Thoughts of a Freethinker

There are problems anti abortion politics needs to solve if it is ever going to amount to anything. So far the strategy is to never discuss these problems and hope no one else brings them up. Let's bring them up today. One is the hundreds of thousands of frozen fertilized human eggs stored facilities that provide this service. Only a tiny fraction of them will ever be placed inside women attempting to become pregnant. The link , written by an anti abortion zealot, refers to each of these microscopic bits of  tissue as "individual human beings." Eventually, those who have been paying for the freezer space will die or stop paying. Besides shouting protests, what are anti abortion cranks doing about this? I've not read of any fund drive to pay for the freezer space. Maybe instead of protesting at women's clinics anti abortion operatives could get jobs to pay for this service. An endowment for hundreds or thousands of years is needed. Of course, it is more fun

A religious person recently speculated that the exodus from the faith is being caused by hypocrites and the self-righteous. He speculates if more knew about the quiet good works within the faith this would turn things around. He is talking, of course, about those we all know about. Priests who look down on the divorced and the same sex attracted. Also the evangelicals who praise morality but endorse a President who embodies the worst of the worst. Although the author does not mention them, those who commented noted his list should include the self righteous protesters at abortion clinics passing moral judgement on the women entering while pretending to pray. These top my list of hypocrites. They pray out loud to be certain others can hear them. Then they support politics that harm instead of help women with unwanted pregnancies. A large staff of public relations experts, implied in the link, will not fix Christianity. It has not helped Catholicism. There is a big staff or su

I've found it entertaining to keep track of the most terrible sins. When I was a farm boy it was working in the fields with a tractor. That one is long forgotten. Bart Ehrman followed the sins deserving the harshest after-life punishment in ancient times. Like today, the importance of various sins reflected in the punishment after societies changed in the first centuries. That has never stopped. Ehrman found there were various punishments in hell for various sins. There was adultery and theft. Add to that not paying homage to the invisible Holy Ghost. Lying was, of course, a big sin in the ancient world. Since we know various parts of the Bible were written by impostors we can be sure there was plenty of lying in the neighborhood. Today it is said our President lies several times a day. No one mentions penalties for lying any more. Best not to get too specific when we're talking of family. If political rhetoric from pulpits is any judge, the greatest sin today is ab

I like reading the history of Chicago. I lived there for a while and been there so many times. It's raw size and violent history right here in our backyard give us a look at the place of urban life in the U.S. I've had encounters, direct and indirect, with its Mayors over many years. Just now I'm reading City of Scoundrels,  a history of the city around the time of WWI which was also the period of Prohibition. One of the lessons of that period in Chicago and many other large cities was the immediate blossoming of ways to acquire alcoholic beverages in spite of a law making them illegal. To pass the legislation, certain exceptions had to be made. Alcohol could be acquired and served by churches. There were some medical exceptions. Pharmacists and doctors along with Catholic Bishops made considerable sums selling alcohol. Also, it was legal to make some kinds of beverages at home (bath tube gin). A large number of illegal bars opened in Chicago. They were supplied throug

We have increasing amounts of knowledge. Mistakes are still being made about what it means. While the link is about an area in science, the difference between knowledge and understanding applies to many areas, including religion. Many Christians pride themselves with the volume of scripture they have memorized. Others know from memory where in the Bible to find various topics. Such people have knowledge of the Bible. Understanding the Bible, however, is something else entirely. To understand the Bible it is necessary to know what was going on in the tribal or secular world during the ancient times when writers committed their thoughts to paper. It also requires one know about the changing world which played out in the centuries that followed. The original writing was recopied countless times and whenever it was edited the changes would have represented whatever changes in thinking had occurred. Christian people my age have spent their lives hearing the Bible explained by sc

A Southern Baptist Convention spokesperson said, "People need Jesus now more than ever," when asked about falling Southern Baptist numbers. His view , apparently, is people will return to church when they recognize the "need." Sometimes atheists are chided for seeing themselves as intellectually superior to believers. That may happen from time to time. Christians defeat atheists in looking down on others. The Christian message is quite consistent, "We have a superior view of reality. There is something wrong with people who do not believe there is an invisible god, an invisible life after death and rules that came from unknown sources." They believe, as the Baptist official above, everyone will come to realize what they see in real time is not reality but all the invisible stuff is reality. To paraphrase him, "People need a divorce from reality now more than ever. They need to believe in invisible beings and places." Instead of believin

