Thoughts of a Freethinker

Recently there was more news about complicated sexual identity. That is to say identifying oneself as male or female is not always easy. The Vatican responded with a statement issued six months ago. It was the same old same old one can paraphrase as "God created man, male and female." As the world's public increases in understanding the complexities of the subject and the Vatican, especially the last two Popes, build higher and higher walls around their ancient position the more backward and ridiculous it looks. One way I've seen the faithful deal with this kind of a dilemma where it is obvious the church is wrong is to say, "Yes, but it's only a few people." This is the way it deals with deaths of women who die in childbirth when a Catholic church will not provide an abortion, "It's just a few women." The same is true of babies with indeterminate gender and adults who say they do not feel they are of the gender assigned to them.  T

The Third District U.S. Court in Philadelphia has ruled a Catholic adoption agency cannot reject  adoptive parents just because they are gay. This is merely an extension of U.S. values and law since way back in our history. That Catholic officials have fought this pulls the veil away from the church's motive. It is not interested in children, it is interested promoting its religious beliefs. The Catholic agency refused to allow gay couples to adopt its children. The children were placed in the agency's care and adoption manage by government and paid by government to do so. Taxpayers who do not approve of discrimination against minorities took the Catholics to court and won. Gay couples have won these cases against Catholic adoption agencies before. In some cases Catholics have closed the agencies rather than conform to what is required of them be state law. That they close allows us to see the real motives behind why Catholics run these adoption businesses. They are no

Christians who do not want to admit we came to being through evolution are creative in their hopeless defense of creationism. Several comments on this blog have argued that there has not been enough time since God created the universe until now for humans to have come up through evolution. This makes a huge assumption about the relationship between evolution and time. Others argue the some of our physical qualities, such as the hand, are so complex they required a "designer". There are so many phony arguments, "intelligent design", etc. Now opponents of evolution have a new problem to deal with. It is horizontal evolution. These are changes in DNA that travel from one species to another altering the receiving one. It happens when infections are carried from their original host to a new one. One of the long standing interests of science has been the creatures in our guts. I hope I am correct in calling them bacteria. It is apparent they have experienced evo

For some reason this story is getting small coverage. It is important because it represents the future for women in a post Roe world. A pregnant woman in Alabama got in a argument. She ended up getting shot in the stomach. She survived but the fetus she was carrying did not. Now, she is being charged with the death of a fetus for not stopping the argument before it escalated into a shooting. All charges against the male shooter were dropped. This case is the prototype for all dead fetuses including what is called "spontaneous miscarriages." The dead fetus is a dead human being in religious-based law. When there is a dead human being law enforcement is tasked with determining the "cause of death." Anti abortion groups should have a contest to see which person can come up with the most ways a woman can be blamed for a dead fetus. I'll name a few which come to mind. --she was overweight --she was underweight --she did not get enough exercise --she go

While it is possible to detect some rhythm in a two month embryo, it is not a heartbeat because there is not yet a heart. Anti abortion zealots equate the registering of the sound picked up by medical instruments to the presence of a heart. This is a mere continuation of the dishonest rhetoric tossed out there by anti abortion zealots. Facts have no place in their arguments. Anti abortion zealots are good at keeping the argument away from the important issue, what will happen to women who have miscarriages. I'm reading Michelle Obama's memoir finished since she left the White House. One of the lowest points in her life, she writes, was a miscarriage. She and her husband had been trying for a long time to have a baby but she did not become pregnant. When finally she had been pregnant they celebrated. The long wait was finally over. This celebration ended abruptly with the miscarriage. She was alone and distraught. Her distraught state of mind must be that of millions

There are many causes for young who grew up in the church but leave it. Some causes the church has no control over. For example, if a young person takes science courses and decides to believe science instead of myths the church cannot do much. But, there are some variables the church controls. If the faith were managed rationally, it would weigh the costs and benefits of alternative strategies. It would only put its future at risk for some cause that is central to its mission or its core beliefs. That's where the irony comes in. The issue much of the church has chosen as the one it will stand and fight to the last man is one that has little do to with what it claims to believe. The issue that hurts churches the most with young people is one that was given no importance in the Bible. It is the gay issue. I've expressed my theory that the gay-is-sin issue hurts church numbers more than any of its other buffoonery. A recent article confirms my suspicions. The author conc

