Thoughts of a Freethinker

As many predicted, the dramatic tariff increases Trump said he levied have mostly been tanked. Chinese goods now have lower tariffs. Coffee and bananas which apparently Trump thought would be produced in the U.S. now have much lower tariffs.  Trump said a few years ago higher tariffs would cause more goods to be produced in the U.S. He said the Chinese would pay the tariffs by taking less payment themselves. Then he claimed the tariffs would produce federal revenue and lower our taxes. None of this happened. Trump seems to have lost interest in tariffs and moved on.  I've always wondered if Trump ever believed the benefits of tariffs he claimed were there. Or, did he get involved with tariffs because they brought lots of TV reporters to him and lots of screen time? I believe the screen time was the most important outcome for him. Really, one has to admit, he got the news media attention he wanted and thus he won. Tariffs have been good for him even as they have been terrible f...

Polling organizations seem to like, or make money, polling about religion. The results keep telling the same story, religion is declining in the U.S. But new aspects of the decline continue to show up. The dean companies for polling, Gallop , says the U.S. drop in the importance of religion is among the most dramatic in the world. While Europe is more secular than the U.S. the U.S. is chasing and gaining.  The Gallop article is not about the secularization but about the spike in the decline of Christianity. The link also discusses the growing variety of religion in the U.S. and the growing ethnic diversity of Christianity. I think it's safe to say that when new groups move into Christianity, or any other faith, the focus and direction change. The many Muslims I know in the U.S. say they have little to nothing in common with the violent factions in the Middle East. An increase in the rate of leaving Christianity has been predicted by secular observers for quite a while. As younger...

I've always been curious to know if there is some kind of general conclusion one can make about the court forced settlements Catholics have made to their victims of sexual abuse. Apparently, there are many variations in the settlements and some take different directions than others.  In total, about 4.4 billion dollars have been paid out. Of course lawyers have to be paid and they have taken about 16% of this. Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy law , a business is allowed to remain operating during resolution of payment it must make. In some ways, this makes sense, even to Catholic Dioceses , because income in coming in some of which might go to pay obligations. If the business closed this would not happen. Thirty-nine dioceses have filed for bankruptcy. Over the past could of decades this has been going on some have negotiated settlement and moved on. About 18 remain in bankruptcy.  A big issue in all of them is the question what is available to be taken from a diocese. The shifty B...

I have had two missionaries among the generation that preceded mine. I knew one of them who was passionate about his job.  A generation ago, those in the pews put large amounts of money in the plate to support missionaries. The link talks of a conference in 1900 that attracted a huge number and where the speeches were covered in newspapers across the U.S. It now appears that was the pinacol of the missionary movement.  For some reason, it was not possible to realize that the period of colonization was a period of forcing people to leave their indigenous religion and adopt another by force. Certainly, that was what happens here on our own soil to native people. Around the world the same thing happened. Once in a while someone says, "God has the power to tell people he is here. Why do we need missionaries?"  Fortunately, mainline churches are slowly pulling back from funding missionary work. If the goal is to reach the "unchurched," the opportunity is here in this cou...

After several years of back and forth in the legal system, Kim Davis, the County Clerk in the South who turned down a request by two men for a marriage license, and spent some time in jail, has lost for sure. The Supreme Court will not review a judgement against her. Davis pilled up big legal bills, maybe they will be paid by the faithful. But she also lost a civil suit to the couple of tens of thousands of dollars and it may be hard for Bible thumpers to pony up money to such sinners. Let's review this thing. Davis thought (thinks) gay marriage is a sin. The men got their license anyway several years ago and got married. How did this affect Davis or any resident of the county where she lives? Did it unleash a tsunami of sin . Were there floods and tornados that can be called God's punishment? We can safely assume the marriage caused no problem to anyone. What, then, did Davis' behavior accomplish? No sins were prevented. No souls were saved from hell. Davis, and all who su...

Augustine was an African Catholic Bishop who lived most of his life in North Africa in the 400's. To put him in context, this was just after Dictator Constantine held a confab that decided which of many written works would go into the Bible. Augustine's life span also included the sacking of Rome and ending of the Roman Empire.  I just finished a new book, Augustine the African, by Catherine Conybeare. The purpose of the book was to highlight the role Africa in the life and works of Augustine. This was new and interesting to me. Augustine has come up several times over the long life of this blog. Mostly it has be in comments by Catholic readers. They refer to Augustine with reverence and consider what he wrote as having great importance. This passion led me to buy the book when it was reviewed in The New Yorker. Even though Constantine lived in the 400's, the amount of original written material is apparently quite large. He wrote and preached constantly. He was so important...