which is probably the same thing. Nobody on Earth understands how the universe was started and whether God exists in any form, but the food we consume comes from the earth and from animals on the earth and in the sea--"Mother Nature". Every religion on earth has elements of non-believability and there is good and bad in every religion. The gods of Greek and Roman mythology held promise and hope for the people of those times just as the god of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim peoples also gives hope and promise. I just wish people all over the world could live in peace with each other, but alas, that will never happen.

Rev. Tully's view is very well said. I am a Christian who holds to all the conservative tenets, that Jesus is the Son of God who is the only way to the Father through faith and confidence in Him.

It saddens me, however, to read the perspecives of those who don't believe, of how they have been so badly received by those who do. The dignity of our Father has been given to all of us and each deserves love and respect.

Best blessings this Thanksgiving to all.

Dave R.

Barry

How long was it from the time God created the world until it was written, the story in the Bible?

Who was there with Moses when he had the conversation with God? What is the oldest account of that story?

Try "holding these truths to be self evident, all men are created equal" INCLUDING Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, the pope, Billy Graham, women, homosexuals, atheists...

Everyone is due as much respect as anyone else. Those who use the hoax to extort money form people with threats of hell are the least respectable amongs us, in my opinion only of course.

Barry

What's the oldest document available anywhere on earth that can be shown to be part of today's Bible, the one of faith? 5th century BCE? Don't think so. Where is it? Try 5 century CE.

Free to decide whom to thank indeed. Most dialogue in this seeking is confined by the foundational desire to save one's life. If true desire tword truth and being found therein is one's heart, then it must be certain that there is a response from the only source of truth, life, and all that is.

Hi,
Non-believer from the UK, we don't have Thanksgiving, but reading the comments so far presented on the topic, the Reverend's table sounds by far the most inviting.

A most sensible comment Rev. Tully. Thanks for this.

Yestme,

"Hoax-buster"??? Please!

Its very first claim -- the Bible was written around 100 BCE, or 1,000 years after Moses -- is wrong. The Pentateuch was already collated in the 5th Cent BCE. The two earliest writers, identified as "J" and "E", wrote in the 8th Cent BCE, possibly earlier.

This sloppy bit of "scholarship" sets the tone for a long-winded, self-indulgent screed bearing little resemblance to accepted historical scholarship on the Bible. Great thing about the "Net" -- anyone with a keyboard and an attitude can play. Accuracy not required.

I am thankful this holiday that I am not in this way afflicted, and can still reason with some ability. But I'm really thankful for Rev. Tully's last inclusive wish. It's one I share as well, even though I am not a practicing Christian.

What a refreshing perspective coming from a believer! Thank you, William Tully.

As a non-believer (specifically, atheist), I'm far more accustomed to believers who think that I must be evil and/or benighted, to say nothing of the many who also feel certain that I'm cursed and damned to an eternity of suffering (and feel obliged to tell me so; how pleasant). Simply enjoying the respect and dignity to which every human is naturally entitled can be difficult in the face of widespread prejudice and ostracism; instead of being accorded such respect and dignity, non-believers usually encounter fear and loathing. The most gracious attitude we usually can expect is a certain smug, condescending form of pity.

Mr. Tully says, "This day should be one of mutual respect among the various communities of faith and those who are outside them." Indeed, as should every day. But I note from personal experience that, even when the various commumities of faith do abide by this suggestion as among themselves, they still often fail to extend the same principle to "those who are outside them." Those extra six words mean a lot to me, and they should appeal to every person of good will and open mind.

William Tully has my respect, even if not all of his beliefs do, because of his willingness to extend me his respect in return. I wish there were more theists like him.

Well said and to the American point. We have both freedom of religion and freedom from it too. Perhaps the problem, if there is one is the notion that all must conform to one and never the other. They're saying the same thing on both sides of the isle. The ones in the middle, true believers, the one's with undying faith in freedom are always in their cross fire.

Thanks is a very commonly used word. It applies to thanking supernatural beings only some of the time and perhaps a scant minority of the time. We are always thanking people for the simplest of things, the bus boy for removing the dirty dishes for example. And thanks can be in the negative too, as in "thanks a lot."

I wonder if you have seen this yet. There's a lot of people with faith in it, proof the Bible is a hoax. I know that sounds a bit off the wall but it does have the effect of throwing up a shield for those of us in the middle. I think from both sides but least from the evangelical side that comes in the form of, "we have the absolute truth, the word of God" bullets that are forever striking groups of our fellow Americans.

It's on the internet. I suspect a great many have seen it and understand. It's main page is http://www.hoax-buster.org.