Thoughts of a Freethinker

We've all heard of the huge number of deaths from drug overdose. Probably few know of the back-story drama that is going on in search of a solution. The traditional model for treatment of all drug use is some variation of the "12 step" program from Alcoholics Anonymous. This leans heavily on religion and the implication that too much alcohol or other drugs is sin. It requires an admission from the user that he or she will depend on a "higher power" to lead them out of their dependence. In recent years, a new player was introduced to heroin users. It is a drug called methadone. This drug takes away the desire to use heroin, is inexpensive and safe when taken under professional supervision. The methadone is used sometimes for a few years. Experience has shown it has good long-term success when users are not rushed to go off of it. The problem is, methadone is successful without a higher power. This, even though many patients go to Anonymous meetings and e

A prominent preacher recently published an article advising people "how to pray." He advised those who pray to "be humble." This struck me as peculiar. If a person believes that he/she is so important a god knows her among the nine billion people on earth she is anything but humble. That is a person with an inflated sense of self.  There are two reasons a preacher would give such advice. First, he makes his living telling people the god they pray to knows them. If people stopped believing this he is out of a job. It's profitable to tell people about a god that knows them personally. The second reason the preacher tells people to be humble is that whatever they ask for may well not be delivered. So he tells them not to be too demanding, be humble.  A preacher whose living depends on people believing there is a god will be unemployed if people are led to believe their prayers will be answered but never are. People need to be convinced their prayers are hear

I've been writing for several years about incarceration of women who have miscarriages. A parallel  is "crime prevention" in the form of monitoring pregnant women. In recent years, anti abortion vigilantes have been using laws which are not about abortion to prosecute women who have miscarriages. Whenever I bring this up, anti abortion people comment that pregnant women were not prosecuted before Roe v Wade. That was then. Now things are different. The New York Times  pointed out these vigilantes, frustrated with the inability to overturn Roe, are turning to other laws that put the power of government against pregnant women. A case in New York State sentenced a woman to up to nine years in prison because an eight month fetus died in a car wreck and she was not wearing a seat belt. She was charged with manslaughter. Fortunately, it was later overturned. In the South, a woman panicked when twins at 30 some weeks were stillborn at home. Instead of calling a doctor,

A caller on a talk show recently cheered shutting down the government as a sign of the second coming of Jesus. There is one way to avoid or delay the second coming. It is to build President Trump's wall. The second coming is one of the best news stories ever. It is replayed most every year by a new sales person. And, it sells commercial advertising on TV and radio. According to those who wrote the Bible, Jesus thought the world would end in his lifetime. If that idea sold well then, why would it not sell well today? There were those who thought the election of President Trump was a sign the end was near. Now, it is the government shut down. It will be something else in the near future. Singer and song writer Bob Dylan once said the secret to writing a popular song is to imply the song writer or singer knows something you do not and it is something you wish you knew. Perhaps that is why his song with the words, "...the answer is blowin' in the wind.." remains

There are differing stories of the birth of the Biblical character, Jesus, in different parts of the Bible. In what many consider the most reliable book , the one written closest to the alleged time of Jesus' life, Mark, there is no reference of any kind to his birth. If the book of Mark is the most reliable, the birth story would have been added later to embellish and market Christianity. We can add to skepticism about the Christmas tale that Paul, allegedly the earliest author to write about Jesus, did not tell the birth story. If neither Paul nor Mark mentioned it and it only appeared later, why did it appear at all? There were other mythical tales of the virgin birth of what we would call today "superheros". Apparently to enhance the standing of a favorite god among competing gods the virgin birth was a popular literary idea. If you were trying to promote the importance of one god, like Jesus, why would you not grab onto the best techniques available at the tim

One of the researchers working on this project said he went into it with great skepticism about a female pope. Since then he has become open to this possibility. There is evidence of a female Pope. There will be, of course, deniers. Apparently, it has been long running legend there was a Pope Joan around the 800's. Records show a name but it is not clear if it is the name of a man or woman. Recently a coin was uncovered which has the mark of the civilian leader on one side and Pope Joan on the other. The Pope of record at the time was "Johannes". It is not completely clear from the name which gender this "Johannes" refers to. A female pope would throw the male-run Catholic church into turmoil. The faith's legend is that because Jesus had only males associates that is the only acceptable gender to run the church today. That there was a Jesus and that he had only male colleagues both are subject to questionable evidence. The only source of these myt

