Thoughts of a Freethinker

One of the most exciting and interesting political events are those where a candidate comes out of nowhere with are less money than the competition and wins. In the sports metaphor, it's the skinny kid at the end of the bench who comes in and wins the game. In Michigan yesterday, a Muslim with a tiny amount of money upset a more traditional Democrat to run for the U.S. House. The winner in one of the Michigan House districts is Abdul El-Sayed. He is a former state health official and talked of universal health care and several other liberal positions. My own instinct, like many others, is to be pessimistic about strong liberal positions and think more moderate candidates and ideas will appeal to independent voters. I'm no longer so certain that is correct, however. We have to remember there is always a set of voters who go to the polls to vote against someone or something. Not all of those voters care about the views of the one they cast for, they just want to cast against the...

  I've attached a YouTube video that is too long for most to watch. It illustrates why there is little hope for those parts of the faith that have intellectual influence and how the future of the faith will favor free lancers and churches that are for-profit businesses like, Lakewood, owned by Joel Osteen. I'll try to summarize the dilemma from the video. In the video, a young man, Carter, who lives in the town of Luverne, MN tells about the church his parents and his wife's parents were members of their entire lives. It is a church of the Lutheran Missouri Synod. Missouri Synod is a conservative branch of Lutheran that has funds accumulated in the home office and two or three surviving seminaries. In the past decade it has lost about a million members and falling rapidly. It requires churches have ordained male preachers. To be ordained, the guy has to attend one of its campuses for, as I recall, four years following a bachelor's degree. To become a preacher in that de...

In the early years of this blog, there were several Catholics who liked to argue with me in the comments. When I predicted a continued decline in Christian numbers, they would point out this decline would not happen in Catholicism. It would not happen because of the growth in Hispanic membership. That growth would happen, they said, because of continual immigration and a higher birth rate among Hispanic people. Every year since then, including this year, surveys show the same decline among Hispanic Catholics as among other Catholics and Christianity in general. This year was a little different because the decline was bigger among Hispanics than among non Hispanics. Member the Spanish phrase, NO MAS. It now applies to believing the old-time religion of Catholicism.  Female Hispanics are leaving faster than males. Why would reasoning among women of Hispanic heritage be different than the reasoning on women from non Hispanic heritage? When every place in their lives, opportunities exi...

When one sees what surely is political damage to Trump and Republicans from the on and off bombing of Iran and the higher oil prices that result, the question asked is "Why does he do this." It seems perfectly obvious Iran can keep sending missals around the Middle East no matter how many times the U.S. hits them. It seems obvious Trump cannot force Iran to give up its uranium. It seems obvious Iran now has the ability to extract fees from countries that use the Stright. To me, it's a good bet that if Trump had just moved on about a year ago and never mentioned Iran again he would be in a stronger political position than his is now. We're back to wondering, why is he doing all of this. Pundits have said for a long time what is on his mind and how his mind works. Now, another has pointed out this well-known trait of Trump's mind in this current dilemma. Trump does not care about the upcoming election nor elections after that. He does not care about the Republican ...

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth brings up Christianity in briefings about defense. President Trump brings it up in his political messages. When I'm traveling, I try not to engage a seat mate in conversation because I've been trapped into endless sermons. Here is one I have not encounters, however, someone standing up in the airline cabin and preaching during a flight delay.  The pilot announced a take delay of 20 minutes so Christian influencer, Whitney Lynn, took that as an opportunity to stand and began preaching. When she did not respond to the crew's request to take her seat and be quiet they called security. Whitney was escorted off the plane. On the campus where I taught for 40 years various versions of whack-a-mole showed up. One was the Giddeons handing out New Testaments to students in areas where there was lots of foot traffic. I noticed the nearby trash bins were overflowing with these little books. I've always wondered if the Giddeons fished out those book...

Joe McCarthy was a House member from Wisconsin in the 1950's. It was a time when both parties were fervently opposed to Communism. The conventional wisdom of the time was that Russia was huge and wealthy and intended to eventually invade the U.S. Stories about vast arms supplies buried and spies across the U.S. were common. Money was thrown at the Pentagon and still is.  Today Washington politics goes after universities for teaching "woke." Professor are investigated. In the 1950's it was Communist professors. I don't recall there ever was even one Communist professor. There were many pointing out that communist block nations did not get along with each other very well and there was no actual evidence Russia and the old Soviet Union had any ability to invade other countries in Europe to say nothing of the U.S. The link reviews what came to be almost universal dislike of McCarthy. He held hearings that were broadcast live on the three networks of that time. Somewh...