Thoughts of a Freethinker

Trump and company has been lampooning environmental rules and ridiculing concerns. The longer this goes on, and we're still here, it's easy to imagine there are no consequences. An end to our current standard of living is out there. Some scientists are still talking about it. The link calculates known resources and our rate of using them. The conclusion is the earth needs to cut its population by billions in order to shoe-horn back into the available resources. When I have brought up the need to reduce the earth's population before skeptics always say dire predictions of the past have never materialized. It is, of course, impossible to predict exactly when and how environmental damage will take its toll. It is not hard to realize the problem is out there. Rational people will see the need to adjust.  One simple way to see the problem is to recognize our food production depends on artificial fertilizers. We can produce food without it. We just cannot produce as much. In ingr...

Growing up in a tiny rural community we all knew the serious sins. The Sin Leader Board, as I remember, was beer, doing work in farm fields on Sunday, dancing and playing cards with clubs and spades. Probably it was not a place good for mental health. There was right there in the Bible a sin no one mentioned.  A recent article in Christianity Today reminds us the Bible's Sin Leader Board has near the top the sin of "usury." I don't have a subscription so a pay wall keeps me from reading the entire article. I think I know what it says, however. The conventional wisdom within the faith today is that "usury" refers to charging unfair or extraordinary interest. It is to take advantage of the borrower. "Reasonable interest" is OK. That is not how the Bible passages were interpreted during much of the time since its existence. Interest was bring in money for no labor. Nothing was produced, why should anyone be paid? There have been times and places in hi...

The older I get the more difficult it is to read history. On every continent of the world are people there because of brutal conquests back in time. I don't know of any place we can be certain is "indigenous." Reading about this country and my people, the white ones, is especially painful. One of the "heroes" is Columbus. He wrote of his capture and enslavement of indigenous people he found here and bragged at length of the victory for Christianity. Today, we have the same thing in Secretary of Defense Hegseth using his religion to justify cruelty. The link contains a picture of Columbus' own handwriting which spells of the Godly virtue of his capture and enslavement of some natives. It was the work of the Lord. Of course, those who later brought slaves here from Africa also claimed a pious cause. The Bishops of Italy gave Columbus their blessing as he sailed off. He made two more trips here for fame and profit. I have beside the chair where I am sitting nex...

Some decades ago I was in Winnipeg, Manitoba with our son's scout group. Most of the group was hosted overnight by a church in the downtown. The congregation had been declining. The solution was to tear down the church building and build a high rise affordable housing building. The congregation continued to meet in rooms on the main floor. I remember marveling at the moveable furniture and attractive appearance. Why don't we do that in the U.S. I wondered? Now this is being done in downtown Madison, WI. As in Winnipeg, the smaller congregation will meet in the new building. Maybe this is underway in other places.   Everyone agrees more affordable housing is needed in the U.S. Mostly people do not want such housing near them so acquiring land zoning is difficult to impossible. Land itself, of course, is expensive in the downtown areas where people need to live so they can find work nearby.  Downtown churches can help because usually they own land free of debt. When they de...

A convert from Islam to Christianity recently penned a post lamenting the number of Christians going the other way, from Christianity to Islam. Her theory is that Christians are too pushy and judgmental and that is why some leave for Islam. This theme of obnoxious Christians has been appearing more frequently in the Christian press recently. The posts always include some quotes from the Bible admonishing the faithful to win over those in other faiths with kind behavior. If these quotes are helpful, why are they being put out there now? Earlier would have been better. The link lady makes one big error. She writes that the Christian message is not just one message competing with others. She thinks it is something above all that. Unfortunately, it is actually just one more group pumping out propaganda. It is not different from all the others. New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman claims Jesus, that is the writing claiming to quote Jesus, was different than anything else during that period. Eh...

Democrats have been burned so many times in recent decades they refuse to believe they can really win in Republican states. Texas is an example. Yet, everyone who talks to Texans says the same thing. Texans have questions about Talarico. But there is deep dislike his opponent, Paxton. We all have a tendency to predict voting patterns on past experience. As Reagan once said, "In politics the unexpected often happens." There are other generalizations made by prominent politicians. Tip O'Neil wrote a book, All Politics are Local. I have that book. Tip says politicians are known locally and how they are perceived locally often supersedes national issues. Hubert Humphry said, "You cannot talk down to voters." To me, Trump and his version of the Republican Party are doing that. Making outcomes even more difficult to predict are changes in demographics. Every day, some voters die and young people have birthdays moving them into the voting age. All of us know the old te...