Thoughts of a Freethinker

The Battle of Jericho is so far fetched it is now regarded as fiction in some standard textbooks used in university courses in religion. Joshua did not win the Battle of Jericho because Jericho did not exist at the time the "battle" was supposed to have taken place. Scholars have figured out when the story about the Jews heroic retaking of Canaan was written. It was written about 600 years after it was supposed to have happened. Thus, the story was not written from eye witness reports. Nor was it written by those who had personally known eye witnesses. It is religious propaganda. In Joshua 10:40 we learn Joshua defeated to whole land of Canaan. In Deuteronomy 13:1 we learn the Lord said the Canaanites still held lots of the country. In the Book of Joshua the Jews took the city of Hazor and put a sword through every resident. In Judges, Hazor still belongs to the Canaanites. There are several cities mentioned in the "battle" for Canaan which archaeologists say

In the Old Testament, the Edomites are viewed as slow thinking. The Book of Obadiah predicted the Edomites would be outsmarted and hardly know what happened to them when God's favorite groups attacked. There was a group thought to be what the Bible refers to as Edomites about 1000 BCE. There was lots of fighting among the groups in the area that is today Israel and the surrounding areas. Those who wrote the Bible later needed to portray the enemies of the Jews as inferior people who worshiped inferior gods. One such inferior group were the Edomites. In the Bible God warns the Edomites smarter people will fool them and take everything. Recent excavations believed to be of an Edomite community show the group was actually very advanced for the time. They, along with the Egyptians, invented a faster and more efficient way to make copper which was to go to metal at the time.  Perhaps as a reward for being advanced and for worshiping a different god, God smote the Edomites. God

As the faith continues its slow decline, leaders look for a way to reverse the trend. The Bible commands believers to go out and market the faith. Translated, that means people are to talk up the faith among nonbelievers and invite people to their church. Even though evangelism is technically part of the religion, almost half of the faith blows it off. Those who blow it off no doubt have good reasons. Maybe they are skeptical about the entire Christian narrative. And, perhaps they have had people pushing them to buy or believe this or that and want no part of doing it themselves. Today, people cannot avoid marketing. It is everywhere and the last thing people want is more of it. To sell something to someone else the one on the receiving end has to have a need. If the need does not seem to be there the sales person's job is to create that need. Those who comment on this blog are forever telling me I need religion. They will post that I have some kind of guilty I don't te

An article in The Atlantic   noted something I had overlooked. It is the stunning pace of the growth of people who no longer identify with any religion. In the U.S. that means, mostly, no longer Christian. Europe now polls majority not Christian and, if the present trend continues, the U. S. soon will follow suit. While that has been discussed here and elsewhere the author noted that compared to other social changes, it has been happening very fast. Changes in attitudes toward gender, race and economic class all moved at a snail's pace compared to the rise in "nones", those who say they are not affiliated with any branch of religion. To me the link did not mention something important, the recent rise in the acceptance of homosexuality. That also has been extraordinarily rapid. I think those two changes, the rise in acceptance of homosexuality and the fall of Christianity, are related. What makes them similar is the computer and TV screen. The printing press which

Anti abortion activists don't live, at least intellectually, in the real world. They pretend they can separate it issue of a fetus life from the economics the mother or mother and father face. In the real world the economics of the mother/father and the fate of the fetus cannot be separated. But, it is worse than that. Anti abortion activists do not live in the real world when then talk of outlawing abortion. They pretend that if abortions were against the law the government would prosecute women the same way it prosecutes murders now. In the real world there are so many abortions it is not conceivable law enforcement could even make a dent in the number. This becomes even more impossible as drug induced abortions become more common. They are more difficult to detect and will cost more to prosecute. If there were no economic limitations things would be altogether different. A pregnant teen age woman would be given enough money to raise a child, have child care, attend colleg

A well known journalist was arrested outside her doctor's office, along with her doctor and his secretary,  accused of having an abortion. They have denied this happened and that records were altered. This arrest took place in a Muslim country. It is amusing how often I am chastised for not criticizing Islam--that I criticize Christianity. Here we see little difference between Islam and Christianity. Both want a strong government that inserts itself into the personal decisions of individuals. We have seen local authorities in the U.S. arrest women for having abortions. One need only visit the website of an organization set up exclusively to protect women from persecution, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, to see how often women are charged with having an abortion. The difference between a miscarriage and abortion in anti abortion law has never been made clear. This allows anti abortion politics to apply wherever and whenever it dislikes some particular woman. Abortio

