c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Given the recent wild popularity of books touting the benefits of atheism, one might wonder if we’re about to be overrun with an overpopulation of turkeys.

Say what?

According to Gallup surveys, one out of every eight Americans either plan a non-traditional Thanksgiving or do not observe the holiday at all. No turkey, no giving thanks, no Pilgrims.

Who are these people? According to the polls, they’re atheists, people with no religious preference or people who never attend worship services. Polls show that non-believers are more than twice as likely to skip the traditional Thanksgiving observance compared to those with stronger ties to religion and religious communities.

More than a century ago, poet and painter Dante Rossetti said “the worst moment in the life of an atheist is when he or she feels thankful and has no one to thank.” On the other hand, gratitude and thanks-giving are concepts that are very much at home in religious discourse.

But is it true that atheists have no one to thank? The rejection of God need not mean the rejection of Thanksgiving, and the attitude that fuels it all: gratitude.

Although there may be no atheists in foxholes, clearly there can be atheists at Thanksgiving. Surely, nonbelievers can use their annual Thanksgiving dinner as a brief occasion to pause and remember to be thankful for family, friends and food.

Perhaps they may have to work a little harder at being thankful. Scientists studying the cognitive basis of religious belief and non-belief contend that atheism does not come naturally, but rather flourishes under certain environmental circumstances: urbanization, post-modernism, and technologies that sever the link between moral behavior and material consequences.

Conversely, according to this perspective, belief comes naturally. We are born to believe. From early in life, the tendency to see the world as purposefully designed and to detect signs of supernatural agency appears to be built into our psychological architecture. It takes extraordinary means (e.g. communist regimes) to strip people of this natural tendency to believe in God.

If these scientists are correct, then it is easy to understand why people would believe that the good things in life were intentionally given to them for their benefit. Our mental tools support such an inferential process. It would be far more unnatural to see these blessings as randomly occurring, or attribute them to luck or fate, or solely to human intervention.

Gratitude, then, is a nearly inevitable outcome of how our minds work. When our blessings cannot be attributed to human benevolence, attribution to God’s goodness become all the more likely. People are more likely to sense a divine hand in cherished experiences that cannot easily be attributed to human effort _ the birth of a child, a miraculous recovery from illness, healed relationships _ for which gratitude to God is an apt response.

The culture wars between atheists and believers show no signs of cooling down. Atheists are offended when believers give credit to God for good fortune in their lives; believers assume atheists are miserable and lonely because they have no one to thank.

Perhaps each side can pause gratefully this Thanksgiving to give thanks, each in their own way. Gratitude is one of the building blocks of civil and humane society, and surely civility and humanity are gifts we can give each other this holiday season.

(Robert A. Emmons is professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and author of the recent book “Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier.”)

A photo of Robert A. Emmons is available via https://religionnews.com.

KRE/PH END EMMONS