Is American Thanksgiving a religious holiday?

I’ve never heard of it being called a religious holiday. Now, religious people may take the opportunity to give thanks to their God.. but overall.. I wouldn’t consider it a religious holiday at all.

Nope. Not even remotely, not at all, never heard that, never thought that. No more than Labor Day, or the Fourth of July.

It most definitely is not. It is not on any religious calendar. It’s origins are not religious.

The religious do not have a corner on giving thanks.

No. I don’t even think christmas was originally religious. If I make a holiday giving thanks to god for railroads, it’s not a religious holiday.

Just because some people want to stamp god on every social institution doesn’t make it religious.

No, not that I’ve ever heard. Even my enthusiastically Catholic grandmother never made it a religious holiday, which seems like a reasonable gauge, to me. ;)

I see her point. She is saying that the thanks that the original celebrants gave was to God. If we are to give thanks on Thanksgiving, who do we give it to?

As with Christmas, I do think these holidays started as primarily religious holidays. They have both become generic holidays. They have been nationalized, so to speak. The country has approved them as national, and thus secular holidays. There is, of course, still the religious overlay impressed on the holidays by their origins, but officially, they are generic. Of course, anyone can celebrate them in any way they want.

Nope – that’s the beauty of it. One can certainly make it a spiritual holiday but it is not attached to any particular religion.

@wundayatta Why give thanks to anything other than god, if that is the case? For some people, god created everything, so we should thank god everytime we pass legislation, tie our shoes, receive a paycheck, and fill up our tank.

I think it’s a “Spiritual” holiday created by people who were careful to make a distinction between Spiritual and Religous. They wanted to be sure people could be thankful to God regardless of how they chose to interrupt him. (I think at the time they were probably in agreement that God was a him.)

Not the least bit religious. It is just a day to pause and give thanks for what we have. Equating Thanksgiving with religion is kind of saying that it takes religion to be thankful.

It isn’t religious. It’s an occasion to think about and perhaps announce what we are thankful for in our lives. We usually do that at our Thanksgiving table. It isn’t so much that we aren’t thankful the rest of the time, but we don’t usually take a day off to consider it.

My association has always been of simply a celebration of survival of the colonists during their first few harsh winters in a new world and the help of the native americans in teaching them farming and hunting methodologies.

My goose Marwyn might feel a sense of religiosity though, glad that turkey is the religiously served centerpiece of the annual feast instead of goose. lol

There’s a subtle distinction between gratitude and being glad that things have worked out a certain way. Being glad that I have a home to go to and that I’m employed (for the time being) doesn’t equal gratitude. Gratitude is the impulse to give thanks, and implicit in that impulse is a recognition of dependence. Gratitude feels like a debt, and giving thanks is an open recognition of that indebtedness.

I think you could make a case that what we call spirituality is basically a generalized gratitude; it’s a feeling of profound dependence and interconnectedness. That goes beyond being happy about this or that, or reveling in the good stuff, and sees everything as a gift.

Calling Thanksgiving a religious holiday is too much of a reach, but I would say that the impulse behind it is a spiritual one.

@Blackberry I’m not sure what you’re getting out. One can be grateful for what one has without thanking any entity for it. One could thank life or circumstance or that one’s hard work has paid off. Or just be thankful in general.

As you know, God is a man-made concept, anyway. People’s ideas of God reside solely in their own heads, and no one has any access to anyone else’s idea of God, save through what they say (testimony). We know that testimony can be highly unreliable.

So when people thank God, they are thanking an idea they have, and who knows what that idea is? Essentially, though, I would argue that they are thanking themselves, only they are projecting that self-thanking to something outside themselves. It gives them comfort to think that something outside them looks on them kindly, instead of depending solely on their own devices to get anything in the world.

Really, in effect, it doesn’t matter if your thankfulness is generic or towards some idea of a God. It’s all a feeling, and, I think research shows, a useful feeling. Gratefulness helps us attain better mental health. A holiday (holy day) dedicated to some idea or another, helps remind us to be thankful. Or grateful. In this process we are doing something beneficial.

Christmas has another spirit. It’s about us all being in this together. It’s about sharing the pain and in doing so, helping each other, raising our spirits, and actually doing good for the community. Spending, of course, plays a key role in helping the community and this year, more than most years, we need strong spending to goose the economy. A goosed economy helps us all.

Christmas is also about fighting SAD (seasonal affective disorder). By coming together with others at a dark time of year, we boost our spirits and keep depression at bay, somewhat. There are deep socio-psychological reasons why we have holidays that most people probably don’t see or think about. But they work whether or not people understand what is going on. People can rail against materialism even though materialistic things are exactly what are being exchanged or given when we help the poor and homeless. We can’t live without material things and material things are not bad. An improved economy is what we all need and as such, purchasing and giving is fully in the Christmas spirit.

@wundayatta Oh, I agree, I was pointing out that thanking god is a bad excuse just to make something religious.

