Cyprus-Forum.com

[Filitsa]

Thanksgiving for one, Filitsa, what other culture or tradition that you know of celebrates a day of thanks, it originated here in the usa...i think canada has it also..... i dont know if you can call it custom or tradition, but Teamwork is purely an American concept......Getting back to the Pilgrims and thanksgiving, what did they teach you in elementary school abut the pilgrims "....that they came to the new world to escape persecution for their religious beliefs" transfer that concept to the American tradition of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, The Bill of Rights. the American constitution. That should help anyone understand what an American tradition is. Self reliance, the American being in the middle of a homestead in Kansas two hundred years ago with noone around to ask for help......when your plowing your wheat. Dont these concepts ring a bell they should. from these concepts a nation develops their traditions and customs. The Cowboy,Billy the Kid, The Corporate raiders on Wall Street. Womens rights, Civil Rights, another concept that has led the social culture here in the usa to develop traditions and customs. Martin Luther King Day, what other custom from another country do you know of where one celebrates the revolutionary spirit of a leader of a minority group....to win rights for his people.

Do you think Cyprus is anywhere close to having a Rauf Denktas day!!!! or England having a Mahatma Gandhi day!!!


Let me ask you a question What Greek tradition or custom is not related to the Orthodox Christian religion?

I'm pissed! I just "submitted" a three paragraph response to you, and I don't know where the hell it went! Freekin' waste of time! Okay, tomorrow.

[Filitsa]

Thanksgiving for one, Filitsa, what other culture or tradition that you know of celebrates a day of thanks, it originated here in the usa...i think canada has it also..... i dont know if you can call it custom or tradition, but Teamwork is purely an American concept......Getting back to the Pilgrims and thanksgiving, what did they teach you in elementary school abut the pilgrims "....that they came to the new world to escape persecution for their religious beliefs" transfer that concept to the American tradition of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, The Bill of Rights. the American constitution. That should help anyone understand what an American tradition is. Self reliance, the American being in the middle of a homestead in Kansas two hundred years ago with noone around to ask for help......when your plowing your wheat. Dont these concepts ring a bell they should. from these concepts a nation develops their traditions and customs. The Cowboy,Billy the Kid, The Corporate raiders on Wall Street. Womens rights, Civil Rights, another concept that has led the social culture here in the usa to develop traditions and customs. Martin Luther King Day, what other custom from another country do you know of where one celebrates the revolutionary spirit of a leader of a minority group....to win rights for his people.

Do you think Cyprus is anywhere close to having a Rauf Denktas day!!!! or England having a Mahatma Gandhi day!!!


Let me ask you a question What Greek tradition or custom is not related to the Orthodox Christian religion?

Well, Cowboy, because Lincoln ordained a day in November a national day of thanksgiving and the "T" was capitalized to give this holiday a proper name, hardly makes the concept unique to American culture. Thanksgiving can be traced back to the Pagan ritual of the blessiing of the harvest, and many cultures originating thereafter celebrate thanksgiving, e.g. the Jewish festival of Sukkoth, the Chinese festival of Chung Ch'ui, and the Indian festival of Pongal. Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians have been celebrating thanksgiving for over 2000 years with the celebration of the "eucharist," which you likely know, comes from the Greek for "thanksgiving."

You may want to rethink your claim that teamwork is also unique to American culture in light of your claim, in a previous post, that American culture promotes the individual. One contradicts the other. The concept of teamwork esposes subordinating individual interests to accomplish a common goal. Nevertheless, teamwork is not uniquely American. It goes back to, at least, the hunter-gatherers of the early paleolithic period, and has been a fundamental function of thriving societies ever since.

... Back later to address the civil/human rights tradition, but before I go, I'll add that, yes, I can think of a couple Greek traditions that are not related to Orthodoxy. I call them "Yiayia's tales," and I'll address those later too. I'm enjoying our dialogue.

[wyoming cowboy]

Ok, let me ask you Did the pilgrims know about the pagan ritual of blessing or the Jewish festival of Sukkoth or the Chinese and Indian thing..before they sat down and ate that first turkey...Or is it because human nature or whatever compelled them to ordain that day thanksgiving.

The thing with teamwork just came to me and i added it...because i dont know of another culture who emphasizes it so much as the American culture, it may be emphasized and taught to American kids to balance the independent American streak......I know through my type of work the methodology that is used at wor(order,organization, method) shows up in my methods out of work.....Im thinking that because of the manufacturing that existed in the USA (Ford,GM, US Steel,etc etc...) and the emphasis on mass production and teamwork in those manufaturing plants that it seeped out into the culture of America....dont you remember being in second or third grade and being teamed up with two or three kids to complete a project together...and through high school and college?