I've read it is a common Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ritual for Americans to gather at Chinese restaurants. My family has gone to the same Chinese place for two Christmas Eves in a row. Celebrating Christmas by dining Chinese is consistent with the Gospel of Mark. What does the author of Mark say about the virgin birth, wise men, shepherds, mangers and Joseph? Nothing. Could it be Mark says nothing because none of this ever happened? Or, could it be the author knew all about that story and thought people could read about it elsewhere? One thing we can assume, it seems to me, is the author, or authors, of Mark thought it was important to write about specific topics of the faith. Jesus' birth was not important enough to be included. The training to write and read was unusual at that time. And, of those few who could write, an even smaller number could have afforded the time required for the laborious task of writing. So, it seems significant that we have come to con

More than one study has asked people about their views of the rich. There are views on both ends of the spectrum. Some hate the rich. But an estimated one out of five voters think rich political candidates, i.e. Donald Trump, are morally superior to those who have been less successful. That Jesus smiles on the rich is part of the prosperity gospel. One in five adults believe there is something theologically superior about being rich. Those who claim to have voted for Trump because of abortion or because he insulted their common enemy probably have in the back of their minds that he is a good person because he is rich. One of those who preached the prosperity gospel was favorite pastor of Donald Trump, Norman Vincent Peale. He wrote a best seller, "The Power of Positive Thinking." I'm guessing you could take the text of that book and find the sermon topics of today's Joel Osteen. The message is you will receive material rewards from God. Is it not counter intu

As an outsider, it is really hard to understand the fights within Christianity. I suppose the fights within Christianity are similar to the fights within Islam and Hinduism except guns are used in the latter religions. Giving me a chuckle was a story about which is the correct "truth" about the ever after. Here are the choices. (1.) Hell is a place where people burn forever. (2.) There is no hell, people who don't qualify for heaven are annihilated. I'm wondering why this distinction is important? Is it because annihilation lets sinners off the hook without adequate punishment? That is, it might not be adequate punishment to be deprived of heaven and necessary to burn for eternity. More helpful might be to consider what we actually know. So far as we know, both sinners and the sinless are annihilated forever. No one has ever provided evidence there is either a heaven nor a hell. When we die we return to the same state we were in before we were born. We did no

As archaeologists find more evidence about ancient humans, we are discovering how humans developed the written word. It is now believed writing started independently in four different parts of the world. This may change, of course, as new discoveries come along. There are written records of business transactions from about 5,000 years ago. Pictures in caves, perhaps the first forms of communication by writing, are dated back to 40,000 years ago. Remember that creatures similar to humans were thought to exist between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago. The theory is that pictures kept evolving and came to represent the spoken word. Even as late at the founding of our country the writing passed down did not use standardized spelling but reflected how the word sounded to the writer. Which leads us to the problems of translating ancient writing in several languages into today's sphere of ideas. The Bible was written in different countries in different languages at different times. A

When I began blogging several years ago, there were articles about the falling numbers of Christians. But little was written by Christian authors admitting it was a problem. The thinking was it merely reflected a cycle and numbers would rise again. Instead, the decline has accelerated. The drop in Christian numbers is now acknowledged widely. When solutions are suggested, however, it is usually to "invite more people to church." I've thought all along this will not help--that the problem is an unwillingness to believe the tenets of the faith are true. The faith stems from a book written centuries ago by the wealthy 1% of that time. People are leaving the faith because they are skeptical about what those wealthy goat herders once wrote. It was interesting to read that two Christian professors both agree  when young people are told the Bible is the truth and then later find flaws they pack up and leave the faith. Previous generations did not do this. In the past sm

Catholics in Illinois have a manger scene at the State Capital. They are marketing Christianity. Right next to their manger scene Satanists have placed a sculpture-like display. It is there to  market Satanism. For some reason, these Catholics think this is not fair. It baffles me how some Christians think. From their point of view government is there for one reason, to promote Christianity. Would not it occur to them other religions might have the same idea and want to use public property to advertise a religion like Satanism? The Satanists must have seen the manger scene in the Illinois State Capital and came up with the idea of putting up their own display. I'm guessing they hoped some Christians would raise a stink about it and there would be press coverage. Press coverage would make it a teaching moment. When Christianity used public property to advertise Satanists could do the same. And, as they often do, Christians walked right into the trap that had been set for the