Its a day of people giving thanks for being alive and being with family members to celebrate this.

Thanksgiving is a day of thanks with religious overtones. After all, we would not be here with what we have, without the Lord.

and @john65pennington makes @Blackberry ‘s point nicely for him. We call that an ‘own goal’.

@john65pennington Doesn’t everything have religious overtones then? My birthday, Labor Day, Memorial Day. If God is in everything than every day is a religious day.

I think John Stewart said it best when he pointed out that Thanksgiving celebrates the event of a bunch of pagans teaching a bunch of Christian fundamentalists how to farm. So yeah, I can see it being called “religious” – in fact, I think we should all say a prayer to the Native Americans’ spirits in recognition of its religious significance.

and then beg forgiveness from their spirits that we massacred so many.

@cazzie And since Americans were the first illegal immigrants, definitely.

Today’s one day Thanksgiving Day was/is not religious.
1621 Thanksgiving Meal Details:
The celebration lasted for three days, not one, and consisted of intermittent feasting and entertainment (games and shooting of muskets). Certainly there were prayers and thankfulness for the bountiful harvest considering how many died during their first winter.
It was most likely held in October, not November.
There is no evidence that the Wampanoag were explicitly invited.
It was not called “Thanksgiving”. It was a “harvest festival”.
It did not become an annual event.
In 1777 the 13 colonies thanksgiving celebration. Most of the original Presidents had differing opinions about it. This was a one-time thing.
In 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving was proclaimed by every president after Lincoln.
The date was changed a few times until 1941 when congress sanctioned it as a legal Holiday.

I think @wundayatta has a point… can one be thankful without actually thanking someone specific? People who celebrate Thanksgiving today are not thanking the Native Americans. Presumably, they are thanking a god.

@blueiiznh I think every so often they try, or propose, to change the date to a week earlier in November to extend the Christmas shopping season. I actually would prefer it to have a little more room between Thanksgiving and Christmas parties.

@dappled_leaves false. We are thanking our family, friends, and coworkers, hell maybe even politicians. We are thanking the people actually responsible for whatever we are thankful for (our job, our loved ones, the food on our table, etc).

@dappled_leaves uh, duh? I can be grateful for good physical health, a few good friends, a roof to live under, etc. without thanking a Ponzi scheme.

@blueiiznh

Right, and the meat was mostly venison, various fowl and eel, lobster and fish.
There may or may not have even been turkey but certainly goose, duck, pheasant and “other fowl.”

People ate anything back then and sailors wiped out huge colonies of seabirds that they pickled for their journeys.

@JLeslie that is exactly why it was moved around between Lincoln and FDR.

@dappled_leaves you don’t have to thank a specific person in order to be thankful. I give thanks and am thankful everyday and most of it does not revolve around a person.

@blueiiznh Wait, I am confused. You are saying it was moved between Lincoln and FDR to an earlier date? It had been even later in the year? I realize you said originally it was likely in October, which makes more sense to me because of the harvest. I would think most everything is harvested by end of October in the colder climates.

Adding on to what @blueiiznh has said, there are a few more important details to add.

The Thanksgiving that we as a nation celebrate, is mostly because of a single lady in New England.

The first nationally recognized Thanksgiving, was a result of a battle we won in 1777 against General Burgoyne in Saratoga.

After that, another one-time event Thanksgiving celebration in 1789 to celebrate the new Constitution.

The push for making Thanksgiving a national holiday is because of many years of hard work by Sarah Josepha Hale. She was an editor for a women’s magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book. Every year she would publish an article detailing the celebration of Thanksgiving. She wrote several letters to public officials to have the holiday recognized. She asked that both sides of the Civil War stop to have a day of peace (Thanksgiving). Which didn’t happen. She then wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln, to convince him to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. Which, in 1863, it was celebrated as a day of peace after the Civil War on the last Thursday of November.

When FDR came into office, he changed the date to the third Thursday of November because retailers needed more time to prepare for Christmas. These two dates were both celebrated based on a persons personal choice. In 1941 Congress set it in stone… the fourth Thursday of November would be Thanksgiving.

I have heard that before. Cut-and-pasted from a friend’s FB post:

Today’s the day that people name things they’re happy about and replace the word “happy” with the word “thankful” by means of circular argument. But to me, “thankful” implies gratitude regarding an intentional act. So to be thankful for things that are not intentional acts, people require gods, because those can take credit for happenstance.

Free will causes the same problem for intentionality.

Point being, while it’s not officially religious, only those with some form of spirituality would be interested in celebrating it. Course, then it got onto a larger discussion of what exactly “free will” is and if it exists…

I’ve never thought it was a religious holiday, but I do think those who are religious do use it as an opportunity to thank God. In fact, I guess Obama was criticized for not mentioning God in a Thanksgiving speech. Pretty silly if it’s a secular holiday, if you ask me.