What has seemed obvious to me for several months has not been discussed in the press coverage of the President. At least not that I have seen. Interest rates have been so low in recent years they are in what is called real terms, zero. That is if interest is 2% and inflation is two percent the borrower pays the interest by an increase in the prices he/she receives for whatever she sells. The Federal Reserve has been raising and lowering their own interest rates (and reserves available for loans to banks) for several years with no discernible impact on the economy. The President saw an opportunity to pull off a ruse and it has worked until now. He made a demand of the FR which he wanted it to turn down. To make sure they turned it down he made a request far outside anything the FR would consider. He requested the FR cut in half the interest rate which was already zero in real terms. The FR has never cut interest rates in half. It seemed clear the reason he made this sure-to-b

One of the You Tube sites I look at occasionally has a popular host who goes live periodically where he give his views and sometimes answers questions. On a discussion page a viewer complained that he typed in a legitimate question several times and the host did not notice his question.  The site has 100,000 subscribers and when he is live questions continually scroll by trying to get him to notice. Most all of them are ignored by the host. The viewer was crestfallen to learn he most likely will never be noticed by the host. This reminded me of a childhood memory. Before television, there was a radio show for little children that reached the farm where our family lived. Each morning the host would say, "I'm turning on my magic eye so I can see you from your radio. Hold up your hand if you had a good breakfast. Okay, I see Molly, Johnny, Mary and Buddy...etc" I would hold up my hand because I wanted to be noticed. When I was first a Mayor, all bonds issued to finan

A Face Book friend posted this: The Metamorphosis of Jesus Christ from a humble servant of the object poor to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti science, limited government (that neglects the destitute) and fierce nationalism is truly the strangest transformation in human history.  I would add to that metamorphosis a Jesus that opposes abortion and marriage between gay citizens when he Biblical writers found him saying nothing about either. I need to add my usual disclaimer that we don't really know anything about the historical Jesus other than what was written by mostly unknown people in the propaganda book called the Bible. We have no independent historical record that he existed or, if he did exist, what he said or what he believed. Nevertheless, those who wrote about him more or less portrayed him as peaceful and preoccupied with redistribution from the rich to the poor. Certainly, there are millions of Christians who see the original version

According to a woman who appears periodically on the Jim Bakker Christian TV show, Mary Cobert, the idea that climate change is causing extreme weather is not true. Satan is tricking people into believing bad weather is caused by climate change when it is really caused by sin she tells us. Many Christian readers here probably will point out that she does not represent orthodox Christian thinking. Real Christianity, they will say, does not say such a thing. Her Christianity and theirs' are two different things will be their take. Those of us nonbelievers tend to roll our eyes about both the lady talking of sin and other Christians who deny she accurately represents the faith. Who has the ultimate authority to decide what constitutes the faith? No one. If you are one of those who thinks she is nuts and think only yours is the rational version of Christian beliefs, I think you need a little introspection. You take your faith out of the same book she does. That leaves you partl

The anti women Christian sites have been crowing this week that the national number of abortions has fallen. There are accurate statistics as to the number of abortions done in clinics. Not so for those done outside of clinics. It is possible to buy the pills for abortions from various sources. In Mexico they are available without a prescription. It is not surprising that in Texas, which has many restrictions, the counties close to the Mexican border have shown the largest drop in clinical abortions. Websites giving information on how to buy the medicine and use it are seeing increasing amounts of traffic. Several people who follow abortion statistics speculate the actual number of abortions has not fallen. Of course, there are anti abortion groups trying to pass new laws against this medicine. It is almost humorous they think they will be able to even reduce the number of abortions, let alone outlaw them entirely. They do have the opportunity to try to shame women. But their

In economics, especially teaching it, a technique has become popular in recent decades called "game theory." There are things people receive that are not part of any actual transaction. In game theory they are put into a transaction setting to see if a monetary value can be placed on them. In this case , participants put a monetary value on receiving "thoughts and prayers" as well as a value on not receiving them. Ultimately, if we were able to add up all the values people places on "thoughts and prayers" and subtracted all the values of people who don't like to hear the term "thoughts and prayers" we could know whether it was helpful to people in general or unhelpful in general. In this exorcise, participants were given some money just for participating. Then, they were given an extra $5.00 which they could spend in response to a hypothetical disaster. After the disaster they could pay for "thoughts and prayers." There was a

