Thoughts of a Freethinker

A minister in the Community Cosmopolitan Church is praying for progress in acceptance of LGBTQ people both in the U.S. and around the world. It seems to me some progress was made in 2020. I share his wish for more. Among all the talk about "religious freedom" is the hidden message of more prejudice. It's not even hidden in many cases. This set of people wants the right to look down on and make life miserable for those they dislike. It is stated in the language of religion. What such people don't understand is that there has been a flattening out of social structures in many ways. While the distribution of wealth and income has become less equal, less flat, the computer has given voice to grievances unequaled in history. It has become possible to form effective coalitions of resistance not possible in a previous time. One bit of evidence has been the emergence of political influence of women. It is commonly thought women's votes were a big factor in the last elect

  About 20 years ago there was a castle revolt in the Southern Baptist Convention. Seminary Presidents and denomination office holders were voted out. In came a group of Bible thumping sin condemning air heads who said the denomination would fail unless they took over. But, they were sewing the seeds of failure. Albert Mohler, Jr. was the leader of the revolt and put himself in a high-paying post of a seminary President. Since then, the denomination's numbers have consistently fallen.  To stem the decline, other Southern Baptist officials recently adopted a statement agreeing with the intellectual concept of Critical Race Theory. This was to offset the denomination's founding which was based on slavery followed by segregation.  Black churches are leaving the denomination and the thinking was that by blaming prejudice on society the church would not look so bad. Critical Race Theory teaches race is a societal problem, i.e., cultures put racism in the heads of children. It stays

This happened in 2019 but the ramifications are now spilling out. The eleven year old had been raped by her grandfather. As soon as her pregnancy was apparent an abortion was requested. Abortion is not legal in Argentina except for the usual things like life of the mother.  Hospitals debated, delayed and could not decide. I'm sure discussion was, "That too bad about the 11 year old. But we must save her baby, blah, blah, blah.."  Later a C-section was performed and, as I understand, the fetus did not survive.  This woke up voters across Argentina to the fact anti abortion politics is filled with crazies. New abortion rights political people were elected and a vote is coming up that may legalize abortion. Argentina is the second largest South American country and the thinking is several others would follow if it made abortion legal. According to the New York Times  a coming Senate  vote  puts legalized abortion within reach. Some members have not revealed their intention.

Conservatives hate "socialism." They hate "Keynes." They love Trump. His is for both of these . And don't forget conservative Lutherans. Martin Luther wanted society to provide income according to needs. Luther's ideas and those of fellow German, Karl Marx, were so similar it's hard to separate them. But today, of course, Marx was for Communism, bad, and Luther for capitalism, good.  These are economic issues. Let's move to social policy. Conservative Republicans want less government in our private lives except for abortion. To stop abortions it would be necessary for government to keep tabs on all pregnant women. They cannot trust women who claim to have had a miscarriage--there has to be evidence otherwise she had an abortion and must be prosecuted.  As I have said many times here, the ability of human minds to hold two opposing views at the same time and think they hold logical and consistent views is almost infinite. Most any day we can read in t

I've been reading How God Becomes Real by Tanya Marie Luhrmann (2020). She is an anthropology and psychology professor at Stanford. She uses these disciplines along with sociology to probe what goes on in people's minds. She studies religion. There have been many other scholars studying this phenomena for decades and there is a deep library of publications.  The obvious skepticism about anyone claiming to know what goes on in one person's mind or in minds collectively is, "How do you know?"     Psychiatrists try to determine what is in people minds by asking them to describe their thoughts. By comparing the descriptions of thousands all over the world for a hundred plus years there are some agreement/conclusions about what is going on in human minds. Even though there remain unresolved questions and problems, progress has been made.    Professor Luhrmann approached studying the minds of religious people, and the non religious, in a similar manner. Over many years

Several books that originally were in the Bible were tossed in the 1600's. There is not a record as to why they were tossed. Those who did the dirty deed were in power and needed no one's permission. One was written by Solmon, considered the wises man ever. In the Wisdom of Solomon, 2:1-24, he discusses his views on several topics. He says no one has ever returned from the grave. Our bodies turn into ashes. Our names are forgotten in time.  Adding to his wisdom, he says we should drink wine and enjoy ourselves because this is the only life we get. He get a little less charitable talking about poor people. He thinks they are rather useless. Along with being a wealthy person, Solomon was reported to have a weakness for women.  Early on, Solomon's book was in the Bible. Then it was removed. That is too bad because it has some material that makes sense to those of us who don't think the God of Bible exists nor does the heaven and hell.  There are volumes written about why

