Thoughts of a Freethinker

Even though religion is a product of the imagination, it has always both helped and harmed humans. It has harmed them by persuading people only their imagination is literally true and those with other imaginations must be killed. Christians have killed for this. It has helped people who have a need for the imaginary gods of religion. There are several writers these days criticizing the four famous authors who are labeled "The New Atheists." The criticism is mostly that these writers, which include Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, do not ponder what life would be like without religion. I agree they don't go into that--it is not what they set out to do. The question is what the world, or the United States, would be like without religion?  Our international neighbors a few flying hours to the east can tell us. Most of Europe is now polling majority not religious. Life there is similar to life here except they do not have mass shootings. I don't think it is fair to

One of my friends for 20 some years is a retired Baptist pastor. We we served together on a national board we spent many evenings discussing religion. At the age of 90 he still writes a blog that engages my mind. Recently, he summarized his journey through the faith. Born into a Baptist family, he learned as a young man he did not want to live under authorities such what he experienced in the military. He played football in college and went to Garrett Theological Seminary. It has a Methodist background but is ecumenical in reach. When my friend graduated, it would have been expected he would be a Methodist preacher. But his Baptist childhood and military experience drew him back to the American Baptist denomination. He explained his journey in this way. The Baptists rejected the church authority model of Catholics and Lutherans. Baptists rejected the authoritarian straight jacket of Calvinism. Baptists have one authority, the Bible. But here is the interesting intellectual

A recent article reviewed one of the biggest questions about human beings. It asked, "Why are some religions successful and some not?" It reviewed the many studies of various religions and the societies where these religions are popular. Societies and countries that continue for long periods of time without falling apart need something the majority have in common. That is, they need people who voluntarily conform to laws and standards because they have bought into a notion of what is called "the common good." Some societies/countries, i.e. billions of people, do this without religion. But, it has been common over recorded history to do it through some kind of religion. The four or five major world religions hold onto a large majority of the world's population. The link presents the theory, one I hold as well, that big religions came into prominence about 10,000 years ago. They came in because that was about the time the economics of humans changed. Befor

The goal was to find a way to connect to youth because youth have been leaving the church. After a month, apparently the gathering accomplished nothing. With so many youth leaving the church it was imperative to find a solution. There was no big announcement. The problem is today's culture in the West is moving away from instead of toward the long standing dogma of Catholic clergy. Almost no Catholics follow the Church's position on birth control. The majority support gay marriage with the clergy opposes. A majority in the U. S. favors more access to abortion than does the clergy. So, when the clergy meet to find a solution to their increasing distance from young Catholics one would think they would alter some of these odd and unpopular views. They were unable to do so. Catholic clergy have two ways of dealing with their disconnect. One is to change church tenets. The other is to stop talking about unpopular tenets so those in the pews think church policy has changed. T

When the anti gay political effort was in full swing, it was often said marriage is about religion. Somehow marriage was said to be a gift from God. Nonsense. It was said that the entire concept of marriage came out of the faith. From what we know of tribal societies, selection of the spouse was done by family or tribal leaders. The selection was based on the interests of the family or tribe and not was not what the individuals might have preferred. It was, then, government, not religion, that "invented" marriage. Today we seem to be going back to a concept of marriage separate from the church. The link  author looked at several days of weddings in the New York Times. It was noted that about 1/3 of the marriages were performed by non clergy. It is easy today to meet the legal requirements for conducting marriage on the internet. Couples are also choosing locations other than churches for the ceremony. It seems to me various branches of Christianity pushed people away

For some 50 years I've had an ongoing interest in the native cultures of our two "local" continents. Europeans came across the ocean and pushed away many of the cultures that were in both North and South America. Those of us from European backgrounds tend to assume that was rather inevitable, that there was destiny because of our of superior intelligence and abilities. The more I learn about the Middle East, Europe and the Americas of a few thousand years ago the more it appears to me we white and Christian Europeans dominated due to a series of historical accidents and luck rather than anything that makes us "better." In religion, it would mean Christianity dominates because of the same historical luck. During the period when Jews were becoming dominate in the country of Canaan, native cultures on our continents were developing an innovative food supply that took intelligence and patience. One of these was the development of maize. It seems to me what nat