The word, "narrative", has become one of my favorites. In my own particular definition the word refers to a billboard that can be understood by drivers in cars passing by at 80 MPH. The perfect advertising narrative is a picture of an ice cream cone beside the message, "Exit 263". It's entertaining to watch Democratic Party candidates develop his/her a narrative. For Biden the narrative is roughly, "you know me."  For Sanders it is "take from the rich." For Warren it is a little less clear and increasingly uncertain moving down the field of candidates. Pamela Harris told a New Yorker writer weeks ago she knows she needs a narrative but cannot come up with one. She is fading. I, myself, can't figure out why she is running. There are lots of billboards advertising Christianity. I can't remember any of them except, "Christ died for our sins." In my view, that is the most popular narrative for selling Christianity. It im

As new scholars pour over the Bible and study more carefully the ancient writing that was copied, and probably edited, over time they come up with conclusions quite different than those used to hammer from pulpits. I remember hearing as a college student the Jesus story should be considered factual because it was prophesied. Scholar Bart Ehrman, reading the same material as apologists, comes away with the opposite view . The death and resurrection of a messiah was not in the Old Testament book of Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 is the book Ehrman says is most often used by Christians to claim OT writers prophesied something that later took place. The passage is filled with suffering and humiliation. While Christians have long said the book was all about the suffering of a future messiah. Ehrman says Jews never saw it about a future messiah or even a person. It was about the present unfortunate circumstances Jews were in at the time and about their past. The writing was done about 6th ce

I subscribe to a blog site of author, professor and public speaker, Bart Ehrman. I will reference the site once in a while but to read his entire blog on some topic you will need to send money to his charity fund. Ehrman has been writing about the common practice of church goers to believe almost passionately  the Bible says something which it does not. One such thing is about the afterlife. Most Christians today believe the soul separates from the body at death--the body stays on earth and rots away. The soul, most believe, is something like the body. That is it can see, speak, hear and recognize other from life and they recognize you. Ehrman says this is exactly the opposite of what Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 and what Jesus is claimed to have preached. They preached the body and soul are one unit for eternity. What some would call "true Christianity" is not the soul separating from the body, it is the opposite of what most of the faithful believe today.

Post modernism is often pointed at as the enemy of Christianity. There is some truth to that. Post modernism is, at least somewhat, the enemy of conformity. A case can be made that a conservative branch of the faith took advantage of "let's have variety" and chose to support a President steeped in sin. If "anything goes" outside of Christianity maybe "anything goes" inside is okay too. Some would say Christian doctrine requires a leader to by morally upright. The President does not fit that bill in several ways. But in post modernism morally upright can have dozens of definitions and the President might meet one of them. A synonym for post modernism is chaos. It is the opposite of order. The Protestant branch of the faith put the denomination's name on the sign in from of the Church. Now the denomination, if there is one, is hidden from view. Instead there is a hodge podge of church names. This variety of brand names reflects a variety o

The first slave ship arrived in Virginia 400 years ago. It had 20 slaves on board who were auctioned off to the highest bidders. That the practice of keeping humans as slaves found its way to the U. S. is not surprising. What is alarming is that the practice remained legal for about 250 years. It remained legal longer than it has been illegal. Was not the U.S. founded as a Christian nation?? And, weren't we big on "freedom?" The irony is these terms, "Christianity" and "freedom" were used to justify both the practices of slavery and later segregation. The terms are still being used to take away rights of citizens. Slaves entering the U.S. came in without rights. Once rights were granted they were not taken away. Taking away rights already granted has almost never happened. That is until now. Today, under the guise of "religious freedom", some religious people want the "right" to deny hotel rooms to gay couples. They want t

Buddha predated the alleged time of Jesus by about 500 years. What is now considered Buddhism has, like the Bible, been passed down through edited writing and cultural practices. Today there are branches to be admired and branches to stay away from. Rather consistent, I understand, is the teaching of Buddha that he did not consider himself to be a god with super natural powers. Thus, he had no power to cure diseases or feed the masses loaves and fishes. His teaching was that within every human is the ability to deal with more troubles than they, themselves, might think they can handle on their own. When I was in Thailand several years ago, a couple of different Thai friends told me one can be of any religion and still follow the teaching of Buddha. I guess that means one can believe there is a god but still follow Buddha's teaching about the power of human resolve. An older Thai woman I know prays at an alter of Buddhist objects including candles each evening. She told ot

