Thoughts of a Freethinker

Some liberal people in Congress have asked pointed questions about the religious views of potential Federal Court appointees. They are roundly criticized for asking these questions by conservatives. There is a need, however, to try to get into the heads of these candidates. Their religious views are not as important as whether they know the difference between reality and religious fantasy. I'm not a legal scholar but I like it where the link points out our laws should be based on reality. To base them on dead people coming back to life or one fertilized cell is a human being is foreign to a modern country. We might expect that dreams and visions were mixed up with reality in the middle ages but there should be enough rationality in the head of a potential Supreme Court nominee to see that dreams or invisible gods are not reality.  I've heard that the current Trump nominee facies herself as a second Justice Scalia. In 2013 Justice Scalia was asked by a journalist if he believed

  An interesting and hard to understand trend has been emerging in religion. It is that the less education one has the more, not less, likely he/she is to be religious. This flies in the face of the popular notion colleges are full of liberal professors with their tweed sport jackets and leather elbows prying their students away from the religion of their parents. The population of "nones", those who claim no religious affiliation, is more common among young people who never attended college than among those who did. We know that President Trump was popular four years ago among those who had not attended college. The President was also the toast of the right wing Christian world. This political marriage of non college and Christians was peculiar because those who have not attended college are polling less religious than those who have graduated college. What could be the reason President Trump did well with the non college voters? I can't say I really know, but it is fun

There is an author and church consultant, Tomas Rainier, who writes columns weekly on the site, Christian Post.  His titles are most always have numbers in them, "Five Ways to Save Your Church" or "Seven Reasons for Pastor Burnout." I gather he financially he is quite successful and writes with an air of importance. His books and columns are filled with useless writing. He writes about failing churches but offers no useful advice for them about how to turn around their inevitable path to closure . He published a popular book a few years ago called Autopsy of a Deceased Church. The death occurred, he said, because there was not adequate "community outreach", too many senior members, not a strong enough youth program, too much inner focus and not enough outer, etc. etc.   Comments about the book were positive. Some advised churches to buy copies for each board member and have meetings to discuss it. Others advised churches everywhere to take heed of what he

Anti abortion sites are outraged about an HBO film. It is about a fictitious pregnant young woman who takes a fun road trip to get an abortion. The entire experience was fun and pleasant. The right wing outrage is over inaccuracies. The young woman character, a minor, lives in Missouri and her parents are anti abortion Christians. Anti abortion critics point out a minor in Missouri can get an abortion there by calling the ACLU who will facilitate a obtaining a waver. In the movie the young woman assumes she has to drive to New Mexico. Lots of states do not require a waver for girls to get abortions. Parents should not have the power to force their religious views on their teenagers. Yes, the movie is pro choice propaganda and to set up the story it needs to portray legal details incorrectly. Anti abortion operatives should have expected their own tactics of saying things about abortion that are false could be used by pro choice operatives as well. If you engage in dishonesty don't

We all know that in marketing there are words like "original", "authentic" and "genuine." In Christianity these words are replaced with "Bible based" and similar words meant to portray that particular denomination or church with some kind of cache identical to "original" and "authentic." One of the strategies is to create a brand of Jesus people like. In some cases the brand is one that condemns various sins. Almost anyone in the U.S. knows the brand of Christianity called Westboro Baptist Church. I would guess Unitarians have a good brand identification--not Christian. This even though in its background was Christianity. Today it is popular for churches with denominational affiliations to keep that affiliation out of sight and attempt to establish their own brand locally. Instead of "First Lutheran..." a name like "Living Waters Church" is chosen.  A Southern Baptist church in Ames, IA launched a new brand

Why would an ordinary person like me or someone on my block join the Satanic Temple?  It's interesting to read such a person's explanation . The link made me do something I have been delaying. It is to read up on the difference between two organizations which have the word "Satan" in their names. The oldest one, Church of Satan, was founded some 30 years ago. It has no meetings nor formal organization. The followers are united behind the writing of its founder. It does not like the new organization, Satanic Temple, which has an organization and a set of seven principles members agree to support. The seven tenets never mention Satan. Both groups say their followers do not believe in any super powers or deity.  I liked the seven tenets of the Satanic Temple: They are about general things like being kind to one another, opposing injustice and so on. One in particular jumps out, "3. One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone." This is the