I predicted some months ago what was and is the obvious. Some Catholic Bishops are wringing their hands over what to do about Catholic President Elect Joe Biden . Those Bishops made their bed by going all out for anti-abortion Trump. Now to "stay in the game" they need to figure out how to do some tricky politics. I've read more than one Catholic church in the DC area has offered to host Biden for communion and whatever else. Of course, he has lived there and in his home area for decades so priests and Bishops living elsewhere lobbing bombs about his faith fall on deaf ears. Whether Catholic or Protestant, there have always been people drawing lines in the sand defining what it means to be a "true Christian." Now Trump is drawing a line in the sand among Republicans, "Are you with me or not?" Just like the line in the sand about Catholics on abortion the Trump line will not bring in any new people to his team or to Republicans. Both are inwardly focuse

The Bible has endless rules and commentary about sex. Jesus needed to be a product of a no-sex pregnancy. Everyday for decades one can find a preacher or priest carrying on about sexual sins.  Tonight marks and anniversary (can't remember the year exactly) of Pope Benedict referring to the evils of homosexuality in a Pope's most important message of the year, the Christmas Eve message. Probably if Pope Benedict were giving the Christmas Eve message tonight he would be railing against transgendered people.    For whatever reason, people who change the gender they present to others sets off anger in parts of Christianity. It's hard to understand. Just as it's hard to understand why these Christians care that some same sex weddings take place when it affects them not at all, why would they care that some people change their gender? If you don't like it, don't do it. Leave it at that. Perhaps Christians understand the truth. The truth is humans, since the beginning

It's been a year since a whistle blower revealed the Mormon $100 billion fund. What happened since then is a window, or lack of a window, into Big Church money. From what I have read the Mormon church is big into tithing and its members are faithful about doing it. Apparently the high level clergy are not into a flamboyant spending and the result is cash reserves outside of what anyone could have imagined.  During the past year some windows into this money, who makes decision about it and what it is used for, opened just a bit. Legal questions have been raised about the tax exempt status. Mostly, though, nothing much has changed.  The link suggests some aid is giving to struggling Mormon families. One can imagine that with this much money the ability to market the faith in this country and all over the world is bigger than most other branches of the faith. If anyone wants to know which religions are expanding most rapidly look at the money.  I don't know how the Catholic churc

Why or how is planet earth here? We humans insist on figuring this out.  It is refreshing to read about probabilities scientists have come up with. The odds of a habitable earth for such a long period are low .  So are odds of hitting the lottery. If you buy a lottery ticket billions, or trillions, of times the odds are you will win. That is how we won the chance to be here on earth--changes over billions of years tossed things together just right. The odds are good some other place or places in the universe will have a climate like ours and will sustain life for a while. The earth has had a habitable climate for four billion years. Humans developed only about 300,000 years ago. About 66 million years ago an asteroid hit the earth and killed about 75% of life at that time. Among the animals lost were dinosaurs. There are many asteroid larger than the one that hit earth. If one just a bit bigger had hit it all life would have been erased and we would not be here. During all these four b

In national polls, far more people use the word, "Christian", to identify their religion than show up on the rolls or denominations or attend church. Of those who never darken the door of church but self identify with the word "Christian" what do they believe that is Christian? No one knows. Of those who might be more open identifying as Christian, attend a church for example, what do they need to believe in order to qualify as legitimate Christians? That is, what are they required to believe? Today I'm interested in the "Virgin Birth." To be a Christian is there a requirement the person believe Jesus was born to a virgin? My impression is there are parts of the faith where this is perhaps a required belief. I see Catholic churches and Catholic writing often refers to "the Virgin Mary." What did the Bible have to say about the virgin birth? As it turns out, not much. It is only discussed in Luke and Matthew. They told different stories about

Several years ago Newsweek published an article by Bart Ehrman about the tale repeated every Christmas. To this day there are Christian writers complaining about Ehrman's Newsweek article.  There are two versions of the Christmas story in the Bible. They are quite different and the differences are mostly not reconcilable. One involves the genealogy of Joseph.  Both the books of Matthew and Luke have Joseph's genealogy. Each is very different from the other. Why would those who put the Bible together make such a mistake? There are a couple of reasons Joseph's genealogy is a peculiar thing to be included. It is there for the simple reason Jesus was supposed to be the "king" who led the Jews to victory. The person who last did that was King David. So, writers needed to make up a genealogy taking Jesus' linage back to King David. Since they could not really do this, writers made up a linage. Each of the two authors made up a different linage. Then there is the que

