Thoughts of a Freethinker

We all know denominations have seminaries. What seminaries and their professors study, write about and teach is what might be called (I'm the only one I know of who calls it this) the faith's manufacturing and wholesale sector. Preachers preach what those in the pews want to hear preached. This is the retail sector of Christianity. Those in the pews are the consumers. In the market system, what consumers buy sends money to the manufacturing, wholesale and retail sectors.  Professor Stevphen Prothuro in his book, "God is Not One, says Christianity is the retail sector, what those in the pews think and talk about. In most of both the Protestant and Catholic branches this is sin. It's what they worry people worry about. Ultimately, preachers read this back to them. Then, there is what a denomination's leaders, like the Pope, talk about. A professor at Mormon BYU studies what the head of Mormons focuses on. It changes. These leaders talk about certain sins until those ...

The newspaper in Iowa ran a story about the common Catholic practice across the country. Parishes are closing and being combined. Mass attendance has fallen by about 50% and the numbers of available priests is falling. To become a priest requires several years and is, therefore, very expensive. Add to that, of course, only males and no marriage. To increase attendance, the denomination needs to open parishes on every corner like McDonalds. By maintaining its expensive requirements for priesthood, the Catholic denomination has shot itself in the foot.  What jumped out in the report about the Catholic denomination in Iowa is that about half the current priests were born in other countries. It got me to wondering if the unstated method for keeping the denomination alive is a pipeline of priests from poorer countries. If the percentage is now 50% will it be much higher 10 or 20 years from now. I found a study of the priesthood and tried to find out where these foreign-born priests come...

Somewhere there must be a "standard list of sermon topics" preachers use to rotate their sermon topics. One topic that is covered over and over in the Christian press is why the faithful should not expect God to answer all their prayers all the time. It seems like it comes up more often these days. Could it be there is more doubt than in previous times? The theme of many sermons is that God is there to help after a tragedy happens. In the link, we learn God is there for the long run, eternity, so current events that go bad and kill loved ones need to be put in a broader perspective. Where, then, does the admonition to "pray" have some benefit? Why are there signs along roads from coast to coast that say, "PRAYER WORKS?" In what way does it "work?" An ex preacher said one of the things he most disliked about being a preacher was the requirement to write a sermon each time there was a national disaster that, "Took God off the hook." It s...

Countless times I've heard TV preachers and some politicians use the phrase "God given rights." Maybe I've used the phrase myself. It's really meaningless.  First of all, of course, there is no God or god so far as anyone knows. But rights are there anyway. Our rights had to have come from somewhere else.  What about the rights in other countries? The Hindu faith is older than Christianity. Did the rights of people in India come from a Hindu god? I wonder if Hindu people in India have a phrase like we do. There are about 4.5 million Hindus in the U.S. Did the rights those Hindu citizens in the U.S. come from the U.S. Christian God or from a Hindu god or from no god anywhere at any time? Our rights, that is our government and the laws we live under, did not come from the Christian God, a Hindu god or any other god. Where, then, did they come from? I'm not a historian nor an attorney but it seems to me our government, political system and rights came from a chao...

  Conventional wisdom is that sanctions against Cuba will cause the current post-Castro government out of power. One has to wonder, what kind of government will come next if that happens? A Catholic posted the plight of the Catholic operations in Cuba. Except for the wealthy in high places, the entire island is destitute.  While conventional wisdom would tell us the current government, run by remnants of the Castros, is running things and that if citizens rise up that government will be replaced with something "better," we can wonder if that is reality. I've read that the military owes all the important assets of the island. It owns things like the source of electricity, water, etc. They pay themselves well. Where does "revolution" fit into that situation? From this distance, it's hard to tell what difference it makes to the mighty U.S. if Cuba is run by a corrupt military or something better. The U.S. had something at stake when the Soviets were going to pu...

Has raising a child changed over the last few decades? Everyone knows it is far more expensive. There are tomes published with explain why this has happened.  Economic forces have change many things.  In my Sunday paper today is an article discussing how vast the practice of retired age parents giving financial aid to adult children has become. Nearly half of retired parents with children do this. This reason they do this surely is because their children or grandchildren need this money. That this economic situation exists has to affect the decisions of children and grandchildren as well and the older generation.  The anti-abortion industry tries to blow off the economics of giving birth and raising a child. It never, ever, mentions the lives lost in childbirth. Instead, it blames decisions to have abortions, by pills or surgery, on "abortion clinics," "women who do not want to be held accountable for their sin" and "the culture." I've pointed out befo...