While it is popular for Catholic lay people to say, "Yes we have had some bad priests, but there are bad people in every profession," this leaves out the most cunning and devious behavior at the highest levels of the denomination. First, there was the shuffling around of criminals from one parish and hiding them in another. Second, investigation of the sex abuse scandal came from outside pressure which was resisted by the clergy in charge. When information first came to Bishops about abuse they had two choices. They could have hid the information from their own members and moved the bad priests around. Or, they could have instituted a denomination-wide investigation and acknowledged to the public this was taking place. If Bishops had chosen the latter we could have concluded that almost across the board they held the interests of the public at heart. But, large numbers of them chose the former. With years of new allegations to come, the Catholic church would be wise

The prosperity gospel, the message that the more you give to the priest/preacher the more you will have for yourself, has been so successful in Africa and Latin America there are reports it is preached by both Catholics and Protestants. As one would expect, the Pope rails against the prosperity gospel. Other high ranking Catholic officials do as well. But they are faced with the hard facts of life, those behind the pulpit earn their living by preaching what the audience wants to hear. If those in the pews enjoy hearing a promise they will get rich if they just dump all their money into the collection plate that is what they will hear. To preach otherwise is to starve the preacher. Some preachers in Africa also preach that homosexuals should be killed. That one probably fills the collection plate too. What those in the pews want to hear comes from their cultural history. It is the same in this country. When considering the prosperity gospel, one must put it in context. Let

Like so many things in the Bible, the role of women in the church and family was put in the Bible by men and taken out of the Bible and interpreted for application in the faith by men. Predictably there are challenges and disagreements about translations and interpretations of passages. Now a group of female scholars, both Protestant and Catholic, will publish a work that sheds new light on the role of women in the faith. One prediction is easy to make. When there is a Bible passage about women, or, there is an interpretation done by men, a meaning will be passed down that puts men in the driver's seat and women as less important. There is a passage in Luke that tell of Jesus visiting Martha and Mary. The male interpretation of the passage tells us Martha provided "service." The standard interpretation of this is that Martha served food. This fits nicely into male dominated Christian societies. The female scholars point out that the Greek word "diakonia" h

To a large degree, the market place of ideas is reflected in the marketplace of goods and services. Preachers in churches must preach ideas those in the pews like. Otherwise the collection plate is empty and the preacher is gone. The church is often gone too, hundreds close every month. From questionnaire research we know the group called "nones", those who say they do not identify with any religious group, is the fastest growing group in the U.S. Those who do not want to admit traditional Christianity is slipping often point to other research which says a majority of the public believe in some kind of spiritual thought. The political impact of both of these views is the same. The influence of Christianity will fall. The market for goods and services might give us a clue as to what is going on. Recently a writer roamed the shops of an affluent neighborhood catering to people aged 20 to 40. I've seen such neighborhoods in every large city. For sale are the goods

National Public Radio has in its archives a long 2001 rebroadcast on how the American Psychiatric Association came to remove homosexuality from its list of illnesses. This vote on December 15, 1975, made homosexuality no longer an illness. Gay haters here have always cited a newspaper article which reported there were gay activists protesting at the 1975 national convention. In response to the protests, the article said, the Association removed homosexuality from the category of an illness. The article went on to quote an official of the Association who said the doctors caved to political pressure. Books have been written about what actually happened--the Association actually abandoned the notion homosexuality as an illness because of evidence from a controlled study and from getting to know gay people. The original designation of gay as an illness was from a study done by a credentialed psychiatrist. He studied gay people and determined there was a "science-based"

The Southern Baptist Church was founded by Baptist slave owners. According to various documents they felt the Christian faith endorsed slavery. Certainly, major characters in the Bible had slaves. Now in hind site, the SBC recognizes it was wrong about slavery and the segregation that followed. When society at large changed, so did the SBC. It just completed an internally generated study of its past. The head of the major SBC Seminary now says the denomination is in "Full Lament" over its history. A simple way to describe SBC's approach to slavery and segregation is this. The all white church did not like Black people. It used the Bible to justify keeping them as slaves and later segregating society to keep them from advancing. The Bible and Christianity were a tool to help the SBC in its agenda of prejudice. The Bible justified slavery. Segregation came from an explanation of "God's intention. " God put people of different races on different conti

The Dean of a famous seminary told Christian Post that today's freshman seminary students have little knowledge about what the Bible says. This make perfect sense. The general public does not read the Bible but hears and sees bits and pieces. It is as if the entire society's knowledge about the Bible was learned from four word billboards seen while driving past at 70 MPH. One problem we all know about is that the Bible is boring. To pick up and read the Bible for pleasure is not something I would do. This is one of the reasons new seminary students have not read it. Catholics are encouraged to accept it hierarchy's interpretation of the Bible instead of having lay people read it for themselves. Even more important than the above for few Bible readers entering the seminary is that the Bible is not a book to be taken literally. Stories of walking on water, dead people coming back to life and turning water into wine are ideas of a past era. Modern people are taught to

