Thoughts of a Freethinker

After the huge ship got stuck and unstuck in the Suez the world of trade, its buyers, sellers, banks, insurance companies and steamship companies are scrambling to pay the losses and prepare for the next disaster. As moving goods around the world became cheaper and cheaper it is now obvious the risks became higher and higher. I'm old enough to remember well the Exxon Valdez oil spill. That tanker was among the largest in use at that time. Insurance companies and others paying the damage began to wonder if the larger risk of larger tankers offset their economies. Now fright ships face the same dilemma. These freighters are not equipped with the sensors used by driverless cars of auto pilots in airplanes. Many think more electronic equipment could have made adjustments before the accident. The early conclusions are that wind required an adjustment by the captain. But the captain over adjusted. Possibly some ships will not use the canal in high winds. The macro effect, however, is the...

Seldom in religion does one read the brutal truth. This link explains the concept of ecumenism that was so much the rage 50 years ago but never really existed and never will be. Today if you are part of the Christian, academic or denominational writing community you will likely never get to publish an article clearly refuting the claims of another denomination. If you write in one of the several Catholic outlets, for example, editors will not look with favor on an article that bashes Protestantism. The mantra is "our Protestant (Catholic) brothers" or friends. No matter the gravity of the error of others, any written material by Catholic apologists is to mention, "We all believe in Christ." The link author, a Catholic, mourns the way ecumenism, the hammering out of strongly held beliefs to determine if there is or is not common ground, has been replaced with simply no ground, common or otherwise. He cites a 1920's conference in which Protestant and Catholic cle...

The tale of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem for Passover makes no sense. Bart Ehrman has always maintained there was a Jesus and that he was in Jerusalem at Passover. But, he points out a celebrated entry with cheering crowds could not have happened if the other things commonly thought to have been that reality were there.  Josephus and other surviving writing talked of how nervous the Romans at about the time of Passover. It celebrated Moses leading the Jews out from under what was claimed to be a suppressive Egypt. Here were the angry Jews again, this time under a repressive Rome. It's understandable the Romans in charge would be watchful for trouble. So, does it make sense Roman soldiers would have stood by and watched a massive turnout for a leader that was labeled to be their enemy and would defeat them? Jesus arrived in Jerusalem somehow according to the rest of the story. But, as Ehrman points out, he likely did not arrive in this way. Evidence tells us he was not well ...

The hew and cry of conservative politicians that trans women athletes will "ruin women's athletics" actually has another different agenda. It is to make trans people disappear . The same gang of Christian thugs was defeated on gay marriage. Now it thinks it has found some smaller venue where it can garner contributions and win votes. There has yet to be any actual harm done to women's athletics. Perhaps the most harm to women's athletics is that women's programs get less money then men's. That never seems to come up. Since there has been no actual harm done to women's athletics by trans athletes trans opponents had to come up with something. What they came up with is the argument that trans athletes have more testosterone than non trans female opponents. Two parts of this argument are questionable. The first is whether trans athletes always have more testosterone and second whether testosterone always make those athletes stronger. Most of those who are...

A recent poll revealed that three-fourths of U. S. voters believe LGBT should not be discriminated against. Christians considered spokespersons for the faith continue to demand the "right" to discriminate. Is it surprising Christian numbers are falling? Some Christian celebrities are adjusting to the new reality. Only a decade ago the "go to" issue of conservative Christians was gay marriage. When I started blogging gay marriage was on the tongue of most every right wing preacher and priest.  An adjustment has been made. Today the "go to" issue is transition from one gender to another and those who have transitioned using the "wrong rest rooms." It includes condemnation of parents who are helping their own children who have become aware the gender they feel is not the one assigned them at birth. Just today there is a column by a right wing preacher who thinks if there were a " revival " a father he knows about would not allow his child...

Justice Scalia did not want a country is which "each conscience is a law unto itself." That was then. Today that is exactly what religious conservatives want.  Judge Scalia was addressing a concern back then about Native Americans who used peyote as a part of the their religious rituals. Use of drugs back then, we can all recall, was considered a serious crime. Suspicion was inserting religion was merely an excuse to use drugs that were otherwise illegal. Scalia, a Catholic who probably knew well Catholics were granted the right to use alcohol during Prohibition, might have been a little torn.  The link author,  Mark Silk, is a Methodist columnist and believes all the hand wringing by Christian conservative about the "Equality Act" is much to do about nothing. This Act, passed by the Democratic majority in the U.S. House extends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include gender identity, sexual preference along with gender. Discrimination would be prohibited in employm...

Is it Christianity? Or is it human nature universally? For whatever reason politicians in the U.S. must demonize some other country or class of people to succeed. During the cold war it was "communism." There was a myth that communist countries, especially Russia, had huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and could wipe us out. It did not. We invaded Iraq because it had "weapons of mass destruction." It did not. For a while our former President said Mexico was sending people over the border. Actually, more Mexicans were returning to Mexico than coming to the U.S. There are people coming from Central America. That requires attention in Central America--it cannot be solved by border guards or fences. When there is not an obvious villain to "stand up to" one must be manufactured. China as a villain had to be manufactured. It posed no threat and does not today. China wants to be a rich country. That does not mean less for the U.S.  The Biden Administration inherit...

