Thoughts of a Freethinker

A long essay appeared recently about what churches with declining  numbers are doing. Decision makers are trying to figure this out. When studying declining church membership, I've noticed a tendency to categorize why people leave. Was it due to unfriendly church goers, an opinionated preacher, too much politics, etc.? People who leave often give such reasons or questionnaires ask people to choose one from a list made up by Christians that include them. To get at more important reasons, let's compare the journey of a doubter today versus one decades ago. Decades ago a doubter sat in the pews and had thoughts he/she was sure no one else in the church had. Further, he/she had friends in other churches and was certain none of them had such doubts. Doubts about the faith were not appropriate topics to bring up if one's circle of family and friends attended church. When the doubter was at home, and had the chance to reflect on these doubts, what could he/she do to resol...

The hand wringing continues about what to do about declining church membership. One solution is to stop referring to the Bible as the faith's authority. Most women, and hopefully most men, will no longer put up with the restrictions placed on women in the Bible. In 1 Timothy the Bible explains how sinful Eve was. She defied God's instructions about eating the apple and then persuaded Adam to sin. Timothy explains all women are responsible for this sin but have a path out.  It is to have children. This explains why here on the blog when I advocate for gender equality I hear from the faithful I do not understand that God made differences in men and women. When I press for the difference I learn the difference is that women can have babies. This makes them unable to be Catholic priests and preachers in some Protestant groups. It is stated clearly in 1 Timothy women are not to have authority over men. I have heard it explained the reason there are not women priests or preac...

If ever there was simple explanation as to why Christian numbers are falling, denying communion because of politics has to be one of the big ones. Presidential Candidate Joe Biden reportedly was denied communion in South Carolina because he supports abortion rights. Biden's position on abortion is that he personally is against it but does not believe he should legislate away women's rights when they disagree with him. This, of course, is a view that enrages anti abortion zealots who want to impose their religious views on everyone. When clergy decline to make rituals available to politicians they are holding their noses high and passing judgement on others. Polling show this is exactly what many who leave the church complain about. Whether it is gay marriage or abortion, the self righteous are the least attractive Christians and encourage those who are leaving. I've often wondered, when a clergy is accused by a creditable source of child abuse, is he denied communi...

I just finished reading a monumental book, Small Growth; From Microorganisms to Megacities by Vaclav Smil. On the book cover is an endorsement by Bill Gates. Smil is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. Smil is a person who scans the horizon and picks out things to study that are of great importance to humankind but are mostly overlooked in politics and by other academics. The book is 600 pages of small print, maybe 100 graphs and 120 pages of footnotes. (I did skim over parts.). I came across it in The New Yorker.  It is reasonable to ask, "What important issue could one study that has not been studied to death in the past?"  The topic is the sustainability of humans on planet earth. Smil does not condemn anyone and the book is not about politics nor about ideology. But, the message ultimately is about these things. The book starts by discussion Malthus and returns often to him. As you will recall, Malthus said population tends to grow...

No one, not even the most religious among us, can say religion in the U. S. is growing. The only conclusion is that it is becoming smaller.  There are daily articles on how it should fight back to it "rightful" place of growth and dominance. Books are being given away which sound the alarm of a godless society. One popular narrative used in articles written by those of the religious right is that its problems are being caused by either supernatural beings, like Satan, or, by scheming and sinister forces of the left. Maybe some say the two have joined forces. The possibility that religion itself is the cause of its decline never seems to come up when religious people write about it. A prominent New York Times writer today said the main problem in religion is its dogmatic "blowhards." These are the anti gay and anti women/abortion zealots. This group does seem to harm the faith but probably they are not the main problem. As the link points out, the problem o...

Occasionally, maybe less frequently than in the past, Jesus is quoted as saying, "The poor will always be with us." The modern political meaning is that money spent trying to help the poor is wasted. The passage is in Mark 14:6-7. A poor lady comes up to Jesus before he is killed and pours expensive perfume on him. He is quoted as saying don't worry that she wasted her money, the poor will always be with us. No one claims to have been present when Jesus was killed nor claims to have heard the various things it is claimed he said. Some versions of the story in the Bible are incompatible with other versions. And, in the context of whatever point the Biblical authors were trying to make or what audience and purpose the quote was supposed to address, it may not have meant the Jesus character was against welfare for the poor. All kinds of groups use the Bible for their own ends and political conservatives use it here to put a Jesus face on anti welfare. Scholars critic...