One of the great beauties of Thanksgiving is that people can celebrate it the way they want to. In that respect, it is one of the few true American holidays.

Thanksgiving isn’t a religious holiday though I suppose it could be celebrated in a religious way by religious people. I also agree, as others have mentioned that one can be grateful and acknowledge what is good in one’s life without believing in god or without being grateful to some entity.

And in spite of the mentions and appeals to god in Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving, the United States is not a religion and neither presidents nor legislatures have religious authority, or have constitutional authority to establish a religious holiday. So, I don’t see how Thanksgiving could be a religious holiday, even if some people choose to celebrate in the context of their own religions.

@Mariah Unbelievable. I wish all the atheists in our government would come out of the closet and finally turn the tides on all this bullshit. I don’t care either way if people, politicians, the President, thanks God or not during Thanksgiving, or any other time in any other speech, or if he is a theist or an atheist, I just am so sick of Americans dwelling on it, and using it as a test of….honestly what is the test? I guess they think he must be a bad man if he doesn’t thank God? I hadn’t seen that feedback about his Thanksgiving speech, thanks for posting it.

@JLeslie That was kind my reaction to the whole criticism of Obama’s not mentioning God in his Thanksgiving speech. Enough all ready! Will you people just give it rest! You’re obsessed.

Sure it is. Harvest festivals were always directed at God or whatever mysterious powers contributed to the bounty of the harvest. Having said that, and being a dedicated atheist, I cheat and celebrate it anyway. I do it because it is fun, and I figure the God police will not check out my motives.

The first national Thanksgiving, @JLeslie, was celebrated September 25, 1789, immediately after approval of the Bill of Rights. This is from the US Congressional Record:

Mr. [Elias] Boudinot said he could not think of letting the [congressional] session pass without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining with one voice in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings He had poured down upon them. With this view, therefore, he would move the following resolution:

Resolved, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. . . .

Mr. Roger Sherman justified the practice of thanksgiving, on any single event, not only as a laudable one in itself but also as warranted by a number of precedents in Holy Writ. . . . This example he thought worthy of a Christian imitation on the present occasion.

The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United State (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1834), Vol. I, pp. 949–950.

[mod says] This is our Question of the Day!

@bkcunningham So are you saying you see it as a religious holiday? Or, a secular holiday where it is appropriate to be thankful to God for good blessings?

The fact is, Thanksgiving started as a day to give thanks to God. I see it as a day to lay down your work and whether you are breaking bread with family and friends or breaking bread alone, it is to me a day to comtemplate your blessings. Not so much the materials things, but that too.

If you are “religious” you are going to see any meal or any day as a day to continue being “religious.” I suppose it is like Christmas. No doubt Christmas is a religous holiday or a day recognizing the Christian religion, but I’ve seen many atheists on Fluther say they buy presents and “celebrate” Christmas.

@bkcunningham Christmas was brought up as an example on the other Q also. It seems to me religious holidays are religious to specific holidays. Christians have their holidays, Jews theirs, etc. A general religious day? A specific day for all religious people to thank God. I don’t think I can think of one. Religious holidays should affect all people in that particular religion shouldn’t it? But, Thanksgiving is a day celebrating events in America, not all Christians, or all Muslims around the world.

Christmas is a celebration of Christ’s birth. If people secularized it, then it has moved away from the meaning of the day in my opinion. We do know that it coincides with the Pagan holiday Yule and winter solstice I guess, chosen during late December so the Pagans would be more accepting of the Christian holiday, but that does not take away from CHRISTmas being about the Christian Lord and savior in my opinion. If atheists water down the holiday away from its Christian roots I don’t see how that has anything to do with how Christians celebrate it.

@Blackberry Um, Christmas is and has always been a religious holiday. Just because nonbelievers celebrate it like it will never come again doesn’t mean the holiday itself isn’t religious.

@bkcunningham I don’t think the U.S. government has the authority to establish religious holidays. Maybe it’s a technicality; maybe a matter of semantics, of how one defines “religion” but Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday in the strictest, or even in a somewhat looser sense. How can it be? In what church; or in what religious faith or tradition is Thanksgiving a holiday? By what authority can the president of the United States, or the federal government establish or create a religious holiday?

@lillycoyote, it is in the Congressional Record. President George Washington accepted the resolution and said:

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor. . . . Now, therefore, I do appoint Thursday, the 26th day of November 1789 . . . that we may all unite to render unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection.

George Washington, Writings of George Washington, Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Russell, Odiorne and Metcalf, 1838), Vol. XII, p. 119, Proclamation for a National Thanksgiving on October 3, 1789.

@bkcunningham and after Washington’s statement it flip flopped many times.

I’ve read both Washington and Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamations and what’s interesting, I think, is that if you look at the wording of Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation and there is a certain amount of hedging.

”…both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

“Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being …”

And in Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation:

“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, tranquillity and Union.

There is a lot of “recommending” and “inviting.”

