Thoughts of a Freethinker

One of the most manipulative techniques in Christianity, and other religions, is using religion to give people meaning to their lives. If life needs some "meaning" to a person the church arrives and says, "The purpose in your life is to serve an imaginary god. That god wants you to give him (us) your money."  I've always wondered about the constant presence this question, "Why am I here?" Close to me all of my life have been people with diagnosed depression. To them, at least some of the time, life is gloom and pessimism. They seem not to have a purpose in their lives. Some of these have been Christians but the purpose posed by the faith did not help. The famous book, A Purpose Driven Life, was written by a prominent preacher. It, too, preached one finds purpose by serving the Christian God. His own son died by suicide as a young adult. The additional question is what primitive people might have wondered their purpose in life was supposed to be. If peo

Among those 13-18 years old when asked "Can people of many religions go to heaven" the answer is yes, 66%. This in spite of a passage in the Bible where Jesus was supposed to have said, "..except through me.." (Jesus and Donald Trump seem like the same full-of-themselves people). What is the problem here? Is it that young people have never heard Christianity is the only true religion, or, have heard it and think it is bull shoot? For sure it is the latter. It is the latter because the majority of citizens in the U.S. have at least some critical thinking skills. They are used to taking what advertisers and politicians say with a grain of salt. Over time Christianity has become just another of these. Really what I'd like to know is how their parents react to these Gen Z views? My guess is that most parents will say, "That makes sense." They say this because it is what they themselves have always thought. But, unlike Gen Z, the parents never felt free to

Today there is an encouraging story of one woman who saw she was being manipulated by Trump and his friends in QAnon.  She is encouraging others to notice the manipulation and leave. Of course, most who think like the conspirators in QAnon are not members. They just think like QAnon. I chatted with a lady today who is a friend of ours. We spend evenings occasionally with her and her husband.  She wore a Trump mask all the time before the election and sometimes talked at length about her religion and conservative politics. Just to open the conversation today I asked her if she and her husband had been able to schedule vaccinations. No, she said, they would not be getting vaccinations. In a round about way she let me know the vaccines are very suspicious and deep state might be behind them. It's just too dangerous, she said, for she and her husband to take them. We wished each other a good day and went on our way. I'm quite sure this friend visits conspiracy websites where she w

Among the court cases by churches against restrictions on holding services we see some successes and some failures . Always churches which want to open complain that bars and restaurants are not shut down. I don't know what goes into the rules as to what remains open and what kind of businesses are closed. There is one rule that should be followed by all businesses whether allowed to open by government or not. The rule is "stay closed if opening poses a risk to those who enter."  We all know some businesses are deemed more "essential" than others. Government does not take a preacher's word for it that his/her business, a church, is as essential as a hospital. Preachers, like all of us, like to think their work is important. This turns out to be a hard sell to public officials. In spite of that lots of them have been allowed to remain open. A better solution is for preachers and other church officials to assume science is correct and agree that holding a chur

What is the best definition of "Religious Freedom?" It is freedom to discriminate . That sums it up.  It is difficult to see how this can be explained to those Christians advocating "Religious Freedom" except to discriminate against them. Only by being on the receiving end of discrimination can they understand what it is. If Christian were turned away from apartments or motel rooms because only because they are Christian it might help. Being turned away from medical services could help too. Or, anti abortion women about to give birth could be required to watch a video of women crying because they were turned away from abortions. Or, maybe it would be helpful if every newly pregnant woman was told the probability of her death was higher if she gives birth than if she has an abortion. Added for good measure would be a required viewing for 10 minutes of the funeral of a woman who died in child birth. There is a lot of leeway in the private sector to discriminate. Peopl

  I have said here often, as have others, Rudy Giuliani should make available the sources of his claim there was fraud in the recent Biden victory.  Giuliani has said at least 50 times that a voting machine company, Dominion, illegally doctored the outcome and Trump would have won had it not done this.  Giuliani is said to have a net worth of $45 million. The lawsuit is for $1.3 billion. Perhaps Giuliani has liability insurance that will help if he loses. In any event, it appears he will have to disclose whether there is or is not any evidence of fraud by Dominion. So far he has been more comfortable lobbing accusations than he has providing evidence. He seems to have a disconnect from reality. Here is what the Trump/Giuliani tribe is up against. Probably since the beginning of elections those with fewer votes have complained about the vote counting. Jimmy Carter got his start in politics by forming a group to monitor election counting in rural Georgia. He was successful in correcting