Ken Ham is the force behind the Noah's Ark replica in Kentucky called the Ark Encounter. He is also on a speaking tour and promotes his businesses. His is a literalist and promotes this view of Christianity. Everything written in the Bible is factually correct. He says that if a Christian starts to doubt any part of the Bible then all of the Bible is open to doubt. That is why it is a requirement to believe God created the world in six days. As he says, if one doubts the six day creation one has opened to believing Jesus told lies. Ironically, right next to the article about Ham was one by a young man who was a literalist but who lost his faith and is now an atheist. One of the issues he confronted himself with was this: If there was no Noah flood then how can I be certain there was a resurrection? I've asked that in various ways here for years. That is, if the horrific God in the Old Testament did not flood, kill and torture as it says he did why are we to believe ther...

It has always been conventional wisdom that young people who leave the church in their late teens or early 20's later marry and with children return to church. While this pattern still happens in some cases, statistically it is declining .  Identifying with the church is declining in both percentages and in raw numbers. A professor who is a Southern Baptist recently reviewed his denominations quest for power of other humans. It's early century justifying slavery was the start. Now it continues with power over women. Southern Baptists have been declining by 10% a year for several years. The denomination is now scrambling to change its theology--hoping this might stem the tide of decline. The irony of current times is that power has moved from those inside the denomination to those outside. Probably there have been tomes written about this that I have never seen. I've always found it interesting to watch the exercise of power where ever it happens. I have a close friend...

There are endless books published on how to be a "true Christian." Look at most any drug store, there is a box of unsold Christian books. A new one was recently reviewed on Christian Post. The author wrote passionately that so many in the faith do not know what is means to be a "True Christian." We see that here in the comments as well. So many do not believe others who comment are true Christians and need to get with the program. When I saw the title to the link I thought, "Finally, I'm going to learn what a true Christian is and what one is supposed to do to reach that rank." I started reading the article. The more I read, the more confused I became. After while I was sorry I got hooked into reading such nonsense. The writer said it was not enough to focus on Jesus the way some modern versions of the faith do. Nor was it enough to believe Jesus wants the best for you as prosperity gospel preachers teach. Instead, you are to live your life...

The word "proof" usually should be replaced with the word "evidence" in writing by the ancients. But I like proof in this case. This has to do with the god worshiped in Christianity who happens to be named God. There are, of course, thousands of gods. Even though professors have done research on a gazillion topics, I don't remember one which compared comments of gods on God's favorite topic, parting with your money. Did other gods, like those of the Greeks, have a need for money?  Why does God have any need for money? According to an internet site, the word tithe is used 38 times times in the Bible. If the Bible is "God's word" then God had some need for the money brought in by tithing. What is or was that need? I can't stop myself from getting a little snarky here. God does not need a smart phone or internet because he already knows everything. So, does God need money to buy Starbucks? From what I understand, God does not need ...

I suppose since the beginning of humans there has been a fear of death. Now it appears our brains have made an adaptation to avoid believing the inevitable will actually happen. We know Christianity has mastered the con that you will not die. You will live on in happiness if you have tithed but in fire and misery if you have not. Sin is worked in there so people not only tithe but behave. However, we don't need religion to teach us how to avoid facing our own death. We seem wired to find other ways of avoiding it as well. The link talks of an experiment where peoples' brain waves are monitored when words related to death are spoken. Our brains don't like words like "funeral." According to this study we learn to push the concept of death away from our own. Instead, we think of death as something that happens to other people. One way of looking at the avoidance of accepting that death applies to ourselves or that we will live on after death is that it keep...

I read an installment  written by a young man, an atheist, who is trying to rediscover his faith by walking through Europe. He is following the path it is believed Christianity followed through the various countries. It sounds like he is on a commercially organized tour but I could be wrong. Like a gazillion others each year, he is writing a book about rediscovering his faith. He drops in often the "need" of people to have a faith. When he passed through the town of a famous atheist he found it "empty." In my opinion he is projecting on to others his own personal state of mind. He refers to Europe as the theological home of the Christian faith. When he then talks of a "need" people have for the faith, surely he is referring to Europe as well as the U. S. If Europeans "need" the faith their empty churches are right there in front of them. They walk on past them and they now poll majority non Christian. Obviously, it is not true Europeans n...