I took the time to read a long article by a young man who is both a writer in the secular press and a devout Mormon. He reviewed his time on the street being a "missionary" and the ever present pressure of the church hierarchy to adapt to social change. I had never quite grasp the interior workings of the Mormon church. Even after reading his article I still don't understand the mindset of a devout Mormon. Of course, I don't understand why anyone believes the tenets of any religion anywhere. The link author obtained an interview with the current "prophet" of the Mormon church, a retired surgeon well into his 90's. The prophet keeps a note book beside his bed and when ideas pop into his head he writes them down. Later some may become the word from God.  A lot of the interview sounded like I was reading from the Catholic Encyclopedia or hearing a devout Catholic maneuver his/her way out of the faith's inconsistencies. I can't tell how many times I&

The resignation of a prominent black pastor from a Southern Baptist Convention seminary and his pulling his large church from the SBC is like a thunderbolt. The SBC has been falling all over itself trying to attack black members and congregations. His action was in response to SBC Seminary President's statement condemning "critical race theory and intersectionality."  The Seminary Presidents are frightened of critical race theory and intersectionality. These latter include intellectual thought that taps the bottom to bring down a house of cards. It has potential to hit the cards of other conservative Protestant denominations as well as Catholics. This starts with critical thinking, looking behind what groups or individuals do or say and being skeptical of why they are doing and saying these things.  When a company says it is selling product X to help you, critical thinking would ask what's in it for the company.  Christian sources of Bible study tell us the Bible was

Back in 2015 a young tenured professor at the Christian Wheaton College put a message on Face Book. She wanted to reassure her Muslim friends she viewed them as her friends and equals. Her said she would  wear the Muslim hijab to show her respect, appreciation and affection. She used the language of religion, Christian scriptures, to convey her thoughts. Her world came shattering down .  The idea of tenure at universities is to ensure professors do not get fired for political reasons. A certain amount of this academic freedom is even required in Christian schools like Wheaton to retain accreditation. But her tenure was no match for angry evangelicals including, I would guess, some big Wheaton donors. She was fired. I remember her case was all over the internet. Fortunately, a quite prestigious university quickly offered her a good position where she remains.  Wheaton does not represent all Christian universities, there no doubt are some crazier than it is. Nevertheless, Wheaton represe

If we take conservative religious leaders in Christianity at their word, the Trump/Biden political contest was about abortion. Trump was for making abortion harder to get, Biden the opposite. By endorsing Trump the evangelical community was saying, "A political leader's personal moral standards don't matter. What matters is his/her views on legal abortion." At the same time, Christianity continues to sell its self as the source of moral values. If one were a disinterested observer the question asked would be, "How can Christianity call itself the original source of moral values when it endorses this man who lies and cheats on his wives? Further, why would it not endorse a man who does not do these things?" This leads us back inevitably to abortion. It has become the only  moral measurement of politicians, the only reason many Christian leaders to endorsed Trump.  That's what they said publicly. And, it explains why surveys show the majority of young peo

Indiana is a state with deep political divisions. I read it has, or had, more Klu Klux Klan member per capita than any other. It was the first state where atheists successfully got a Ten Commandments monument removed from a local court house grounds. Even though its former Governor, Mike Pence, has gone the Washington things are still churning. Indiana State Government did not want lesbian names on a child's birth certificate. This, of course, violated some religious principle. Couples took their case to court and won. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled in favor of equal rights in marriage. Now, with the newly appointed conservative judges, the thinking was it would now overturned a lower court ruling that favored of gay married couples. But, alas, the Supreme Court would not hear the case and lesbian couple's rights stand. I'm sure conservatives will win some cases with this new court. However, in these matters where God has dictated the outcome according to true be

I visit lots of religious sites because it's like listening in on private conversations. One site I happened on discusses "church planting." For some reason the term "church planting" is used for new churches while the term "start ups" is used for new secular businesses. A new church is simply a business start up.  How and why do church start ups work when the population of Christians is getting smaller? This author used fancy words to suggest how a church start up can be successful. Several of the old techniques are not advised. For example, the author discourages marketing a new church so people can find the comfort of worship they had years ago but left behind. An increasing percentage of people did not group up going to church so there is no "comfort" to return to. Come up with something else is the advice. Collecting tithes and collection plate money to pay a preacher is not good. People might be happy to give but they want money used f

