Thoughts of a Freethinker

The Mississippi legislature passed a bill and its Governor signed it to put anyone in jail who provides books in schools by atheist Sam Harris, paganists or other like minded authors. The sentence would be up to 30 days and a fine of up too $500.  I suppose schools in Mississippi have computers so here is a note to teachers, don't let kids look at this blog. It's not good enough to sacrifice 30 days of anyone's life.  In the anti-atheist industry things are going well. In Mississippi, it was reported church bells rang to celebrate. The Governor said citizens of Mississippi have suffered long enough with unGodly information coming to their children. The infamous Rep. Greene demanded legislation removing information about witchcraft. I've read something like this was the majority view of Pagan people back in the early days of Christianity. Pagans trying to stop Christianity was no more successful than will be efforts today to stop Paganism and atheism from growing today.

I remember the first time I heard a preacher in my church at the time refer to his "leadership style." It sounded just like the buzz words that rotated through academia. Every few years there would be required seminars on the bureaucratic buzz words of the years. When I run into friends still in the academy I like to ask what the current buzz words are.  It turns out the pastor at that time, and probably pastors everywhere, attended "leadership conferences" where the presenters are not other preachers but are corporate executives. The corporate buzz words and corporate concepts have been inserted into churches. The link is a preacher who laments this trend. He has attended many such conferences himself. The link author believes this corporate kind of leadership is bringing down Christianity. He notes that the rate of sexual abuse and dishonesty among megachurch Protestant preachers is much higher than the population average. He explains what he thinks is the source

  Amazon is facing a strong union effort in its huge Alabama warehouse. About 3/4th of the two thousand who work there are black. I've read several accounts of how it is to work in an Amazon shipping warehouse. It is tough. The union trying to organize the Birmingham capitalizes on the economics of the warehouse as well as the solidarity linked to Black Lives Matter (BLM). BLM is accused of far left, even communist, ties. This was the same accusation made of other unionizing efforts and of civil rights struggles. It was especially used against Martin Luther King. Those communist ties to Martin Luther King somehow did not stop streets all over the U.S., including one right near me, from being named after him. We're used to thinking of the "solid South." For many decades, we all know, it was the segregation Democratic Party's solid South. Since the Kennedy period it has been Republican solid South. As the link points out, however, the South has always been in turmoi

An article in Forbes,  a Republican a national publishing house, methodically went through the charges of election misconduct and voting machine manipulation. The only reason this is newsworthy is a majority of Republican voters still believe Trump lost was because of election cheating. Forbes reported what every rational person already knew, the election was honest. Trump was soundly beaten. The Christians who protested Biden's election are making the same mistake with publicly available videos they have made with the Bible since day one. They look at the videos and make assumptions about what they see. The problem with that is others, who know more about the nuts and bolts of counting votes, see the same videos. They are able to make superior interpretations of what they see.  Republicans who have come to accept the election results as honest, as in the Forbes , have on big disadvantage. They have less, or even no ability, to monetize they acceptance of Biden as President. The n

Slavery and segregation used Christianity as the basis for prejudice against black people. Christianity is being used today as the basis for prejudice against gay people and women. Ulysses S. Grant, leader of the Union Army and President right after the Civil War understood that the passion of one group to have power over others would not stop at civil rights for black people but would spread throughout the society. He championed a Department of Justice which houses the FBI for the purpose of stamping out groups that sought such power.  Shortly after the Civil War, 1871, the Enforcement Act of April, commonly known as The Klan Act, was passed. It prohibits use of "force, intimidation, or threat" to prevent government official from executing their responsibilities. A suit has been brought by the N.A.A.C.P against Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keeper for violating this law. The law also makes it illegal to imped the right to vote. Despite this law, the Klan spent

I follow the legislatures of North Dakota and Iowa. While I no longer attend sessions and just read about them in newspapers, I get the impression Republican legislators (along with a few Democrats) are obsessed with passing bills that have no reason or usefulness except putting in place religious ideas. It is Christian dominionism to the max. Its  source is in Genesis. There we learn God's people are to rule. A current matter is which restroom children are to use in school. It is worth the expensive time when legislators meet to debate this. Whatever gender was on a child's birth certificate determines the restroom they must use in school. If early in a child's life the child her parents and professional in their lives determined a different gender than what was on the birth certificate that rules. The change might have occurred many years before. That does not matter to politicians of the faith. They learned from the Bible babies are born male or female and woe be it to

