A recent AHA article is titled, Thanksgiving Non-prayers for Humanists.  This just begs the question, “To whom do we give thanks on Thanksgiving?” The article is actually about what a secularist could say if asked to give a “prayer” before the meal at a Thanksgiving gathering. There are two related questions over on Quora on this topic, the one is more about what to do if asked to lead the prayer and the second about the etiquette of being a non-prayer at a meal with prayers. In reading the responses, I was surprised by the number of post-theists who went along with the praying.  Now, I am not suggesting that this is the most appropriate time for a theist/deist/secular debate.  It isn’t. And yes it is the appropriate thing to do to honor your hosts beliefs and preferences. But I was surprised at the number of people who bowed their heads, closed their eyes and pretended to go along.  (The best reason I read was so that your hosts couldn’t see you rolling your eyes…) Is this an indication of how uncomfortable we are as a minority in mainstream America? IMHO, holding my tongue is respect enough.  After all, my beliefs are being ignored and etiquette and good manners are supposed to go both ways.  And as one poster pointed out, keeping my eyes open allows me to see the other post-theists in the room. Which brings us back to the original topic, to whom do we give thanks? I give thanks to all the hard working people, including the hosts who made the meal possible. We always think of the farmers and the people who raise turkeys (farmers? ranchers? herders? hmmm…). But there are also the people in the markets and transportation and don’t forget those maintaining quality and the researchers and technologist who made modern food production possible. Without them, 90% of us would still be on the farm. (What ever else you might say about modern food production, way fewer of us live on farms or die of food borne disease…) And a shout out to those less fortunate than us is always appropriate. We can also give thanks to our own good fortune by recognizing the efforts of our predecessors, if for nothing else, being gutsy enough to get on a boat headed for the “New World”. So, to whom to humanists give thanks? Humans of course!