Celibacy is an idea that just happened along the way and was adopted as church policy at a certain point in history when it made sense to the hierarchy. Before then male clergy had wives. It might not make sense today. Celibacy, like opposition to gay marriage and abortion, is just another historical accident. There have been many arguments as to why the notion of celibacy in the Catholic Church came about. I have read it had to do with corrupt popes who amassed wealth and passed the position down to their children. If there were no children this problem would go away. Some say it had to do with the cost of running the organization. Single clergy needed less money. Then there is the argument the concept came from the writing attributed to Paul. In a place or two this writing says, paraphrasing, "Men who want to spread the gospel like I do should be single like I am." This is not a directive from God or Jesus. It is just the musing of a self centered preacher. One re

It's only possible to know only a tiny bit of what goes on inside the secret world-wide bureaucracy of the Catholic Church. From what is visible it looks discouraging. Pope Francis came into office with the intent of getting the vast bureaucracy under control. Some say the Cardinals who elected him gave him a mandate to do so. I would guess there were many different agendas in the many minds of those Cardinals. It does appear, however, Francis wanted to shape things up. He started by appointing a Council of Cardinals. This also goes under the names "C8" and "C9". The mandate given them was to consolidate power to under the reform minded Pope. He needed this to clean up sloppy finances and end child abuse by priests. What has happened during the past five years is fascinating to review. On the one had, there has been some consolidation of power. On the other hand events seem to have spun further out of control and the church is becoming a federation of

As Christian numbers decline, it is entertaining to read of the various solutions the faithful come up with. Perhaps the most frequent solution is to be more pushy in selling the faith to others. This reasoning tells us that in the past pushy selling of the faith brought in big numbers. What I suspect is the pushy marketing, calling up your neighbor, maybe more than once, and inviting her to your church once worked better a few decades ago than it works today. And, if this is true, why doesn't it work? Recently someone wrote that religion is a good reflection of the society where it lives. Thus, Hinduism reflects the cultures where it is popular, Islam where it is popular and the same for Christianity.  That is, a culture writes its religions rules. It's not the other way around. I grew up on a farm, twenty miles from a city of 25,000. Our little town had one church and one of it powerful tenets was not working on Sundays. In the Bible working on Sundays is listed as on

Often, when Christian encounter their first atheist they will say, "I'm sorry to hear you had some unpleasant experience in the church that caused you to leave." Perhaps that notion is preached from the pulpit or elsewhere. It seems to be the default explanation believers have about non believers, they were driven from the faith by a bad experience. Having heard scores of atheists tell their stories I cannot remember hearing that a person lost his/her faith because of a bad encounter with some unpleasant person or church. It does not make sense. If a person believes why would they not believe because they disliked some other person in the faith? Sure, they might move to another church or denomination. But it is not logical they would lose their faith. A recent article discussed this in a much more realistic way. What the link says is common to what I have heard from almost every person who left the faith. Leaving religion is a two step experience. First, of cours

It was refreshing to read a Christian  businessman's suggestions as to how Christianity can bring people back to church. He uses terms like "market share" and such which is exactly how church leaders should themselves be thinking. While he avoids specific topics that are contentious he is specific about current theology--it must change. Today's society, he writes, has a preoccupation with justice. Mostly, the church does not. In order for today's public to identify with the church in increasing instead of decreasing numbers it needs to move in the public's direction. Justice, of course, means different things to different parts of the public. The most universal theme, I would argue, is that justice refers to equal opportunity for all including minorities and women. Except for its liberal wing, Christianity has not had as much to say about this in recent decades. When we talk about what the church is or what it stands for, I always refer to Professor S

I've said before here that sex abuse by Catholic clergy is not ending, it is just beginning. People such as the link author are concluding the problem does not start with bad priests, it starts with bad Bishops. But, what the author does not recognize is that actually it does not start with bad Bishops, it starts with bad theology. I remember a former Manager, Tom Kelly, of the Minnesota Twins baseball team talking about the psychology of dealing with players. He did not tell pitchers to "keep it low" or "throw more curves" he said. "You don't want to play with the guy's brain," was his strategy. Playing with the guy's brain is exactly what early theologians did in the Catholic Church. While it didn't happen for a thousand years of so, eventually they made priests believe they themselves are some sort of god. They are not allowed to marry because then there would be competition for their allegiance between their wives/children and