No one seems to know the numbers yet, but many Republican Party elected officials are leaving the Party. Several thousand regular voters have been recorded as leaving also. They have not registered as Democrats but instead as independents.  While we don't know the future, we do know the past. This past election, Trump lost by a significant number and Republicans moved backwards in the Senate. If Republicans run with the same personality, Trump, and the same ideas is there reason to believe they would be more successful next time when they were not this time?  Forbes Magazine, Republican at its core, published a review of a study by a well know election analysis firm. The election analysis firm gave a positive grade for the honesty and integrity of the election Trump lost. A clean bill of honesty was giving the voting machine company, Dominion. The study looked into all the allegations of dumping ballots, late night changes in numbers and every other tail of cheating and fraud.  K

There was pressure from the Trump Administration for the FDA to declare a vaccine approved before the election and then before Trump left office. If it was promised by the FDA and turned out not to be true the FDA would forever be seen as a political organization, not one based on science.  The interim director was unfamiliar with politics and made missteps. He was so uncomfortable he considered resigning. But, he realized someone might replace him who would bend to Trump's political wishes. He soldiered on in a hostile environment. During his term as an interim director, Stephen Hahn, was so hesitant some of the scientists were afraid he would knuckle under to Trump. They were angry with the Trump political appointees because they could see the pandemic coming and knew if the were funded for preparations thousands of lives could be saved. Their desire to began early preparations were shrugged off and the consequences are now known. Hahn had the wisdom to realize he was over matche

There must be several more cases like this, but a Southern Baptist Convention church in Cobb County, Georgia, accepted gay couple and their children. Whether the church can remain in the Southern Baptist Convention is unresolved.  The Christian mantra is, "Only our group knows what the Bible means. Ignore those other Christians. What they think the Bible means is wrong." As we all know there are hundreds of disagreements about who is right and who is wrong. The Southern Baptist Convention is struggling mightily about its past certainty mixed racial marriages and integration were sin. There must be plenty of disagreement right now as some in the faith recognize it is digging yet another hole for itself with the gay issue. Among the SBC recent resolutions is a restatement of its old prejudices that "...God's design for sexual relations (remain) solely within the conventional union of marriage between one man and one woman for life." In addition, it warns Southern

  There have been so many different positions taken by anti abortion operatives I can't keep track of them all. Many decades ago another faculty member, a Protestant who opposed abortion, was holding court in the faculty lounge. He proudly proclaimed the final proof a fetus is a human being. "I asked a priest," he said, "if the fertilized egg has a soul? The Priest said 'yes.' There's your proof." There was a period sometime around the Middle Ages when "doctors" with some training in the science of the time wanted to differentiate themselves from "doctors" who used ancient rituals to treat people. The science doctors began to tell women the sensation of movement in their bodies Was merely a stage in the process that later resulted in birth. It was not some spiritual force that arrived only at the sensation in their bodies. Catholics latched onto that idea claiming a human being existed at conception. In recent years we've run

A progressive preacher published what he has learned about the Bible. What he has learned is kind of simple. The Bible is ancient literature written by wealthy people at the time trying to steer their local world in the direction writers preferred. The preacher believes there is some kind of god but doesn't believe a god wrote or directed the writing of the Bible. It was all a human thing. His view is so logical it is nearly self evident. How could any rational person believe the Bible is something other than the musings of human beings? Well, millions, maybe billions have it wrong. They let the preacher know about that. His post was swapped with anger. I can understand why if your life is wrapped up in the notion the Bible was passed down from some heavenly being and a preacher presents a well reasoned argument you are wrong you would be upset. But, why not consider what the fellow has to say and try to understand him? Reacting with a wave of anger does not move you to a better pl