In Judaeo-Christianity clergy regularly perform acts of magic that enthrall their audiences. They lift high a decanter and change its contents from grape juice or wine into blood. They proclaim, "He is risen." Jewish meat inspectors proclaim meat is Kosher. Until atheists perform some slight of hand magic and make people think it is real atheists will remain a minority. Among the many difficulties is being dead. There is a constant trickle of Christians writing books and on paid lecture series telling the details of what they experienced while they were technically dead but their brain was still working. They tell of experiences that are, not surprisingly, quite like the descriptions provided by their faith. If an atheist tells of his/her experience before coming back and has experienced nothing there is no profit. There is no book to write or lecture series. There is the magical story of creation, God and the seven days. All atheists can say is that they don't kn...

People ask Bart Ehrman, a well know professor of the New Testament, interesting questions. The question of why the Romans killed Jesus is central , Ehrman believes, to the faith. I must mention here I am in the camp that has doubts about the existence of an actual Jesus and the stories about what he did and said and how he died. That a Jesus would have been killed by the Roman government is consistent with other known practices of the Roman administrators. First, Ehrman says, we should be suspicious of the Luke version which tells of Pilate siding with Jesus but going forward with the execution because of pressure from other Jews. This story only appears in Luke and is consistent with that unknown author's efforts to appease Roman authorities. Thus, the Roman Administrator Pilate is portrayed as a good guy and some Jews as villains. That the Jesus character would have been killed for what he preached seems most unlikely. Why would Roman administrators care what religious ...

Ralph Reed, a well known Christian author and entrepreneur, will publish a book next April which will claim Christians are obligated to support Trump's reelection. His group will spend $15 million and have 500 employees. Even though the President's moral standards are lower than most Christians, Christians have a duty to support him, Reed will say. The reason is that Trump's opposition will be worse. This kind of endorsement clearly establishes right wing Christianity exclusively with the Republican Party. It says the conservative religious community will support any Republican Presidential candidate who is anti abortion and gay rights. The quality of the candidate has no role in the endorsement. A blanket endorsement of this kind has its risks. If Trump were to be badly beaten it would signal that anti abortion and anti gay are not popular topics. In addition, endorsement by Ralph Reed is not something candidates will want in the future. Noteworthy, too is tha...

One can get a bit cynical learning that  only 16% of Christians think the faith should apologize for its racism of the past. While this was the finding of a survey, I don't think it correctly reflects what reasoning of the average believer. I've found there is widespread belief that the Christian faith had nothing to do with racism. The average white person does not see him or her self as racist, does not encounter it at church so believes the faith has always disapproved of it. And, it is true certainly there were Christians who always opposed it and helped bring an end to both slavery and segregation. The fact is, however, slave holders and later die hard advocates of segregation were deeply embedded in Christianity. The largest Protestant denomination, Southern Baptist Convention, opposed interracial marriage and its sister, racial integration. To say Christianity was the solution to segregation and not the problem does not reflect the broad parameters of what went o...

The peculiar, actually frightening, way some fundamentalist view the story of David and Bathsheba is remarkable. Bathsheba was the fair woman King David wanted for his own but was the wife of another man. So, David sent her husband into a battle where he was likely to be killed. He was killed and David took his prize, Bathsheba. In this time when women are calling out men who victimize them the story of David and Bathsheba has become a lively topic in the conservative Christian community. There is a set of people who see David taking Bathsheba against her will. Another set makes the common analysis of women who are raped, it is always the woman's fault and that King David took her was Bathsheba's fault. She could and should have refused David's advances even if it meant her death. In the link is the story of a Sunday School teacher who brought up the Bathsheba/David story to her class. A young woman said Bathsheba was a victim of power in the relationship. A young...

When I discuss the many times the Bible was copied and recopied by scribes over a couple of thousand years, the reply is often, "I have a book by this (or that) expert who says the Bible is 99% accurate to its original writers." The 99% claim appears in various places defending the Bible. There is one thing we know absolutely: There is no surviving original copy of the Bible. Even the oldest surviving material is a generation or two after the time some of the Bible was written. This means no one can claim he has, or ever will, compare the current Bible to the original Bible and find the two are 99% the same. We cannot claim either that it is not 99% accurate. For the sake of discussion, however, assume the current Bible is 99% accurate. That would mean the one word out of every 100 was inaccurate. It could still mean an important misreading of the original text. An example is the passage referring to punishment for a man who kills a fetus. In the oldest know materia...

Many wonder why the President is going to the wall to prevent his tax returns from being made public. It's fun to speculate what might be in there and why he wants no one to know. One possibility is that he does not make nearly as much money as he claims. Another is that his net worth is nowhere near the ten billion he claims. Then, there will the possible tax fraud. One bit is a mysterious loan the $50 million that is of extra interest . I'm going to be following that loan. Investigative reporting shows that he did not pay back a large loan for a Trump Chicago project. Eventually, the company to whom he owned the money settled for about one half of what he owed. The amount not paid was $50 million. There is a $50 million loan on his disclosure filed when he ran for office. When asked about the $50 million, Trump's reply was that it is just a loan to himself which he bought from another company. It's just sitting there he has said. If the loan was written ...

