Collins and Kristof

Ms. Collins, in “A Tale of Two Turkeys,” says turkey-pardoning is supposed to be a long-running tradition, but it officially only goes back to George (the Good One) Bush.  Mr. Kristof, in “The Religious Wars,” says traditionally, religious wars were fought with swords and sieges; today, they often are fought with books.  Here’s Ms. Collins:

On Wednesday, President Obama pardoned his first Thanksgiving turkey.

There is something wrong with this concept.

Here is how our beloved national tradition works: One lucky turkey gets to live — and fly first class to Disneyland, where he is grand marshal in the Thanksgiving Day parade (I am not making this up). While another nameless bird gets slaughtered in his place.

It’s “A Tale of Two Cities,” except somehow I doubt that the doomed turkey volunteered for the job.

Who mourns the Backup Bird? What fickle finger of fate decided that he should literally get the ax, while the one who was supposed to go next lives happily ever after on the Big Thunder Ranch in Frontierland?

The president did not seem all that thrilled with his role. “There are certain days that remind me of why I ran for this office. And then there are moments like this, where I pardon the turkey and send it to Disneyland,” he said.

His daughters, who were trotted out as the alleged champions of the turkey pardon, looked as if they’d be perfectly happy to retract. Malia, who noted that the bird reminded her of “a large chicken” seemed particularly unenthusiastic.

The National Turkey Federation named the bird Courage, perhaps in memory of Benjamin Franklin’s contention that the bald eagle was a bird of bad moral character while the turkey was “though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage.” If Franklin’s argument had prevailed and the turkey, rather than the bald eagle, had become the national symbol, would we still be eating them? Would the turkey farmers still be in business? What does eagle taste like, anyway?

These are the whims of fate that we celebrate on the day before Thanksgiving, when one random, somewhat sullen-looking bird gets pardoned while another goes to the presidential dinner table.

The turkey-pardoning is supposed to be a long-running national tradition, but it officially only goes back to George (the Good One) Bush and 1989. Since Thanksgiving is a holiday that’s particularly rich in long-running traditions, 20 years barely counts as an impulsive gesture.

If we want a political tradition, we can do better. Let’s all just gather around the family computer and watch that video of Sarah Palin discussing Thanksgiving in front of a bloody turkey abattoir.

There was actually no mention at the presidential pardon of what the Obamas themselves were going to be eating on Thanksgiving. While the turkey federation traditionally donates a live bird for the ceremony and dead ones for the White House dinner, the oven-ready birds seem to be the ones that the president and the girls were taking to a Washington charity. As to the menu at the White House, a spokesman said it would involve “traditional foods and family favorites,” but declined to give details.

We all know that Obama is extremely logical. He must understand that the only way for this pardoning ritual to make sense would be if he spared the backup turkey, and the backup’s backup, all the way down the line.

Then he could announce the creation of a new vegetarian Thanksgiving to commemorate the day the Pilgrims and the Indians got together over a steaming platter of parsnips.

But since this is keep-it-cool, middle-of-the-road Barack Obama, he would probably skip both the drama and the turkey and go meatless without telling anybody.

After all, if the word got out, who knows how many tea parties it would spark? Birthers would probably claim that no one actually born in the United States would consider celebrating Thanksgiving without a turkey. Glenn Beck would weep over the incipient loss of our freedom to consume really dry meat on a holiday. Rumors would arise that Michelle does not really love her national cuisine.

Whatever they’re eating, the Obamas will undoubtedly discuss the things they want to give thanks for this year. You wonder what the president would say. He can always mention his family. Not every man has daughters loyal enough to accompany him through a cheesy turkey-pardoning.

But when he tries counting his blessings, does the specter of President Karzai rise up through the mashed potatoes? Do the brussels sprouts all look like little versions of Joe Lieberman threatening a filibuster? If it turns out that there is a turkey, and someone inevitably remarks that it looks like the biggest ever, does Obama think they’re talking about the unemployment rate?

It’s not really fair. The president knows he could jump-start the economy, fix health care and do his ambitious energy policy — if only the last administration hadn’t cut taxes, started two wars and created a new, large Medicare entitlement without paying for any of it.

When he’s not making his way through Thanksgiving photo-ops, he’s adding up the numbers over and over in his mind, and sending mental daggers at the Republicans who are yelling at him about deficits that they created.