If there is an upside to being subjected to so much news, advertising and propaganda it is that we come to understand it better. Sometimes skillful people learn how to strike back and use it to their advantage.  One group I don't like are far right politicians who lie a lot. They get on national TV because they know the rule in broadcast journalism is two sides need to be presented. That one side is lying is not as important as that both sides get on the air. The management of Sunday morning news shows is trying to figure out what to do about politicians who use their programming to lie. Many Republicans use their invitations to appear as a time to tell lies and not acknowledge true statements. Many are still claiming, for example, Trump won the election. What is called the left has done something similar with the national anthem is played before most sporting events. It is widely acknowledged the Department of Defense pays professional teams to play this song because it is believe

  There can be no doubt slave holders and later segregationists felt confident they held the high moral ground. They were not upended for 400 years. What helped upend them, however, was the rational argument that taking away human freedom was wrong. It was a counter religious argument.  Several things came together to end the 400 years of moral high ground. Slave owners forced Christianity on their slaves. This turned out to be a mistake. Slaves began talking politics in their churches out of earshot from slave owners. When segregation came along, it also was undermined in black churches. Rev. Martin Luther King moved it along in his Atlanta church. King proclaimed it was segregated black people, not segregationists, who held the high moral ground. Now there is a Senator from that church and Georgia went for Biden. Anti abortionists over and over again claim the high moral ground. They use Christianity to make this claim even though the Bible does not condemn abortion. Women's rig

El Salvado has about 6 1/2 million people, about a million more than Minnesota.  There is a public health care system that spends only $24 per person per year. A private systems for wealthier people serves about 10% of the population.  It has two laws in conflict with each other. One prohibits abortions with almost no exceptions. The other prohibits doctors from disclosing any information about their patients. In theory doctors cannot perform abortions nor disclose to anyone knowledge of illegal abortions. The government, which employees the doctors in public facilities, has told them they have an obligation of report illegal abortions. This is not technically true but some doctors who want to advance in the system comply. The Ministry of Health, however, keeps track of the number of abortions. I don't know how it does this, perhaps by hospital admissions or monitoring of abortion medicines that are sent the mail. It reports over 6,400 abortions are performed per year in "no-a

Watching the Inauguration we saw a long prayer, one of the boring but less harmful rituals of Christianity. The President of the U.S. could take office with no prayers whatsoever.  The ritual of prayers is not as harmful as some others. One that has proved to be harmful is full emersion of babies baptism. I believe this is done by Eastern European Orthodox Catholics. A six week-old baby recently got water in its lungs and died .  Legal charges are pending. I recall some Protestant churches used to brag their baptisms used water from the river Jordan. People said it stunk quite badly. I wonder if any babies got sick from those germs. Then there is communion, a ritual even more bizarre than baptism. I was at an Episcopalian service years ago which happened to include communion. Each participant drank from the same cup. The priest just wiped the cup with a cloth between participants. Yuk. Just as bad, or maybe worse, is what the liberal church near where it live does. It's communion r

Preachers, priests, politicians and commenters on this blog call abortion "murder" and say it must be stopped. Never, I mean never,  do they talk about how our country would work it abortion were actually outlawed. I have said here countless times a no-abortion U.S. is unworkable. It is unworkable because of miscarriages and how a no-abortion law affects women who have them. When a pregnant woman is no longer pregnant, claims to have had a miscarriage and law enforcement learns about it, how will officials know for certain it was not an illegal abortion, i.e. a murder? There are various countries which have or have tried to function under no abortion laws. Some have changed back to allow abortions. Others do a wink-wink, yes it's against the law but we're busy with other things. Or, bribe money changes hands. Or, women with money get undercover abortions, those without money or are in rural areas do not. There is one country with a no-abortion law that devotes law enf

Several denominations block women from being clergy. The decline in denomination numbers is providing an opening for new churches with new ideas. One change is the rise of female clergy. The way women navigate leadership in religion is very fascinating.  If their constituency is other women who believe only men should be preachers the "preacher" calls herself something else. I think that is what Billy Graham's daughter does. Such entrepreneurs can make a good living preaching, giving seminars and selling books and videos. They can be influential in the faith also. Then there are women who flat out call themselves preachers. Besides those in liberal branches that accept readily women behind the pulpit are freelancing evangelicals such as the famous Paula White. White shouts her independence from the rules of conservative evangelicals. Her branch, the prosperity gospel, fits the entrepreneurship of running a church for profit perfectly.  It seems inevitable that other ente

