DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Brassmask on November 21, 2007, 09:33:48 PM
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You celebrate Thanksgiving Brass? Who do you give thanks to? Yourself?
On Thanksgiving Day, as we gather 'round our yearly feast of turkey, cranberries and yams, I will be thankful.
I am thankful to my friends who are with me in times of trial and times of treasure. My friends who help move. My friends who love my kid. My friends who trade plants in our yards. My friends who make me laugh.
I'm thankful to my family who are with me in times of trial and times of treasure. My parents who love their son. My father who beams with pride. My mother who has been my guide. My sister who stands by her brother. My family who loves me through thick and thin.
I'm thankful to my son who I'm with in times of trial and treasure. My son whose smile can lighten any day. My son who loves me unconditionally. My son whose laugh sparkles.
I'm thankful to my wife who's with me in times of trial and treasure. My partner for our lives. My help mate who works with me to acheive our dreams. The mother of my son.
And yes, in a small way, I must thank myself for having the presence of mind to associate myself with these people. For having the wherewithal to get out of bed every day to be around these people who make me so happy and enrich my life. For having the gumption to go to work to draw a check and pay the bills and buy groceries and make sure the kid eats right (for the most part). Yeah, I thank myself, but for the most I thank all the others in my life.
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To Whom...
;-]
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To Whom...
;-]
LOL
You know when I originally posted it, I had the subject as Whom and then changed it after I read it. I thought of it this morning and thought, "Wait, it is whom!"
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Today I am thankful to the doctors and nurses at UCLA medical center who cared for my niece for the last three months and made her well enough so that she could finally come home yesterday and join us today for Thanksgiving dinner and her favorite apple pie. Thank you!!
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Here's an easy way to remember: if, in a statement about the subject, you would use the word him, then use whom (I am thankful to him; to whom am I thankful?). If you would use the word he, then use who (He is thankful; who is thankful?).
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>>On Thanksgiving Day, as we gather 'round our yearly feast of turkey, cranberries and yams, I will be thankful.<<
You do realize that Thanksgiving is a religious holiday? I would think rather than celebrating it you would be out protesting it's existance.
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>>On Thanksgiving Day, as we gather 'round our yearly feast of turkey, cranberries and yams, I will be thankful.<<
You do realize that Thanksgiving is a religious holiday? I would think rather than celebrating it you would be out protesting it's existance.
And then of course there is the debate as to whether Thanksgiving is a religious holiday at all. (I know you were waiting for someone to take you up on that statement, and I am the asshole who did.)
I actually Googled this statement to get a broader base of opinion on the subject, and while there are a few who believe it is religious, the overwhelming consensus is that it is a secular American holiday. Americans come in many different shapes and sizes with many different belief systems (or lack of belief systems) and they are all celebrating an American holiday.
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Thanksgiving is whatever you want it to be. It is religious for some, but not for others. Just because it BEGAN as a Christian day of gratitude does not mean that it is a Christian holiday for all. The common denominator seems to be gluttony and familial fellowship. Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but we get a respite on Thanksgiving, apparently.
We should be thankful that the Pilgrims made it on a Thursday, because that way we get Friday off as well.
Unless we are in retail, of course.
Greed follows gluttony.
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And then of course there is the debate as to whether Thanksgiving is a religious holiday at all. (I know you were waiting for someone to take you up on that statement, and I am the asshole who did.)
I actually Googled this statement to get a broader base of opinion on the subject, and while there are a few who believe it is religious, the overwhelming consensus is that it is a secular American holiday. Americans come in many different shapes and sizes with many different belief systems (or lack of belief systems) and they are all celebrating an American holiday.
FTR, I don't think "asshole" applies to you.
But I have to say that Thanksgiving has only become secular in the same sense that Christmas has. Turkey, parades and football (and how 'bout that LSU-Arkansas upset!!!!) serve about the same purpose as Santa, Toys and Rudolph do. They have changed the focus from the meaning of the celebration to the method. Still, the implication of the term "Thanksgiving" is religious. It was intended, from its beginning, to be a national expression of gratitude to God. This is an American expression of the concept of harvest festivals that have gone on from ancient times in many cultures. It is well expressed in the beloved hymn "Come, Ye Thankful People Come." http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/o/comeytpc.htm (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/o/comeytpc.htm)
Brass has chosen to turn this inward, by expressing his love and gratitude to those who are important in his life. I think that is a very constructive way to reconcile the traditions of our culture with his own value system. This is an example of the kind of assimilation that has been very successful in cross-cultural situations throughout history. This approach is rather the opposite of the endless, shrill protests of any mention of "Christ" in the holiday season. "Season's Greetings" "holiday shopping events" and "family trees" have replaced "Merry Christmas" "Christmas Sales" and "Christmas trees" out of a silly sense of PC. Thanksgiving, since the "thanks" could be equally applied to my god, your god, nature or your loved ones, is more easily reconciled.