Pseudepigraphy, authors who pretended to be people more famous than they themselves were, has been known to those who critically review the Bible for a long time. It is not considered an important form of dishonesty by some scholars. There is an entire society of scholars devoted to pseudepigraphy. Some prefer not to label it with the blunt but accurate term, forgery. Biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman, wrote and entire book about Biblical pseudepigrahy but used the term forgery which is both accurate and more common. It was featured on the cover of Newsweek.  Ehrman says he has received steady criticism for using the term "forgery." Other scholars try to make the case that in antiquity pseudepigraphy was a culturally legitimate way of communicating the faith to others. Ehrman, however, says the practice should be called what is was, forgery. He says it is not true the practice was approved of in the ancient culture. Instead, it was condemned in the same way it is today.

I read with amusement an argument going on within the Southern Baptist Convention. This argument is somewhat important because the SBC is the largest Protestant denomination. It has churches across the U.S. and in many other countries. To those who might not follow the marketing and politics of Christianity, the SBC stood squarely against integration during our period of segregation. Interracial marriage was the biggest sin going on back then. It dropped resistance against integration when it became obvious that was stupid and recently had a black SBC President. Homosexuality and gay marriage moved up as the leading sin. Now it is becoming obvious that is also a stupid position so some movement is underway to change the denomination's approach to the issue. A year of so ago a new President, JD Greear, was elected in the SBC. I noticed immediately he did not appear in the mandatory suit and tie that all SBC officials wear. He appeared wearing an open collar. Something must b

Reading what polls tell us about religion, which admittedly may not reflect either what people are really thinking today or what views will dominate the future, lead arm chair speculators like myself with opinions about such things. Polls tell us the political middle shrinking and the same with religion. If this continues the question is which of the more extreme side of religion and politics will prevail? Or will neither side prevail and we will just limp into the future in more or less a stalemate? A more relevant question is what, exactly, is the "middle ground?" Is the "middle ground" what people believed and the values they had in the 1950's? That was when rock and roll music came in and older generations thought it was sinful. Then the 1960's came along with long hair for men and anti-war protests. Older people by that time wished for the 1950's. The link explains the middle ground of religion to be broad membership and participation in t

I've said before there is no archaeological evidence for the Exodus or the killing the Pharaoh's army or the Jew's 40 years in the desert. Believers scoff at this saying blowing sand buried the evidence. That desert has varied terrain. There are only a few locations where three million people could have found water and grown food. These area have been excavated.  And, could sand have buried the evidence of millions of people for 40 years?  Sand is blown from one location to another. It blows back again. It both covers and uncovers what is underneath. There has not been an increase in the total amount of sand. A further case for the Moses story as fiction is found in the Bible and in history recorded elsewhere . Piecing together what the Bible says, if the Exodus actually happened it would have happened about 1250 BCE. The story tells us a Pharaoh's army was completely destroyed. It is known from other sources who the Pharaoh was. It was Raames III. His body has

Some Christian pundits are demanding Trump apologize for saying he is the "chosen one." Technically, he was referring to being a leader in some political issue. He may not even have known he was using religious language. But, it's ok to assume whatever we wish so let's assume he was using the term in a religious sense as in, "I was chosen by God." Is there something offensive or wrong with making that claim? Jesus is supposed to have made the claim and for 2,000 years he has been given a pass on any third party verification he was in fact the chosen one. We're in the political season and politicians are making claims about themselves. One claimed she had a substantial native American American heritage. Another claim African American heritage. Others say they experience first hand this or that. In every case the press or opponents follow the trail to see if these personal claims are truthful. I suppose everyday somewhere an atheists points out