The imagination of the religious person has so much material it must be packed to the brim. There are the invisible gods and spirits. Then, the imaginary history of where they all came from and what the did to get to wherever they are now. On top of all this is the life after death where imaginations run wild again. Even though it's quite obvious there is no "life" after we're dead (that's why we're called dead), it is so pleasant to imagine we're never dead billions of people let their minds play a trick of believing life goes we no longer exist. Since this actual "life" lives only in the mind it allows many minds to come up with many versions of this myth. Since the beginning of the faith there have been many opinions on what this "life" is like. One of the disagreements is about whether people Christians don't like, those who don't believe this stuff, suffer only temporarily in the fire of hell, or, suffer fire for ete

One of the best articles I've read about Christianity and politics appears on the right wing site, Christian Post.  President Lincoln wondered out loud how it could be that two sets of people read the same Bible and killed each other. Each side was certain God was supporting them against the other. There is a lot of ink spilled today with Democrats talking to each other about engaging people of faith plus Republican talking about how Democrats have no faith. Recently the Democratic National Committee hired a former United Church of Christ minister to be a "faith outreach" point man for the  party. Ironically, the UCC was the denomination of President Obama when he was first elected. Obama came into office thinking he could talk religion and identify with religious people. His denomination, the UCC, was broadly skewered by conservative Christians, however, and he resigned from his church and has never joined another. The Democratic National Committee will learn

There is a little dispute going on about what Christians, in this case Catholics, believe takes place in the wine and wafer Communion. I don't know a lot about these beliefs, never paid much attention when I took Communion, but as I understand it the wine or juice and pastry are supposed to, magically, have been transformed into the flesh of Jesus. Pollsters have been asking Catholics if they believe this tale of the wine and wafer being the flesh of Jesus. They get different responses depending on certain words they use in the question. For example, if you ask people if the wine and wafer "symbolically" represent Jesus you might get one answer. Some may interchange easily the words "symbolically" and "actually." Recently near the City of Pompeii a box was unearthed from the site of a long ago volcanic eruption. The eruption happened around 50 CE. The box contained dozens of tiny items, skulls, trinkets, necklaces, etc., that analysts beli

Two in a row is not an epidemic, but now a second media oriented preacher has asked God to destroy the President's enemies. I don't know if he got the idea from the famous Franklin Graham of not. Even though these are crazies, it's a little scary. We have had some mass shooting which are claimed to be about an invasion of foreign and non white people. While I know praying for the destruction of a group is different than actually shooting them, it is unpleasant to hear God invoked as the source of power or approval to do this. We all know religion has been a source of warfare since recorded history. For some reason, there have always been people willing to kill others over invisible gods. I'm sure it will go on forever. Talk of a god protecting or defending a President is not quite the same but close to a President being a god. History has shown many leaders proclaiming themselves, or others proclaiming them, to be gods. Talk of God destroying the enemies of Pr

Parts of the Christian community has been shouting for years advocates of a secular government want all vestiges of religion expunged from government.  Meanwhile efforts to put more religion into government continue. There is a good reason for opposing efforts to have government market Christianity. Advocates of religion in government have never revealed, maybe do not know, the extent of their religious zeal. For many decades religious politicians tried to maintain laws against interracial marriage. I read once  many laws were introduced and passed against this. A few remained in place for a long time.  Slavery and segregation were successfully defended for 200 years. Today is a big religious effort to ban abortions. The huge number of bills have been introduced and some passed only to be overturned by courts. Efforts have turned to changing the courts so these bills will be upheld. Even though a majority of the public now supports gay marriage a part of the religious communi

When anti abortion advocates are unleashed with  ignorance , nothing good happens. It happens because judges, politicians and anti abortion activists promote stupid ideas that locals swarm to like bees to honey. Recently a woman, Tiffany Roberts, in Chattanooga, TN, was charged with first degree murder. Her bond was set at one million dollars. She had still born twins at about 23 weeks. Ms. Roberts admitted she used some drugs. The fetuses showed the presence of drugs. She was charged with murdering the fetuses, first degree no less. There was no proof that her drug use murdered the fetuses. About 15 to 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriages or fetuses born dead. Evidence that drug use or alcohol increases this percentage has not been forthcoming. How could prosecutors be certain Ms. Roberts drug use was not part of the 15-20% of unsuccessful pregnancies that happen regularly? As a letter signed by 168 professionals in the field noted, The arrest assumes pregnant women can g

