Thoughts of a Freethinker

The Diocese on New Orleans is about to follow countless other Dioceses by filing for bankruptcy. It's hard to imagine a Catholic Diocese has $200 million to pass out and will stay in business. Aside from the unthinkable crimes clergy committed across the world, the amount of money taken from the faithful and now spent paying for crimes is another part of the saga.  Looking at the Catholic Church today, it is hard to understand how the volume of sex abuse, especially to children, could have gone on for so long without something somewhere stopping it. In parishes from one coast to the other were thousands of cases happening at the same time. Then, Bishops, who could have stopped it, approved of it by moving abusers from one parish to another. One would think parents would have organized to stop it. If not parents, Bishops would have organized and realized the problem is one for law enforcement.  Of course, none of this was stopped because of the narrative of that time. The narra...

The Trump Administration is returning us to the Hoover time of the great depression. I'm not saying we will have another great depression. I'm saying the during Hoover time there was little to no understanding about the relationship between actions of the Federal government and the national economy. In the early 1930's Hoover wrote notes to his cabinet members asking them to figure out some solution to the growing economic slide. His cabinet members wrote back that nothing could be done.  The cabinet members were following the understanding and narrative of the time. It was that the economy was made up of communities. The local elected bodies ran the local economies. There were available during Hoover Administration tools that could have been used to offset, at least to some extent, the downturn. The Federal Reserve was available then and could be pumped reserve into banks making it easier for them to make loans and the loans would have been at lower interest rates. That is...

Religious sites (including this one) are a bit monotonous, repeating many of the same themes over and over. I was drawn to one that advised the new Pope to establish a Vatican office of technology. As the writer, I assume an accomplished person in the tech field, sees the world, the Catholic denomination could thrive if tech people were close to the top of the decision structure.   I continued reading the link wondering what the new and technology could do to reverse the decline in Christianity. My own assumption has always been that tech is the cause of the decline in Christianity, not a way to save it. Eventually, the author mentioned what better, faster and bigger tech could provide a Pope. It was more and faster information. I don't understand why this would help Catholics or the faith. How would the Vatican use tech to downplay the Catholic condemnation of gays? How would tech persuade women the denomination is better by excluding them from the highest positions of author...

I write here often about George C. Barna and the Barna group. It is located in a university in Arizona and does questionnaire survey work about Christianity. Barna identifies as a Christing and sometimes publishes and makes appearances about his conservative views. His work in questionnaires about religion, however, tracks the same as secular groups showing the decline in the number of Christians. Further, as a believer, he asks about topics and thoughts that might not occur to secular groups doing this research. A recent example is an update on both Christian and secular attitudes toward "sin." To many who write and lecture about Christianity, "sin" is THE central topic. While it may not be the topic most written about in scholarly journals and taught about in seminaries, it is the topic people in the pews talk about and worry about more than any other. When I attend the liberal church down the street from me I count the number of times the word "sin" is ...

All readers know people who self-identify as Christians have all the variety of political views as the general cross section of voters. The only difference, as I see it, is that a subset of Christians claims to have some divine wisdom that should be used in voting decisions. Those with that view then sometimes vote against their own economic and even social best interests. A Christian wrote about the dilemma his group faces with Trump. The link points out that while Trump appointed anti abortion judges more abortions are being performed than ever. Trump now seems to have lost interest in the issue. It is apparent also Trump has appointed as many gay and trans people to official offices as Biden did. He does not have much interest in this either. On top of that, millions of Christians have been made worse off with Trump's odd approach to tariffs. On again then off again.  It is worth reviewing, then, the link author writes, whether Trump is the King David of the Old Testament some C...

Pick any of the great religions of our time, Christianity, Islam or Hinduism, and one will find it is declining among youth. That is what questionnaire results show. We have discussed this decline here often so it is not "news" in that sense. What is remarkable is how often it is now being reported from Christian sources.  The standard Christian response to this decline is, "If all Christians would just come over to my particular branch this decline would stop. I can point to chapter and verse in the Bible that tells us this." Ironically, it is "chapter and verse" that loses people. Since the decline among youth is so pervasive, occurring in all the major religions and on many continents, did it start in one country or on one continent and spread? Or did it start everywhere and keeps going everywhere without a focal point in one part of the world? The first time I recall hearing about the role of youth was in my little church a mile from our farm. From tim...