I've discussed before a major problem within Christianity. It is that no one can today tell us what the returning holy being will look like, or, how we will tell it is the real thing and not an impostor. Today, there are people in Texas saying a young preacher there is "Jesus in the flesh." Just why they say this I don't understand. You can read about him and maybe understand why he is Jesus. I can't remember from the Bible who or what is supposed to show up. People argue with me here saying that there will be no doubt about the real thing. I'm guessing if there were such and event, which there never will be, believers themselves would start fighting about whether or not this was what they have been waiting for. I understand this new Jesus is on You Tube so maybe some readers would like to have a look. If I am wrong and he really is the Jesus or whatever that is coming back let us know here at the blog. The end of time and the return of the holy one

Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist author, wrote that he believes science will on day solve the origin of he universe. If this happens science will have destroyed most religions of the world. We have not discovered where the universe came from but scientists are hopeful we might one day discover it's origin. This will lead to understanding where or how the first kind of life began. They have identified four billion years old rocks. This kind of rock, they surmise, could have been penetrated by water and by doing so may have started a chemical change. There are many chemical changes that are taking place in real time--perhaps it happened billions of year ago. Having said that, all scientists will admit today they do not know yet exactly how the first version of life began. To admit this does not mean the default opinions of Christians is a correct explanation. They often deride scientists and atheists by saying the since the origin of life is not yet known it means that

The Pope visited Ireland recently.  The topic of sexual abuse by priests is much in discussion. That country has seen an explosion of cases in recent years. One victim told a conference audience the Catholic Church must stop defending the indefensible. Of course the same is true for all other parts of the faith and other faiths. One common come back by Catholic clergy is child sexual abuse happens in all professions. This is true. But only Catholic clergy claim to have inherited their position from Jesus himself. That others commit the same crimes is not a defense. Something similar is the myth of life after death. No one has ever been able to establish that there is a long life after death. Yes, there are people who sell books and earn lecture fees about their encounter with something like another world while unconscious. But that is not an eternal life after death. This business deal where believers tithe has one winner, the clergy that receives the money and one loser, the b

The Pope believes it is Satan, not the rules that give Catholic clergy power over people, that is the cause of clergy who practice child abuse and/or those who do not remain celibate. Tourists are now going to Kenya to be healed by witches. Witches are skilled at chasing out evil spirits. I am unable to see the difference between Satan and the evil spirits of witchcraft. Such is the wonderful life of the human mind. The Greeks had gods which never came to earth. These gods had wives they were unfaithful to, various revenge battles, and battles between good and evil. Every story ever told, from those around the fire in ancient times to the Bible and to today's books and movies, has a hero and a villain. Author, Professor Joseph Campbell traveled the world learning about the gods people worshiped. He referred to these gods as heroes, The Hero's Journey.  In classic story telling, there cannot be a hero without a villain. Because religion is story telling, a villain of

Pennsylvania's giant revelation about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy may be only the start of digging into this issue. Seven state Attorney Generals have said in one way or another they do not trust their state's Catholic hierarchy to honestly report what has happened and are in the process of obtaining records which up to now have been kept under wraps. This means news about hiding abusive priests may be in the news for a long time to come. I'm sure devout Catholics have been hoping this issue will be put to rest soon. We'll see if it is or not. While the priests I have known personally have been honest and wonderful people, that is not something we can say about the Catholic hierarchy. I've mentioned here several times the efforts of Timothy Dolan when he was a Bishop in Milwaukee. He tried to hide the Diocese money in an obscure cemetery trust fund. A judge put a stop to his scheme. It is becoming increasingly clear that the practice of moving priests