New Mexico has a long standing law against abortion. The law has been ignored since Roe because it is in opposition to Federal Law. Now, a majority of the public and its legislature wants to be certain abortions remain available even if Roe is overturned. The link suggests support is present in its legislature to make this happen. The abortion political world is filled with theories about what the future will bring. Those non profits and branches of Christianity such as Catholicism opposed to abortion promise the future is bright. This is necessary to keep money rolling in and for those so employed to keep their jobs. A version of that strategy was used by Trump. He said he would run again in 2024 and money rolled in. He isn't saying much since the attack on Congress. My guess is he, like the anti abortion groups, will come up with a promise of some future victory to keep the gullible sending him their money.   New Mexico is one of the states listed by anti abortion that will insta

Perhaps Christian conservatives were as surprised as I was by the number of times God was evoked during the Biden inauguration and related events. There was a lot of it. On atheist sites there are complaints. I'm guessing here, I think both conservative Christians and atheists alike thought the appearance of Biden's rollout would be similar to the look of Obama's second term. In my recollection it was light on prayers and either in the inauguration or shortly after Obama began referring to "various" religious groups "as well as those with no religion." Only by reading Ross Douthat in the New York Times did it soak into my slow brain the Christianity on display in the inauguration was aimed, not at atheists or Protestants, but at other Catholics. Douthat is a conservative Catholic, at least that's how I regard him, so he is not all that enthusiastic about the Pope's nor Biden's brand of "let's believe our own thing but not push it to

  President Biden uses the word "unity" frequently. What does it mean? Certainly, it cannot mean agreement on views about all politics or religion. For the sake of discussion, let's start with abortion.  There is no way anti abortion and pro choice people can agree on all issues surrounding abortion. The good news is there are well established facts available for both sides to agree on. If we start there some level of hostility can be softened. The first fact is there is no scientific consensus one fertilized egg is a human being. That is a religious belief, not a fact. It should be easy for both sides to agree on this. When the fetus becomes a human being is more difficult but if we start with the one cell we would be ahead of where we are now. A second fact is that abortion is not dangerous. Deaths from births are more common. There are almost no deaths from abortion. A third fact we need agreement on are the rights of pregnant women. Pro choice people read the constitu

The Satanic Temple seems settled in for the long haul against religious objections to abortion. They are now challenging such ridiculous requirements of women like watching an ultrasound. Like not baking a cake for a gay wedding, women in an abortion clinic under the direction of The Satanic Temple may merely testify watching the ultrasound is a violation of their religious freedom. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. It has always been my feeling separation of church and state would accelerate if other religions complained. There is a little of that, but not in-your-face regular challenges.  When Red River Freethinkers were trying to remove the Ten Commandments monument from public property next to City Hall, I asked a good friend in Fargo who is Jewish if Jewish people might want to join in the fracas. He said he was really opposed to the monument on public property but the risk of retaliation was too great for him to become involved. I think its that way with all

Archbishop Gomez sounds like Trump in that he can't make an appearance or issue a statement without the equivalent of "I am the greatest President. I was robbed of reelection." Trump, as we recall, was finally banned from Twitter for repeating his themes.  In Gomez' case he issued best wishes to Biden but could not resist retreading his commercial against abortion and birth control. Sometimes people who read my blog wonder why I write so much about abortion. It is because some religious leaders talk about it so much.  Like Pope Benedict a few years ago could not give a Christmas message without bashing his favorite villain, homosexuality, Gomez uses what should be the hand of help and support to bash abortion. If ever an Archbishop exhibited odd behavior we saw it yesterday. The Catholic Bishops, along with the Pope, are the face of an institution called the Catholic Church. Trust and faith in institutional religion used to poll favorable in the 75% range. Now it po

So much about U.S. society and religion can be learned from the Civil War and what happened afterwards. After its defeat, the South started a myth about the unethical soldiers from the North. The South fought for principles of God and states rights. The North did not. It was the South, this propaganda told the country, that had the high moral ground.  The Capitol invaders, encouraged by Trump, swallowed the myth that Biden's election was stolen. Thus, they think they held and still hold the high moral ground. This was reinforced by the cross and prayers during the invasion. Even with Trump is gone, we will see political opportunists like Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley stroking crowds and feeding the same lies as Trump. Like "the South will rise again" these gullible followers will talk of victory over the unclean. After the Civil War the South rallied around the phrase, Lost Cause. For decades, and maybe to this day, there are ceremonies remembering fallen martyrs, Re