Slowly countries around the world who have held abortion to be illegal are making it legal. Ireland and Chile made this move and now Argentina is getting closer.  In these countries, abortion has been common even though it was illegal. It could be attained if a woman had money for a private provider or, in the case of Ireland, could go to England. Young women who were poor and who lived in rural areas had the least access. Those who run the countries have come to see how ridiculous it is to have a law which anyone with money can circumvent and anyone without money cannot.  Even the history of abortion in the U.S. followed this same path. Before Roe abortions were available in some states but not in others. Women with enough money could travel to get abortions, others were stuck with dangerous and unwanted births. I know women in Fargo who traveled out of state to get abortions before Roe. One went to New York.  While we have seen states in the U.S. tag ridiculous requirements for abor

Ross Douthat is a prominent columnist in the NY Times. He is a devout Catholic who is forced to face reality when writing about current affairs while hanging onto myths when writing about religion. He wrote an interesting observation about the myth courts will  overturn the Biden victory. Douthat reviewed how Trump and a branch of the Republican Party created a myth courts would overturn the Biden victory. He says Trump himself has never been able to separate the reality show he participates in as President is different from the real world. But surely many of those Republicans, especially professionals politicians, recognize the difference. They, nevertheless, participate enthusiastically in confusing the public about reality versus myth. Douthat wonders which branch will live on in the Republican Party, the reality or the mythological branch. Democrats have the same problem but just now on a smaller scale. I heard Bernie Sanders about five years ago at a venue near where I live. He se

The Catholic vote in recent election cycles has become fascinating to study. In fact, the entire Catholic Church is an entertaining institution to observe. There is a part of it obsessed with anti abortion. Another part says the primary mission of the Catholic Church is to care for the poor.  In the recent Presidential election roughly half of all Catholics voted for each major candidate. During recent decades the majority vote among Catholics has swung back and forth between the two parties. The link discusses the half that sees abortion as second or even further down the priority list while at the top is clearly social justice. It includes Catholics who have been arrested often for protests at nuclear sites. The interview with them takes place in a soup kitchen where such people toil with little encouragement or publicity. Their determination to see social justice be the prevailing issue of the Catholic church is every bit as strong as those who scream and shout their "prayers&

All U.S. denominations today declare they are against racial discrimination. Lots of them, however, still discriminate against named groups. This continued discrimination needs to stop for Christianity to remain relevant. A couple of big remaining discriminatory practices are against women and gay people.  The Bible's orders for wives to obey the husbands is found in the same book, Ephesians, as orders for slaves to obey their masters. To say the faith treats women with respect while condemning them in the same manner as slaves is a phony argument. Now that Trump has been defeated is a good time for the various denominations that discriminate to fess up and change. We can leave behind the debate about whether or not Trump is a racists. In the same way we can leave behind the old saw that since Jesus had only male disciples the leadership of the church must reside with males. The latter is stuff from the Middle Ages. The time for making amends was many decades ago. Doing it now is b

Since forever Christianity has been sold as a "transactional deal." When you buy a car, you expect a certain level of performance and service. In Christianity, a deal is made where the believers make promises and in return are promised a package that includes death prevention. Because of this transaction some refer to it as a "transactional faith." Since the early 2,000's this deal has not been selling as well. Now there are ideas on how to boost sales. And, there are skeptics putting the knife into the new sales ideas. The new transaction idea is, first, to lighten up on the gay issue. Instead of preaching about the sin let members and society figure it out for themselves. Second, the transaction should take place in the context of friendship. Christians who are a person's friend, this idea promotes, are more likely to believe they are getting a good deal in the transaction.  As with so much in Christianity everything goes back to a business transaction. I

Surveys show, or claim to show, "nones," those with no religious affiliation, voted for Biden/Harris by a margin of 80%. We know "nones" to be an extraordinarily eclectic group. This makes such political unity rather extraordinary.  Christian pundits often say, "The nones are not atheists. They are religious but in diverse ways." That may be correct for many nones but its plain to see they have little in common with traditional Christian institutions or with the dogma taught in the faith. Religious supporters of Trump said over and over the election was about abortion. It is easy to conclude nones are in favor of abortion rights. Atheist pundits are pointing out to Democratic officials nones were one of the strongest supporters of Biden. While some political columnists point to Republicans and Trump making inroads into black and Hispanic voters they do not mention there were no political inroads into the nones. Ground was lost. Back in the day, there was

While I'm not a believer, I have opinions about "good" and "bad" practices in the faith. Of course, so does everyone else . I had never thought of looking at good and bad Christianity the way the link author see it.  He was brought up in the Plymouth Brethren. This denomination is often thought of as a cult, he says, but it is not. The faith is about living a simple life that follows what the faith finds in the Bible. It is not, he says, fighting governments about meeting for church because it is the responsibility to individual people to find their way through life and it is not imperative to lean on friends or preachers. The link author is now a Unitarian but thinks the Brethren still represent a branch of the "good" religion. In the U.S. founding document is this famous sentence, "...endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Religions that violate this sentenc