                                                       What have atheists in the U.S. ever done to harm anyone? I can't think of anything. Wait, Madeline O'Hare did successfully eliminate Christian prayer in public schools. But, I'm not aware that is harmed anyone. It helped children from other religions attend school without having to undergo this humiliation.  Why, then, are atheists so condemned today? One explanation goes back to the Eisenhower Presidency and the cold war. There were meetings and a strategy developed on how best to rally support for big defense budgets. The one chosen was to link communism with atheism. Money for propaganda was raised, the amount in today's dollars was millions.  The Soviet Union saw churches as places where political opposition could be talked about openly. They, like politicians everywhere, did not want opposition. Leaders of the revolution went about trying to stamp out all sources of political opposition, including religious ga

On some issues, conservative Christians are very self righteous about human life. They consider one fertilized cell to be a human being and all manner of laws must be passed to prevent a woman from having the cell or several cells destroyed. The value of one cell is greater than any cost incurred by the mother. Even her own life is less valuable according to some in anti abortion political circles. The cost/benefit calculation by religious conservatives is different for all other issues. We are seeing that clearly at the moment. Contracting the Coronavirus causes many deaths. Often those deaths are the result of carelessness and precautions we all know about like distancing, canceling church services and mask wearing. Many members of the anti abortion politics oppose these precautions. The value of lives lost is smaller than the loss of freedom to not mask up, hold church services and all the other precautions. Conservative are clever in that they never say explicitly, "This is a

I came across a good primer on internal Catholic politics, i.e., the U.S. Conference of Bishops versus the Pope in Rome. The Pope as we know comes from the tradition of Brothers that sees the Church as salvation for the poor. The majority of U. S. Catholic Bishops comes from obsession with social issues, abortion and gay marriage. The previous couple of Popes were in tune with U.S. evangelistic passions. They appointed Bishops to carry on the fight against liberalization on social issues inside the church. These Bishops still hold the majority. The current pope has been in his position for several year and appointed a lot of Bishops. None of his Bishops have been elected to positions of leadership.  Its a little complicated to see where the U.S. fits into Catholic Church politics worldwide. There are a lot of Catholics in the U. S. but the potential for growth is not here. If anything, the Catholic Church in the U.S. will decline in numbers the way it has done in Europe.  The potentia

I can't remember how many Christian boycotts and condemnations there have been over the abortion and gay issues. I've been involved in these issues for several decades and it seems like there were a few every year. A new one just came up over the American Girl Doll.  Our house has purchased countless American Girl dolls. Years ago my wife made costumes using the dolls for the Nutcracker ballot. Then daughter and granddaughters made costumes of other projects. The doll is 18" tall and now costs over $100. It is aimed at girls between the ages of eight and twelve. Some versions are collectors items and sell used for big prices.  There are other American Girl products to compliment the doll, a magazine, books, outfits, etc. The company, however, is considered the enemy of conservative Christianity. It has given money to women's organizations that support abortion rights. Now, its magazine has a story telling of American Girl visiting her interesting and eccentric aunt. Oh

A few years ago in Fargo I was invited to debate Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation. He had written with others a book trying to destroy gay marriage. He is a Catholic who puts much faith in the Catholic foolishness of Natural Law. In his book he used an article from the social sciences claiming children of gay parents did worse in school and life than those with straight long married couples. Anderson neglected to mention the social scientist who wrote the article backed off in the next issue of the journal admitting he had not sampled properly. Now Anderson, ever the climber, is head of some other Christian group. In the link, Anderson now claims he knows how to convert atheists to Christianity. It happens I've been reading about his favorite topic, Natural Law, and have come to wonder what benefit a converted Christian would receive. The philosopher I've been discussing, Edward Feser, has tried to explain to the public why God allows so much human suffering. He casual

Edward Feser is a well know philosopher who publishes frequently. He is a Catholic and his philosophical views reflect total faith that Natural Law explains all we need to know. He and another philosopher tangled recently about the rationality of humans.  Feser's view of primitive man is he had rationality about the vastness of God. Only by coming to the truth about this could he understand how to find food and shelter. If God created man and provided him with what he needs, man must please God for his survival. That is rational thinking in Feser's view.  A different view is that through evolution, man's brain was just a bit better than those of the smartest animals. Both man and animals faced a world of eat or be eaten. Those that figured out how to not be eaten continued on into the future. Man figured that out, plus figured out how to make stone tools that killed animals for food larger than himself. The "truth" from this history is that neither Feser's God

