Today I would like to share with you the text of Abraham’s Lincoln Thanksgiving Day proclamation, given in 1863 in the middle of the Civil War. Presidents as far back as John Adams have proclaimed public days of thanksgiving to God–which should surprise those of us who have believed the myth that our Founding Fathers intended to keep all public references to God out of their politics, but that’s not necessarily the point.

This speech was given during the most trying time of our country, the Civil War. On the surface, it would appear that there wasn’t a lot to be thankful for. And yet, this is the proclamation that made the day into a national holiday, and it reminds us of what we are giving thanks for, and to whom we are giving thanks.

Watch this (link below the fold), then ask yourself, what are you going to do about it? Mike Daisy thinks he’s found the answer. Upgrade your products less frequently until Apple makes Foxconn change its worker practices.

Question for the audience; How many successful human rights campaigns have been waged on the premise of just taking advantage of the products of human abuse only ‘less frequently’?

Big. Fat. Zero.

Mike Daisy is an actor, not an activist. His primary interest isn’t in human rights. It’s for his play. In a year he’ll be on to the next one. But I’m okay with that. Here’s why.

A friend pointed me to this article, thinking it was funny. He’ s an atheist, outspoken and proud of it.

The article comes from a faux Christian news and opinion site, and it’s about signs a woman might be able to tell her husband is gay.

You should look over it now. I’ll wait.

Back? Okay. What do you think? My friend spotted the obvious satire, for which I’m glad. Any Christian would too, because the site so obviously does not reflect their values or their thought processes.

But look at the comments.

It’s no secret that I like to mix it up in the political and religious arenas arguing for my point of view. Like football may be to you, debating is the irresistible sport that I also happen to have a love/hate relationship with. I want to challenge myself. I want to learn new things. I want to get out there and do my team proud. I feel bad when they lose. I love it when they win. I love it even more when I make the winning touchdown. I boo the refs (who are sometimes self-appointed in my sport) when they make a bad call. I guess you could say that like a lot of sports fans, I get so into my team that I think it needs to prevail in order to feel good about myself. What is my team? I think it’s Truth. Its mascot is Bobblehead Jesus.

Whoa there. I think some of you may be thinking, “You can’t think you’ve got the truth. That’s not fair to other points of view!”

I can only shrug my shoulders and say that everybody thinks they’re telling the truth. Even people who think it’s right to not admit they think they’re telling the truth for fear of offending somebody.

So why not just be honest about it and be up front about that fact? That’s the route I’ve chosen to go.

Problem is… I also want people to like me.

Why does each human being have to rediscover the human condition for himself? The things about us that make us tick? Why are we here? What is our purpose? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

Why can’t we just be told the answer? It’s something I’ve thought about off and on over the last year.

Several weeks ago, Andrew, a good friend of mine, posted an update on Facebook in which he enthusiastically explained some theological insight he thought he had come across about the Christmas Star…

Yup. My first day was today, manning a new store for Computer Depot all by myself. So I haven’t really “managed” anybody yet, but they trust me enough to leave me alone. I’ve known about the promotion since the middle of June about 2 weeks after I was hired (If that’s not a record, I don’t know what is), and haven’t been able to say anything about it because the boss didn’t want me to. But now that the store is open, and I’m in the position, I can say something now.

Everyone who’s been paying attention to the news for the past week knows that federal judge Vaughn Walker overturned the California state constitutional amendment known as Proposition 8 which stated that within that state, marriage would be defined between a man and a woman.

What some of you guys may not realize is that I think the judge is wrong. And I think I have good reasons to think so. But I’m not going to go into them here. If you want to know a little bit about that, I suggest watching the Youtube video I’ve linked below, which starts about 10-11 minutes in. For the purposes of this post, I just want to point out something I realized this week while talking with various people about what happened.