Thoughts of a Freethinker

There are polls showing that a significant number of people voted for Trump over Biden because prices had gone up and Trump promised to lower them. If he and Republicans had done nothing, changed nothing from the four years of Biden, probably inflation would have stabilized and employment right now would be stable or rising.  Instead, everything Trump did created inflation and rising unemployment. How could he have made such huge mistakes? He had simple and incorrect ideas in his head. One was that other countries would pay the tariffs and the money from them would lower taxes and prices. Another was that government was too big and making it smaller would lower taxes and generate prosperity. Yet another was that pushing the cost of government from the Federal Government to state and locals would be good for taxpayers. Then, there was that the U.S. would be a stronger more prosperous country if it had more manufacturing. Perhaps the last was the undocumented workers are a big proble...

As readers know, the Johnson Amendment tried to limit the endorsements of political candidates by churches, especially preachers. Now that it is gone, there is a dark place for the huge amount of money tossed around in national political campaigns. Preachers will be able to receive payments in exchange for political endorsements.   Unless churches demand transparency, there is no reason preachers need to disclose "gifts" from campaigns in exchange for endorsements. It could be a preacher side hustle.  It seems to me the entire conservative Christian enterprise is merging with the political right. Many on the right point out this is not a wise development. But the appeal to those who need egos boosted is not resistible. It is not hard to imagine the largest donors to a church getting together and informing their employee, the preacher, what is an acceptable political posture. If there were gifts on top of this one can see the deal done.  Often when young people who ha...

During my long life, some decades as a participant and later an observer, there has been an especially powerful issue that morphed in support between liberals and conservatives. It is mostly not in the news and has not spilled into broad political influence. That seems to be changing. The issue is eminent domain. As readers know, eminent domain happens when some level of government, local, state or federal, takes land or other property from private citizens for some broader purpose. Those whose land is taken usually are paid some version of a "fair price." Because of this payment the practice usually is not seen as controversial. Along with members of the governing board, I exercised eminent domain powers several times. There is, as one might expect in the job of Mayor, a constant din of people giving you their opinions. With eminent domain, lots of older liberal people expressed approval. They were from the era of government doing good things for the public and needing those...

The word "prophesy" shows up often in conservative Christianity. It strikes the rest of us as so phony and contrived we mostly blow it off. It's importance should not be under stated.   In the Bible the word appears a lot. It is used seductively there by appearing in the Old Testament followed by claims in the New Testament the events "prophesized" actually happened. I remember as a college student a young woman who was hired as the pastor to students passionately spoke of her faith centered on these "prophesized" events. Later when I developed some ability to see this narrative in a critical setting, I came to see the later events were either shoe-horned and altered to fit the "prophesies" or the prophesies themselves were altered to fit later events. The likelihood anyone beat the random odds of guessing the future is no better than zero. The seductiveness of a "prophesy" narrative is so powerful it lives on and people profit from...

It's hard to believe how often "demonic influences" and "spiritual warfare" are mentioned in the Christian press these days. Of course, it's always been there to one degree or another. The late Pope Francis said "Satan exists." It's scary to think of the myth there are invisible beings and forces causing certain events are thought to be real by people who might be able to harm the innocent. To me, anyone entrusted with providing information and ideas to the public should help guide TO the truth, not away from it. There are so many examples of myths that took over people's minds in history and resulted in many deaths. One of the most famous was witchcraft. Salem, MA is the city that holds the title as the witch city in the U.S. Several years ago I visited Salem and read the excellent museum explaining the phenomenon. Witch hunting took place in Europe and came here with Europeans. In Salem, it was a social and economic system. While there we...

  Over the long period I have written this blog interest in religion in general has gone up and then down. Just now it seems like it is ascending. The New York Times, for years, had no little to no discussion of religion. Then it added Ross Doubthat. Then is added David French. Now it has added a newsletter one can subscribe to. According to the link , there is big money now in sites offering paid subscribers the opportunity to chat about feelings toward the unseen and unknown.   I'll admit to being a bit presumptuous here, but I think I know why there is such an interest in paid sites that just chat with people about their troubles. It's the same reason most every newspaper still in existence still has a love-lorn, Ann Landers type, column. It's why TV news that show tears of those interviewed are the ones that sell the ads that pay for the news. All of this, plus all religion since the beginning of humans, is because many, maybe most, of us humans carry uncertainty or w...