A President of a seminary in the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land, has been writing on right wing religious sites for decades. He embodies the complete "old white men" Christianity. In a column today he carries on about how young people are rejecting American exceptionalism. The underlying message is they are not accepting Christianity. Land made a good living being a Southern Baptist and can't understand why young people do not see the value of what he holds dear. Part of it may be the efforts of old white men like him to link American Exceptionalism to conservative Christianity.  It is easy to see why American Exceptionalism is slipping. Going back some decades there was Vietnam. We went in thinking we knew how to "win." I remember a blow hard in my office back then saying, "We just need to find every North Vietnam soldier creeping south and kill him. It will be over." They were in underground headquarter and moved weapons, ammo and supplies

We've all read about the current decline in numbers of self identified Christians and about falling numbers experienced by Christian denominations. We know, too, about the rise in "nones," those who say they do not identify with any religious tradition. Along with those trends are polls which find the majority of these "nones" believe in something "spiritual." The author of new book has a logical explanation of all this. She interviewed a large number of nones to find out what they are thinking and how they think. The views go far and wide. She noted the belief some hold who when asked, "Are you a Christian," said yes. But they are not affiliated with any church and believe in such things as reincarnation. There is a lot of mixing and matching--taking something from many religions. Many report being "spiritual but not religious." These are people who sound like agnostics. They think there might be something out there we cannot and w

  An endless stream of comments on this blog has declared that without some source above or outside of ordinary people society will be out of control. That is, without the threat of hell people will sin without limit. I guess that means without the Ten Commandments people will steal, murder, covet wives, cuss and chaos will be the permanent state of affairs. This, however, has not been the history of the majority of human behavior. Let's start with a couple of the most well documented kinds of selfish behaviors, grazing domesticated animals and disposing of human waste. I've never heard a deity was needed to set up rules about where human waste was to be disposed. Ancient site reveal waste was away from where people lived. There were grazing rules for domesticated animals. These were not always followed but people have figured out what the rules should be. I've seen interviews with elderly Native Americans in fishing and hunting areas. There were rules about how much should

One thing pro life crazies could do that would make them more popular with the public is to quit approaching women patients at women's clinics. Some women go to the clinics for their regular health appointments while some go there for abortion appointments. In either case, Bible thumpers need not shout their prayers at them. In the link story, a Christian You-Tube celebrity took his children to the clinic to bother patients. Police were enforcing the 10 person gathering limit in the city and arrested him. He is, predictably, whining about what happened to him. Police considered the protestors a "non essential" activity. I would call that an under statement.  Some religious people feel they cannot be part of the faith without doing in-your-face things. That includes holding church services where disease often spreads or protesting at abortion clinics. I've heard there are people who consider Elvis a god. Maybe they will exercise their rights and hold disease-generating

The story of where we humans came from is getting more and more complex. It is now apparent there were waves of different kinds of pre humans. And, they moved here and there across continents interbreeding. Africa remains the theoretical home of the first humans. But now there is evidence there were several different variations and that some groups left the African continent later returned. New science is helping unravel the mystery but the climate does not help. Bones and any other evidence deteriorates in Africa.  On our own continent people came here long ago. Evidence about them deteriorated because of climate and invading groups, Europeans, destroyed a lot of evidence. Europeans prevailed over native populations largely, it is now believed, because of disease. Military conquests might not have been successful if the disease problem had moved in the other direction and the European invaders had died in large numbers instead of natives. To me it is inevitable the myths people belie

For years I have read about the simple mistranslation that led to "the virgin birth of Jesus" in the New Testament. We all know a claim that is approximately, "The Old Testament prophesy led to events that actually happened in the New Testament. This could not have happened without an all powerful and all knowing God." For reasons I do not understand, the tale that a woman who had never had sex but gave birth to the Jesus character is a big deal in the faith. And, the claim it was prophesied in the Old Testament makes it an even bigger deal. Whether a virgin birth ever happened gave skeptics a lot to work with. But that is was prophesied in the Old Testament has skeptics even inside the faith. Talking of the Bible we have to first mention the usual disclaimer. There are no original copies of anything written in the Bible. Everything available today is the result of scribes recopying thousands of times. And, we would expect scribes edited to suit themselves.  The old