The title is a bit tongue in cheek. I don't presume to know what Christians should read. But they often tell me what to read. I will not be reading their suggestions nor will they read mine. What I would suggest Christians read, if they were interested in broadening their knowledge of human behavior, would be books that explain religions are products of the social environment where they are found. Most Christians, I assume, would not be interested in following this line of reasoning. Most everyday now is a story about people leaving religion. Mostly, they recognize the restrictive culture that guided them into the faith. By recognizing the influence of culture they have been able to leave. Some refer to their former groups as "cults" even though the groups are not commonly referred to in this way. I find the intellectual transformation these people experience very interesting. Some find attributes of cult in nearly all branches of Christianity, less in some but l

That title is on a Face Book post making the rounds. It so fits the way skeptics look at this religion stuff it is a hoot. We don't know for certain the statement is true, it just seems like it is true. For example, what if there were DNA testing that could establish with a high probability Jesus was, or was not, the son of Mary?  Or, what if it were proven Jesus was actually the son of Joseph? If today this was possible to test and Catholic hierarchy was given the opportunity to have the DNA tested, would they approve or not? I would advise not to take the chance. If the entire story of Christmas goes down what is left? To atheists, it really does not matter who the mother of some itinerant preacher was. If there was such a person we still do not believe in either spiritual gods nor man gods. There are so many other characters in Bible stories that could be checked out. Did Jesus have a brother "James?" And, did his linage of Jesus go back to the area of Nazareth

The Northeastern part of the U.S., where the Puritans settled, and the West Coast are areas where the majority of polling respondents are categorized as non Christian. Springfield, MA, is the least Christian. Several cities on each coast are majority not Christian. What is a "Christian" is always debated as I have discussed here countless times. The questions used to determine how "Christian" various area are was interesting and perhaps controversial. I cut and pasted a paragraph that listed some of the 16 questions, 13 of which had to be answered the way a "Christian" would answer them: To fit Barna’s label of “post-Christian,” a respondent had to meet  at least 13 of 16 listed criteria , which included not believing in God, not attended church in the past six months, never made a commitment to Jesus, not prayed to God in the past week, having not read the Bible at all in the last week, believe that Jesus was not sinless, and not consider faith im

Here is an interesting take on the argument I make often. If you were born to Christian parents the odds are you will be Christian. Sometimes it does not happen. But on average, a child that is Christian, Hindu or Muslim came from parents of that religion. I mention this because it is contrary to conventional wisdom. Most Christians, Hindus and Muslims believe their religion is the only true one. They talk themselves into believing they by themselves have figured out "the truth" and it just happens by chance it is the same "truth" their parents thought they had discovered independent of the culture. That people tend to acquire the beliefs of their parents there is a supernatural world does not by itself prove that world does not exist. It does require the believer to justify the supernatural. For some reason, believers often say it is atheists who are required to prove there is no supernatural. This is backwards. Atheists do not make claims of the supernatur

That God said a word or breathed to start life continues to be taught in Christianity. Other religions have similar silly notions. All the while science moves on figuring out how the first living cells began. They do not have the complete answer but they know a lot about what had to have happened. The circumstances that needed to be present to make it happen are being figured out. There is evidence that in prehistoric time humans believed various phenomenon were magic. One these was speech. If for most of human history people communicated with a sign language or grunts and groans, the use of a language to express thoughts would be a feat like going to the moon. Perhaps the passage God said a word and magic happened came from ancient beliefs about words. Breath would be also mysterious and magical. Before humans figured out sex caused babies they might have thought breath impregnated women as in the tale of the holy spirit's breath making Mary pregnant. Of the 250,000 years

There is a quite large but controversial effort to identify the time in pre history when humans began to alter the earth's environment. The goal is to identify in rock formations or deep sediment a time period when fundamental changes began. If they find the changes and identify a time they would trace the population of humans and see if they might have caused the earth to change. We often identify our carbon load as beginning in the 1950's with the popularity of the automobile. Before Europeans settled the U.S. earlier people deforested large areas. Humans probably were deforesting many places on earth tens of thousands of years ago. The rock/sediment search, if it reveals something, would change the argument about man's effect on the earth. It is often claimed "natural forces" are causing climate change and it has nothing to do with human activity. Evidence "written in stone" would take away that argument. I think the evidence humans are affect

