Thoughts of a Freethinker

A Catholic site recently discussed the question of how long a member should spend in the confession session with their priest. The article asked if 30 minutes was too long? A while back I wrote here about a book published by the Catholic professor who found the practice of confession is much less popular today than it was in the past. The majority of Catholics do not go to confession. Yet apparently some do. Perhaps it is more popular in some parishes. Older members are more likely to practice it than younger. My late friend who was a priest said listening to people drone on about details in their lives was quite boring. Catholic friends I've asked about confession said they learned while children they were to think of something insignificant, hear they are forgiven and leave. But reading the link about half hour confessions gives me the impression some Catholics view confession as a counselling session. They don't see it as an opportunity to get their sins forgiven but a time...

Modern worship today is, apparently, really big on long songs that are not old hymns but written recently. There are conferences discussing seriously whether this modern music which eats up more worship time than the sermon is "Christianity"?  Some are wondering if Jesus would return playing a guitar. I've been at such a service and am baffled by this practice. This reflects, of course, my age and that I associate "worship" with the practices I have known in my lifetime.  None of this means my experience was "right" nor that modern worship that is closer to a rock concert is wrong. It merely shows that the entire enterprise of religion, its beliefs and its rituals, are man-made to fit what the culture reflects at any given time. It's a given that the worship I experienced would have seemed strange to generations before me. Many churches have two different kinds or style of services--almost two separate groups in the same congregation. Does the invi...

Anyone who watches the Supreme Court, including the Stare decisions made outside of court sessions, can see the term "religious liberty" means there are good versions of Christianity and not-so-good. The good versions, as conservatives see it, need favorable treatment. The long-standing ability of religions to get away with things that establish certain religious views as law has accelerated in this court. This court majority was appointed around the time of Covid. Attending church services had the obvious risk of spreading disease. Religions kept pounding on the church attendance. One can read on the web the series of decisions that favor religion. This included overturning Roe which as we know backfired. The New Yorker recently published a long profile of Chief Justice John Roberts. Its conclusion is that Roberts sees his mission as returning the Court to what it was in the 1950's. That is a court whose decisions reflect traditional views of religion and family. He some...

Readers know Moses came down from his personal chat with God somehow carrying stones upon which God had chiseled the Ten Commandments. He saw that his followers were worshipping and celebrating a calf made of gold. For reasons not explained in the Bible, Moses in his anger smashed the stones God had so carefully given him. If God carefully engraved stones with his wishes and gave them to me, I would treat them with great care, knowing they were rules that must be followed for eternal salvation. But not Moses, he just tossed them as if, "Yeah, God gave them to me, but you guys made me so mad I smashed them. It's your fault we don't know what God wrote." A more peculiar part of the story is the "golden calf." It says in the Bible  the gold for the golden calf came from gold earrings worm by the women Jews who had escaped slavery in Egypt. This got me to wondering how bad the slavery was for the Jews in Egypt if they could afford so many golden earrings that on...

The denomination called Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints former was known as the Mormons. They formally changed their name and scolded anyone calling them "Mormons." I'll use the name Mormon anyway.  While Mormons have many local churches that are doing well and have secretly squirreled away an amount guesstimated at as much as $100 Billion, things do not seem to be going the way its leaders want them to go. While the denomination has more money that it can find uses for, it is failing in the ways its leaders most want to succeed. We need to review the organization. It is run by 12 "Apostles". The head functions much like a Pope but is called The Prophet. The Prophet is the one who hears from God and whatever he "hears" is ordered as the denomination's position. This, of course, changes when a new Prophet comes on board which happened recently. The new Prophet and the 12 Apostles seem to see the denomination as in a point of crisis. Its offici...

If watching political theater is entertainment rather than frustration, watching Trump's Republican Party is as good as it gets. In many aspects, Trump and his Republican Congress have decided government needs to run the economy, as least the parts where there are lots of votes, and this old business of Capitalism needs to be buried in the sands of time.  This is happening in so many places it's hard to recall them all. We can start with the Federal Government buying a huge stake in Intel, the U. S. chip maker. According to something I read, the Federal Government is buying up shares in many companies each week. Does Trump, or others who do his bidding, think they are so brilliant they will be able to make these companies profit powerhouses? Or, do they think they can make manufacturing companies so successful they will hurt China?  A faction of the GOP is opposed to this expansion of "socialism" but of course they don't use that word. Socialism and "Communis...