Years ago, a women came over to me in a crowd and asked that we meet privately. When we met she said she reads this blog and agrees with much of it. But, for her there was one exception. Jesus had visited her in a dream so she knew there is a Jesus. Add to her story the endless successful books written by people who had near death experiences where they saw Jesus or God or a portal to heaven. I watched Benny Hinn one night describing how Jesus spoke to him in a dream. These contemporary experiences pale compared to what is in the Bible. Paul talked to Jesus several times after Jesus was supposed to be dead. There are the "revealed" stories. These are taken by believers to be historical events even though obvious fiction to non believers. The big one is the Resurrection. No one writing or quoted in the Bible claimed to have seen Jesus alive after he was supposed to have been dead. Yet, the story, like that of Obama being born in Kenya, goes on and on. The source of t

Evangelist Benny Hinn, his net worth is around $40 million, has apologized for preaching the prosperity gospel and pledged to stop. He admits he overdid promises that if believer sent him $1,000 that person would receive multiple amounts in return. Many of my readers are religious and are quick point out that passages such as Luke 6:38, give and it shall be given to you, does not mean if you give it shall be given to you. Prosperity preachers are wrong, religious critics say, when they say prayer yields money. Religious critics say God answers prayers for them but not for prosperity preachers. Prayers for heaven, healing and forgiveness of sins are answered. I don't understand why these latter prayers are answered when those of money are not. It seems to me a god would not play favorites. But maybe this god has different ideas than I do. We have to keep in mind that many of those who won the lottery prayed before they won. If they were just lucky and their prayers playe

There is a steady flow of cases of child abuse and missing money out of Catholic Church. Every other month the Freedom From Religion Foundation publishes news reports about cases pending and those settled for churches of all kinds. It seems fair to say that the raw number of child abuse cases involving priests is smaller since they are now being reported to law enforcement. It is sick that it took a scandal stop the common practice of shifting priests around instead of prosecuting them. Of the dioceses scandals that still make the news, a few stand stand out to me. One is Chicago where fiscal and moral personnel management seem absent. Pennsylvania released a stunning number of abuse cases. Another is Buffalo , N.Y. The Buffalo diocese has had a steady stream of allegations and counter allegations. Many of them have been between male adults but involved the powerful imposing their will on the less powerful. The link accuses Bishop Richard Malone of hunkering down, stonewalling

Since the 1980's, the reality of climate change has been known. Some dates were projected that did not prove to be accurate. This gave rise in some circles to the view there is no global climate change issue. The predicted apocalypse has not changed since the '80's. Weather continues to become more damaging. In my long life, apocalypse was predicted at least once before. It was the atomic or nuclear bomb. There were movies about complete breakdown of society. The effect was political resistance to such weapons and use of nuclear power. Even though the result of climate change is something similar, a potential breakdown in society, it does not lend itself to story telling like the nuclear power plant or bomb. I think the reason is that in climate change there is not the villain and hero necessary for a good narrative. The Bible, war stories and every other story venue has the same plot, good over evil. In climate change, we are all evil. No hero will prevail. Who w

Around 1625 a engraved monument was unearthed in China. Later, about 1900, a cache of ancient documents, about 50,000,  was discovered which which expanded on the engraved monument. All of this was  discovered in Asia and contained writing about a version of Christianity which traveled the Silk Road trading route between Europe and the East. The religion described in all of this was a version of Christianity modified to accommodate cultural preference for Buddhism and Daoism. The cache of documents is now called the Jesus Sutras. The faith has been named the Luminous religion. Along the Silk Road was a mission of a Bishop Asopen who believed the Luminous faith was the true one. Though it must originally have carried with it Augustine's original sin, the culture where is landed would have none of that. No reference was made to the cross or the Resurrection. The dour notion of sin and punishment was replaced with the Oriental optimism for karma and reincarnation. Mary was m

The two biggest sins today as designated by Christian political operatives are abortion and homosexuality. Yet, neither is clearly named as a sin in the "sin manual", the Bible. There are sins clearly identified several times in the Bible that are ignored by the same Christian moralists. One is nudity. Nudity is mentioned many times. One is Exodus 20:26 "....that they nakedness be not discovered thereon." All over the U.S. this summer a moralist can see beach attire worn by men and women that is so close to nakedness it has to be a sin. Yet, moralists and politicians never speak about it. Have they never read the Bible? Where I live in Iowa there is a Christian Coalition that talks of nothing but gay marriage and abortion. Right here is this state is an RV park where campers are required to be nude . I assume if the weather is warm and people wear clothing they are asked to leave. Would not this be a moral issue of some importance when the Bible so clearly c