Still, I don’t see that a U.S. President or congress or anyone has any authority to establish a religious holiday and if they don’t have the authority to establish a religious holiday, I still don’t see how Thanksgiving can be one.

The date September 25, in the previous post is when the resolution was passed. Not the first national Thanksgiving. Just wanted to make a correction on my error.

@bkcunningham You’re forgiven your error. :-)

@asmonet Oops, I stand corrected.

Here’s an article about Jon Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’s reactions to Obama’s “blasphemous” ~ omission.

@asmonet Christmas was a holiday long before the Roman Catholic church got a hold of it and attributed it to their god, as was Easter. If Christianity hadn’t been invented and spread, we would still be celebrating those times of the year.

@cazzie Would you happen to be talking about Mithras? Born from a virgin on Dec. 25. Gifts were given by 3 wise men. Died for our sins, resurrected on a Sunday. Was a sun god (worshiped on Sunday). Had 12 disciples. The similarities go on & on…

@cazzie Christmas wasn’t a holiday until Christ. There were many holidays/feasts/festivals that existed around that time of year, and Christianity borrowed quite a few customs and traditions from various local holidays, but technically you do need Christ in order to separate Christmas from all the other winter festivals.

@Aethelflaed a rose by any other name. Here in Norway, we still call it ´Jul´, whether you are Christian or not.

@rpm_pseud0name And I am not being specific about any particular belief or gods, I am just saying that many many cultures had festivals that time of year. If that new book hadn’t been written and spread by governments and sword, we´d all be celebrating that time of year and calling it by it´s older name.

I think part of how it was written a couple hundred years ago has to do with how they spoke and wrote back then. It was as much a style as it was their own belief in God and His blessings. Here where I live there are people all around me who inject the words God and blessed into every sentence. I know extremely religious people where I grew up and have lived previously who never did that in their every day speech or writings. Literally when I woke up from my colonscopy here in Memphis the recovery nurse was saying, “have a blessed day.” I read one of my great uncles letters to his sister (my grandmother) when he was stationed in Europe. He wrote was so eloquent, seemed so poetic, his chose of words, his style; but I don’t think it was because he was necessarily a fantastic writer, but that back then they spoke like that, he just put it in writing for us to see. My point is, just because God and being thankful was within the prose of what was written, it does not mean it was stating Thanksgiving is a declared religious holiday. I don’t see how an American President can create a religious holiday. It seems to me that is for Popes and other clergy to sanctify. If a President is a religious person, he might use God and religion in his speeches and proclamations. If he isn’t he won’t. That is about the man/woman, it has nothing to do with the rest of the American population.

@bkcunningham I’ll ask you what I asked snowberry on the other Q, although she never understood what I was getting at, maybe I did not ask it well. If Washington or Lincoln had been Jewish or Muslim, then would you still consider Thanksgiving a religious day? If we had a President who was not Christian, but some ther religion, would you be ok with him i jecting his religion into his speeches or the government?

I think it was created as a religious holiday. Most religions have some sort of deity or deities that they pray to, or honor in some way. I believe that the American men who made Thanksgiving a holiday were probably religious to at least some degree and thanking their God was what they had in mind for Thanksgiving.
I don’t think they set it up as a Christian holiday, but a reverent one, no matter what your religion was.
For those people who are (were) not in any way religious, I think they figured that they would celebrate what they felt fortunate about in their own way.
Isn’t that what happens?
Those who are religious say a prayer of thanksgiving before their meal, or whenever appropriate for their doctrine.
Those folks who are not religious celebrate in the way that they see fit.
It seems like a great idea all the way around to me.

@wilma Every day is a religious day for religious people. Some religious people give thanks at every meal every day of the year. I think Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful, to pause and think about the good things in ones life, and as you said the religious people might thank God, and the non-religious don’t. But, how is that our politicans creating a religious day?

@JLeslie I don’t think that today in 2011 that they would create a national holiday with religious overtones. I don’t think that they would put “under God” in the pledge of allegiance either. “In God we trust” would probably not appear on our money if it had not been there from a past time of our history.
I believe that Thanksgiving was made a national holiday by people who conceived it as a religious holiday. That being said, things have changed. I don’t think that something like that would happen today, but I also think that the holiday can be celebrated by all people, whether they are religious or not. I don’t think that there are any laws or even customs that exclude anyone. You don’t have to pray to eat turkey, you don’t even have to eat turkey.
I think it has always included all Americans and has evolved from it’s conception to be celebrated as either a religious holiday or a day you are just recognizing whatever you are thankful for.

@cazzie That’s what I was thinking.

@wilma You probably know this already, but I thought I would point it out, the original pledge of allegiance was written in the late 1800’s I think. It did not have under God in it. Under God was added in the 1950’s as a way to demonstrate we were a God fearing country, as opposed to the awful red, atheist, communists. I vaguely remember hearing the original author of the pledge was a socialist, but I could be wrong on that point.

