Thoughts of a Freethinker

Readers who are political junkies like me already know about the Democratic Primary in Texas. Two fine Democrats ran, a woman with a women's rights theme and a man who is a Presbyterian seminary student in his mid thirties. Both have histories in Texas politics. The man, Jame Talarico, won. He campaigned on the old theme of "let's listen and respect each other." But the headlines about him were not such old and tired ideas. They were new and refreshing. He said the Bible does not condemn either abortion or homosexuality. No button is hotter than that one. Nothing could set Republicans on edge more than a candidate saying such things. All the worse, he won with a big turnout. He did well with the black and Hispanic communities in Texas. Even Trump expressed outrage.   As a clergy-type persona, the "let's listen and respect one another" sounds a little more sincere or has a different quality than it might from someone else.  I wish I could be in Texas watc...

Being old like I am, news is repetitive and a little boring. What bores me now are Pete Hegseth and President Trump bragging about the damage done to Iran. To hear them tell it, Iran has no equipment left to retaliate. How does Iran continue to fight? How can it send bombs to countries that have sided with the U.S.? History tells us the answer.  During the Vietnam war, the news was the same. Big advances by the U.S. The "kill number" was big. So many more North Vietnamese were being killed than U.S. soldiers, a successful victory for the U.S. was inevitable. Our airplanes destroyed bridges and road used to supply North Vietnam's troops. This meant they would have no weapons or even food.  The North knew how to offset U. S. military power. They outfitted bicycles as tiny cargo carriers. When a road was bombed a small path was made and the bicycles moved through. They built tunnels safe from bombs. This went on until we were defeated and flew everyone out in a hurry. Neithe...

For several years there have been occasional news pieces about the growth of Norse paganism in Norway, Sweden and Finland. I assumed these stories were not about large numbers of people. The numbers are still not known but enough money and commitment have been made to construct at least one cemetery and temple. It is a most interesting development .   It seems logical there would develop an interest in some kind of undefined and mysterious belief. Polling shows a huge disconnect to Christianity and organized religion. Out of those who no longer identify as Christian (or other major religion) there have to be hundreds of thousands, maybe some millions, who are agnostics. That it, they believe there may well be "something" out there but we don't know what it is. As theologian Bart Ehrman explained recently, he is an atheist about the Christian God. Since no one can prove no other god exists any where he is agnostic about that. Maybe most "nones" would follow this ...

We know there have been many gods humans have held in their imaginations over the last several hundred thousand years. How many surviving stories are there about beings that are similar to the tale of Jesus? According to a site being passed around today there were a large number.  Let's run through the deeds and traits of god heroes preceding Jesus that were worked into the Jesus story. There were other virgin births, raising others and themselves from being dead, had twelve disciples, was a carpenter, was not believed in his time, son of god and Old Testament snakes. Room was made for all of these in the Jesus tale. I keep coming back to the number of hours each day people spent in the dark during both pre history and early history. Entertaining each other was and remains an art form. Early in my years of writing this blog I recall someone explaining the manner in which each Bible story unfolds. Each story in the Bible starts the same way a modern play, movie, novel or TV series s...

Christianity calls the time of the Old Testament and the supposed time of Jesus as "ancient." There were of course 300,000 years of human experience before the Jews and Christians. This could be a hundred or so generations of human experience. Experience in our own time suggest every conceivable gender definition ever experienced in human history took place over those generations.  On February 2 each year gay and trans people from across Italy come to the Naples area where the variety of genders is celebrated by a Priest. This is to acknowledge and accept all people into the faith.  This I-dare-you-to-stop-me kind of event is a staple of civil rights from early one. Martin Luther King dared to walk down a highway in the center of hatred-land. The world looked on with nerves on edge. The forces opposing him were hapless.  In several places in Europe Catholic clergy are treating gay people with respect, contrary to church teaching. The Catholic hierarchy seems like the hapl...

When I was first a mayor I blind-sided by new worlds, interests people have and beliefs they carry, I did not know existed. An early one was letters from across the country telling me the meaning of certain numbers. These were people who had studied numbers all of their lives and assigned meaning to them. The Mayor's job was part time, so I was also a professor. I told one of my colleagues about this. He happened to know all about this world of people who held beliefs about numbers and explained some of it to me.  I was reminded of this experience when I read today the Shiite Muslims in Iran have declared a period of mourning over the death of their religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The period of mourning is for a specific number of days, 40. Readers know how long it rained after Noah built his ark, 40 days and 40 nights. Remembering a little more about the Bible we recall Jesus fasted to in the wilderness, talking to God, for 40 days. Moses spent 40 days on the mountain talkin...