There is no other way to explain the preoccupation with Supreme Court Nominees, redistricting and anti gay theology than this .  One could start by asking in this way, why walk across the street to punch someone who has done nothing to you. The answer is because it feels good--makes one see himself as the better and the one that is more important. Conservative politics is like that. If a woman has an abortion and you do not know her why get all upset? You can oppose abortion yourself in your own life because you are acting on your religious views. But the woman you have never heard of nor will ever know need not share your religion. Why is it then necessary to put your religion into laws that she has to obey? The link discusses how terribly offended some religious leaders are by the concept of humans finding themselves not completely male nor female. In their view, something so revolting should not even be discussed publicly. My goodness, I remember reading about this in the 1970's

For some years now I've read there was a move afoot to change the name of the Southern Baptist Convention to something without the word "southern" in it. Advocates did not want the largest Protestant denomination to appear regional when it log ago spread around the world. I've noticed its churches around where I've lived do not list the name Southern Baptist Convention in any prominent place. The denomination was ground zero for slavery and segregation. Smart to drop the name. But, what name should they use? They are trying use Great Commission Baptists. I was not interested enough in the denomination to read where that name came from. What promoters meant to say with the name I'm sure is "Genuine Baptists," "The Real Baptists," "Important Baptists" or "The True Baptists." Southern Baptists have been losing numbers at the rate of 10% per year for several years. This appears a little higher than the rate of decline in Chr

The giant BP oil corporation just released a projection that is shaking big thinkers in business around the world. It concludes long term oil consumption will peak this year. This projection flies in the face of all conventional wisdom that consumption would continue to rise past 2030. If this prediction turns out to be correct many parts of the world will be upended.  One of those places will be North Dakota which is a high cost producing state. Russia is another and Saudi Arabia will be scrambling.  And across the Midwest are corn farmers. Roughly half the crop is used for ethanol. This is the same market as oil. When is price tumbles, as it has the past few years farm income tumbles as well. Because low prices for oil have always rebounded, the belief holds low prices will be followed by high prices, not more low prices. Investments for future are made and bank loans negotiated during low oil prices based on higher prices assumed to be coming. That low prices remain temporarily inst

If you poll people all over the world with the question, "Do you consider yourself happy?" or some similar question, it turns out religion does not help provide a positive answer. If fact, religion may or may not deprive people of happiness.  Countries that poll lowest on religion poll highest on happiness i.e., religion and happiness are inversely related. Why does this relationship exist?  We all know people who are basically happy and people who are constantly in the dumps. But when entire societies poll consistently happy and other societies the opposite logic would tell us something is different there. Of course, we cannot be certain what the cause of either is--there are so many variables involved. One is that countries tend to drop in religious beliefs and participation when their standard of living increases. The U.S. has been an outlier in this for decades and no one could figure why it was different than Europe. But now it is rapidly becoming secular as did Europe.

I don't have to tell any readers President Trump is said to tell lies most every day. The worst under discussion was his saying the pandemic was not a serious threat when he knew it was. I've come to think the President's mind precludes knowing something he says is true or false. He thinks, instead, saying what helps him look better in the eyes of others is a version of the "truth." Here on the site, we have lies told about abortion. One repeated frequently is that abortion is a dangerous procedure. It is falsely claimed abortions put women's lives and mental states at risk. It has always been know by people in the profession this is not true and now a large study, The Turnaways , confirms it. In the study there were three deaths in childbirth among women denied abortions. There were none from abortions. How many women die each year because they are denied abortions? Presidents besides Trump have told lies. President Johnson told a lie in the Gulf of Token Res

If you happen hear reports from golf tournaments you will hear the word "leader board." That refers to which golfers are leading in the tournament. To me the sins fundamentalist Christians are talking about changes from time to time, old ones are dropped from condemnation and new ones show up and stay to be condemned for a while until they, too, are not longer interesting enough to condemn. I call the the current sins up for big time condemnation at any given time the "sin leader board." I'm sure the sin leader board had beer listed back before prohibition. When I was growing up in rural Iowa there were virtually no tractors in the fields on Sunday--on the leader board. In my church back then the leader board included playing cards and dancing. We knew there were gay people but it was not on the board. Homosexuality made the board in the early 1980's. Working on Sunday and beer had slipped off.  More recently marriage of gay people was high on the list of th