Yes, @JLeslie I did know that. Another example of things that have happened that probably would not happen now.
Things evolve and over time meanings and intentions change.

@wilma Do feel adding under God now makes the pledge a religious statement?

I wish that it had been left as it was written. I don’t think that adding under God was necessary , it kind of messed up the flow of the pledge.
I do think that it added a religious element and also should not have been added for that reason.

Thinks ‘the pledge’ makes Americans sound unseemingly nationalistic

When my daughter explained the pledge to my 6 year old grandson he said, “Mom, I don’t think I want to do that?”
When my daughter asked why he said “Well, I don’t know where I want to live when I grow up, and a pledge is a promise. I’m not sure I want to make that promise. ”
My daughter and grandson met with the teacher before his first day of school and she said, “That’s as good of a reason as any I’ve heard.” My grandson doesn’t say the pledge with the rest of the class.

@Judi Great mother, great kid and great teacher!

So on this premise it would mean our money is religious just because it says “In GOD We Trust”?

@blueiiznh I think that there are some people who see it that way.

Asking whether Thanksgiving is a religious holiday is like asking whether the US is a Christian nation, or maybe like asking whether Turkey is a Moslem nation. The answer is, in a sense, yes, in another sense, no.

For non-religious people who celebrate American Thanksgiving and might object to the idea of taking part in a religious holiday, I see it a bit like those above discussed. Christianity took elements from other non-Christian pagan celebrations and events and made them their own. Non-religious folks have done that with Thanksgiving and also Christmas to some degree. They have made the holiday fit their life.

@blueiiznh We can fix that.

@JLeslie, if Washington had been Jewish or Muslim, America would be a Jewish or a Muslim nation and I imagine Washington would have said the same words he said in 1789 regarding a day of Thanksgiving.

@bkcunningham Not if they had the constitution we have. A Muslim, christian, jewish etc nation is called a theocracy. This not a religious country just because there are religious people in it. Just like it’s not a white country because there are more white people in it.

@bkcunningham I completely disgaree. But then I am assuming you are saying America is a Christian nation, which I completely disagree with also. We are a country whose majority is Christian. Our founding fathers wanted religious freedom for themselves and for all. They understood government should be secular. If a Muslim or a Jew came up with our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence we would still have the same country.

If Washington had been Jewish, America would be like Isreal which is a theocratic state. If Washington had been Muslim, America would be like Saudia Arabia.

Are you saying that we wouldn’t have established a republic under any other religion? Maybe I’m not following you exactly.

@bkcunningham So you are saying that Christians are the only ones who can come up with separation of church and state and a Republic? All the atheist Jews on fluther and you think we would create a theocratic state?

@Mariah, @JLeslie asked me if Washington or Lincoln had been Jewish or Muslim would I still consider Thanksgiving still be a religious holiday. I said, “If Washington had been Jewish or Muslim, America would be a Jewish or a Muslim nation and I imagine Washington would have said the same words he said in 1789 regarding a day of Thanksgiving.”

I have no idea how you came to that conclusion @JLeslie. What does separation of church and state have to do with Thanksgiving being what you call a “religious” holiday.

@bkcunningham , America is far from Christian. Democracy is far from Christian. Heaven is a Monarchy. I think most American Christians will have a really hard time in heaven when they realize they don’t have a vote. Ever read C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce?

@Judi, yes, I have read The Great Divorce. What does democracy have to do with anything in the discussion. I’m sorry, you lost me on that one.

@bkcunningham You said If Washington had been Jewish, America would be like Isreal which is a theocratic state. If Washington had been Muslim, America would be like Saudia Arabia. I was just responding to your statement. It seemed like you were talking about America as a nation, our basic foundation of our democracy, not about Thanksgiving.

I thought the subject of our discussion was Thanksgiving being a religious holiday, @JLeslie. We are a Constitutional Republic. Not a democracy.

@bkcunningham I said we are a Republic above. Democracy is used as a shorthand to describe America as well. I realize we are not a democracy by the strict definition of Democracy, but we are a liberal democracy.

Again, you wrote If Washington had been Jewish, America would be like Isreal which is a theocratic state. If Washington had been Muslim, America would be like Saudia Arabia. Maybe you can rephrase it so I understand how that relates to Thanksgiving?

@bkcunningham , I wrote a long answer then realized that it was way off topic. Just want to say that if Thanksgiving makes someone think that we are a Christian Nation, then I think there will be a lot of surprised people beyog the purly gates.

George Washington was the first president of the United States of America, @JLeslie. I would have to assume in this imaginary scenerio that if Washington had been a Jew or a Muslim and he was elected the first president of this new nation, the nation would reflect his beliefs. For example, I don’t think a group of Muslims who had formed a nation in the same manner as our Founders would have elected a Jew as their first president. In the same respect, I don’t think a group of Jews would have elected a Muslim as the first president of their new nation. Neither did our Founding Fathers elect either a Jew or a Muslim as their first president to lead them.