It is said what's old is new again. Today one of the best articles in a long time appeared in the New York Times. It was written by conservative Catholic Ross Douthat. While its best to read him directly, I'll try to summarize. He sees what I see in changing attitudes toward religion. As a metaphor, consider television. Since it was introduced in my youth, we have gone from three channels to hundreds. Religious views have expanded in the same way--there were a few denominations, now we don't know how many. Many a pundit following all this expanding variety in religion gleefully point out that among the endless varieties of "Christianity" or "spirituality" are ones that must be labeled heresy. Douthat says, quoting other writers, that at some point it is no longer possible to say something is "Christian heresy" and is instead a new religion entirely. Looking across the religious landscape including public opinion surveys, writers and sta

For some reason many people do not get the fact that displaying a nativity scene by itself is unconstitutional. Every year people protest when their town's letter arrives from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Mayor orders the display off of public property. It's almost as predictable as Christmas Eve services. Some Mayors play macho man for a while saying they will not be intimidated by some group in far off Wisconsin. This goes on until the legal bills come in and/or a judge orders it off. Other Mayors allow all kinds of displays, Jewish, Hindu, atheist and Satanic. These, of course, are legal because they are considered educational. From what I read about public opinion polls, religion is overlapping more and more with politics. Thus, a group that might self identify as religiously conservative endorses a President that is the opposite of what we traditionally have thought to be religious. This group is forming around political grievances and interpretin

Ireland has often been thought of as the marque Catholic country in Europe. Catholic hierarchy were thought to run most aspects of the country including its politics. All that has changed within recent years. Church attendance has plummeted. The biggest finger in the eye of Catholic hierarchy was a recent vote to make abortion legal in the country. Since the vote, government officials have been preparing for the change. One aspect is the rights of doctors who have a religious hang up with abortion. Can they refuse requests for abortion services? If they refuse to perform abortions can they also refuse to find the service for the patient? The Minister of health has determined doctors who object to abortion can refuse to perform the service but cannot turn a patient away until she is in the care of a doctor who will provide the abortion. That is, the doctor who refuses is still obligated to care for the patient. I'm sure this will be a hard pill to shallow for some know-it-

When reading the Bible, everyone should remember it was written by ancient people for purposes that made sense back at that time. And, most parts apparently were written over a period of time so original writing was edited over the centuries. In the Bible is a propaganda technique that lives on to this day. It it about people, disgustingly different from us, who live just beyond that river, desert or mountain. They are different in a bad way. In some cases the bad people are all dead so we can talk about them now and they cannot argue back. That clever way of writing and talking is used in U.S. politics today. Most of us don't live near the Mexican border. Others, like our President, can talk about those crossing the border as bad people and we can only shake our heads and listen. If we knew more about them they might not seem so bad. The President, like the ancients who wrote the Bible, knows it is frightens some to bash the brown people of Mexico. One of the great stori

It's inspiring to read of people who put themselves in physical danger and subject to jail time defending the rights of others. One such woman is Pat Maginnis who did things in California no one else at the time dared to do. It was a time when there were laws against advertising abortion services. Pat knew the constitution contained a right to free speech. When that right could be constrained by government was complicated but she had a hunch it did not limit her from spreading information about where and how to get an abortion. She handed out information about where to get abortions in many different locations. She was arrested and did a little jail time. Ultimately, she won the right to distribute information about available abortion services. Maginnis wanted to be arrested so she always told local police where she would be distributing literature. She also gave classes teaching women methods of abortion that were safer than coat hangers. For a long time, police were wary o

The majority of Christians who attend services each week recite what is called in the faith, The Apostles' Creed. President Trump and Melania did not read along when it was recited at the Bush funeral. Some branches of the faith do not recite it, United Church of Christ for example. The creed is like a pledge of allegiance. It says among other things that the person reciting it "believes" in God. But then it requires the reciter to say he/she believes certain historical claims which many people may not believe. People may not believe them because they are incredulous. The reciter reading along with others the pledge says he/she believes there is a Jesus who was dead and buried but came back to life in three days and now sits somewhere in heaven to the right of God. The Creed does not say the reciter believes these things MIGHT have happened but believes they did happen. Technically then, anyone who pledges to believe they DID happen but only thinks they might have