This is a question that has confounded humans since we've know what humans think and talk about. I wonder if it was argued during prehistoric times.  Every reader knows there are truckloads of books written about morals. Most of these books, I assume, tell us the morals of the author are better than the morals of those he/she does not like. Today we can read comments by conservatives that our new President, Joe Biden, has low morals or maybe no morals for championing abortion rights. Prior to his election any number Christian leaders shouted to the rooftops Donald Trump must be reelected because it was he who stacked the Supreme Court with anti abortion judges. This meant being anti abortion is the only way to qualify as a person of high morals.  The Catholic Church has declared several sexual practices to be not moral. These include birth control and abortion. The basis for this is "Natural Law." Looking at Natural Law in the Catholic Encyclopedia, however, one comes acr

I'm enjoying The Unnecessary Science; A Critical Analysis of Natural Law Theory by Gunther Laird. He makes the argument Catholics are incorrect to claim their faith has some link to Aristotle, the great philosopher, Greek and Pagan, who lived generations before the alleged time of Jesus. Author Laird reviews books and blogs by the well known Catholic philosopher Edward Feser. Feser is confident he knows the links from today's Catholicism to that of Thomas Aquinas to Aristotle. Laird goes after Feser's confident conclusion that a human life is present at conception. Like most everything Feser believes this is right down home plate in Catholic dogma. The reason is that at conception a new DNA arrives and this is "self evidence" a new human being is present. Laird questions why it can be claimed  "at the moment of conception" (which takes several hours) a unique human is started. More technically, the argument is the potential for a new human has begun. Lai

Christian sites pump out a steady stream of articles about Christians being killed, moved around or cut off from supporters. Often the demand is made for the U.S. government to "do something" about it. A most logical question, to me at least, is why there are Christians in those areas being attacked? The only answer I know is Christians are there because U.S. and European Christians paid for missionaries to go there and establish Christian churches. This has been going on for generations and continues today. The question that must follow is, if there had been no missionaries would there be any Christians to kill and persecute?  There is no way to know absolutely for certain the answer to that question. There must be parts of the world where there is no Christianity and one assumes has not been visited by missionaries. If the latter is true then one has to conclude the most important reason Christian are being killed in Africa is because missionaries back a few generations sta

In Catholicism, and to some extent in other branches of Christianity and society in general, there are pillars of power that are being replaced. And the pillars of Christianity are mad . That is an understatement.  The pillars include both high level clergy but also writers and pundits who support giving power to clergy leadership.  Their role is go give intellectual, or intellectual sounding and appearing, material clergy can use to justify their powerful role in running the Church. A couple of writers/pundits are Edward Feser and George Weigel. Weigel's claim to fame is being tight with former Pope Benedict. Feser's claim is a huge volume of writing and appearances claiming the legitimacy of "natural law." The link is a long article from Feser's blog.  Feser is popular with people who want to claim the moral case against for anti abortion and anti gay marriage. He claims the case can be made without religion. Other philosophy scholars disagree. He also likes to

From The Unnecessary Science; A Critical Analysis of Natural Law Theory discussing the writing of Catholic philosopher Edward Feser, a hypothetical story: The world is at loggerheads over religion. Nuclear bombs are about to fall. The grave of Elvis in Graceland is found opened, the body of Elvis gone. There is confusion as to what happened and why. It's 5 AM at a Denny's, only 13 people including staff are present. Elvis calmly walks in and orders a milkshake. He is dressed in his trademark cape. People gasp and run to touch him. He skin is healthy as it was when he was young. People ask him what happened, why did he disappear, why is he here? He replies he has returned to start a new religion, Elvisism. He is vague about its tenets but refers to peace, happiness and the sacredness of rock and roll music. There is a requirement the faithful listen to one of his songs once a week.  He explains those present there in Denny's are the ones he has chosen spread his religion. Th