Regardless of whether Washington was Jewish or Muslim or a Christian, I think his remarks would have still been appropriate after approving the resolution marking November 26, 1789, as a day of national thanksgiving.

@bkcunningham It still doesn’t mean to me that the President is declaring it a religious holiday no matter what the religion. All it means to me is the President is a religious man. If the President thanks God on July 4th, it does not make Independence Day a religious holiday. I would bet a lot of people thanked God when we finally broke free of British rule.

@bkcunningham “If Washington had been Jewish, America would be like Isreal which is a theocratic state. If Washington had been Muslim, America would be like Saudia Arabia.”

Saying the same thing twice doesn’t make it more true.

Also, if these founding fathers were so religious, why wouldn’t they just make the U.S. a theocracy? Why go through all the trouble of leaving god out of the constitution?

@bkcunningham First, I’ll point out to you yet again that the United States is most certainly a democracy. It is also a constitutional republic, but these things are not mutually exclusive. Any state in which sovereignty ultimately rests in its citizenry is a democracy. This is true of both direct democracy, in which governmental decisions are voted on by the citizenry as a whole, and representative democracy, in which the citizenry elects a subset of itself to make governmental decisions. The US is, among other things, a representative democracy. Simple definitions establish this fact.

Second, a president is not a king. He has power to lead, but not to dictate. The US Constitution existed before George Washington became president, and the nation reflects the plan laid out by that document—not by Washington. Indeed, the US Constitution specifically prevented Washington—and every president since—from making the US a Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Jainist, Wiccan, or Zoroastrian nation.

Washington was many things, but the US is not necessarily all of those things because of him. We do not all have ivory teeth, for instance, or over 300 slaves in our employ. Nor are we all Freemasons or talented dancers (even though Washington was both). Even if your argument did make any sense, though, it wouldn’t matter. For Washington was a great supporter of the separation of church and state, meaning that even he believed that the US was not a Christian nation. So if the US really were wholly determined by the opinions of its first president, you would still be wrong.

As for the actual question at hand: regardless of how it may or may not have started, Thanksgiving is at least no longer a religious holiday. Yes, it was started by religious people at a time when there was not as much concern for the distinction between the secular and the sacred; but it was never considered a canonical religious holiday in the way that Christmas or Easter would be.

Moreover, it has evolved in such a way as to keep it separate from those canonical religious holidays. As has been noted several times, religious people will still celebrate the day in a religious matter. This is to be expected, and there is nothing wrong with it. I expect that extremely religious people celebrate birthdays, graduations, and Arbor Day in a religious manner as well. Clearly, though, this does not make any of those days religious holidays.

As for who or what I can be thankful to if not God, the answers are plentiful. I am thankful to my teachers for the guidance that they show me. I am thankful to my doctor for keeping me in good health. I am thankful to my wife for her patience and good humor. I am thankful to my parents for their continued advice. I am thankful to my friends for their continued support. I have many things to be thankful for, and no shortage of targets at which to aim my gratitude regardless of whether or not God enters the picture at all.

@SavoirFaire Great answer.

@Blackberry I like this method. :)

@Blackberry, they didn’t declare America a theocracy because they didn’t want the government interferring in anyone’s religion. They already had a church and a God or a lack thereof, whatever the case may be for individuals living at that time; they were establishing a government.

@SavoirFaire, I wasn’t saying Washington would have led the country to his beliefs, I’m saying that the beliefs of the people led them to elect Washington.

Our representatives are elected by a Democratic system and are bound by oaths to obey and defend the US Constitution making the US a Constitutional Republic. We, in America, aren’t subject to the rule of the people, @SavoirFaire, we in America are subject to a Constitution and a Bill of Rights with separation of powers subject to Judicial Review which is the Rule of Law. Majority doesn’t rule in America.

Rather than the popular vote having legislative power itself, the power of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to electing representatives who govern within limits of overarching constitutional law. We’ve had this discussion before and I think we agreed to disagree.

What is your definition of a Christian nation, @anyone?

A Christian nation would be a nation, as Britain was, where there is an established church recognized and funded by the government. That religion was taught in the public schools and laws are partially based on the tenets of that religion. America is not a Christian nation; never has been and I hope never will. (Nor do I want it to be a Jewish, Muslim, Bahai’i or any other religious nation.)

@bkcunningham I’m not sure that I understand what you are asking by, Christian nation.
The United States has no declared religious affiliation, and that is as it should be. We may have more Christians than other religions or atheists represented by our numbers, but I don’t think that I would call us a “Christian nation”.
edit:
Yes, What @janbb wrote ^^^.

I’m just curious, @wilma, what people are actually saying and what they mean when they say America is or is not a Christian nation. I’m curious if everyone is on the same page when they make a statement such as that. Your response that you don’t understand what I’m asking when I asked you to define “Christian nation” is part of my reason for asking, @wilma.

@bkcunningham I see, so did I answer your question?

Yes, thank you, @wilma.