There is no way to escape the fact that abortion law is a zero sum game. Whenever the fetus is given more rights the mother will have fewer rights. The opposite is also true. When anti abortion zealots discuss abortion they say it is a "moral issue." But, they always, without exception, talk of fetus rights, not women's rights. When confronted with their error they resort to saying, "We're for both the rights of the fetus and the mother." Then they advocate laws exclusively that take away the mother's rights and award them to the fetus. A most interesting question about the "value of life" came up a few years ago. I recall discussing it back then. It is being revisited with new experiments.  It is introduced in this way: Suppose you are driving down a hill and the brakes on your car failed. There is a fork in the road and you have only two choices. One is to kill one person standing on the left fork in the road, the other is to kill five peopl

In a powerful post, those Catholic leaders who insisted it impossible for a Catholic to vote for Joe Biden have been skillfully called out from inside the faith. Jesuit Priest James Martin said Catholic teaching allows a good Catholic to vote for an abortion rights politician when there are other even more powerful reasons in play. In the case of Trump, there were plenty of policies contrary to Catholic teaching that could override Biden's abortion rights views. In the link one can read angry comments from Bishops and other high ranking Catholics directed at Catholic Biden voters. The comments are so angry and filled with intolerance it is not a stretch to say they could have contributed toward the acts of violence in DC. That some leaders in both the Catholic and Protestant branches have gone bonkers about abortion is not easy to understand. Catholics, for example, preach something called "natural law." Since the beginning of humans, so far as we know, they have practice

Anti abortion preachers are sheepishly moving away from the violence at the Capitol. "Gosh, who were these people?" they ask. Anti abortion politics has been burning abortion clinics and murdering doctors for decades. Christian nationalists are big into gun rights. What are guns used for, maybe to kill people? More writing is emerging bring attention to toxic combination. The symbolism of the attack on the capitol was perfect. Almost any camera angle shows American flags, confederate flags and the cross. They may not have all been marching under the same organization but their approach to getting their way was identical, march in, bust things. In the book, Religion's Sudden Decline; What's Causing it and What Comes Next, author Ronald E. Inglehart discusses a somewhat new phenomenon. It is people who start with a political view then scan the horizon for a religious view that fits. They claim this religious view as the one they always had--even if it is not. The Trumps

The book I mentioned recently, Religions Sudden Decline; What's Causing it, What Comes Next?, by Ronald F. Inglehart, 2021, discusses data collection over decades. It is survey data like others but tracks the same simple questions over several decades. They are questions like, "Do you believe in God?", "Of the following kinds of institutions, which do you trust the most (church, government, etc.)?" The surveys were done in dozens of countries on every continent in the world. One aspect of religion versus secularization is the "push" aspect. He observed that in the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands (the latter not Nordic but lumped in) the move away from religion and toward secularization was slowed for some decades by the majority who was religious. Once the majority went secular rate of loss of religion was much faster, the drag of status quo was unhitched. He predicts this will happen in the U.S. It is a

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council is claiming when the Senate impeachment trial begins Trump will have an opportunity to reveal the "real" fraud that took place stealing victory from him.  Rudy Giuliani has had countless opportunities to make available evidence of fraud. He and Perkins could make available to the press the "thousands" of swore affidavits they claim are proof of fraud and a stolen election. The big question is, why have they not done so?   The answer can be found in Trumps career in reality TV. That experience taught him it is possible to create the impression of a reality that never existed. The show created fictitious narratives that were then judged in fictitious reviews. The election narrative he created was nearly identical. People were recruited to send in complaints about mundane and ordinary events that took place during the election. There were also live streamed videos of people working the elections that could be mined for behav

When Trump scrapped trade agreements negotiated by previous Presidents grain exports to China fell. Prices in the U.S. of goods made in China went up. Trump had raised these prices by putting tariffs on them. The prices to farmers has gone up recently because of the coronavirus but the volume to China is still down from previous years. Things are never permanent in trade. Changes in weather, yields and deals put relationships in a constant state of flux. The strategy for the U. S. is to hunker down for the long term. Since Trump made his 'brilliant" move countries in the East have formed their own free trade zones and have set up new relationships without the U. S. The U.S. needs to be viewed as a reliable trading partner. It has certain advantages those countries might need in the future.  Part of Trump's whole political appeal of stiffing China was that of stolen technology. Certainly every year some technology is stolen by China and other countries--I assume some is sto

