Thoughts of a Freethinker

  Between the years of 1,000 and 1,300 armies from Christian countries walked long distances to invade Islamic countries. They went once and were defeated. Doing something stupid once was not enough. They went twice more and were defeated again. Now, Trump and his Christian whackos are being defeated there again. Christian armies are losing armies.  There is a basic question to ask about all religions; Does religion do more good than bad or more bad than good? If we use loss of life and limb as the measurement, religion is more bad than good. There have been plenty of references to Christianity in bombing Iran by those in the Trump Administration.  The crusades were armies sent long distances from the home base. If the armies survived walking for days they were not in a good condition for a sustained battle. Surely that is mostly why Christians lost. Our bombing is easier but bringing Iran to its knees in surrender is proving to be more than was bargained for. Sending tro...

A Texas medical board has issued disciplinary action against three doctors whose patients died in childbirth. In all three cases, the board said the Texas anti-abortion laws allow a doctor to perform an abortion in a medical emergency. However, if one is performed and a board loaded with anti-abortion Christians decides it was not an emergency and the doctor killed a "baby." The doctor could lose his/her license and maybe be charged with murder.  I wonder how many women died in these same circumstances. I'm guessing few are questioned. Anti-abortion politicians have refused to write the rules so a doctor knows for certain whether or not an abortion is legal. I've read it is possible to write meaningful and accurate rules. The more vague the rules are the more likely doctors will let women die instead of doing abortions. That is what the anti-abortion political operatives intended. What constitutes an abortion the "save the life of the mother" is not a rule ...

I'm so old I remember the first Earth Day in 1970. It was the Vietnam War period and Earth Day was sort of anti-war as well as a way to show the younger generation understood reality better than our parents. What a heady time it was for the environment movement.  All of us have different conclusions on what has happened to concern about the environment since 1970. Cars exhaust is much cleaner. On todays TV I see there were events in this metro area planting trees. So many things about the environment have gotten worse since 1970. Where I live, animal waste and crop herbicides have made the surface water worse. Air quality is worse in some areas but better in some areas of California.  The warming climate was not apparent in 1970. Today we know the impact of man on the planet is not some liberal power scheme but is reality. Even though it is now recognized around the world that the temperature is rising, there still is not an adequate appreciation of how urgent environmental pr...

It started under Clinton. Then W. Bush went all in. It was to off-load humanitarian work from government employees to the private sector. Faith based and non profits contracted with government to do this work and it appeared cheaper. Now we are now seeing it might have been better to leave it with government employees.  In Minneapolis there was a large theft. There was a contract that paid for providing meals. The meals never happened. That has increased interest and study of non profits taking over from public employees. In jail and prison across the U.S. evangelical groups provide Chaplains. Local sheriffs say this calms down inmates and makes the sheriff's job easier. Mixed in is the widely known conclusion inmates have made that buttering up the Chaplain may increase odds of an early out. Pretending to be in the faith is the key. The link tells of efforts by non profits in get new projects. These non profits or religious groups are not interested in making life better for down ...

A new college has started that combines the liberal arts with the trades. My wife, a sociologist, wrote an article decades ago about the prospect of this. She wrote that many kinds of "work" will be eliminated by technology, but the life of the mine could flourish. Discussing the classics over lunchbox sandwiches is not a bad life.  In our culture we have come to see intellectual life as living and working amongst books. Intellectuals become writers, teachers, academics, etc. The truth is intellectual life also lives among those who do not make a living in those professions. I remember a preacher saying his best church was in a rural area. Farmers thought about his sermons on the tractor. Later churches had white collar people who never gave such topics a thought after the Sunday sermon. One of the most famous sociologists was Eric Hoffer. He was a self-educated longshoreman who unloaded ships. He wrote about what he observed in people and his writing became textbooks. Perhap...

Quite often we see some Christian declaring he/she has finally found proof the founding fathers intended the faith called Christianity was to be the national religion in the U.S. Now a speech delivered by President John Quincy Adams is being pushed down the runway.  The speech is 65 pages long and must have taken a long time to write--and was long to listen to. It was delivered in the 1840's when Adams was 71 years old. Speeches and letters by politicians may have their own self-interest in mind. While in office, it might be getting reelected. After office, it might be justifying whatever they did. In any event, from the parts I read of Quincy Adams, it was the same old song and dance. The same old is not that we "know" there is a God and Jesus. It's that we should all agree on something so we can move forward. When we are all going in different directions things don't get done. What's handy to reach for is religion. Let's all grab onto that and we'll ...