Thoughts of a Freethinker

After losing in court with an atheist group a few years back, something dawned on me. It was that atheists are not the right group to offset the Christian right. The right group to do this would be a non-Christian religious group. I was so convinced about this I sought out people from different religious traditions in Fargo, ND where I lived at that time and invited them to join in the effort we atheists were engaged in at the time.  People from other religious traditions, however, could not understand why we cared about the Ten Commandments monument on public property which was our issue at the time. They did not see the point of putting themselves, and their children, out in the light of public opinion over this stone object few people noticed. Now, events and the politics have changed. Other religious traditions are being pushed to the front of the battle. The change is most striking in Texas . Texas has just the right mix of in-your-face liberals to shout back at in-your-face T...

A woman who transitioned from her birth designated gender of male preached a sermon on gender that has exploded. She explains why God is neither male nor female and, as I understand her, Jesus was not either.  There has always been this mystery about God taking a rib from Adam, a male, and making it into a female, Eve. Isn't this "trans?" That this woman's church and denomination thinks it's fine for her to hold the post of priest, or priestess, is the business of those parties involved. I don't see any point for the Christian press to make a story about it nor for commenters to carry on about how heathen the church and the woman are. Really, if you are a Southern Baptist in Mississippi it will change your life not at all. The priestess has things to deal with more complicated than being bashed on Christian Post. It includes, for example, traveling and using rest rooms if she does not pass as a female. We know from experience this can be outright dangerous. Th...

There is an old saying in economics, tax something and you will end up with a shortage but subsidize something and you will end up with a surplus. That may be the future in religion. We all know churches are not required to pay property taxes. Churches compete with every other use of people's money so this keeps their costs lower than other businesses. As mega churches have grown, their need for parking has grown. This has increased their subsidies. While there are churches that close every week there are also some new ones in new or old buildings. There are also new religions. The Church of Satan is an example.  Local governments turn down, or try to turn down, religions they do not like. This cancels the property tax break for the newcomers. Then off to court they go. Courts have shown a pattern in approving new faiths and not approving others. The link says courts have dabbled in the "sincerity" of religions to decide if the qualify for no property taxes. A common reas...

I wonder if Trump has been taken and lost money in deals as often in his private business dealings as he has done as President. As President, he has cost us a bundle. Trump has met with Xi various times. They met a few months ago, yesterday and two more meetings are schedules in the coming year. Nothing comes happens or changes at these meetings. Perhaps the meetings crowd out Russia a bit or help each of them be famous. Nothing happens that is in the interests of the U.S. The U.S. would be helped by offering lower, instead of higher, tariffs. Hopefully, China would lower its tariffs on U.S. goods. This would help grain prices among other things. Trump said he would alter trade relations making the Balance of Trade favor the U.S. Instead, China's balance of trade has gained. Trump is obsessessed with the Balance of Trade and does not understand it is mostly meaningless. Republicans in Congress need to understand the person at the head of their party and who is President is not up t...

A movie about women and spiritual forces opened earlier this month and is so far the highest grossing movie of the month. The link is a Christian post alarmed at this interest in the occult. According to this review the movie focuses on women's grievances and on the enemies of women.  For several years I have read about the growing industry of making and selling items of what can be called the occult. Now, perhaps, we are seeing the size of this phenomenon in a movie. While I don't know much about the items of the occult, I think of them as beads and the great one that made Superman, kryptonite. Kryptonite is a fictional material that was a creation of a story author who knew of an actual element in space called Krypton.  Learning about the growth of a new version of witchcraft which I will use interchangeably with Paganism is especially entertaining because it reflects the long history of what goes on in humans' heads. Paganism thrived when every community was quite isolat...

The part of the world is obsessed against trans people cannot keep their views to themselves. They feel the need to put their views into law and even into the United Nations.  A group in the United Nations wants to list crimes against humanity. This would allow international knowledge of countries which practice horrific acts against minorities. To do this, the practices hate groups use and the populations they target need to be named. There is support to name trans people as a group targeted by hate groups. The hate groups, of course, do not want this, they want to target trans people. The link reports over 100K signatures have been gathered opposing naming trans as a targeted group. Those opposed want the freedom to demonize those they dislike. After all, the hate groups say, God created only two genders and did allow switching. Every informed person knows there have been people not identified as either male or female. Ancient writing referred to such people. Those in the U.N. wa...