The problem is that some on the anti-religion or anti-Christian side of the issue insist on stifling religious expression. Equally, some of those on the pro-religion or pro-Christian side insist that compromise is a betrayal of faith. With Brass's interpretation of "thanksgiving" as general gratitude rather than gratitude to a particular deity, he can still participate in the celebration - including in it, perhaps, those of his family and friends who are religious - without compromising either set of values.
I am curious, Brass, if you read this. Do you have the big family get-together and turkey-fest? If so - and assuming you have some family members who view this holiday in the more traditional sense - is a prayer offered? Is it specific (said, for example, in the name of Jesus Christ or addressed to "Our Father in Heaven") or do you opt for a more generic prayer or expression of gratitude? If the prayer is specific, how do you deal with it?
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Greed follows gluttony.
I'll bet your pretty proud of that comment, aren't you? Well, I'm going to vent my wrath on you! If you weren't so slothful, you could have come up with a much better way of expressing this thought!
Alright, I'll admit it. I'm just envious of your punsmanship.
I think I'll stop typing this and go surf some porn . . . :D
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Thanksgiving is whatever you want it to be. It is religious for some, but not for others. Just because it BEGAN as a Christian day of gratitude does not mean that it is a Christian holiday for all. The common denominator seems to be gluttony and familial fellowship. Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but we get a respite on Thanksgiving, apparently.
We should be thankful that the Pilgrims made it on a Thursday, because that way we get Friday off as well.
Unless we are in retail, of course.
Greed follows gluttony.
http://www.amazon.com/Inferno-Larry-Niven/dp/0671826581/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195929764&sr=8-1
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>>And then of course there is the debate as to whether Thanksgiving is a religious holiday at all. (I know you were waiting for someone to take you up on that statement, and I am the asshole who did.)<<
Hmmm ... I'll let that one by without taking a swing. ;)
I'm not one to put much faith in Google as evidence though. Thanksgiving IS a religious holiday, the question of whether everyone views it that way anymore is certainly valid.
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Thanksgiving is whatever you want it to be. It is religious for some, but not for others. Just because it BEGAN as a Christian day of gratitude does not mean that it is a Christian holiday for all. The common denominator seems to be gluttony and familial fellowship. Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but we get a respite on Thanksgiving, apparently.
We should be thankful that the Pilgrims made it on a Thursday, because that way we get Friday off as well.
Unless we are in retail, of course.
Greed follows gluttony.
And many states are now NOT giving Black Friday off to their workers. I believe New Jersey recently did this. Bah Humbug!
Should it be mandatory that organizaitons, public and private (except for emergency services entities, etc.) provide paid holidays to all employees on Federal holidays such as Veterans Day, Columbus Day, etc. and, of course, the day after Thanksgiving?
I know my college doesn't provide this on Veteran's Day or Columbus Day but, of course due to PC, they DO provide it for MLK's Birthday. And, of course, then there is the whole issue of why they combined Lincoln's Birthday and George Washington's Birthday into ONE "President's Day", so organizations would only have to give one day off instead of two.
What do YOU think?
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Pooch and Rich,
Here's what I'm thinking. Colonists came to this country to be free of religious oppression. Now, today, Americans come in many shapes and sizes with many different belief systems. Some believe in nothing at all. But at the very least we all are thankful that we can live in a country where we are free from persecution.
However, I do agree after reading what you had to say, that indeed the first Thanksgiving was to give thanks to God.
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My university doesn't give Veteran's Day or Columbus Day off, but we do take the Friday after TG off. The students wouldn't show up if we did try to hold class.
Leftover Turkey trumps dead vets, it appears.
We don't take President's Day off, either.
Here's what I'm thinking. Colonists came to this country to be free of religious oppression.
The Pilgrims left England, where they were persecuted somewhaT, and went to Holland, where no one oppressed them, but their kids were turning into little Dutchmen, and they felt that over the years they would lose their language and their religion as well. This was indisputably true.
They came to America, where they would not have any competition with the tolerant Dutch. In several decades, they were drowening and crushing a few of their kind for witchcraft. I suggest that there is no inalienable right to persecute those one feels are guilty of witchcraft.
The witches, mostly young women, got killed.
I bet that there are a number of polygamous jackMormons that would dispute you on the persecution issue. We frequently arrest them for poligamy, although I am sure we could arrest them a lot more often for this.
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Doesn't sound like a very religious holiday to me....
[.......]
In 1641, the Dutch governor of Manhattan offered the first scalp bounty; a common practice in many European countries. This was broadened by the Puritans to include a bounty for Natives fit to be sold for slavery. The Dutch and Puritans joined forces to exterminate all Natives from New England, and village after village fell. Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches of Manhattan announced a day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. This was the 2nd Thanksgiving. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets of Manhattan like soccer balls.
