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Thanksgiving’s a holiday atheists can believe in
Kristen Moulton, Salt Lake Tribune
November 24, 2010
5 MIN READ TIME

Thanksgiving’s a holiday atheists can believe in

Thanksgiving’s a holiday atheists can believe in
Kristen Moulton, Salt Lake Tribune
November 24, 2010

SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) — Ken

Guthrie and his partner will be at his aunt’s house for Thanksgiving, sharing a

table with his grandmother, siblings and cousins — a veritable holiday crowd.

But when it comes time to

express thanks, Guthrie, a board member of Salt Lake City Pagan Pride, will not

be speaking to the Christian God his relatives might address.

“I’m thanking, first, the

universe for allowing me to be alive. I’m thanking my family for being with me,

and I give thanks to the turkey that gave its life, the plants on our table, to

the Earth itself for being abundant.”

As Thomas Goldsmith, pastor

of this city’s First Unitarian Church, put it: Thanksgiving is one holiday on

which everyone — pagans and theists, atheists and agnostics — can gather around

the theme of gratitude.

“There doesn’t need to be a

theistic object of one’s prayer,” Goldsmith said. “We can be profoundly

grateful without packaging it and sending a message to God.”

Harvest festivals have been

part of human cultures for ages, but Thanksgiving’s roots date to the 1621

feast shared by the Pilgrims — religious separatists from England — and

Wampanoag Indians at Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts.

More than 200 years later,

President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation that set the precedent for

America’s Thanksgiving Day. Acting partly on a decades-long campaign by

prominent magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale, Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation was

explicitly religious.

It refers to the “watchful

providence of Almighty God” and “gracious gifts of the Most High God.”

Lincoln designated the last

Thursday in November as a day of thanksgiving, but it wasn’t declared an

official national holiday until Congress acted in 1941.

RNS photo courtesy Library of Congress

Pilgrims share the first Thanksgiving with native Indians in Plymouth Colony in 1621.

Although the Mayflower

Pilgrims had the Almighty in mind when they gathered for that first

Thanksgiving, for some Americans, the holiday is now more about family,

feasting and gratitude.

That may explain why it’s a

favorite holiday for many who don’t believe in God or traditional mainstream

religions’ notions of deity. Florien Wineriter, a retired Salt Lake City radio

broadcaster and an agnostic, considers Thanksgiving a “great holiday.”

“It brings family and

friends together,” says Wineriter, 85. “It’s a secular holiday for thankfulness

of the opportunity of living in this great country and the people who have made

it possible for the past 200 years.”

A widower, he will be at his

daughter’s on Thanksgiving, enjoying turkey, the trimmings and “even a few

libations.”

Grant Larimer, a member of

Atheists of Utah, likes that Thanksgiving is more relaxed, with less religion

than Christmas.

“Any contention you have on

Thanksgiving,” he says, “has nothing to do with religion.”

Larimer will join an old

high-school buddy at the friend’s mother’s home for dinner, and he will bow his

head if the group prays.

“I don’t fall into that

angry atheist crowd,” he says. “I’m going to respect other people’s beliefs …

and would hope others would respect my right to believe in what I believe in.”

Elaine Ball, a co-founder of

the group Secular Humanism, Inquiry and Freethought at the University of Utah,

says Thanksgiving is “more of a time for family than gratitude toward a god.”

This year, she and several

friends will pitch in to buy a free-range turkey, because ethically raised

animals and plants, she said, replenish the Earth, and gratitude to an abundant

Earth leads her toward greater charity.

“Having so much food, and so

much good food, makes me think of those people who don’t,” she said.

Goldsmith, at First

Unitarian, says that charitable impulse is one reason the holiday is his

favorite.

“Thanksgiving is not just a

one-way street, but a responsibility to take gratitude to the next level, which

is generosity.”

Patrick Orlob, founder of

the social-networking group Salt City Skeptics, said that although Thanksgiving

may have religious roots, it’s an adaptable holiday.

“It’s more about what you

put into it,” he says. “It’s about being with the people you care about.”

It’s good to consider the abundance

in one’s life, he added, especially compared with many others in the world.

“I don’t think you

necessarily have to be thankful to something like a god,” says Orlob, who will

share a small Thanksgiving meal with riends.

Guthrie says Thanksgiving is

one of his favorite holidays, partly because it’s a fusion of Christianity and

Native American traditions, infused with echoes of pagan harvest feasts in

Europe.

“I see it as a festival that a lot of people can

get behind,” Guthrie says. “It’s a piece of Americana. It’s one day to

celebrate hard work.”