@bkcunningham I think you make a great point, we need to define ourselves by what we mean when we say Tthe US is or isn’t a Christian Nation. I agree with what @janbb said. As I said above, and in many other Q’s, I always say America is a country whose majority is Christian, but not a Christian nation. Christian nation implies to me the government is a theocracy, or that the people who use the term want our government to be a theocracy. To legislate based on Christianity. One day our majority might not be Christian and our constitution should mean that it won’t matter one bit. That is the ideal anyway. I am not Christian, so when I hear Christian nation it makes me feel the speaker is excluding me from my own country.

My curiousity is, what do you mean by stating America is a Christian Nation?

A “Christian nation” would be, imo, the situation many people were trying to escape by immigrating here so long ago. A nation with Christianity as the declared “national religion” as opposed to freedom of religion. Exactly the opposite of what our founders intended to create.

I just asked a new question about how people define Christian nation. Here it is.

@bkcunningham George Washington was unopposed both times he “ran” for office. I put “ran” in quotes because he was handpicked by the Framers, who designed the office with him in mind and convinced Washington to come out of retirement to take it. Yes, there was a popular vote taken. But there wasn’t really a choice. Hamilton even took steps to ensure that certain members of the Electoral College would not vote for Adams. The people whose values decided who would be the first President of the United States of America were the Framers—many of whom were deists (whether or not Washington was a deist or a traditional Christian is a matter of some historical debate).

Returning to the status of the United States as a democracy, then, the people are indeed sovereign in the US. You seem unable to think of democracy as anything other than the Athenian form thereof. This is rather like thinking that nothing but pumpernickel counts as bread. Strict majority rule via direct vote is not the only form of democracy. One alternative is representative democracy, such as we find in the United States and its elected officials.

The fact that citizens of the US are bound by the US Constitution also doesn’t undermine the nation’s claim to being a democracy. Since this is the internet, allow me to quote Wikipedia:

The United States is the world’s oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, “in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law.”

You’ll notice how this coheres with the point I have made to you previously—both here and on other questions—that more than one classification can apply to a single government. Such is the case with the United States. Among those classifications is democracy (specifically, representative democracy). Moreover, it is worth remembering that anything can be overturned by an overwhelming effort of the voting citizenry in the US. Even the Bill of Rights can be repealed if the people overwhelming elect people who will pass new amendments annulling the original ten. This is unlikely to happen, but it is within the power of the people to bring it about.

And no, I have never agreed to disagree about this. It’s a simple matter of definitions and historical literacy.

As for “Christian nation,” it generally is used by politicians to mean a nation with laws that give special status to the tenets of Christianity in one way or another. One way this could be achieved is by adopting Christianity as an official religion. Alternatively, it could be achieved by using the Bible as an unofficial guide to lawmaking. Neither is supposed to be the case in the US, nor is Christianity (or any other religion) supposed to receive special status in any other way.

Now, it is entirely possible for people to use the term differently. It would be rather misleading, however, to use it as a term for “a nation with a majority population of Christians.” This is especially true given the term’s current usage in American politics. Thus I would take it that the term should be understood as implicitly meaning what it is generally used to mean unless explicitly stated to mean something else on a particular occasion.

@SavoirFaire Thing is, the Christians (some Christians) use a lot of words differently. Cult is defined in a way that does not exist in the dictionary. Submissive they say is synonomous with respect, also not how it is defined in the dictionary. They have a whole language that unfortunately uses standard English words, just change the meanings.

@JLeslie who is “they”? Some Christians? all Christians? I think the same could be said about many groups. They change the meaning of words and phrases.
How do you think of the term Christian nation, and do you still feel that Thanksgiving was created as a totally secular holiday? I mean at the time it was created, not how it might be viewed now.

this argument is all semantics now. As for me, I’m anti-semantic.

Yes, I agree.

@wilma I said some Christians, I never mean all ever about any group. I agree many groups change the meanings of words. But, these words are being used in politics, in the media, by people who are supposed to be learned men and women. It’s a little odd to me. When a rapper or a teenager uses slang or words outside of their dictionary definitions I chalk it up to them using what they hear around them in their community, and possibly not knowing it is not going to communicate well with us old people. But, when a 50 year old college educated politician uses these words I find it baffling. I realize they are communicating with their base, they are understood within their community, but the rest of us don’t know their intent.

Yes, I feel Thanksgiving was created as a totally secular holiday. I don’t think giving thanks to God makes a holiday religious. As I said above, we can thank God for our independence from Great Britain, it doesn’t make July 4th a religious holiday. I don’t see how an American President, congress, or any politicans can create a religious holiday. Unless they are the Pope (or some other religious leader) also. Do you think the President of Germany or Prime Minister of England can declare or create a religious holiday not declared by a religion? Wouldn’t you find that odd?

Sure people can celebrate Thanksgiving in a religious way, I have no problem with that.

