Thoughts of a Freethinker

Many pundits say Wisconsin will vote for Democrats in the midterm and next Presidential election. Wisconsin has a variety of industry but its rural areas have lots of dairy . Half the labor is done by immigrants. Almost 3/4th of the milk is produced by this immigrant-dominated labor pool.   I have no idea how many micro economies in the U.S. depend on immigrants to stay afloat. Just scanning the news one can see there are lots of them. To some degree, I suppose, businesses do not publicize this problem because they don't want to be raided and arrested.   It doesn't seem like immigrants, legal or illegal, are a huge problem. Most of the jobs they take on are not desirable to U.S. born people. School districts have to deal with large numbers of children without English language skills. They have been doing this for a long time. People living "underground" need medical services and with no insurance this is a problem. There has to be a solution to this.  All of thi...

While history has had an endless stream of atheists, all with something good to say and all getting their fair share of publicity, I can't think of a new one since Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. This is the era of the video. I came across Promise Backlund , a You Tube creator.    She describes herself as a former believer but now calls herself an atheist. She has been on other platforms doing atheist videos for a while but now is tackling You Tube. I gather making videos is her full-time work.  While the non belief demographic of the U.S. has been growing steadily, an attractive, persuasive and hard working personality would help move it along. You Tube creators often say it take a hour of work for each minute of video so be to produce 10 or 20 minutes is a project. Ms. Backlund has been posting lots of material.  The video I linked is one in which she describes the strange practices of her former life as a Christian. I found the video to be entertaining. But the Ch...

Countless drawings, inscriptions and objects, as well as the Bible, tell us ancient religion was about plants, animals, stars, the moon and the sun. Plus, pictures and objects had life and powers. The Moses story was about his anger that the "golden calf" was worshipped. It's obvious that if there actually was an Exodus, some people in his group worshipped the "golden calf" instead the god Moses worshipped. The Old Testament, written for the Israels, scolded them for putting other gods in front of the Big Guy.  When every aspect of their lives, their food and danger from animals or other tribes, came from places or reasons they did not know, they believed some god was the source. For each food or danger a different god was in charge. So, for the growing and cropping season it was the crop god. The hunting season a different one. Battles yet another. Each god required a ritual.  These observable events and the sun, rain and stars that each required a god to influ...

  I binge-watch too much of Mormon Stories Podcast  because there are discussions of religion I don't see other places. I'm watching an episode now interviewing an anthropologist who goes over all the territory I've traveled before but in an engaging way . At the risk of misquoting or misstating, he says this: 1. All religions from prehistory were verbal. Nothing was written except surviving drawings. 2. All religions were based on the interplay between growing food, mostly corn, and the sun. The sun, the plants and the animals held spiritual powers.  3. Religions were passed down to the next generation by learning rituals which were practiced at various periods of sunshine. The sun, sky and crops held all religious ideas, they were the "Bible." Religions were not about prayers and scripture, they were about rituals. 4. The written word did not come along until about 6,000 BCE. Any claims of written or recorded text before then could not have happened.  5. All rel...

There is an irony that 1776 is the year of both the founding of the U.S. and the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Few people pay any attention to the latter. Smith is mostly worshipped by anti-government conservatives and disliked by liberals who find more confidence in the collective exercise of government powers. The Wealth of Nations was and remains widely influential. Smith said that when each individual seeks his/own best interests, there is a benefit to society at large they may be unaware of. The benefit is the production and distribution of food, goods and services is organized and carried out. Smith recognized to some extent businesses seeking their interests might form monopolies that exercise power over working people. He was naive about costs businesses could avoid paying, like damage to water, air and soil.  A hundred years, later Karl Marx published an equally powerful book about economics, Das Capital. Marx said we could not trust businesses to orga...

The sands of time bury some things. Asking people their views on religion may be different in the future.  The link discussed the difference in how people who have no contact or experience with religion versus those who grew up in it but left might answer questions like, "Do you believe in God?" or "Do you believe in a live after death?" Those with no experience or background may not know what the questions are about and answer from a different place than those who know the source of the question. I tried to come up with a way of imagining how questions about religion would strike someone who has no idea or experience with the topic. I looked up my birth date in an astrology site. I am Virgos. The traits attributed to Virgos seem not at all like me. If a pollster asked me questions about my life's experience as a Virgo I would be dumbfounded. My impulse, however, would be to be helpful and try to help out the person by answering even though I have no idea what t...