Thoughts of a Freethinker

  If the term "morality" is about religion, religion is coming back. Not long ago, I searched the New York Times for articles about religion. Religion was mostly absent. Religion seemed one of those things that had once been popular, some had tried to keep in play, but its time had passed. Some may remember that Obama tried to use his faith to illustrate that he identified with those who were in it. His effort fell flat and he stopped bringing it up. The Obamas resigned from their church in Chicago, the preacher was obnoxious, and did not join another.  In recent years, the Times has brought back religion in a big way. Columnists who discuss it are given top billing. It's sort of strange that the NY Times is about "news" and these time worn arguments about what is true and not true in the imaginations of people is again considered "news." Of course, it was "news" when Pres. W. Bush said his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq had Biblical justi...

Only a few of us really old people know about the Bay of Pigs. A short version of the story is a small group of U.S. military invaded Cuba with the ultimate goal of over-throwing the Castro government. The invasion turned out to be almost a joke with tiny and poor Cuban defeating the great power, the U.S.A. While the bombing of Iran and Iran's reaction is yet to fully play out, the short-term conclusion is it has been a failure. Yes, many of its military assets have been destroyed. A country with money, meaning oil, and a well-educated population can rebuild anything that has been bombed.  It's worth recalling the hubris and politics that led up to the Bay of Pigs. My own way of summarizing it is that national politics of the time made communism into a much bigger threat than it turned out to be. This miscalculation drove the notion, "We need to do something about Cuba." One can read how many different ideas were floated and rejected but the over-arching thing was som...

When voters talk about politicians, some will say, "I hired you. Do a better job." I hear this every once in a while and got to wondering how those who voted for Trump evaluate him now. If our country was one giant Human Resources Department, what would an evaluation of Trump look like? Of course, voters have many different reasons for their choices. The conventional wisdom of pundits has been the "Christian" demographic voted for Trump because he had appointed anti-abortion judges during his first term. He reminded anti-abortion voters of that often when he ran in 2024. One has to assume he received lots of votes from the anti-abortion demographic. There is also a slightly different demographic that is usually called fundamentalist Christian. We all know he refers to them often. There is a blue-collar rural demographic that went big for Trump. Of those who voted for Trump because of his anti-abortion judicial appointments or because he seemed more like fundamentali...

It's not news to readers here that the Population Bomb sold three million copies and has been one of the most talked about and controversial books of its century. What remains unresolved, in some quarters, is its importance. Its author Paul Ehrlich died recently.  The link, written be a prominent figure in the Southern Baptist Convention, blows off Ehrlich because Ehrlich did not understand God created the world to be enjoyed by humans. We humans are instructed by the Bible to exploit the earth at our pleasure. Thus, as I would interpret this Baptist, if humans want to destroy the earth by producing more humans that the earth can support, they have the green light from God to do this. I didn't read the entire post to see if he mentions the parts of the Bible that preach stewardship of resources.  The more serious criticisms, if you can call them criticisms, comes from Ehrlich's timetable. He took historic data and projected it forward. For many reasons, the timetable of eve...

It's fun to find writers who dig into the Bible in new and different ways. Bart Ehrman does this. And, I found someone recently who went after statistics about Moses and the Jews "after they escaped Egypt." As every reader here no doubt knows, there is no evidence they "escaped" because it doesn't seem large numbers were captive. There may have been Jews who were slaves but probably there were Egyptian slaves also. Lots of records have survived but none about Jews who were captive nor Jews who "escaped." There are names of high officials in surviving records of Egypt that appear to have been Jews. The "escape" tale was made up for political purposes by Jews later.  The latest thing about the "escape" is a detailed tally of how the Jews would have appeared after they "escaped" from Egypt. There is considerable information about how many Jews were in Egypt at the time of the story. It was about 2 1/2 million. Thus, 2 1/2...

I just read a long review in the New Yorker of three books devoted to the concept of monotheism. Going back to the earliest recorded history there has been a struggle between those who want to control their followers by admonishing there is only one god and the many other gods that come and go. Over time, many of the public in many countries at various times have needed more gods.. For those of us with limited backgrounds in ancient history, it is easy to surmise the struggle. The Old Testament, parts written up to something like 7,000 years BCE, contains the Commandment, Thou Shalt Have no Other Gods Before Me. I take from that there were other gods. They just needed to be ranked correctly. There is surviving written material suggesting all the people of the original Israel were not on board with this order and enjoyed some other gods. Then Christianity comes along with an updated idea of the Jewish God. The God 2.0 was less prone to killing people than the previous version. But a pro...