Happy Thanksgiving to you.

I was just recently having a discussion about bird slaughter & prep with an elderly ex-farm girl. I'd wanted to know how the feathers were removed. She thought it was kinda cool because too many people are too squeamish to be interested nowadays.

Me, I thought it was alright. There's a coupla haute cuisine recipes you really can't do unless you've got a whole bird.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Fascinating post and thread here in Dean's World on Christianity.

I wrote this:

I suppose I'd better say something about me in relation to my own family background, which is somewhat the reverse of Dean's. It looks like Dean grew up in a heavily Christian (both Protestant and Catholic) milieu but then had too many doubts about the theology and decided he was an atheist -- but a liberal atheist, not the Michael Newdow kind.

I grew up in a more or less atheistic milieu. My father's side of the family were heavily Protestant up till, it seems, my grandparents' generation, who turned atheist or "agnostic". My sense is that, at that time, "atheist" carried such negative connotations that "agnostic", "humanist", or "freethinker" were much prefereed, much more in use than they are today. Today, many more people call themselves atheists, including people who are actually agnostics.

Our Mama's family were Catholic, but she didn't like the dogmas and so she, similarly, became "agnostic". Her brother and sisters remained Catholic. I often went to Mass with my aunt Jewel when I visited her. She has lots of Catholic books, including by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

Shortly after moving to Monmouth, our parents joined the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, which is about as non-religious a "church" as you'll find, having no doctrines whatever except political liberalism. As remote from Catholicism as could well be. The Sunday school we went to was little more than a sort of pre-kindergarten, though we got a smattering of stories about Jesus, Moses, etc., but I was too young and dumb then to make sense out of any of it. Around 3rd grade, L. Frank Baum's Oz books became my sole interest, my religion.

My first real taste of religion in any other sense was at the end of 4th grade. I was in the library and I ran across a book entitled Stories From Old Egypt. I was intrigued with unique style of Egyptian art, the like of which I had never seen before. I was enraptured by the myth of Osiris and Isis, which, ever since then, has been my primordial holy myth, my holy dogma.

I soon began exploring other mythologies, Sumerian, Norse, Hindu, Aztec, Hawaiian, etc.. Not too long after that, reading a book on symbolism, I discovered with the Christian dogma of the Trinity. I also discovered Zoroastrianism. I soon became interested in abstract philosophy, including political philosophy, which I think was my downfall, as I became a socialist in junior high school, not a Communist but soft on Communism. Later, in high school, I discovered Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler, and then Ayn Rand and other Rightist thinkers, and broke with socialism and Communism. My theology for a long time after that was Polytheistic, but tended to be more along the lines of Zoroastrian-style dualism*. Finally, in the late 1980s, I returned to full Polytheism*.

During all that time, I continued to learn more and more about Christianity from C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Robert Farrar Capon, Jack T. Chick, the Baltimore Catechism, various radio preachers, etc., etc.. At this point, I am working out a synthesis or modus vivendi between Catholicism and my own basically Egyptian-style Polytheism. The holy myth of Osiris and Isis continues to be my Ur-Myth, if you will. I see many parallels between that dogma and the Catholic dogmas of Christ and the Virgin.

(*I have since concluded that the Devil, Satan, Ahriman, Apap, the Enemy, the Father of Lies and of the Communist Conspiracy, may not be a cosmic being, but instead may be confined to this planet, as some Christian theologians have argued, "the Prince of the Air", "The God of this World", as the Bible calls him. Outside is Heaven, the realm of the Divine, uncorrupted.)

My brother, who is a lot smarter than I am, has, like my parents, been "agnostic" but has recently come out as an atheist. My Mama seems to have returned to Christianity.

I'm thankful for my wonderful brother who is going to pick me up at 2:30 for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at his house with my wonderful Mama.

I'm thankful that I was born in the freest country in the world, the United States of America. I'm thankful to each and all of our brave men and women who are fighting to keep us free, and to all those who have fought in every one of our past Wars. I'm thankful for the Western high culture of which America is integrally a part.

I'm thankful for good blogs like Eric Scheie's Classical Values, the Queen of All Evil, and Dean's World, and all the fascinating commenters here.

I admire Dean
For marrying the Queen.

I admire the Queen
For marrying Dean.

I'm thankful for all my colored things, my books, my computer, my food, my clothes, etc., etc..

I'm thankful for this planet Earth, for our Moon, for this solar system, and for all the planets, stars, and galaxies in this infinite universe.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

May you all have a lovely and blessed Thanksgiving!

A snood? Ultimately, I've never been inclined to know the features of the beast I do not intend to dine upon or those that cannot do me much harm.

No stuffing?

I'd shoot myself.

Incidentally, a "carnicle" is also the name for a small creature that attaches itself to automobiles in coastal regions.

I'm thankful to all of you for coming and commenting!

The ham was good. Along with quinoa, kale, pumpkin muffins and mulled wine, I didn't miss the stuffing too much, but it's just as well it wasn't in front of me!

'Twas a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family.

All the turkey news you wanted to know but were afraid to aex huh.