Thoughts of a Freethinker

  According to a poll referred to in the link , older members of churches are disappearing at a rapid rate. These are not ones who died. They usually are not people who complained about the church. They just stopped attending. The percentage is large. This puts to rest an old saw repeated in comments to this blog a while back. It was that the church's problem will be solved when young people marry and have children. When they reach that point in their lives they return to church and it once again thrives. Neither young nor old are returning. As one commenter to the link pointed out, old people (like me) are on the short end of time and should be the most interested in an afterlife. Instead, they deal with their coming deaths without the faith's goofy stuff. What is rather astounding is that pundits in the faith like the link author never bring up the possibility that one of the reasons the old are walking away is because they no longer believe. The link lists the reasons the o...

Trump seems to think he can will events to turn in his direction. Strategy and preparation are not necessary.  Let's start with grain . Many other places can sell grain to China . If China wants to buy grain other places it can. Now that is exactly what China is doing. Why couldn't Trump see that coming? There is lots of access to rare earth metals . We have them in the U.S. But processing them is very dirty. We didn't want the pollution. China doesn't care about the pollution and is the only country now where they are available. Considering the environmental damage done by the processing, we may be getting a bargain by paying China monopoly prices . China, however, can cut us off. That is what they are threatening to do. Why couldn't Trump see that coming?  If Trump were smarter, he would have done with rare earth, and perhaps some other goods, what China did with soybeans : have an alternative place to sell soybeans if China stops buying. Trump is not smart enou...

Maybe sin the beginning of governments there have been leaders who "sent in the troops." One can see troops are often props in the political movie. President Lyndon Johnson did it in a fictious event called the " Gulf of Tonkin ." W. Bush sent troops into Afghanistan mostly for political reasons and Iraq followed. Troops in Iraq, as we all know, were to locate and destroy "weapons of mass destruction." They never existed.  Now, President Trump thinks he is scoring political points by sending troops all over the place. The Republican Governor in the state where I now live, Iowa , sent troops to the border under the illusion more troop were needed. I read the border was already fully staffed. The troops from various Republican governors did school room visits with kids in rural Texas .  The current political theater is sending troops into cities with Mayors who are Democrats . This has included cities in Oregon and the C ity of Chicago . While I believe...

An executive in the AI industry told a conference of Christians AI will grow Christianity in many new countries around the world. He said the ability of AI to translate the Bible into languages which have never had such a translation will be like the Guttenberg press put the Bible into mass production.    I think the guy is promoting his business and career more than prophesizing a big future for Christianity. If young people today, born into Christian families, are leaving the faith why would the Bible appeal to those who have never heard of it? There is a lot of AI hype out there and this looks like some of it. The cell phone allowed young people around the world to learn about Christianity. But the young people also looked up sites critical of the Christian message and a huge proportion today have left the faith. It seems to me AI will be used by both the faith and its opponents to promote both views. To assume the faith will win is not what data tells us. One of the commen...

Maybe the biggest is ever could be given an award as the "bestest sin." I don't know what the besterst sin ever might have been or might be today. The really BIG of any time is soon replaced by some newer or shinier sin. Ever reader knows the current top sin, the one pointed to by holier than thou politicians and preachers is trans. While trans has been around since the begging of humans, it had a hard time making onto the sin leader board. Other sins wanted to hang on to their high status for as long as possible and kept trans from reaching the top.  I would guess interracial marriage stayed on top of the sin leader board in the South for 400 years. Probably that is a record among sins. Just that longevity itself should lead to the award of bestest sin. But, we all know, it slipped so badly many do not remember it was once even sin. We've had some sins in recent decades that did well. Gay marriage stayed at the top for a decade or two. Now it has slipped off the lead...

  I've read that there are right wing Christian groups telling President Trump he must support Israel's scorched earth policy on Gaza. The groups are telling President Trump Israel must have sovereign rule over the area because God gave it to them.   Certainly, at least some Jews have lived there since recorded history began. But, Jews could not have lived there before there was a Jewish religion. Islam is even newer than Christianity but its true Muslims have lived there along with Jews since early Islam. "The land of Israel" is a piece of land that was inhabited by many groups long before the Jews and Muslims. We can't be sure who all the groups were. From this distance, a "Two State Solution" does not seem like it would automatically stop some groups in each camp to stop shooting at each other. The current situation of Israel putting the hammer down of their enemies is not working so maybe Two States is worth a try. One thing for certain, Israel canno...