In recent decades I have seen animal rights groups increase use of the word "life." That is, if you turn your unwanted pet over to a pet adoption business instead of having it killed you have "saved a life." This reference to animal "life" was not lost on a prominent anti abortion columnist. He wrote a stern warning to animal life groups saying animal life is not on the same plane with a human life. I was interested to learn how he differentiated the two. I wondered is there was some science-based argument that laid our clearly a physical or mental difference that separated the two. People have wondered about this perhaps since the beginning of humans. When I took my first anthropology course the view was that animals were different because they could not think in the abstract. That meant they could not use make use of tools. This has now been widely debunked. There are animals who not only use tools they make tools first and then use them. The

Looking backwards in time, it always appears as if religious leaders had more control of their followers than at the present time. I would guess that at any time in recorded history many religious people of the time thought control of religion was slipping. Certainly that was recorded in the Bible where there was anguish over ending the required practice of circumcision. Today, we can see slippage of control in many places. Nearly all Catholics practice birth control which is forbidden. It was interesting to read about control of the Mormon church over its members. It seems not what it once was. Several Protestant denominations have split over gay marriage. One group recognizes the Bible does not prohibit gay marriage. The other sees a slippage in control which they see as a major responsibility of the church. The truth is control by religious leaders and denominations has been slipping from day one. In my lifetime card playing, working on Sunday and ballroom dancing slipped aw

According to a survey reported in Christianity Today , the faiths called Wicca and Paganism are growing rapidly. Some think there are more of these two faiths than there are of Presbyterians. While the growth appeared to start quite a while back, some blame current growth on the popular books and films called Harry Potter. What are cultural reasons this growth appears to be happening. If the two were presented as "anti Christianity" they might be seen as enemies. They are often referred to, however, as "pre Christianity." This latter description has a less threatening sound. One thing I'm certain is true of Wicca and Paganism is they lack a central organization which hammers out what the approved theology is going to be. This leaves individuals and small groups to adopt whatever is meaningful to them. As I have written here for years, religion is something unique to each individual. It is free form. Trying to make this seemingly natural inclination to

The dire consequences for climate change are now predicted at 20 years out. Temperatures are rising faster than previously predicted. The Trump administration is undoing regulations that might have slowed it. What will be the consequences for the average citizen? Sitting here in here in comfort, it is easy to conclude my air conditioner will just run a little more when the climate heats up. I suppose that is what the average person thinks. A scientist in the link   explains how the heating of our globe will affect us. He sarcastically points out that Trump's wall between the U.S. and Mexico might detour 10,000 people wanting to cross. But, it will do little to stop 10 million. If large areas of the world are flooded and food production falls, I may be able to lock several doors and keep desperate people from entering my apartment but walking down my street may not be safe. Another author says we could reduce our impact if we humans across the globe act within 10 years. If

There are still significant denominations that ban women from the pulpit. These include the Catholic, most Baptists, Lutherans Missouri Synod and many others. Nevertheless, the march of women to the pulpit continues with robust numbers. Around 20% of all Christian clergy are now women. Ever year more women are ordained than men. As this march toward equality continues surely more women will be one governing boards and positions which oversea theology. An interesting thing to speculate about is whether or how women might change the Christian faith. I belonged to First Presbyterian Church in downtown Fargo for decades. During that time an interesting thing happened. The number two pastor was a woman with quite liberal leanings. The Board chose a No. 1 pastor who was more conservative than any had been for decades. The No. 1 was there several years and then left. I don't know what is happening there now. Abortion rights is more popular among women in the public than among men.

A Canadian professor is making his living bashing atheists. He does not do it by undercutting the fundamental argument of atheists, that there is no evidence of a super natural being. Instead, he compares what atheists write to what propagandists like Christians write. His theme stated over and over is that atheists write to persuade. They do their persuasion by discrediting what religious people write and say. By discrediting Christians, this author writes, the atheists try to discredit what the Christian presents as truth. Atheists also, he writes, treat Christian views as the result of indoctrination instead of the result of logic and study. I have to admit atheists write to persuade. It is also correct that generally atheists do not treat Christian intellectuals with much respect.  We can agree, too, that mostly atheists consider Christians to be the result of indoctrination because that is the only plausible explanation. It would be more helpful if this professor of religi