Christmas is a federally recognized holiday. But I’m sure many of you will argue that it isn’t religious.

@bkcunningham Christmas is of course religious. The US government did not create Christmas, the Christians did. We can argue technically it should not be a federal holiday, since it is religious, but since our country has a large majority of citizens who are Christian, I don’t have a problem with it.

I’m going Christmas shopping, at Disney World of all places, and I don’t have time to reply fully. I just put that in the conversation, @JLeslie, because of responses saying the government cannot make a religious holiday.

@JLeslie I do think that the President of Germany or Prime Minister of England could try to create a religious holiday. I don’t know if they could succeed in this time, but I wouldn’t find it odd for them to try it.

@bkcunningham First, and most important, be sure to go on Soarin’ at Epcot, my favorite ride. Hold on at the beginning of the ride.

The US did not create Christmas, it just recognizes the day as a day most people in the US celebrate, and gives federal employees the day off.

@wilma I don’t see how. Or, do you mean what @bkcunningham is saying about Christmas, that the German President could declare a national holiday regarding an established religious day, a day already sanctioned by a religion.

@wilma @bkcunningham think about it like this, Easter is not a federal holiday, because it is a Sunday, federal employees don’t typically work Sunday. From what I understand Easter is the holiest day of the year for Christians.

I have been Soaring about four times, @JLeslie! It is one of my favorite rides at EPCOT. It has become one of the “must do” things with guests since we moved fulltime to Florida. Like watching the sunset on the west coast beaches. You can’t go home without that memory.

EDIT: Oh, and the EPCOT light show which is my favorite of all the parks!

Federal holidays have to do with the federal work schedule.

@JLeslie I understand about how Christmas is a recognized federal holiday. It makes sense as many people would want the day off.
I think perhaps we just see things differently. I think that Thanksgiving has religious roots and overtones, and it was made a federal holiday. I think in the time it was created that was apparently an acceptable thing to do. You don’t interpret it that way.
Like @cazzie said, I guess it’s just semantics now.

@wilma Ok. We can chalk it up to semantics or just agree to disagree. But, I get the distinct feeling there has been recent talk about this in the Christian community. I never heard this argument before about Thanksgiving.

@JLeslie I don’t quite understand your response. I recognize that different groups use different words in different ways, but my explanation of how I would understand “Christian nation” is not about dictionary definitions. It is about usage. I am talking about how politicians—Christian politicians—use the term.

If, on the other hand, you were talking my response to @bkcunningham regarding the word “democracy,” then I would suggest if even that word has been redefined into something entirely bizarre, that’s a redefinition too far. There is a point at which we are no longer speaking English, and that would be one instance of going past that point. Such a usage should not be employed here because this is an English-language website and non-English responses are removed.

@bkcunningham Christmas is a religious holiday. It is central to the Christian faith, unlike Thanksgiving. It is recognized by the federal government as also being a public holiday because it is simply not feasible to keep non-essential federal agencies open on a day that virtually every employee will try to take off. But again, there’s no incompatibility with being both a religious and a public holiday. I’m not sure why you’re having such a hard time understanding that one thing can fit more than one definition. A square is a square, but it is also a rectangle, a parallelogram, and a quadrilateral.

I just rememebered, which I think is kind of interesting, I have seen writings of it being discussed for observant Jews, who are, from what I understand, permitted to celebrate Thanksgiving as it is deemed by the Rabbi’s not a gentile holiday, but an American one. They are not allowed to add it to the a Jewish calendar as an obligation, but are free to eat turkey and partake in the holiday. At least that is how I understood it.

@SavoirFaire I agree with your point about usage. Let’s take the word cult. Fairly recently it came up in the Perry campaign. Some Christians describe the Mormon religion as a cult, because Mormons claim to be Christians, but aren’t (in the opinion of those Christians calling it a cult). They admit mainstream Mormonism does not have cultlike qualities, like keeping the followers from participating in normal every day life, or separating them from their families. They state Jews and Muslims could never be a cult, because they do not claim to be Christians. Most people do not define a cult by what religion they claim to be, but by their actions. When Christians use cult in that way, a bunch of us out here think they are ridiculous, but the truth is they are defining the term differently. Same with submissive, it is not common usage in the greater population of the US to use submissive as an equivalent for respect in my opinion. Otherwise we would hear about men being submissive too I think. I am not saying I don’t believe the Christians who use the terms in that way are lying about how they use the words; I believe their definition and their intent, once I understand what they mean.

I think common usage trumps dictionary, when the usage is very common. The dictionary sometimes lags behind. Semetic meant Arabs and Jews back in the day, now antisemetic is used basically to mean against Jewish people, few people are thinking anti-Arab when the term antisemetic is used.

Same with the way Americans use the words Asian people. We think parts of the Orient, when Asia really is a continent that includes India and parts of Russia to nake a few countries not included when Americans say Asians.

@SavoirFaire See this Q about religious cults, most of the jellies are confused by the OP’s definition.