It was slightly amusing to read an article written by a Muslim for Muslims. The purpose of the article was the trend of Muslim youth to abandon the faith. The author laid out a strategy to reverse the trend. The "strategy" was identical to that Christians often preach to keep their own youth in line: Make them read the Koran more, attend the Mosque, be good Muslims at home, attend Muslims schools and make them have Muslim friends.  The solution to Muslim propaganda your child does not like is give your child more Muslim propaganda. Read the Bible more, pray at home more and stay within the family's circle of friends is also popular Christian advice to keep youth in that faith. Do people giving such advice think these children have never heard of the Koran or the Bible? Did it ever occur to them young people may be leaving their respective faiths because they did read the Koran and Bible? I know many atheists who claim they would be remained Christian had they never

Leave it to conservatives to be taken in again by sweet talking crooks. The NRA has been robbed by its officials. They have rewarded themselves with massive amounts of money. Recently, retired Col. Oliver North was told his contract to head the NRA would not be renewed. His annual salary was one million. Well connected Board members and other officials own a private company that does various services for the NRA. They charge those who send dues and donations millions of dollars a year for consulting, writing press releases and other seemingly low skill duties. The money disappears into the company and then to the pockets of those who decided to hire themselves. When Obama was first running for President I remember a conversation with some NRA members who were friends of mine. They told me in hushed tones the NRA had sent out a memo saying it had inside information about what Obama planned to do immediately after taking office. It was to round up and take all rifles and handgu

In Economics 101 we teach about the different kinds of markets, one being monopoly. Monopoly means basically one seller. The monopolists usually cannot sell at any price he/she chooses. Most products and services are not valuable enough for a person to sell everything they own to buy only one item. Life saving drugs these days come close to that. But not electricity from one electrical company cannot charge whatever it wants. If you are a retailer you try to have something going for the others do not. It might be location, engineering, style or ingredients. Religions are not much different. Both religions of ancient history and more modern ones sold something others did not. From its earliest origins we can see the gears turning in the minds of wealthy Jews and Christians, "How can we structure this story so believers have to come to us and cannot buy some other religion's story?" They started with a god that granted followers the opportunity to sin and called

The sex abuse scandal in the Catholic denomination has been going on for a decade or two. One year ago the largest shoe fell, Theodore McCarrick. He was a high ranking Catholic official tasked with stopping sexual abuse. It turned out he was a serious abuser himself. There continue to be contributors who want to help the Catholic denomination rid itself of this problem. Mostly they just say evangelize more. Then, Bishops and the Pope have convened conferences setting out bureaucratic mandates. One recent idea was a little different saying (paraphrasing), "Let's call a time out from chasing the sex abuse issue. Instead, let's get our heads together and figure out why so many baptized Catholics drop out of the church as adults." The writer admitted there would not be only one cause, but at least the most important question would be asked. Sex abuse surely is only one of many reasons membership of the Catholic branch and most others is falling. The Catholics hav

I just finished reading an article by a prominent academic scholar in religion who has ALS. It is a terminal disease though one out of 10 survive. People with this disease often can go to work and live normal social lives for a while before is shuts them down. It must be a different end of life experience when people you work with know you have a short life expectancy but still function the same as everyone else. I would guess what people say to you is different than if you are confined to your home or a hospital. This author, Michael Jerryson, is a professor of religion so he no doubt is surrounded by colleagues and students who want to talk about religion. He has taught courses on dealing with death. He says people ask him constantly, "Do you believe in God?" His answer throws them off, "You are skipping an important question before asking this? I do not care if there are gods or not." His answer fits neither the large faiths of the world nor atheism. He

In President Trump's address launching his reelection, he recited his grievances and anger at many things. Those who support him, we assume, have the same anger. Probably most of us are angry at something in politics. We all know anger can win an election. But, if it misfires the results can be worse than they were when the anger was expressed. In the year 1900, Carry Nation walked into a bar and began throwing pieces of brick at the mirror and bottles of whiskey. She left a mess. Later that day she did the same thing in two other bars. She kept doing it for several months. Her anger at alcohol and its influence on husbands spread across the country and eventually brought prohibition. The political element was the belief that the single most important problem of the time was alcohol. Stop drinking and the country would be a happy place. Her anger was misplaced. Prohibition was overturned and today alcohol is consumed in larger quantities than in her day. Carry Nation's

