Thoughts of a Freethinker

Of course, Southern Baptists voted against confirming women for clergy. Male domination and being judgmental of others is the reason the denomination exists. How could it vote otherwise? Yet, as membership drops and the ground under its feet shifts, Southern Baptists will see women continue moving into powerful positions. Who is the "head pastor" when the names attached to positions changes? What does it mean to "preach." Is being the featured speaker preaching? There is the constant decline of membership which has not yet changed the world inside conservative religions but change seems inevitable. Denominations are reluctant to change until competitors take their money.  Alcohol was a taboo for many Protestants for decades. Now it exists as a taboo in only a few outliers. Gay preachers and gay marriage resistance have faded to the sidelines. One by one the old taboos are sidelined.   The current hot button taboo is trans. Watch for opposition to that disappear. The...

Vice President Vance was rightly criticized for saying he hoped his wife, Usha, would convert to Christianity. Maybe he was not serious and the two of them have made peace about religion and he knows she is not considering changing and he knows this. One whacko Christian columnist justifies Vance's "request" to his wife and all other hard sells of Christianity made by Christians everywhere. According to the columnist, Vance is doing his wife a favor by giving her a shot at an eternity in heaven. A few years ago, when I was preparing to attend an event we pilots attend to talk about flying and our airplanes, an obnoxious Christian member started posting about a morning church service he was organizing. He asked for volunteers to read from the Bible, conduct a prayer and give a "message." Several pilots chimed in and told him this was not appropriate. His reply was the same as the link , "Eternity is forever. I'm only trying to help all pilots so they do ...

The Bible is full of dreams and visions. The difference between dreams and actual events was not clear then and is not clear to many believers today. The mythical "Paul" of the Bible have visions of talking with Jesus long after Jesus was dead. To this day it is assumed often in the faith that Paul actually spoke to Jesus. While one can understand the ancients had a view that dreams were some kind of communication with some other world, we would not think it lives on today. We would be wrong . I remember a few year back watching a panel discussion on a religious site. Benny Hinn, the fake healing preacher, was on the panel. The discussion morphed into what each was hearing from God. Benny went on for several minutes about seeing Jesus while in bed. He thought he might have been asleep and it was a dream but felt it had some serious meaning. He asked Jesus questions but Jesus did not answer. Benny was perplexed because he was certain the visit meant something important but he ...

Just now Pope Leo is in Spain. He will be there for several days. According to a press article he will address several human rights issues. He will also visit youth groups in an effort to stop the trend of youth leaving Catholicism and Christianity in general. In one of his early stops, it was clear his operatives were looking for optics that made his visit look exciting. Several thousand kids were given white smocks to make a photo impression of a huge event. The Popes speech apparently was not about being a Catholic, but "returning" to the denomination. He said it should not be relegated to a museum. Leo knows the numbers. They are declining. The Pope points to the history of Catholicism in Spain. Certainly, it's been there for a long time. Before, Catholicism, however, there was something else. No doubt every region had its own god and myths. To be accurate, the Pope should urge going back into history, but not too far back. Just go back, he should say, to when Catholi...

The effect of prayer will go on forever so one wonders why discuss it? The link asks that question. You will not learn anything from the link except that believers like to pray and it makes them feel they are doing something even though there is no evidence prayer actually does anything. Many decades ago when I was a mayor of the largest city in ND, Fargo, people from outside the city regularly made appointments to talk to me. Some came to talk about money and business. Others came to talk about state politics. A popular topic was religion. I was surprised about that. The link made me remember my intercessory prayer experience. I may have written about it here before so skip the rest of this post if that's the case. A preacher from a couple of hours away made an appointment and spent his half hour telling me of the times he had done intercessory prayer and saved the lives of other politicians. One was the Governor at the time, Allen Olson, who said at the time the preacher was pray...

There will be no dog tags or tombstones listing "Atheist". Gone is training of military Chaplains in a host of religions that exist in the U.S. and which troops have listed on their personal military resume. Atheist will now be called "No Religion." Various earth-type religions or ones from the tropics will be lumped together. If you are a troubled member of the armed forces and desire to confine your emotional state to an understanding member of your clergy, you may have to soldier on alone.  Readers know there has been an explosion in the number of religions people now identify with. There are news ones every year so we can expect this will continue. I suppose there remains a view in conventional wisdom the military needs to provide clergy to troops. We know, also, the origin of the practice came from Christianity. The expansion of religions has tossed the old model of a Chaplain for everyone's faith out the window.  One can understand that providing trained c...