Voters in Ireland passed a bill legalizing abortion by a large margin recently. This in spite of vigorous opposition by Catholic clergy and stuffed-shirt politicians. Now the Parliament is writing the regulations that will apply. Like in the U.S., anti abortion politicians have tried to write in all kinds of requirements , parents of minors must be notified, the girl/woman must be shown pictures of the fetus and dozens of the same old, same old. These ridiculous requirements were tossed and abortions will be available in January of this coming year. Ireland remains a lesson on how the future of abortion could and should go forward in the U.S. It started with women being fed up with the treatment they receive from male politicians and clergy. They began a political movement to throw off the hand cuffs men put on them. In big numbers they won. Now, their voices are being heard as the law allowing abortions is being implemented. One part of the Ireland experience may some day pl

There are many columnists, Catholic apologists, who are writing that the Catholic Church at large is not guilty when its clergy commit criminal acts. I'm sure something similar transpires when Protestant preachers do the are guilty of the same acts. The link argues that Catholics in the pews and local parishes are something different than the Bishops who hid child molesting priests by moving them from parish to parish. The argument is that the Catholic hierarchy is separate from those in the pews. One person who made light of the article used a phrase I am going to steal, "meaningless sophistry." The Christian faith is full of meaningless sophistry, Protestant, Catholic and all the rest. A more common ridicule of debates about fine points in theology is "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" The technicality those in the pews are not responsible for evil acts of those in the hierarchy is an unimportant distinction. An exception would be if th

For me, the most entertaining political theater of President Trump these days is his war on trade. Free trade is one of the most enduring economic principles of my field, economics. Some ideas come and go but free trade endures. The basic idea of free trade is that one area or group of people is best at producing something and another place/group elsewhere is best at something else. By trading both places have more of both goods. Surprisingly, trade also benefits both groups if one place, like one country, is more efficient at everything. That more efficient country will still specialize in the product it does best and trade for others with less efficient countries. Stealing technology or lower wages rates do not negate the benefits of free trade. All of this is called Comparative Advantage. Within the U.S., restrictions to trade between the states is against the law. In fact, one of the reasons George Washington and James Madison urged holding the Continental Congress in 1776 we

There is a healthy argument going on these days about whether religion is needed for dealing with personal crises. In the past decade atheist books have become best sellers. They tell us religion is not necessary. Now religious authors are striking back . One author, Stephen Asma (Why We Need Religion), makes the claim religion helps people deal with difficulties in their lives. He agrees it is not rational to believe there are invisible gods but says that in the rational world of no gods the help people sometimes need would not be there. While I have read only an interview with Asma and not read his book, his case is that in a crisis people instinctively pray.  This ignores the training people receive from their culture. That is, parents and other adults teach children a god is there somewhere to help them. Those parents learned the same thing from their parents. Asma seems to agree the prayer and god are a form of reality avoidance but, he claims, reality avoidance is helpful a

It's ironic Bill O'Reilly made such a stink about saying "Happy Holidays." There have been and remain Christians who found the Christmas celebration not Christian. The Puritans, sometimes considered the founders of this country, had no use for it. And, they had good reason. Nowhere among the voluminous quotes attributed to Jesus did he ever direct followers to celebrate his birthday. In addition, there is plenty of evidence he would not have been born in December. On top of that, the Puritans noted, the entire holiday stinks like Paganism. It was the Pagans who celebrated the Winter solstice, not Christians. One Christian faith, Jehovah's Witnesses, does not celebrate Christmas for most of the same reasons. The historical record shows the distaste of Christmas to the Puritans whose home continent,  Europe, celebrated it. In 1659 the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony issued a ruling against any Christmas celebration because it was a superstit

I watched the live theater performance of  Elf   last night and something jumped out at me. The story is about Santa and a visit to New York City. Santa's sleigh is no longer powered by reindeer but instead powered by "The Christmas Spirit." But the sleigh would not fly in New York City because of the City's doubts about Christmas and Santa. People of New York were send in the script to be "jaded" about both. After rousing songs and dances the story ends happily. But, to me, there is a metaphor to Christianity. I think a broad swath of the U. S. public is jaded about the faith. In Europe it is the majority. Apparently the majority of youth in the U.S. falls into the jaded category. I combined several definitions of "jaded" and like, "To become dull, worn out, weary, apathetic or cynical as from overuse or over exposure." People in the U.S. and perhaps most places in the world are exposed to more media and propaganda than ever befo