The attempts to paint mayors who are Democrats as weak on crime in order to link political protests in cities to Candidate Biden is ridiculous . Any member of the public believing the nonsense used by Republicans should be ashamed for believing it. When it comes to "law and order" those states which trend Republican have worse records than those that trend Democrat. States in the Bible Belt have more violence against women than those out of the Bible Belt. I can't blame strategists in the Republican Party for search to find some issue to talk about. This, however, is a stretch because while the protesters have caused some some damage, it has not been anything serious or worrisome. And, Republican politicians have plenty of reasons to run for cover. Perhaps there is the impression that Chicago has the highest murder rate in the U. S. Among the country's largest cities, Chicago ranks 10th. Higher rates are found in such places as Memphis, TN and Cleveland. If you includ

It seems so unlikely but yet inevitable. I'm talking about using religion to justify acts that are the most unreligious to some religions. It could be that once the barn door opens a crack all the cows will escape. The Satanic Temple is claiming abortion is a religious ritual and must be allowed under the banner of freedom of religion.  One need only look at the Wicca religion. Where it came from is disputable. One book , which was not written by someone known to be knowledgeable about the topic, was so appealing it started a religion that almost never existed before. I think it could be said Christianity was just as "laughable" at its birth as any new religion is today. Once one religion enters the world of law and economics there are going to be a lot more of them. It's easy to say religions that come out of "nowhere" and become popular are frauds and will be crowded out by clear thinking. Experience does not support this. Instead, it tells us the most biz

Trump crowed in 2016 the U.S. trade deficit with China was "the largest theft in American history." He was going to stop it. Today the trade deficit is higher than is was in 2016. He was going to return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. More are overseas now than before. Trump simply does not have the ability to understand that several parts of trade move simultaneously.  The simplest way to understand trade is to note the U.S. has laws to stop barriers against any state that might want to set up barriers to trade, like trariffs, with a neighboring state. Way back in the 1787 a group of leaders met as the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Chairing the convention was George Washington. Benjamin Franklin was a member. While the Constitution includes many ideas, Washington's and Madison's original goal was to let the colonies and later states prosper by trading with each other. That the simple observation different areas produce certain crops and manufactured goods

As numbers in denominations fall along with church attendance there are Christian authors trying to figure out the problem. Most popular has been the notion youth are not trained. Or, people have a bad experience in the church. An emerging view that I think gets to the Christian problem is that young people simply are not interested in what the faith says or what it offers. The word they use is apathy . If that really is the most important problem, what is causing it? If there is apathy now in the faith why was there not before? From my experience growing up in a conservative faith I think it was there before. It was not recognized, however, because people looked to church for their social ties and identity. Some were in it for business contacts. The message of religion was more tolerated than received with enthusiasm.  We have a close friend in Fargo who told us that in her youth and young adult life the local Catholic parish was the center of her life. Everything else made way for ch

For almost 250 years we in the U. S. have repeated over and over we are a country of greatness. We have talked of our American "values." It is said we are a "Christian nation." A new book plots the formation of the United States and paints a pessimistic future of these concepts. Its as if our differences have been covered over with cheap wall paper for 250 years. Perhaps our current bitter differences are not an aberration but are the real nation. Unfortunately, it all makes sense. The country originally was made up of people from different areas--probably they did not get along with other groups where they came from. There were plenty of wars. They pushed the natives out and settled in their own ghettos.  But, to make more money they needed to trade with each other. They formed a loose government of the Continental Congress. This helped with trade and business until several colonies thought they could push the cost of their little governments onto someone else. The

Reading the word "freedom" in two different places last evening it struck me how dangerous the word really is. People with their own agendas use it to stomp out others with whom they disagree. It has implications of life and death. I'm reading a long book about the decision to invade Iraq. I've always wondered how such a colossal mistake could have been made when those making the decision had the best information available to anyone. You may recall there were several justifications for the decision, the last one being "weapons of mass destruction." Eventually the President admitted they did not to exist. Previous to that, however, was W. Bush's irrational belief that if people everywhere had "freedom" they would be happier. The author points out that Bush's privileged life did not include knowing people across the globe who were starving and had no interest or knowledge about the abstract idea of "freedom." They are more interest