Like most everyone else, I have had people say they are praying for me. In recent decades the words became "thoughts and prayers." From people I knew personally I found this a nice gesture. But the broader general practice  may be hurting the faith. We can start with people of other religions, some of which do not pray or have some different concept of reaching the divine. To them, one would think, the remark is heard as, "My god will help you, yours will not." I can understand if a person has never dealt with death without simultaneously assuming the deceased is in a heaven it is all but impossible to talk of anything else. The two topics are one and the same. Atheists, on the other hand, deal with death in a reality where there is no heaven. Thoughts about heaven simply never enter the minds of survivors. Thus, introducing the topic may result in an awkward moment.  It would be like bringing up the topic of heaven to someone in another country where the cu...

I really find fascinating the candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg. He seems both intellectually smart but street smart as well. He started out his campaign by picking a fight with the Vice President over the latter's moral and religious views. What he was doing, I believe, was going on the offense rather than waiting to be attacked for being gay. To me, picking a spat with a far right Christian was a clever way to bring up the topic. Then he correctly quoted the Bible about abortion, that the Bible says the human being begins with its first breath, not at conception. It puts on the defensive Bible thumpers who claim the Bible condemns abortion when it, in fact, does not. We all know what the big issue is that surrounds Buttigieg. It is sin, his homosexuality. One might think sin would be the issue with the current President. Why is it not to many who claim to be Christian? It is not an issue to them because there are sins they understand and sins they don't understand. Eve...

Some professionals operatives in religion are forever telling their groups anti abortion is gaining ground. The question needs to be asked, "Compared to what?" Does it mean more women will give up career opportunities to have an unplanned pregnancy? Does it mean a young women will give up college plans? Does it mean women are perfectly happy to provide less for their existing children in order to have another? Evidence is attitudes toward unplanned pregnancies remains mostly unchanged. Certainly there are fewer clinically performed abortions. There is more access to birth control. There are more in home abortions. There are also a lot of abortions still performed at clinics. A new survey reported on the anti abortion Christian site, Christian Post, says abortion and religious freedom rank below health care and economics conditions in importance. This makes perfect sense. Anti abortion operatives have been taught over and over they could reduce abortions if they solve ...

The Kardashions have a great new idea for cashing in on their celebrity status, start a church. They have done just that. This is very consistent with what I found in the book about women in the pulpit. Women who gained fame and recognition have been able to make a good living and be preachers with lecture series, conferences and actual churches. The role of fame works in both directions. People, usually men, become famous by preaching and growing mega churches. Now, people famous for other reasons form their own churches. That show business people start churches only confirms what has been obvious is way back when. It is that participating in religious services and rituals is a form of entertainment. Political forces within religion have been successful for a long time in keeping Sunday, especially Sunday morning, boring. For much of my most retailing was closed on Sunday. The only escape from boredom was going to church. All of this has changed, but the idea of church a...

Some denominations, including Catholics, still exclude woman from being priests/preachers. They can do this by refusing to issue the credentials by the governing body. I just finished reading a large book on the topic of women in the faith, The Preachers Wife; The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities by Kate Bowler. Bowler spent a exhaustive amount of time and money traveling and interviewing women who are preachers, preacher's wive or celebrity speakers. While the prohibition of women behind the pulpit continued, many women developed their own opportunity to preach. One was a Catholic, Mother Angelica. She formed her own production company and satellite network. She had some run ins with male clergy but they were unable to stop her version of preaching. On the Protestant side there have been a couple dozen women who built broadcasting and entertainment companies. These women went right past the male prohibition against preaching and did more or less whatever ...

Within my lifetime, the prevailing view within conservative Protestantism was that life began at birth, not at conception. Until perhaps the 1970's, the most powerful voice in Protestant Christianity was a magazine called Christianity Today.  It was in our house when I was growing up and in my early years of marriage. In 1968 it hosted a conference on reproduction which included prominent Protestant theologians of the time. They issued a joint statement at the end reflecting , "the conservative or evangelical position within Protestantism."  The statement read, "From the moment of birth the infant is a human being with all the rights which Scripture accords all human beings." It continued, "God does not regard the fetus as a soul no matter how far gestation has progressed." The largest Protestant denomination, Southern Baptist Convention, issued a statement in 1971 urging liberalization of abortion laws. A former President interpreted the SBC...

