Should God Be Edited Out Of History?

Image by sroemerm via FlickrI was reading an opinion column by Nolan Finley in the Detroit News about whether editing God out of history distorts truth. I am not convinced that editing out God necessarily distorts the truth unless the event was specifically centered around God. 

Nolan uses the example of the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving to make his point. Specifically, he asks, "Ask any grade school kid who the Pilgrims were giving thanks to on the first Thanksgiving and I'll lay you three-to-one odds that the answer you get is, "the Indians."" While this is only partially true, I am not sure it really distorts the meaning or historical relevancy of Thanksgiving. 

I asked my daughter how she understood Thanksgiving and she said it is for giving thanks to the Indians and God for the bountiful harvest. I would accept my daughter's answer as historically correct. Note that my daughter is now a junior in high school and hasn't studied the Pilgrims since 2nd or 3rd grade.

Personally, I do not think God should be edited out of history in any way. Even though God does not likely exist, God has played direct and indirect roles throughout history. To remove God would potentially doom us to repeat the same mistakes as those who have used God to make history.

However, what I do have an issue with is teaching the glory of God or that our country and our world history were shaped by God. Our history was shaped by people who believed they were doing God's work not people chosen by God.
 
Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

Related articles

• Did pilgrims celebrate every year for thanksgiving (wiki.answers.com)
• Thanksgiving Without God (friendlyatheist.com)

So You Want A Revolution

Image via Wikipedia

While looking through my Twitter feed I found a Tweet from @wiseguyeddie about, "15 Reasons Why We Need a Revolt in This Country." While I may be a bit of anarchist, I am not sure what we need is a revolution. However, this post has an interesting quote in it.

"The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution."

Based on the statement above we probably should be revolting. In fact, in many ways I think we are in a revolution and not just as atheists. There is not many segments of society that is not partially or completely disillusioned with government.

If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention. However, be careful what you wish for, sometimes the new boss is the same as the old boss.