There are lots of theories as to why the Jesus character in the Bible story was not an actual person but one created by myth. An interesting new one has come up which compares the areas attacked by soldiers of Emperor Titus Flavius as recorded by ancient historian Josephus and shows Christianity and military conquest traveled together. In a new book, Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus,  an author tells us the goal of the Romans was to keep slaves productive and happy. The Bible, he says, was written by 1st Century Roman Aristocrats. I have said here often the Bible had to have been written by the most wealthy of the time because literacy was unusual. Romans thought the Jews were problematic. They were so fervent they converted people who then began to complain about Roman. Romans figured if they could twist the Jewish dogma into something more peaceful and compliant those from whom they wanted to collect taxes from would be more cooperative. The new versi

I've said for years that if abortions are not available in some states there is a solution. It is for people in states where abortion is available to pay for transportation and abortion services. That is now starting in a small way in New York City. NYC has set aside $250,000 to help women from outside the city obtain abortions. Most every clinic receives donations to help low income women obtain abortions. Elaine and I have donated to such a fund several times ourselves. To make the New York City model work in a state like Alabama it would take substantially more money than $250,000. There are states adjoining Alabama where abortions are legal. the entire idea seems doable. Not only would patients need to be transported out of state but medicines for medically induced abortions might need to be transported in. If ever there was a recipe for going around the law or breaking the law with unlikely consequences abortion medicines are the candidate. Whiskey was heavy and visi

When prayer in schools or the display of the Ten Commandments is banned as unconstitutional a cry goes out from some believers that there is Christian persecution or an " atheist agenda." Often believer's minds are so steeped in their thinking pattern they are unable to escape and see themselves from a distance. If there was a goal to convert children or the public to atheism everyone would be required to recite an oath to atheism. Instead of saying "under god" in the pledge we would say "without any god." Instead of prayers in schools (which still are happening today) there would be lessons on how ridiculous gods are. Just as there are several kinds of Christians, there are several kinds of atheists. I know many atheists, perhaps a majority of those I happen to know, who have no interest in discussing it or participating in its efforts at separating religion from government. One I know calls himself an apathetic atheist. Neither the tenets of

I wrote recently about the two Old Testament passages which are most often used to condemn homosexual people and homosexuality. They are Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. It is from these passages the word "abomination" has come to be used against homosexuality. To put homosexuality in it proper context, it was not really a big deal to those who wrote the Bible. When something was considered important the writers would have Jesus say something about it. They did not have Jesus mentioning homosexuality even once. The Leviticus passages were written in Hebrew. This was a Hebrew used mostly BCE. As a spoken language it stopped around 200 CE. A thousand or two thousand years after a language stopped being spoken we could expect there would be disagreements about what was meant in passages written centuries before. Any rational view would include the good possibility that translations would be colored by views at the time. Cultures change and so would at least some translations.

Since the 1980's when a scientist first tossed out this question it has been debated. Did the changes which took place from the beginning of the first form of live have a direction that made us the beneficiaries? Or, are we the result of random and chance changes? There have been stacks of books and articles written about evolution. There is no controversy within the scientific community about whether or not we are the result of evolution. There is speculation, however, about whether our present human characteristics might have been inevitable from the start. The term "randomness" is not simple, to me at least. It seems random that the chemicals, electrical charges and other variable had to come together to form the first living cells. But after one organism starts to eat or dominate others the odds for a favorable change to the winners seems better than that of the losers. That is, evolution has guard rails. Those that get eaten most quickly have the smallest chan

I had not realized how many times abortions have been banned and then made available again. It leads me to believe that if the Supreme Court overturns Roe that ruling itself will be overturned one day. Reviewing the brief history, it seems like what we are experiencing is the same scenario that has happened before. First some intense people make the case it is bad or sinful. Then stories of how terrible it turns out to be for women.  The latter builds support for abortions. This back and forth pushes the laws one way for a while and back again. One thing that has not changed much are the number of abortions. Only recently with the improvement of birth control and medicine based abortions have the estimated numbers declined. The current situation in the U.S. is more complicated than any before. I am going to re read the book, Her Body, Our Lives, by Michelle Oberman. She spent a year or two interviewing people in several countries and conservative states in the U.S. to find wha