We all know use of the Bible to justify slavery and segregation was common. In recent times the Bible has been used to deny rights to abortion and to homosexual citizens. One of the remaining bastions of the Bible power play is using it against women. I'm reading a long book about how women have had to put up with this power play and how they have cleverly tip toed around it in many ways. An example of how they are doing it right now is in a article on the conservative sight Christian Post. Beth Moore is well known in Christian circles. She is a Christian entrepreneur who started her own company, puts on several conferences a year, writes books and gives paid speeches. In doing all of this, she interprets scripture and God's will for herself and others. To an outsider, she is a preacher. But she is not a minister in a church so she and her many fans can say, if they wish, she has not violated the conservative mantra that women are not permitted in the faith to "prea...

A feature article in the USA newspapers outlines the extraordinary effort made by the Catholic Church to limit the window of time during which those claiming child abuse by clergy can sue. The story tracks efforts in state after state where conscientious legislators have tried to pass bills extending the time but have been turned back by Catholic lobbying. Of course, insurance companies join in. The article includes examples of Bishops instructing congregations to flood legislators with letters, emails and phone calls against extending the window. A common plea is "it will bankrupt the diocese." This kind of remark reflects what is important. The finances of the diocese number one, abuse victims are somewhere far down the list. Some Catholic dioceses have taken out bankruptcy. And, what harm has this done? The average believer in the pew may not notice any difference. Mass is still be held. Priests are still there to do what they have always done. Weddings and funeral...

If one went through the curriculum of seminaries that train preachers, I wonder where I would find a seminary course which discusses the field of pseudepigraphy. This is the study of the amount and role of forgery in the Bible.  The church down the street from me, a liberal United Church of Christ, has preachers from the Yale School of Divinity. I get the impression they have been exposed to pseudepigraphy. Probably most preachers and priests have not. Some who study and write about religion find forgery in the Bible unimportant. They believe the intent of the author is to help teach the faith and if they lie about who wrote it this does not detract from the noble mission. Bart Ehrman explains why this is not acceptable. He maintains there needs to be agreement between the author and reader about the game. Both need to be in on it. Further, the game needs to be accepted widely beyond the author and reader.   Forgery was discussed many times in ancient writing which has s...

I had an on-line conversation recently with a long-time friend. He told me of a consulting job he had taken on recently. He had been to a country in Africa to see if he could be successful in a way others before him had not. The country had millions of people who continued to stream into its largest city. They set up swatter neighborhoods with narrow mud streets and huts close together. The human waste was uncontrolled, lots of it right in the streets where people walked. The water became contaminated so bottled water was used. Bottles are thrown in the streets. The bottles plug up the drainage patterns making the living conditions even more contaminated. Many were sick, especially children. There was not room to run sewer pipes to a treatment plant even if there had been money to install it. All of this is caused by too many people. Every time a baby is born there is a contribution to the conditions that cause adults to die. Preventing an abortion does not mean a "life...

The belief that humans are abusing the limits of nature and causes harm seems to becoming more popular. I'm talking of the belief humans are causing climate change. The overarching issue of climate change is that nature provides limits and we must fit into those limits. Most religions, especially Christianity, does not teach this. Oh yes, there is something about good stewardship but that is not to override man's superior place in the world of plants and animals. If a large part of the world's population still seeks something we can call "spirituality", something bigger than themselves, where will it turn? It could well be that that population will turn to what has no doubt been its "go-to spirituality" for most of human history, spirits that live in nature. One version of that is Paganism . A new narrative might be replacing an old one. The old narrative was, "Leave paganism. Our new religion lets you use up the environment, eat the animals...

Pundits refer to authors Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and others as the new atheists. Mostly, they are known for aggressive writing and commercially successful books. Many times here those who comment have said I do not respect their beliefs, that I make light of those beliefs and insult what they call community values. I can understand that if one has spent his/her life practicing the faith to have that lifetime preoccupation ridiculed if would seem hurtful. What I write about has been written about for many thousands of years. Perhaps it is accurate to say that over those thousands of years it was talk of a god or gods was really offensive to large numbers of people. I'm unable to spell or pronounce the litany of ancient writers, Greek and Roman, who scoffed at a belief in gods and supernatural notions.  The link lists and quotes a couple dozen Greeks and a dozen or so Romans. I make my usual disclaimer here that the writing quoting these ancients has been recopied over t...