Although what else could he expect in a Washington that thinks you can pardon your turkey and eat it, too?

Here’s Mr. Kristof:

Just a few years ago, it seemed curious that an omniscient, omnipotent God wouldn’t smite tormentors like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. They all published best-selling books excoriating religion and practically inviting lightning bolts.

Traditionally, religious wars were fought with swords and sieges; today, they often are fought with books. And in literary circles, these battles have usually been fought at the extremes.

Fundamentalists fired volleys of Left Behind novels, in which Jesus returns to Earth to battle the Anti-Christ (whose day job was secretary general of the United Nations). Meanwhile, devout atheists built mocking Web sites like www.whydoesGodhateamputees.com. That site notes that although believers periodically credit prayer with curing cancer, God never seems to regrow lost limbs. It demands an end to divine discrimination against amputees.

This year is different, with a crop of books that are less combative and more thoughtful. One of these is “The Evolution of God,” by Robert Wright, who explores how religions have changed — improved — over the millennia. He notes that God, as perceived by humans, has mellowed from the capricious warlord sometimes depicted in the Old Testament who periodically orders genocides.

(In 1 Samuel 15:3, the Lord orders a mass slaughter of the Amalekite tribe: “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child.” These days, that would earn God an indictment before the International Criminal Court.)

Mr. Wright also argues that monotheism emerged only gradually among Israelites, and that the God familiar to us may have resulted from a merger of a creator god, El, and a warrior god, Yahweh. Mr. Wright also argues that monotheism wasn’t firmly established until after the Babylonian exile, and he says that Moses’s point was that other gods shouldn’t be worshiped, not that they didn’t exist. For example, he notes the troubling references to a “divine council” and “gods” — plural — in Psalm 82.

In another revelation not usually found in Sunday School classes, Mr. Wright cites Biblical evidence that God (both El and Yahweh) had a sex life, rather like the Greek gods, and notes archaeological discoveries indicating that Yahweh may have had a wife, Asherah.

As for Christianity, Mr. Wright argues that it was Saint Paul — more than Jesus, an apocalyptic prophet — who emphasized love and universalism and built Christian faith as it is known today. Saint Paul focused on these elements, he says, partly as a way to broaden the appeal of the church and convert Gentiles.

Mr. Wright detects an evolution toward an image of God as a more beneficient and universal deity, one whose moral compass favors compassion for humans of whatever race or tribe, one who is now firmly in the antigenocide camp. Mr. Wright’s focus is not on whether God exists, but he does suggest that changing perceptions of God reflect a moral direction to history — and that this in turn perhaps reflects some kind of spiritual force.

“To the extent that ‘god’ grows, that is evidence — maybe not massive evidence, but some evidence — of higher purpose,” Mr. Wright says.

Another best-seller this year, Karen Armstrong’s “The Case for God,” likewise doesn’t posit a Grandpa-in-the-Sky; rather, she sees God in terms of an ineffable presence that can be neither proven nor disproven in any rational sense. To Ms. Armstrong, faith belongs to the realm of life’s mysteries, beyond the world of reason, and people on both sides of the “God gap” make the mistake of interpreting religious traditions too literally.

“Over the centuries people in all cultures discovered that by pushing their reasoning powers to the limit, stretching language to the end of its tether, and living as selflessly and compassionately as possible, they experienced a transcendence that enabled them to affirm their suffering with serenity and courage,” Ms. Armstrong writes. Her book suggests that religion is not meant to regrow lost limbs, but that it may help some amputees come to terms with their losses.

Whatever one’s take on God, there’s no doubt that religion remains one of the most powerful forces in the world. Today, millions of people will be giving thanks to Him — or Her or It.

Another new book, “The Faith Instinct,” by my Times colleague Nicholas Wade, suggests a reason for the durability of faith: humans may be programmed for religious belief, because faith conferred evolutionary advantages in primitive times. That doesn’t go to the question of whether God exists, but it suggests that religion in some form may be with us for eons to come.

I’m hoping that the latest crop of books marks an armistice in the religious wars, a move away from both religious intolerance and irreligious intolerance. That would be a sign that perhaps we, along with God, are evolving toward a higher moral order.