The most often used passage about homosexuality from the Bible says roughly, "Man lying with man is an abomination."  It is reasonable to ask however, what if the Bible never said this? A man who collects old Bibles says old Bibles said something different. What he found in older versions of the Bible was condemnation of older men having sex with boys. As I have said here countless times, no one knows what the original authors wrote. Before the printing press all versions were copied from other copies. Scribes made changes they thought improved what was written. Hundreds of years of transcribing leaves us not knowing what the actual "word of God" said. This man , Ed Oxford, col lects copies of the Bible from the 1400's and 1500's. They are written  in European languages. Everyone of his copies referred to man/boy relationships. The man/boy relationships were dropped when a new company bought rights to a German version of the King James Bible and cha

I read a nice summary of the history of the various faiths. It starts with a review of the three variables that drive growth of various religions, wars, births and persuasion. While conquering large populations has served Christianity and Islam well it is no longer available. Birth numbers were big for both but are declining for both as well as for Buddhism. What remains available for all religions is persuasion. The religions with the most money can do the most marketing. When numbers from Africa are thrown in, Christianity and Islam are both doing ok. Both of them have gone into those countries with their money and missionaries. Local religions that worship local gods have declined as their members have been persuaded to convert to the two big organization. In addition, birth rates have remained high in Africa adding to the numbers of Christians and Muslims already there. When per-person incomes rise around the world something quite predictable happens. Women have access to

I just finished driving a float for Iowa Atheists in the Pride Parade where I now live in Des Moines, Iowa. After watching society change over my long life I was surprised by it again today. When some gay young men in Fargo asked me in the early 80's if the city could hold a pride parade I talked them out of it. I didn't know how the Police Department would respond and was not sure those in the parade would be safe. Not long before a Police Chief had told me he would like to shut down the only gay bar in town--not because of trouble at the bar, but because he hated it. I've been in this parade for three years so I thought I knew what to expect. When I arrived at the staging area I realized something was different. Last year there were about 40 parade units--this year almost 100. The first several blocks had a lot of people but then the route move into the downtown. There were people several deep. One person estimated the crowd at 10,000. All along the way, people

[ To readers of my blog this site, The Skive, will be shutting down during the next week. My thanks to the people who organized this effort and hosted my blog along with others. My blog will continue on another site, Blogspot. I will leave a link to it each day to reminder readers how to reach it. Thank you, too, to readers who have continued to participate. We are on the way to 2 million visits to the blog. For over a decade, Methodists have been debating whether gay clergy can serve and whether the denomination can endorse gay weddings. All this time, liberals thought conservatives saw their denomination as they did, one with a long history of tolerance the civil resolution of differences. They diddled away years when they could have started a "Reformed" Methodist denomination that was inclusive and tolerant. Now, they are realizing inclusion of gay Methodists was never an option. At the national conference where votes on such matters takes place, a majority of U.S.

Men dressed as women apparently has entertained humans since the beginning of time. Some folks at a public library in San Francisco thought if would be fun if the Saturday kid's story hour was done by drag queens. Kids and parents loved it. New York City added it to their story hour. Now is is all over the country. Apparently, it is OK for women dressed as women or men dressed as men to read stories to kids. For some reason it is a sin for men dressed as women to read the same story. Because we have granddaughters studying and performing ballot and musical theater, we go to many performances. Most often there is a shortage of men who perform. The solution is for women to take male parts. Children are in the audiences. The actors are telling a story. There should be outrage, but there is not. The reason there is no outrage, I suppose, is because drag performing is associated with homosexuality. I know personally several drag performers. Some, perhaps the majority, are out