I'm reading  Religion's Sudden Decline; What's Causing it and What Comes Next by Ronald F Inglehart.  I've written here often about the internet and how easy it is for anyone wanting an argument against what preachers claim to find it. No longer do they have to go to the local library. Inglehart has a broader perspective. Early in the book he explains the basic conclusions. It starts back in a time that encompasses nearly all of human history up until recently. There was an agreed upon observation among humans more babies were needed to replace people who died. Life expectancy was low and infant mortality high. This agreed upon observation found its way into religion. Most religions up to this very day retain the view that large numbers of children is good, low numbers bad. This is called a "pro fertility norm" in religions. In addition, the high death rate, weather changes and everything else necessary for subsistence living resulted in agreement humans faced

The Pope has declared women may take various roles in liturgy previously reserved for male clergy. No doubt it is another thing the Pope has done that will anger the orthodox. Conservative Catholics, including those who shout prayers and try to talk patients out of abortions in front of clinics, have no interest in expanding or even preserving their faith. They are short-term thinkers I've written about the Medieval views of women held by Catholics and some branches of Protestant Christianity.  I've been instructed that there is "a difference" between men and women. The only specific difference ever mentioned is that women have babies, men do not. That fact has been built into a self-serving religious view women cannot function as clergy nor should they be trusted to make their own decisions on abortions.   No matter how that religious concept of no-women clergy is spun, the result is the same. It is the same as mixed race couples cannot marry nor black people supervi

I mentioned yesterday I've been reading Educated by Tara Westover. She grew without going to school nor having much home schooling. A few years after entering her first classroom at age 17 she received a Ph. D. from Cambridge University in England. Her book has sold six million copies. She was on a live pod cast today at a small university and continues to be an influential speaker and author.  One part of her story was going to Cambridge for a summer while an undergraduate at Brigham Young University. She was getting acquainted with some other students who were also taking a course in women's history when she first her the words, "first wave and second wave." Hearing terms others around her knew well but she was hearing for the first time was not new to Westover. She had learned not to stop the conversation and ask, "What is that?" She did that in her first class at BYU when she the professor referred in passing to the Holocaust. Westover raised her had to

I just finished one of the best books I have ever read, Educated , by Tara Westover. It is a memoir by a now 34 year old scholar who grew up in a large family of survivalists. She did not enter a classroom until her late teens and received very little homeschooling. The first sentence is a disclaimer she is not writing about religion and the book is not intended to disparage any religious beliefs. She has done interviews with world famous personalities, Oprah, Bill Gates, etc. In them she says religion is a help to many people and she does not discourage that. But, the book illustrates religion, in the heads of the wrong people in the wrong place, it is dangerous and harmful. We all know this in the abstract, but reading and hearing it in interviews from a talented story teller is a meaningful experience.   The book was published in 2018 and has sold six million copies and has been translated into 30 languages. Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion,  is the most famous atheist book an

From what I'm reading this weekend, Democrats in the House will introduce Articles of Impeachment this coming Monday. When I first heard that it sounded like a bad idea. I thought why do this when he will be gone in a few days? Then, I got to thinking what might be going on. They may be thinking about Republicans. We know Trump is already blocking fund raising efforts by the Republican Party. Money is going to his campaign war chest and the Party has to ask him for help. This means, in many respects, he has become the Republican Party. If he controls the funds then he controls the platform and who serves as party officials.  We've already seen evidence of this. Several Republican Senators, House Members and Governors have criticized the President's role in the Capital invasion. However, Party officials have not. Party officials are in their positions because of Trump and are in no position to criticize him in any way shape or form. He picked them for their positions and pa

To me, the most interesting question from the Capital invasion is what will happen in the "back office." Prior to the event, Trump had a strong flow of money from fans. He hoped, I have come to believe, he could accomplish two things with this cash flow. He could finance primary challenges to Republicans who had not supported him. Thus, he could decide who got elected to DC and every person would have been chosen by him and would be loyal to him. The second use was to pay off loans he had promised pay for personally if his businesses failed to pay them.  As I recall, about $430 million comes due in 2021. He could use this money from donors, legally it appears, to pay for rooms in all of his properties. The rooms would not be used. This fake revenue would be used to pay off the loans. We know he likes this trick because foreign companies and governments paid for unused rooms in his properties the last four years. It was a way to gain access to the President. Why not unused roo

I'm asking that question because I read a huge number of people were on line together yesterday praying for President Trump to remain as President.  They admit now to being discouraged. It might be, most have concluded, President Trump will be replaced on January 20 by Joe Biden. In other words, God is not answering their prayers. What if, in their prayers, they told God there was widespread cheating in the election and that is why he should grant there wish? God would know like the rest of us this was not true. By telling a lie to God  does that increase, decrease or have no effect on the decision God makes? It seems to me they are free to tell such a lie to God and suffer no consequences. That is because God does not hear their prayers. He cannot hear because he does not exist. So, their telling a lie in their prayers was not the reason their prayers were not answered. They remain free to lie to God. There are no consequences.  The question about lying to God becomes more complic

