Thoughts of a Freethinker

Evidence keeps piling up about the unreliable claims made about the Bible. As it slips in importance and believability, its defenders get more aggressive in their claims . The link runs through the old series of arguments. The ancients, it says, gave their writing to scribes who copied and recopied it by the thousands. All of the surviving copies written by scribes agree on a few things telling us the entire faith is mostly in agreement.   This is not really true. The writing in the Bible does not agree across the book. There were new ideas over the time the Bible was written. It is not necessary to know much about the Bible because it says so many different things and is interpreted in so many ways. Some of the various messages in the Bible are from interpretations from one language into another. This is often complicated by changes in the languages themselves from ancient times to the present.  There have been best sellers in recent decades written about Alexander Hamil...

What gets published and what not is always a surprise. A headlined article today was a formula to a Republican victory in the upcoming Midterms. The first thing Republicans need to do, according to the Republican author, is to stop the rise in the cost of living. Republicans have the Presidency, House and Senate. They could do that and win the Midterms. Readers know what that would entail. It would be the complete humiliation of Trump. Republican lawmakers are too timid to do that. To end the rising prices of fuel and food all oil shipments need to roll around the world. This includes the Strait. It might involve paying Iran for safe passage. Iran's uranium needs to remain with Iran. Tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada need to be dropped so goods coming into our country are cheaper. They would drop their tariffs and we could sell grain, software and services to them. Restrictions on workers coming into the country need to be lowered so we have an adequate supply of workers.  These ...

Readers are welcome to correct my understanding of AI. Seeing it work, I see it as a way to summarize lots of information and present it in a way that has been predetermined by those who program the reading and summary. Wikipedia was/is similar in that readers can edit what appears and monitors can correct of challenge what is written. The difference is that Wikipedia posts were written, hopefully, by individuals and not by a computer.  It was fascinating to me to read an analysis of AI on a Christian site, Christian Post. The link is a discussion of a survey which, apparently, asked various parts of Christianity whether they used AI to interpret the Bible. Included were preachers who were asked if the approved or disapproved of those in the pews asking AI their questions about the Bible. A majority of the preachers did not approve of using AI to learn about the Bible. They are afraid the interpretation provided by this computerized summary of published views will be incorrect. A m...

Trump is already sending some cabinet members to the Middle West to improve his polling. The local paper which covers most of the state of Iowa posted an article asking what I've wondered, why should rural Iowans, or rural Midwesterners, vote for Trump? There is a pattern of imposing tangible losses and offering in exchange abstract and unmeasurable benefits. The reporter asked several Republican operatives what the message is from Trump and his Republican messengers. What all the local Republicans said was the message is not clear. The tariffs on Chinese goods caused U.S. farmers to lose much of the Chinese market. The "unfair" Chinese trade terms prior to Trump has\d no harmful effect on rural America. Trump's efforts to "correct" the terms of trade has done tangible harm. Precisely the same pattern has been seen with Iran. That Iran owns some uranium has the abstract threat of a nuclear weapon. This weapon is of little to no threat in the U.S. Middle West...

There was a headline article in the heugh Iowa paper today about the damage done by Trump's tariffs. Unfortunately, it was mostly about small businesses who import products and not about low farm prices and high farm costs which are even more important. Trump, as readers know, carried states like Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota 60-40. Trump voters in these states need to heed the advice of the late columnist Ann Landers, "Wake up and smell the coffee."  There has been a pattern in U.S. trade policy Since trade policy is largely under the control of U.S. Presidents, it is important they understand the basics. The basics are that countries have unique weather, soil and people that make it advantageous to produce some things and import others. This is counterintuitive because our instinct is to believe it is better if we product stuff ourselves instead of pay others. Republican Presidents come from an ideology that markets generally make better decisions than governments...

For the decade I've been reading Christian sites, books about religion and entertaining myself by writing this blog, I've become convinced the Christian left would survive the downward drift of religion longer than the right. If history repeats itself, neither will last forever. A new unexpected development is  several "mainline" preachers running for high political offices and polling well. While predicting the outcome of elections has been embarrassing for me and many others, I think some of these mainline preachers will win. When they do it will energize, perhaps only a little, the view that Christianity is not exclusively gay bashing, anti women and anti abortion. The term "real Christian" or "genuine Christian" will broaden to include something besides the right wing. One of the pleasant recollections of my many years as a mayor was sitting at head tables of conferences and banquets waiting to give a welcome from the city. Often, a pastor was ...