The killing took on a frenzy, with days of thanksgiving being held after each successful massacre. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape. Their chief was beheaded, and his head placed on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where it remained for 24 years. Each town held days of thanksgiving to celebrate their own victories over the Natives until it became clear that there needed to be an order for these special occasions. It was George Washington who finally brought a system and a schedule to thanksgiving when he declared one day to be celebrated across the nation as Thanksgiving Day.
[...............]
http://www.meyna.com/thanksg.html
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by the President of the United States of America
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
[Signed]
A. Lincoln
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http://www.christiananswers.net/q-wall/wal-alincoln-tgiving.html
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by the President of the United States of America
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
[Signed]
A. Lincoln
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http://www.christiananswers.net/q-wall/wal-alincoln-tgiving.html
It is clear that this day is a grateful recognition of bounty bestowed.
It is also clear that even Puritans can do something right.
It is clear, too, that many leading Christians today, folks like Pat Robertson, are turkeys.
I do not consider Pat Robertson as bounty bestowed, but rather as a Puritan who doesn't do much right.
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I am curious, Brass, if you read this. Do you have the big family get-together and turkey-fest? If so - and assuming you have some family members who view this holiday in the more traditional sense - is a prayer offered? Is it specific (said, for example, in the name of Jesus Christ or addressed to "Our Father in Heaven") or do you opt for a more generic prayer or expression of gratitude? If the prayer is specific, how do you deal with it?
Stray,
Sorry about the delay in replying.
Usually, my wife, son and I attend Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's house with my sister's family and anyone that we invite. (Sometimes even my dad is there with his current wife.)
There is ALWAYS a prayer at that event and generally we hold hands along with everyone else but my wife and I rarely bow our heads but I have been known to do so out of (gasp) respect.
My mother usually does the prayer and she always says something like "in our heavenly father's name" and so on and so forth.
I have had the big T-day dinner at my house twice, once pre-son and once post, and both times I "allowed" someone to say a "blessing" replete with heavenly fathers and in his names.
In addition to that, though, we also have a little thing we do where we all say what it is that we are thankful for. One year, my mother gave everyone a little notepad with our names on it and everyone wrote in each other's pad what we were thankful to that person for. We still have those notepads.
When the wife and I have another big T-day dinner at our house again, we'll have a prayer for those that like that sort of thing and we'll have some sort secular ceremony as well.
In thinking about Thanksgiving, I really don't think of it as a religious holiday. My head fills with images of Puritans and Indians sitting down (pre-Native American holocaust) to eat together in order to celebrate unity and peace and the bounty of the harvest and not starving to death.
I've NEVER in my life thought of Thanksgiving as something to do with a god other than the obligatory "blessing".
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Will we ever have a president who refuses to pardon the Thanksgiving turkey, and then slaughters a second, unnamed turkey and eats it?
There is actually a special farm for pardoned Thanksgiving turkeys somewhere in VA or MD, with a staff and everything.
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Sorry about the delay in replying.
NP, but I have to say this IS stretching Thanksgiving leftovers to the limit! :D
Usually, my wife, son and I attend Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's house with my sister's family and anyone that we invite. (Sometimes even my dad is there with his current wife.)
There is ALWAYS a prayer at that event and generally we hold hands along with everyone else but my wife and I rarely bow our heads but I have been known to do so out of (gasp) respect.
This is one of the great untold secrets of real families. It's called "getting along" and it involves equal amounts of respect, tolerance, compromise and a touch of benign denial. In theory, it sounds like a cop out, but it is actually facing differences head on. A lot of civilized societies have used that method on a culture-wide basis, but it seems to be out of vogue. It's simply a case of recognizing that some irreconcilable differences do not require reconciliation.
In addition to that, though, we also have a little thing we do where we all say what it is that we are thankful for. One year, my mother gave everyone a little notepad with our names on it and everyone wrote in each other's pad what we were thankful to that person for. We still have those notepads.
I absolutley LOVE that idea. I will be stealing it!
When the wife and I have another big T-day dinner at our house again, we'll have a prayer for those that like that sort of thing and we'll have some sort secular ceremony as well.
Sounds likely that you'll be building new traditions while respecting the old. Loving that.
Thanks for the comeback. Next year I'm asking my Thanksgiving questions on Halloween! :D
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I missed this thread ;D
I agree with those who do not consider Thanksgiving a religious holiday. I certainly do not. It is strictly an American invention (though Canada has a similar holiday).
Interestingly, since Stray brought it up, Halloween is a day of religious significance in that it is All Hallow's Eve, the day before All Soul's Day. 1 November or 8 December as examples, have far more religious meaning to me than Thanksgiving ever will. (Though I enjoy the food, family, and football ;) ).