In a speech in Wisconsin, President Trump described the birth of a baby which was wrapped in a blanket. Then, he said, the mother decides whether or not to murder it. This is very similar to stories started about women in the era of witchcraft. Women's physical anatomy was able to cut off men's penises. Witches then placed the severed penises in trees to decorate the forests. A new  book about witchcraft outlines the stories that were started about women to build on the witchcraft myth. Trump was a little off script by making the woman the villain in abortion. The official script was always to make Planned Parenthood or the Red River Women's clinic the villain. In fact, when I wrote here on this blog years ago that women will inevitably become the source of the abortion decision I was quickly corrected. "Oh no", commenters said. "The woman and the fetus are both  victims of the "abortion industry." (Of course they did not use the word fetus--

The economics of religion always amazes me. Who pays for a small army of people to argue about unimportant details in mythology?  I suppose there were arguments about which Greek gods were sleeping with which Greek goddesses. Maybe unimportant arguments in Christianity should not surprise. The Pope has ruled that from now on Catholics will recite the Lord's Prayer changing from "lead us not into temptation" to "do not let me fall into temptation." The latter is better, says the Pope, because it is Satan, not God, who leads us into temptation. This little change was called "breath taking" by Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Convention. Mohler said it is a terrible change because the original version came right from Jesus. While Mohler would like to think someone knows for sure Jesus said such thing neither Mohler nor anyone else knows what Jesus said about anything. No one who wrote the Bible said, "I was there and heard him said this.&

Columnist David Brooks laid out the reality of today's politics recently. He pointed out the relationship between the young generation of voters and the Republican Party. The relationship is this: As the younger generation becomes more accepting of interracial marriage, interracial friendships, gays, transgendered people, abortion and government provided medical care the Republican Party becomes more aggressive in opposing these very issues. He does not see how this will result in anything but political losses for the Party. He points out, however, the demise of Republicans has been predicted before and it became more, not less, popular. That is why, he says, pundits are reluctant to predict its demise now. He writes that it may well be different this time. Polling data shows the majority of young people not only vote or intend to vote for liberal Democrats, their views reflect a strong dislike of Republicans. It used to be said the majority of people become more conservat

The Christian tales tells us there is this terrible villain, Satan. Satan has evil attributes, cunning, devious, etc. We are to fear Satan. Then there is the hero, God. God is all powerful--can do whatever he wants. So why doesn't he just eliminate Satan? The explanation as to why Satan is not vaporized always gets confusing, at least to me. It's similar to free will. If because of free will we sin, why not eliminate it? The answer to both of these is simple. It is about story telling. Would a story be popular if the hero killed the villain on page one? Of course not. A story needs to unfold slowly. That is why there is Satan and free will. In order to keep people coming to church and putting money in the plate an on-going story with tension and drama needs to keep playing out. All of Christianity has a note, "To be continued," at the end of each tale. If Satan was killed by God or God did away with free will so we did not sin everyone would just quit the ch

Francis Chan, a quite prominent preacher says Christian groups need to stop bad mouthing each other. He says he knows both Jesus and God want unity, not division. Satan, Chan says, is rejoicing about the divisions. Chan's version of reality is right out of a college course, Developing Fictional Plots 101. Christianity is a story line that follows the classic pattern of story telling since forever. There is a hero and there is a villain. The struggle is epic. But, the hero wins. In western movies the hero rides off with the girl. In the Bible Jesus, the hero, wins by coming back to life. I have attended a couple of play performances where the audience participates in the story. The actors remain in character while talking to the audience about solving the mystery. Christianity is like that. There is a fictional story about heroes, God and Jesus, and a villain, Satan. The hero wins. Audience members are invited into the story. They, too, can defeat the villain by worshiping

A few times I've been accused of something called "heresy." I've had to look up what the word means and I'm not sure I understand yet. Apparently, there are people who devote their lives to heresy hunting. They scan the horizon looking for heresy and when they see it they pounce. A somewhat hypothetical story I read was of a new pastor getting acquainted in his church. After the first sermon he received an email outlining all the theological errors he had committed in applying a bit of scripture to everyday life. He thanked the writer and said he would keep his comments in mind. The email author was incensed that his rock solid critique of the sermon were blown off by the new preacher. He saw it as the preacher dissing him. He told members everywhere. The new preacher began to understand why the previous preacher left. I found various definitions of heresy. Mostly it means holding a view different than the most popular views. In Catholicism it is denial