I wonder how many churches, both Catholic and Protestant, are more about social justice and than they are about God. The church discussed in the link is Presbyterian and located in New York City. Several years ago someone I knew was a member of a very similar Presbyterian church in Washington, D.C. I've mentioned before a United Church of Christ I attend occasionally where the pastor told a confirmation class he did not believe Christ died for our sins. This, even though his denomination's documents attest to this as the reason he died. The Presbyterian Church we belonged to in Fargo recited the Apostles Creed every Sunday. I wonder if the congregations like those in NYC and DC recite it. When member's main preoccupation is social justice I think they would find it less than useful to recite an oath they believe God created the earth, there was a  resurrection and an invisible Jesus sits on the right hand of an invisible God. If there are many more of such social jus

One place is in the former Soviet Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. New groups are forming in Scandinavia. There are several scattered across the U.S. In the Bible, Paganism is referred to as the villain. I had a poster here several years ago who said she would not celebrate Winter Solstice because it is a Pagan ritual. The link reports several reasons for people adopting Paganism. One is that it is "tradition." Certainly the Pagan religion preceded Christianity. One could argue some other religion probably preceded Paganism so that on would be even more traditional. In either case, this points out that Christianity was an innovation that came along relatively late in the human experience. Another reason for Paganism is environmental. The Pagan faith is more focused on nature than is Christianity. In conservative Christianity, environmentalists are seen a liberals and to do God's will one must oppose environmentalism. While no doubt there are da

God of the Old Testament was a mean child killing mass murderer. He would be on the front page today among those who are killing with AK47's. Many Christians have developed a clever technique for giving these stories of murder and mayhem a pass. It is to say all the bad stories of God are allegory. All the good stories are to be taken literally.  Some who justify a mean God say, "You have to take the Old Testament God in a spiritual sense." Apparently this means we are to ignore parts of the Bible. Augustine back in the 400's recognized the need for intervention. He is supposed to have written, "If a passage seems to endorse wickedness or wrongdoing or to forbid selflessness or kindness, it is figurative and not to be read literally." The late comedian, George Carlin, entertained with atheist themes. One of his most popular was to list innocent people God murdered in the Bible and end with, "But God loves you." While I have not read the

When President Trump was still just a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination a reporter asked him how he would bring himself up to speed with the complex matters a President has to deal with. A Presidential candidate would ordinarily answer by saying he/she will bring in experienced people to give him/her advice and study matters thoroughly. Instead Trump brushed the question off by saying, "I have a good mind." To me at the time, that singled he did NOT have a good mind. Someone with a good mind would not say that about himself. Instead, he would have someone else say it--paying the person if necessary. Trump has plenty of money to pay such a person. Most everyone thinks they have a "good mind." And, most of us know other people think their minds are good--usually better than ours. That is why few of us would brag, "I have a good mind." The are many tomes written comparing the words "mind" and "brain." I don'

In my day in the public eye newsworthy announcements were made at news conferences. The press was there to report the story but also confront the Mayor with suspicions as to why this item should be reported. Today, celebrities simply announce news on social media like Twitter. There are no opportunities to ask questions or challenge the announcement. It's a win win because is easier for celebrities and easier for news people because they can remain in their offices. The only losers are those in the public trying to understand what is going on. I never thought about how this could impact religion until recently when two men, both apparently celebrity preachers/authors, announced they are leaving or considering leaving the traditional Christian faith. They did this using social media. As other authors have pointed out, when those "inside" the faith leave, others defending the faith cannot say, "They just don't understand." Widespread circulation on soc

Unfortunately for the faith, there was no exodus from Egypt, vacation in the desert nor Battle of Jericho. The Jews were not returning to Canaan because they had never left. For many decades archaeologists have been looking for traces, anything, that might give credence to the story of Moses. Politicians in Israel would benefit by this story. If God really gave Israel to the Jews they could use it to justify their harassment of others who live there. Many excavations deep into the sands of the desert where the Jews were supposed to have been are now complete. Nothing. No trash, no bones of animals eaten nor pieces of metal which was available at that time. Besides all of that, there are towns listed in the Bible which archaeologists know did not exist when the exodus was supposed to have happened. The story of the exodus was written for political purposes long after the time it was alleged to have happened. This leads to the obvious question about Christianity. If the foundat