[wyoming cowboy]

And isnt teamwork more capable of working and being implanted into a society which prides itself in being classless, unlike most asian cultures where age/older is a form of respect and deference to. Or lets say the Indian culture where a caste system exists, or the Greek culture where the one with the loudest voice gets their way?

[wyoming cowboy]

Another thing I wanted to add, if you can trace thanksgiving to a pagan ritual, i bet you can trace orthodox christian traditions and rituals to pagans also. Communion for instance drinking wine and bread that symbolizes blood and body, sounds to me paganistic, the incence in church and the standing for 5 hours and the candle smoke that puts most people in a trance because of lack of oxygen and they all feel that the spirit has touched them on easter. and then line up to drink and eat something that symbolizes blood and body parts

[wyoming cowboy]

Didnt Jeffrey Dahmer say the same thing when he was killing and eating people. He said it gave him the power of the people that he ate, and then stored leftovers in the freezer.....

[apc2010]

I sometimes wonder how google ads work ..........?? at the top of my page I got asian dating site ..??

[Filitsa]

Ok, let me ask you Did the pilgrims know about the pagan ritual of blessing or the Jewish festival of Sukkoth or the Chinese and Indian thing..before they sat down and ate that first turkey...Or is it because human nature or whatever compelled them to ordain that day thanksgiving.

Perhaps some did; perhaps some didn't, but it matters not. The question is whether or not the concept of thanksgiving is uniquely American, and I maintain that it is not, evidenced by the cultural celebrations of thanksgiving listed above. Even the pilgrims engaged in thanksgiving prior to them becoming pilgrims ... And don't forget that Canada's Thanksgiving originated before ours.

The thing with teamwork just came to me and i added it...because i dont know of another culture who emphasizes it so much as the American culture, it may be emphasized and taught to American kids to balance the independent American streak......I know through my type of work the methodology that is used at wor(order,organization, method) shows up in my methods out of work.....Im thinking that because of the manufacturing that existed in the USA (Ford,GM, US Steel,etc etc...) and the emphasis on mass production and teamwork in those manufaturing plants that it seeped out into the culture of America....dont you remember being in second or third grade and being teamed up with two or three kids to complete a project together...and through high school and college?

I must be a lot older than you. I don't recall cooperative learning exercises in second or third grade, but yes, there has been a push in education over the past couple of decades for collaborative learning and problem solving - the needs of the workforce being the impetus - and its starting in the primary levels just as you say.

[wyoming cowboy]

My point of bringing up the pagan rituals in Orthodox Christianity is that most of the traditions and rituals are pagan, so if you say that America's tradition of Thanksgiving is found elsewhere then America really has no traditions culture or ritual, cant you say the same thing about the Christianity and all the culture and traditions of modern Greece prove tht there is no unique tradition or culture in Greece?

[Filitsa]

My point of bringing up the pagan rituals in Orthodox Christianity is that most of the traditions and rituals are pagan, so if you say that America's tradition of Thanksgiving is found elsewhere then America really has no traditions culture or ritual, cant you say the same thing about the Christianity and all the culture and traditions of modern Greece prove tht there is no unique tradition or culture in Greece?

My point of bringing up the pagan rituals in Orthodox Christianity is that most of the traditions and rituals are pagan, so if you say that America's tradition of Thanksgiving is found elsewhere then America really has no traditions culture or ritual, cant you say the same thing about the Christianity and all the culture and traditions of modern Greece prove tht there is no unique tradition or culture in Greece?

I don't dispute that many practices of the older Christian denominations evolved from Paganism, Eastern Orthodoxy being one of them. Neither do I dispute that there exists an American culture; however I'm hard pressed to find traditions that are uniquely American.

Didnt Jeffrey Dahmer say the same thing when he was killing and eating people. He said it gave him the power of the people that he ate, and then stored leftovers in the freezer.....

Dahmer killed and ate real people. "Take, eat. This is my body ..." and "Drink this all of you. This is my blood ..." are metaphors. Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism interpreted them literally, thus, the concept of transubstantiation: a change in substance but not appearance. To believe this requires the denial of certain scientific facts and the absolute reliance on faith. Regardless, the Church does not preach power through the Eucharist; rather, it preaches communion or oneness with God to achieve sanctifying grace.

And isnt teamwork more capable of working and being implanted into a society which prides itself in being classless, unlike most asian cultures where age/older is a form of respect and deference to. Or lets say the Indian culture where a caste system exists, or the Greek culture where the one with the loudest voice gets their way?

I think the necessity for teamwork was/is inherent in agricultural societies, particuarly Asian societies in which whole families worked the farms and fields. That's teamwork. I don't know about its dynamics in Indian culture, but I do know and agree that it's hard to effect teamwork among Greeks because there are always "too many chiefs and not enough injuns."