Climate change so far has been rather easy to deny. The melting is on the other side of the world. The huge rains and draught have not closed cities or states. But a new study tells us something is going to happen that will make more publicly funded housing the new reality. The sooner this gets started the better. Coronavirus is giving us a hint about other disasters. All over the U. S. people living in apartments are not working and unable to pay rent. A lot of doubling up and moving around is delaying large scale evictions. Apartment owners need rent revenue to make loan payments and provide a return on their investments.  If there were a huge government payment for rents the foreclosures might be avoidable. Until then there is denial. Then there is the predicted higher water levels from melting ice. The small city of Miami Beach, FL has invested some $500 million in pumps, levies and higher streets trying to stay above water. There are many other coastal cities predicted to have per

Story after story appears by about "unexplained" things people claim to have seen during the past election. This is followed by story after story of logical explanations about what those people saw and disprove dishonesty in the election. Yet, there are prominent celebrities , public figures and preachers claiming Biden stole the election. If it were only a self serving political hack like Trump saying this it would not matter so much. But it includes people who should have by now read all the information showing the huge theft of votes is nothing but political trickery.  I've read the description of a video showing an unmarked white van showing up after dark. In shadowy filming a driver unloads cartons and wheels them into a polling site. The voice over tells viewers the cartons contain illegal ballots. No one in the video reports that the driver of the van is eventually located along with those inside the polling site who all explained the cartons contained camera equip

Conservative leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, aka old white men, are condemning an intellectual field called Critical Race Theory. They cling to their own version of history and reject any other version. They claim to be against racism but also against any intellectual inquiry as to why the SBC was founded as a racist Christian institution. Critical Race theory can be summed up as simply the application of the social sciences to religion including the Southern Baptist Convention. From the social sciences we know attitudes of white people about black people comes from the culture into which white people were born. Racism was here before we were born and, without some critical thinking, we come to believe what those around us believe. When I use the term "old white men" I'm fully aware some who hold their views are neither old, nor white nor male. The old white men of the Southern Baptist Convention recently issued a statement I summarize in this way: "We a

Quite often on Christian sites there is someone lamenting  facts found in surveys. This one laments Christians increasingly are not regular readers of the Bible. A while back about 15% read the Bible daily. Now it is about 10%.  One of the consequences, the link preacher says, is people go off in many directions instead of staying within their denominations. Haven't they always done this? We have a gazillion denominations passed down from decades past. What is happening now is merely what has always happened in Christianity. The link tells readers Christians must study the Bible because "it's all we have." "We have nothing else. We have no pope, we have no structure that keeps us together, no matter what we believe. We need to sit down and study the Bible, know the Scriptures, and be properly equipped for ministry." The link author was writing about rural preachers, often lay preachers, who volunteer in churches that can no longer afford paid preachers. It c

In some ways, it is hard to compare one country's system for delivering medical services to another. In some cultures people follow the directions of authorities and do not in others. Some places have more equal incomes with fewer poor people. While I don't know for sure what it proves, it is worthy to note socialized medicine in Great Britain is beating our capitalistic system in beginning vaccinations for the Coronavirus. This makes it hard to say, "Socialized medicine doesn't work." Canada's system is more government run than that in the U.S. I know a retired couple of expat U.S. citizens who lived there most of their adult lives but wanted to return to the U.S. in retirement. After they looked at the medical care issue they decided to stay in Canada--it was the only issue that made the decision. I follow several expats, young and old, on U Tube who have moved to Mexico. Medical expenses for people in Mexico are a fraction of what they are in the U.S. The e

I have to hand it to those who practice anti abortion politics. They are skillful at sidestepping their obvious internal inconsistences and practicing political misdirection. Last week the conservative majority on the Supreme Court overruled a state's directive to stop church services. The reason for not holding church services is to save lives. But, these were not the lives of fetuses, the only lives that are important. If some church members die it really does not matter.  If each church was an island and not one visited the island holding church might make sense. This, of course, is not the case. Church members circulate in the community as much as the rest of us. If they spread the virus in church the rest of us can be infected.  On top of that, there is a finite amount of medical services--a largely inflexible number if doctors, beds and ventilators. When people engage in risky behavior and become sick they use up some of the limited care that is available. All this in the Bi