Thanks to Whom?

Ah, Thanksgiving.  Our officially recognized day to celebrate gluttony in a land full of obesity.  Go figure.

But it is also a day we are to stop and give thanks for what we have.  But this year I wonder to whom I should give such thanks?  I have always given thanks to God for my many blessings, until it occurs to me that so many others were denied these blessings.  Why is that?

I was born a white male, speaking English, in the USA, to two educated parents.  I never worried about having food to eat or clothes to wear.  I was provided a great education.  There were no doors closed to me based on my birth characteristics.  For the most part, it appears I was born to be a conservative Republican.

But my circumstances are so rare.  Billions are born into poverty with no food, terrible shelter, one set of clothes, no clean water, no chance of escape from their circumstance because they are in a poverty zone, or a class system zone, or a racial discrimination zone.  How do I explain the millions who were born as I was born to the billions who were not?

Should I simply be grateful for the laws of chance, for the random event that determined that I was very, very lucky?  Should I thank God?  Then I must ask if God loves us all, why does He apparently punish most of us at birth?  Is this part of His plan?  If so, why such a cruel plan?  I could build a better case for a God who hates us and wants to punish us and make us miserable and sick than I can build a case for a loving, forgiving, personal God.  The data is pretty clear.

Most amazing to me is that God tolerates those who are born into such wealth who take the stand that they somehow deserve their wealth and comfort and are justified in politically defending such wealth.  Conservatives fight to end entitlements for the poor and needy.  And that is in this country.  Talk about spending some of our wealth elsewhere on the globe to help the starving and the sick and conservatives will rise up and quash any such humanitarian notion.  If there is a God and a devil it has always appeared to me that conservatives do the devil’s work while liberals attempt to do God’s work. 

Shall I be grateful to a god who designed us to live on a planet where only 15% is habitable by humans?  Why would a loving creator place his creation in such a place?  Shall I be grateful to a god who seems to reward the attributes of birth rather than the attributes of performance?  Shall I be grateful to a god that provides our nation with enough food that we can all grow fat while allowing about 20,000 children to die of starvation each and every day?  Shall I be grateful to a god who allows random chance to secure our fate?  If so, what is the purpose of prayer and worship?

Nope, this year for Thanksgiving I shall simply be grateful for the random chance that placed me where I am.  If God did this for me I must assume he did the opposite for all the other miserable, starving, sick, homeless people on the planet.  If that is true, then God is considerably meaner to humans than he is wonderful.  I could not worship such a god.