Representative Candice Keller from a district south of Dayton, Ohio, has told us the causes of the mass shootings. There were five : drag queens, gay marriage, breakdown in family values, open borders and Barrack Obama. This brilliant insight follows a tradition of powerful thinkers. In 2001, right after the 9/11 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. Jerry Falwell was a guest on Pat Robertson's TV show. Falwell blamed the 9/11 attacks on pagans, abortions, feminists and gays and lesbians. Robertson agreed . For some reason, atheists were not blamed for either the shootings or 9/11. Maybe it is so obvious they are guilty it was not worth mentioning. Readers need to be reminded that most everyday there is a article about how Christians are the most persecuted group in the world.  No one mentioned Christians as the cause of either events. There are Christian pundits proclaiming the shooting "is the work of Satan." That is convenient because Satan is invisib

As the "trade war" has played out, it is becoming more and more clear Trump will be the loser, not the winner. I remember writing about this a year or so ago and, although I did not understand as fully at the time why things would go south for Trump, more tariffs on Chinese imports seemed like a losing strategy. First, we need to define "winning" the trade war. There are several ways of defining it. I would guess Trump will claim he is winning even when he is not. For the sake of this discussion, I will define "winning" as returning to approximately the level of profit and trade and terms in the U.S that existed before the trade war. This this would also a "win" for China. If trade does not return before the 2020 election, Trump has lost. In retrospect, China correctly saw a low cost strategy for painting Trump into a corner. Trump needs a set set of electoral college votes to win reelection. These states are being made worse off by his t

All these miracles seemed airtight. They they were investigated and tossed . One of them was deemed legitimate by investigating priests before later being dismissed. 1.  The weeping Virgin Mary of Sicily, 1953. This statue claimed to be weeping. Instead it was found to be made a a plaster that absorbs moisture. The moisture later leaked out. 2. Sun Miracle of Fatima, Portugal. Three children say the Virgin Mary in the countryside. They spoke to her and she replied she would be returning on a certain day. On the day of her predicted return a crowd of 70,000 people were in the field. Of course, there were various versions of what people saw that day. It is now thought they may have seen sun dogs they mistakenly called Mary. The incident is regarded as a hoax. 3. Hindu Milk Miracle.  People would hold a teaspoon of milk at the mouth of a statue of the god, Ganesha. The milk would disappear. The milk was later found at the foot of the statue. The statue material would absorb the

Conservative Christians constantly make the case for their right to discriminate. They want to make wedding cakes only for people they agree with. They want to turn people away from housing options they advertise are available to the public. The relationship between discrimination and religious liberty needs to be discussed more widely. I often recall a senior professor from graduate school. He said, "Never underestimate the public's ability to latch onto a bad idea." Using religious liberty to justify discrimination is one of those bad ideas. When discrimination is sold to religious people it is never said, "This will allow others the deprive you of goods and services you need." I've looked for that phrase or one like it from those promoting  religious liberty. I have not seen it, even once. It is as though they are saying, "We can discriminate but it will not be allowed against us." Need we be reminded new religions are made up everyday

There is no certain way to predict the future of religion. We can only be quite certain it will be different than the past. The link discusses several of the different gods people have worshiped and different ways the current Christian God has been perceived. Every god that has ever been worshiped has had a shelf life and it is inevitable this God's clock is ticking. It's interesting to read how aware the ancients were of a precarious god. We can contrast their way of selling their god versus some ways of selling in capitalism. Recently the industrial icon, Lee Iacocca, died. He left a library of good ideas and clever quotes. One of his accomplishments was turning Chrysler around by becoming the company's pitchman. He challenged customers to shop around, to look at other cars as well as Chryslers. Then, he said, "If you find a better car, buy it." Those who wrote the Bible wanted no shopping around. One of the 10 Commandments warns, "You shalt have

To me, demographics and economics determine much if not all of our religious and political beliefs. They influence how we interpret historical information and which myths we choose to belief or not believe. To some extent, it is possible to short circuit the influence of demographics and economics by recognizing their presence. Seldom is anyone interested in the trend taking place at this moment and where it might take us. I would guess that everyone who reads this has noticed how many people there are with grey hair (or hair that is grey but painted over with some other color). What would our communities be like if there were three or four times as many old people as there are now? That is the future a few generations from now. The place I now live seems quite crowded. Recently I drove to Salt Lake City and back. Most of the time the traffic was light and that route is not over populated. If trends continue, those areas will have even fewer people and those like the central city