Thoughts of a Freethinker

  We have almost no information about humans from our first existence about 300,000 years ago. Because of this hole in our knowledge, religions fill in with their own self-serving history. They want us to give money and bow down to the history they have invented about the origin of the universe and of humans. The spoken and written word only came along only in the recent part of our 300,000 year history so religions can play their game. Readers know there are some bits of writing that survived or later authors discussed what they had read. But the trail about what humans thought, what they talked about or their intellectual life in general gets thin 10,000 years ago. That is why there is a group of scholars from around the world who have a passion to find and study cave art. Whatever is drawn in a cave, of course, came from the mind of the artist. A drawing is a form of writing and reveals something about the artist and the people he/she hung out with. When I started this blog the ...

  One tends to forget there are a few members of Congress who are open about not being religious. Their  numbers are growing. Back home people must not be upset about this. On the national stage it's the biggest thing there.   Christian sites lament this and assume it is some kind of temporary mistake and are certain such heretics will be soon defeated. That remains to be seen. I don't recall seeing a tally of the bills that make it for a vote in the House which have Christianity as their central focus. We know the big ones, abortion, gender and those related to "freedom of religion." The latter, of course, are not freedom of all religion, just Christianity. And the political time spent on religion seems even greater in state legislatures. Maybe it's just the way the news is covered, but it seems like religion is a big preoccupation in the two state legislatures I follow, Iowa and North Dakota. The winter sessions drone on with God-talk when everyone should have b...

Trump  sent his cabinet member across the country to sell the Administration and thus help Republicans in races for governor, House and Senate. It backfired. According to a review of these visits, Cabinet members were greeted by hostile crowds. Agricultural areas have low farm prices and energy consuming areas have high gasoline/diesel prices.  My former student, Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergum, was not sent out. He has worked to dig oil wells on federally owned land. Maybe some areas don't want the oil wells and others don't want more competition in selling their oil so he may not be a plus out on the hustings.  The obvious and often repeated conclusion about the state of affairs with Iran is that it is a stalemate. Neither side can stop the other from doing some damage but cannot put the other out of business. The group running Iran know how to stay in power and the society has been under attack for so much of its history it knows how to keep going. That situation...

A Christian writer I enjoy is Karen Swallows. She has been, or maybe still is, a professor. She was a Southern Baptist and still opposes abortion but has interesting critiques of her Southern religious community.  In the link she laments the many clergy who use honorary titles as if they are titles earned through academic accomplishments. A common one is "Doctor." Many who stand behind pulpits use or abuse honorary degrees. Christianity has an almost impossible task is establishing credentials of preachers or authorities. This comes from the lack of proof or even evidence of the tenets of the faith. The claim that God created the universe is a good start. The Bible begins with a far-fetched creation story and quickly morphs into an impossible world-wide flood. After the Old Testament the not believable stories show up of virgin birth, walking on water and coming back to life. Anyone preaching or teaching this stuff may be tempted to say, "Gosh, if people believe Jesus ca...

The decision of Presbyterian church that has only 25 or so attending Sunday services made the pages of the largest Christian internet site in the U.S. This church needed a pastor, their pastor retired. A credentialed woman was looking for a post as a pastor. They found each other and things are going fine.  Other Christians, conservatives, are piling on criticism on this Anderson, South Carolina, church. The new pastor previously identified as a male. Why is this something for others outside of this church to get all riled up about? There are small churches across the U.S. like this one who are not large enough to pay a preacher or even share one. When someone comes along who wants to help and the church likes this person why not keep the church open? What difference does it make is the person who wants to help is gay or trans? Certainly, it has no effect on any other church or society at large. It's just a local problem with a local solution.  Across the country, probably aro...

The pattern I've seen is that there are two camps inside the faith studying and commenting on its future. One is actual analysts. The other is promoters. None of the analysts in the faith  see a "revival." All of the promoters claim there is one. There are now, and probably will be for a while in the future, churches that are growing. These are pointed to as models for how all churches could grow if the just did the right things. Some of those attending growing churches, of course, are from churches that closed.  The link points out surveys which have seen an uptick in questions like "the importance of religion". Some churches claim more young single men are showing up. This is offset by a decline of young women.  While the numbers attending church can be counted it is not so easy to measure what goes on at the church service. If some of the growth is at services that feature popular Christian rock music and very brief sermons with light content, should that be ...