Thoughts of a Freethinker

Movement toward women priests has slowed because women, and men who support women's rights, are leaving the denomination. One cannot blame them, but it does not help to move the needle. There are not good statistics on this but lots of antidotal testimony. It's very understanding that these women leave. The surprise is that any of them stay. If, as I suspect, Pope Leo wants women first as deacons and later as clergy these leaving women complicate his task. The Pope is a political position and he needs to be able to tell conservatives there is a big group of women in the denomination that demand equal treatment. He wants to be seen as the peacemaker. If those women have left, the peace maker excuse is all but absent. Conservatives, and most male clergy do not care if progressive women leave.   This, of course, is not limited to the Catholic denomination. Southern Baptists and Missouri Synod Lutherans do not allow women clergy.  On conservative Christian sites, there is a l...

From what one observes living far from Washington, DC, there is a constant narrative within the intelligence community one countries need new leadership. Generation after generation of U.S. officials are certain they know how to bring this about and start working on it. It seems like it is seldom successful and often makes things worse. When it is successful it also makes things worse. The link talks of Christian denominations being asked to bring regime change in Cuba. The President talks of it. The clock has run out on regime change in Cuba and Iran. Back a few generations Washington was certain the Shah of Iran was the leader Iran needed. Mostly, he was the leader the U.S. needed. He set off, needlessly it now seems, anger and resentment that led to a religious takeover of that country which continues today. The Trump Administration thinks it can put into office another Shah. No luck with that so far. It could be argued Iraq is better today and this is because Sadam was run down and...

  A new way, sort of a metaphor, for explaining where our climate is headed was expressed recently by a climatologist. She said Minnesota will become today's Texas. Rhode Island will become today's Florida. Al Gore was criticized daily for his movie 20 years ago, "An Inconvenient Truth." As he pointed out recently, most of what he predicted, global warming, floods, storms, etc, have come to pass. The dates he gave were not precisely accurate but the consequences are.  As the warmth moves north, it will leave behind an area of the U.S. too hot for people to survive. Food production in the South, including meat, will not be possible. The rise in sea levels will affect coastal areas in ways we are not prepared for. We can only hope the future will bring the public on board for steps to offset the warming that is on its way. When the public wants something done politicians will follow. 

I learned today there are many "micro churches", home churches that pop up when a group of people is fed up with the church they are going to they start meeting by themselves. Apparently the groups, at least to some extent, find each other online and hold conferences. According to the link these groups avoid much talking about theology. They realize everyone has their own deal and going very deep into "what the Bible means" will exclude those who know even better "what the Bible means" so it's go lite on that topic.  Predictably, the comments that followed the link wrote of the "ignorance" of lay people and the need for knowledgeable denominational officials to decide "what the Bible means" and give proper instruction to those of lesser knowledge. On the few occasions when I've gotten into the back pages of denominations or watched videos debating what is going on inside there are the inevitable conflicts about theology. Leave t...

Like every holiday of memorable event, some Christian operatives are trying to tie the faith to Father's Day. They are doing it with the 250th, marriage, births, deaths and whatever and wherever they can.  Father's Day is an interesting one because the Bible is full of men with many wives and countless children. Some of the great males in the Bible would not have been able to name all the children he fathered. A Christian site made a valiant effort to paint some Biblical characters as fine father figures. From what one reads, there is an increase in church attendance of single young men, not married fathers. Women are leaving the faith more rapidly than men. Perhaps there is the thinking by some in Christian management positions its future is in men, not women, and marketing should emphasize men. Of course, the faith has emphasized men with male-only clergy in many parts. If ever there was a place where men are important just by being born male, it is in the Catholic, Missouri ...

Devout Muslims get on their knees several times a day to pray. Some Christians have prescribed prayers with specific words. The Muslim prayers, so I understand, are about being humble. The prescribed Christian prayers are petitions to be humble, not among other people, but to the invisible god(s). I got to thinking about what is included in prayers when I came across a Christian's complaints about changes made by denomination officials in the official versions of these prescribed prayers.  The prescribed prayers in the link to be recited during various rituals summarize the Christian faith. Prayers are to admit sin and beg for forgiveness. This, of course, is the Christian marketing program. First, call out some behaviors as sins. These may not be harmful behaviors, but they are part of making the size of the market larger. Then the faith cleverly places itself between danger from committing the sins and a happy forever. What a deal. There should be a law that every church has a si...