Why do people think that thanksgiving is a Christian holiday?

Question

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgGOa_1qEGsGowbxpZh7kiDty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071104193154AAyuBMw

LOL. Correct if I'm wrong but Natives where not Christian and it was a celebration of the fact that oh I don't know they saved the pilgrims butts.

Schneb it was celebrated before hand by pilgrims as it is thanksgiving. THANKING the Natives.

Worship heart by tradition that is what it was celebrated for not because of goerge washington and abraham lincoln.

Answer 1

"Oh THANK YOU for saving our lives! Now... *takes three minutes to load gun, aims* Your land, please."

Answer 2

Actually thanksgiving goes back a lot longer than the Pilgrims in Massachusetts. Many ancient people had a harvest festival where they expressed thanks for food for the coming winter. The Jews had the Festival of the Booths (Sukkot) which is a joyful celebration of thanksgiving. The English had a custom of harvest festival which the Pilgrims undoubtedly adopted. So neither the Christians in Plymouth nor the Indians invented the holiday. But God in the Bible does command us to be thankful, so it's natural for Christians to gravitate to this holiday.

Answer 3

I didn't know that people think Thanksgiving is a Christian holiday. If they do, they probably are ignorant of the full story. They may think it's because the Pilgrims were Christian, but everyone has things to be grateful for, even non-believers.

Answer 4

Pilgrim Edward Winslow described the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving in these words:


"Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling [bird hunting] so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as... served the company almost a week... Many of the Indians [came] amongst us and... their greatest King, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought... And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet BY THE GOODNESS OF GOD WE ARE... FAR FROM WANT."


In 1789, following a proclamation issued by President George Washington, America celebrated its first Day of Thanksgiving to God under its new constitution. That same year, the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would become its regular day for giving thanks, "unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities." Yet, despite these early national proclamations, official Thanksgiving observances usually occurred only at the State level.

Lincoln's original 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation came - spiritually speaking - at a pivotal point in his life. During the first week of July of that year, the Battle of Gettysburg occurred, resulting in the loss of some 60,000 American lives. Four months later in November, Lincoln delivered his famous "Gettsysburg Address." It was while Lincoln was walking among the thousands of graves there at Gettysburg that he committed his life to Christ. As he explained to a friend:

When I left Springfield [to assume the Presidency] I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving each year, we hope they will retain the original gratefulness to God displayed by the Pilgrims and many other founding fathers , and remember that it is to those early and courageous Pilgrims that they owe not only the traditional Thanksgiving holiday but also the concepts of self-government, the "hard-work" ethic, self-reliant communities, and devout religious faith.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-wall/wal-alincoln-tgiving.html

Answer 5

I thought that the origin of Thanksgiving was that the Natives threw a big "Bon Voyage" party, in hopes that the white folk would get the message and go home....

Answer 6

I don't understand why people think it is a Christian holiday. Maybe because the religious institutions are used to taking various celebrations and making them their own. Christmas for example? Easter?

These institutions have succeeded in stealing other holidays and claiming them to be Christian so I guess they figure they can do it with Thanksgiving too. The bad part for them is, we have all been taught about that in our U.S. history classes so a lot of us are on to them.

Answer 7

Many of these answers are from people with crappy liberal education that is afraid to offend people on the concept of God. I'll sum it up with few words not to confuse the confused.

Puritans. Chrstian. Left spiritual oppression. Many die in journey. New land. Cold winter. No experience. Many more die from disease. Pray. Thank God for saving those who are left. Thanksgiving. Giving thanks to God.
Put down the weed and let that soak in for a minute and you will feel better.

God bless

Answer 8

Pilgrims gave thanks to God by the first thanksgiving and invited the natives who had indeed helped save their 'tushies' and of course they would have explained to the natives who believe in the Great Spirit that Lord God Almighty was the Great Spirit!!

Answer 9

Thankfully, I've not known anyone who actually thinks that Thanksgiving is a Christian holiday.

That being said, the reason some people might think that it is a christian holiday is because they are ignorant of history, and often people who are ignorant of history create versions of it in their heads that are friendly to their own viewpoints.

That's about the best explanation I've got!

Answer 10

Most people, including Christians, do not see Thanksgiving as a religious holiday. If you want to make it a holiday of giving thanks to God/dess, you can, but I don't think most people think of it as "religious" only (or at all); everybody has things to be thankful for, whether they are religious or not.

The person who asked the question at your link is not very bright. That is my answer.

Answer 11

People think Thanksgiving is a christian holiday because the are just plain old dumbasses who choose to remain ignorant by assuming things instead of actually knowing or learning the truth.