Happy Thanksgiving: what this day and is not about.

Happy Thanksgiving. Today is a day to have fun with your family & to talk with them.

When I was a kid we went to granny's house and had turkey. Now as an adult I go to a sister's house and later to a cousin's of my wife.

Never was this day about apologizing for the sins of people who may or may not have been my ancestors, or who may or may not have shared the same skin color as myself.

Here's some links that came to mind as I read some other blog posts today:

What did the Romans ever do for us? Here's a related sketch from the film Life of Brian by Monty Python:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSELOCMmw4A
The noble savage myth:
http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/documents/pinker00.pdf

The myth that ancient people of all stripes were less violent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk
and http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_blank_slate.html

The bottom line is this: children are not responsible for the sins of their parents or ancestors, and we need not apologize for the misdeeds of others.

There can be shame based religion, and also apparently shame based culture in general.
https://www.google.com/search?q=shame+based+religion
and https://www.google.com/#hl=en&cp=19&gs_id=9&xhr=t&q=shame+based+culture

The right wing has shame based religion.

The left wing has shame based politics and culture.

Can't we just move beyond shame based culture/religion and having any concept of original sin or having to apologizing for the "sins" of other people who aren't us?

Everyone is a bit racist, as per Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08EYqwyns-k

The tribalistic ethos that teaches children to hate & resent others because of misdeeds done in the past sets up fertile ground for an endless cycle of revenge. Which culture in America does this? Is it politically incorrect to say? Maybe the government should provide free health care, free land, and job assistance to groups who were oppressed in the past, but that doesn't mean I personally have any personal responsibility whatsoever for what other people may have done - people who aren't me.

Thank goodness that the in-group morality of humanity is expanding. This is happening because of things like the Internet, TV. film, and ease of travel. All human groups are capable of genocide and of expressing out-group morality. What's most important is to simple be conscious of how human nature works.

You are a native to the country you were born in. All people in the U.S. are the children of immigrants. And given the chance. all groups of humans would screw over the Earth if they were unenlightened. What man who clubbed the last Dodo and what was his tribe & culture?

Keeping cultures in the dark because they are just "so cute" with their little cute beliefs isn't right. The detached defacto atheist academic who views the demon-haunted beliefs of others as "cute" and "worth preserving in totality & isolation" - they are helping to keep their fellow humans in the dark. Maybe having everyone buy into greedy cutthroat social-darwinist (spencerist) capitalism would not be so good. But all children should have the benefit of a proper education which includes science, art, history, math, comparative religion, and so on.

So today I won't be apologizing to anyone but my wife, and even in that case she's pretty easy going. Today is a day to have fun with your family - nothing more.