  A member of the House of Representative recently delivered the opening prayer. He ending it with "Amen and Awomen."  It has ignited a firestorm among conservative pundits. How dare he?  These complaints are like those when football players take a knee when the National Anthem is played. The solution is simple. Stop both the prayers and the National Anthem.  The cost of chaplains in the two houses of Congress is something like $800,000. That could fund lots of soup lines for people who need them. What it pays for now is absolutely nothing. Why not pray to one of the Greek or Pagan gods? It will do just as much good.  Use of Awomen is in keeping with gender neutral language. Bible are being rewritten to exclude the traditional male dominance, why not change prayers?  Besides eliminating prayers there are other options. The prayer could end to prayer with, "Thank you for praying with me" or "the end." Or, an option might be, "I know this doesn't do

It's sometimes frustrating to hear "true believers" but one has to admit they are great entertainment. A writer in the Washington Post tells us Fauci's data cannot be trusted because he is both a humanist and an atheist. There is a group that is marching nine times around the Capital to bring down the wall of the election of Joe Biden. That one is really fun. Of course we should all be at least a little skeptical of most everything we see and read. The thing about the Covid data, however, was that there was nothing to argue about. We knew how many cases were being found and the number of deaths. There can be errors in various ways about this but the errors is diagnosis or cause of death might understate as well as overstate. But lacking arguments, the Post  writer had to resort to the ridiculous.  What the wacko author was doing was taking instructions from Trump and tossing in atheism to cover her real motive. Trump fired several people for accurately relying data t

While some would call it political theater, I would call Georgia's Senate election tomorrow "religious theater." It is the perfect confrontation between two Christian camps who have been at each other's throats almost since the beginning of this country. It is between the an old South white lady, Sen. Kelly Loeffler, and a black social gospel Baptist preacher, Raphael Warnock. A prominent scholar on religion, Professor Stephen Prothero, outlined nicely the two competing branches of Christianity.   Current Senator Loeffler is all about the version of Christianity some call Trump Republicanism. It is quite simple, if you are against abortion you are a good Christian. If you are for abortion rights, not Christian at all.  It seems like only yesterday the line in the sand was gay marriage and "family values." This year it is abortion. Rev. Warnok is from the Martin Luther King school of the social gospel. The Jesus in the Bible talked of caring for the poor and

An author who appears on conservative sites has made the passionate case that public education is the cause of the decline in Christian beliefs among children. He does not go into what public education should teach that would raise reverse the trend away from religion. This is but another variation of what I discuss often, that conservative Christians believe if they drum Christianity into the heads of children the children will be Christians for life. Of course, some are. But, church numbers are falling. We can all appreciate that falling birth rates mean statistically fewer people for many groups. The U.S. and world population is still rising, however, and numbers of church goers should still be rising. Neither the link author, nor the study he based his article on, address the growing religious diversity. In some states public schools are required to teach religion without promoting any particular one. I've wondered how this can be done with so many religions being represented

When I saw that an article on the decline in people who say they are Christian was written by a leader in Presbyterian Church of America I was interested in reading it. I was a Presbyterian for several decades.  The article very accurately summarized the problem. Young people are leaving the faith they grew up in. Adults leave after their children leave home. Statistically, the current pattern will accelerate so that in time huge parts of the faith will fall off a cliff. The author was so optimistic about the future I kept reading to figure out why. He finally revealed his solution: hammer the Bible into children before they are 15 years old. Then, they will have the foundation needed to stay in the faith. What?? That has been done for generations and now it isn't working.  If you are a general anticipating a battle, part of your job is to figure out what the enemy might do and develop a counter battle plan. If you are a team's coach you study the opposition to find a weakness

It's fun to speculate about gods and life on other planets because it doesn't fit the narrative of believers. One believer, Ken Ham (Ark Encounter), preaches that when we discover aliens we must rush to tell them about Jesus. Apparently, if we don't convert them first the Hindus will claim them.   There is always the possibility their gods will be better ones than those worshipped here on earth. If there are better gods out there we could benefit by knowing about them--maybe Ken Ham's advice would lose Jesus worshippers instead of gain them and the alien's god would be victorious. The Christian God seems to offer a church service that lasts for eternity. Most of us here on earth are ready to exit after an hour. So if an alien god offered free beer and no church the race would be on. The link discusses a current theory there exist on other planets the same inert stones and mineral that existed on earth before life developed from them. Thus, the ingredients for life