If you tell the story of Jesus to someone who has never heard it, that person will think you are nuts . It's inevitable. The Jesus story starts with the God story. The invisible God is mad at all the people on earth, a million or so, except Noah. So, he kills them all. God's original plan then was to erase the sinful people that resulted from his first population and start over again--he'd get it right this time. But, he had to change plans again. This time he decided to try breed his own self into a human. There was still so much sin, however, he had to kill his off spring again but brought him back to life after three days.  Do these stories strike the average rations person as believable?  That the Christian story is myth is so easy for some to see and impossible for others. We don't know who wrote the Bible but there are other books written about the same time which have threads of history back to the actual authors. There are about 200 such authors. If

It is fascinating to read about how some parts of Christianity are hustling to keep up with the changing tastes of young people--trying to keep more of them in the faith. There must be some of this in Catholicism but what I read is about branches of Protestantism. The big publishers of youth material have or are going out of business. Gone with them are large youth rallies where kids come from across the country to, as one industry person put it, "get all jacked up" in the faith. Instead, groups are trying video conferences and training with computer packages. The Catholic Church has a touch of this, on-line confessions. I looked at one of these sites a few years ago. The assumption is an actual priest would look at whatever one wrote. This may or may not be true. If it is not already being done, I would guess the church would adopt what everyone else does, a "Penny". "Penny" is the fictional woman on one of my investment sites. She says she can

Do you, like me, get the impression a war inside the Catholic Church is growing? My take on it all is that the Catholic Church is a square bottle and for centuries it has been trying to put a round lid on its top. The square bottle is human beings, their strengths, weaknesses and different kinds of sex drives, and the lid is some very unrealistic idea the men who run it can be holier than the general population. Setting aside those priests who married before entering the priesthood, the vow of celibacy is to take the almost universal desire of humans to have close relationships with others and call it a sin. Make men and women miserable, the celibacy policy seems to say, and they will be better priests and nuns. It is like an idea flown in from Mars where there are not humans. Every organization in crisis seeks to "cut its losses." There are differing ideas within the Church on how to do this. The prevailing approach is to apologize and promise to prevent more gays

I'm sure that to billions of humans, blasphemy is a real sin and those who practice is must be punished by government. There is even an international celebration to honor punishment those who commit blasphemy. Countless times over years of blogging I have been accused of blasphemy. The first time someone said this I had to look up blasphemy to see just what it was all about. There are many countries which have laws against blasphemy, sometimes punishable by death. Speaking ill of the local god is what generally we refer to when using the term, blasphemy. Different religious traditions lay out specific definitions. In Christianity blasphemy is an "unforgivable sin." It is the ultimate sin. The original form of Christian blasphemy is to insult the "holy spirit." It is hard for me to insult the holy spirit when I have no idea what it is. Nevertheless, if I have done it I am guilty of blasphemy and have committed an unforgivable sin. Those who are celebrati

While it is too early to make sweeping generalizations, a recent study of parents and their student children near New York City provides some understanding about the growth of secular identification among young people. The role of religion in the lives of parents was compared to its role in their children.  It found what we have all observed for years, young people are self identifying as less religious than their self-identifying parents. Even more interesting is that parents of today's teens and twenty somethings did not indoctrinate their children with the same zeal as previous generations. The parents of today's young poll "Christian" as well as "Catholic", "Methodist" "Baptist", etc. Yet, by the evidence in front of us they were not enthusiastic members of those branches of the faith. An explanation of this apparent inconsistency is that the parents, for all practical purposes, had left behind the religion of their parents. Yet

Religious freedom is mostly a zero sum game. The Trump administration wants more religious freedom for one group, the group where their votes are, and wants less for its enemies. There have been many attempts at outlawing marriage between same sex people. If these couples have a religious belief they are to marry each other how can prohibiting their marriage be "religious freedom" for them. The same for preachers who have a "calling" to perform the ceremonies. I would guess the majority of Christians do not believe a fertilized human egg is a human being. They do not share the religious view that at the moment of conception a new human being exists. More ridiculous restrictions on abortions is not religious freedom, it is the opposite. In fact is "religious freedom" as promoted by the Trump administration is not religious freedom at all. Instead, it is imposing one set of religious views on those who have a different set. It is the opposite of tr