A team of researchers emailed thousands of public school principals asking about enrolling a child in their school. The researchers then revealed to the principals the (fake) family's views about religion. They divided the "families" by atheist, Muslim, Christian and no mention of religion. The results showed principles were significantly less likely to respond to an email if the inquiry revealed atheism and Islam. There could have been other reasons why the Principals did not respond. And, many of the them did. But the statistics in this experiment showed a pattern that is disappointing.  The researchers also sent emails from Protestant and Catholic "parents" asking if there would be any problem with a child enrolling. The rate of response to those inquiries was much higher. Part of the experiment was to gauge responses to style. The inquiries were made in various ways. Some were rather "aggressive" and included a quotation from Richard Dawkins. Two

Christianity has always been sort of stuck in the Middle East. It's as if the only important thinking, visions, dreams and written work for the entire world came from there. That thinking has such a powerful, if erroneous, power over western white people they can't let go of it. I remember a brief conversation decades ago with a retired preacher. He traveled frequently to the Middle East and gave lectures about what he learned. In our brief conversation I must have brought up my grad school interest in the sophisticated societies in the Incas of South/Central America and my hope to travel there and learn more. He dismissed South America as an important part of human history.  I think the preacher's dismissal of the Americas was a cultural bias influenced by his religion. Because he was taught much detail about the Middle East of the Bible he thought it was the only important place.  We are learning more about the people who first settled the Americas--though it is more diff

Fredrick Douglass, the famous black leader, hated Christianity. He had seen too many slave holders who wrapped themselves in piety while inflicting cruelty on their slaves. He recalled seeing a slave owner whip a disabled woman until she bled quoting scripture between each blow.  A new book claims that if one wanted to start a new white supremacy organization, the place to find new members would be the parking lot of a white church, Catholic or Protestant. That group hosts a higher percentage of racist sympathizers of all known groups. The link reviews the largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. It originated as a religious group who used the Bible to justify slavery and later segregation. Today it is trying to walk back its past. While current leaders espouse the welcome mat for black people, the denomination's history is there for all to see. The link provides evidence of Catholic prejudice as well. One has to acknowledge that parts of Christianity also

President Dwight Eisenhower used the term "Judeo Christian country" in his first Presidential campaign. Later in his life he became disgusted with it and and never said it in public again. In a letter he urged his brother to not use the phrase because it alienated Muslims and other faiths. The history of the phrase has some twists and turns. According to the link, the phrase originally it referred to democracy. I don't know why the word democracy was not used instead but the link said that's what it meant. Then later the meaning morphed into to anti secularism.  Beginning in the 1970's the term was weaponized by the religious right. Today it's clear the phrase "Christian nation" means anti atheism/secularism and anti Islam. It was the beginning of what today we call "cultural wars." The implied assumption is that Protestants, Catholic and Jews are better citizens than atheists and, more recently, Muslims. While there now a very few atheists

To me, Christianity's finest hour was when Rev. Martin Luther King used the Bible to justify equal treatment of the races. Later in his life he promoted equal treatment of gays and was against most wars. That branch of the faith is known today as the "Social Justice" branch. A significant block of both Protestants and Catholics see social justice as the main reason they are Christians.  There is another branch that thinks the Bible endorses social injustice . Currently the most widely known of this group endorses "religious liberty." It wants to use its religious beliefs to justify its prejudices. Unequal rights for gays and women are front and center. This group wants the right to refuse to sell abortion medicine and turn away from motels gay or mixed marriage couples. On the fringe of this group are denominations that do not allow women to be pastors.  There is something in the Bible for most every view. Certain there is ammunition for both social justice and

This is an argument as old as humans. If children and adults are never indoctrinated with religious thoughts do the thoughts enter most of their minds anyway? Or, is "teaching'", i.e., indoctrination , necessary for religion (any religion) to survive from one generation to the next? The link is by an atheist who discussed a 2019 book by a believer. The name of the book is Atheist Overreach.  I recall reading other reviews of it. The author believes the growth of secularism will somehow drive those on the fence into the arms of Christianity. This will happen because of some trait humans are born with. Atheism, the author believes, will trigger the natural inclination to believe in spiritual beings like the Christian God and Jesus. Christian denominations do not seem to believe this natural inborn desire to be religious. Denominations spend millions of dollars on youth programs. A great experiment would be to stop all of these programs and see what happens--will the number