Can a Bishop publicly disagree with a position signed by Catholic officials including the Pope and remain a Bishop? If not there are a number now ready to be axed . These European Bishops will not resign nor be axed, however, because they have carefully laid the intellectual groundwork that will ultimately box in the Catholic hierarchy, this Pope and future ones. If one reads the directives Bishops are to follow it is clear they have the right to follow strong intellectual and theological positions. Of course, it also includes directives about the chain of command, they are to obey the Pope. While it was never acknowledged formally, everyone in the clergy knows the Pope was wrong in Galileo's time. Why is it impossible a Pope could be wrong today? It appears inevitable Catholic clergy across Europe ultimately will place some kind of "blessing" on gay marriages. It may not be all of them, but many. Popes and Cardinals will wring their hands about the severe and terrible pr...

I go to Tulsa, OK, every few years to visit a relative and for other reasons. It has a history both tragic and interesting. To start with, Oklahoma is a state with cross currents of race, politics and religion like no other, so far as I know. It has a large native and black population and a white population of conservative ranchers and big oil executives. Texas, right next door to the south has been booming for years. Oklahoma is relatively stagnant. Oral Roberts University is in Tulsa. So is the largest Unitarian congregation in the U.S. If there is a better example of both ends of the Christian spectrum I don't know of one. When we think of sad race attitudes the deep South Mississippi usually comes to mind. But Oklahoma might have a history of prejudice and race violence that matches or surpasses Mississippi. When I was a college student my university, Iowa State, happened to surprise everyone by having a good football team. After a string of victories, it was headed to Norman, ...

The reason I chuckle when some clergy and their faithful followers rail out against their current favorite sins is because I know from my long life sins run in cycles. Our current sin cycle includes the "sins" of abortion, changes in gender identification, gay marriage, who uses which rest room, co habitation before marriage and you know the others.  Finger pointing at these particular sins will be replaced in time. I grew up in a church that had much sin finger pointing. While I don't recall going to the Sunday evening service in our church, I heard it often morphed into a discussion of sin, what was a sin and who was doing it. It was all so long ago I had forgotten some of the sins. I had forgotten  dancing . That was a sin. I'm not sure about square dancing or what we would call folk dancing--it definitely included ballroom dancing. Those of us old enough remember dance halls or "ballrooms" were popular back then. They were places of sin. The link says da...

I've always thought abortion was more like prohibition than like any other religious/political experience we have had in our country. Even though there was some enthusiastic enforcement of prohibition, whiskey stills, bathtub gin and priests selling wine to the faithful made prohibition unsustainable. Much of anti abortion will be  harder to control than prohibition. President Biden has not made public his rules for where, when and how abortion medicines, pills that cause abortions, can by sold. The betting is he will allow internet access to telemedicine and pills to women everywhere. This would mean women in an anti abortion state could find a doctor in another state, or even in another country, who would sell the pills and monitor their use through telemedicine. Anti abortion groups in states are scrambling to put laws in place preventing this. What Biden will ultimately do and how successful states will be in limiting pill abortions we will find out eventually.  Polls sho...

I've written here often about cave art. I'd like to explain why it  interests to me. We all know what we call history mostly comes from the written word. Some ancient writing has been recopied many times and passed down to us today. Then, there is writing that refers to previous writing which itself did not survive. We know lots of ancient writing recorded recollections of people before there was the written word, verbal history.  History before the written word, of course, is harder to determine. There are recovered tools and artifacts. Then, there is the earliest written communication by man, cave art.  I tried to find how many people in the U.S.  study and teach just about the Bible. I think the number must be 300,000 or so. Then, there are all the other religions whose religious books are studied. Each of these tries to peer into the minds of ancient people who wrote ancient tomes. Those who wrote the ancient tomes were practicing the art of writing. Those who t...

As stem cell research advances, some old taboos are being dropped. One is a rule that an egg fertilized in a petri dish has to be destroyed after 14 days. The rule is a law in England but a volunteer standard among scientists in the U.S. It has been the standard practice for a few decades. Now, the professional society of stem cell research says experiments that could lead to life saving drugs and medicines need to use the embryos longer than 14 days. A consensus is building to make the volunteer agreed upon standard longer in the U.S. Presumable this will trigger the law in England to extend the length also.  There is an irony in the voluntary standard set, not by government, but by private scientists who are left to their own ethics for such a decision. If conservative had brought stem cell research under government funding and control they would at this moment have a seat at the table to voice their views on this issue. Since they, especially the Catholic Church, drew a line in...

Many have thought this to be the case for decades but now there is a way to measure it. That is the answer people give an actual person doing phone surveys about religion. The suspicion for years is that the person answering questions felt it was his/her obligation not to say or imply he/she is not Christian. This made answers about church attendance, frequency of prayers and belief in the afterlife have bigger numbers than they would have if polling were done differently. There is now a different way to do polling. It is to text on a cell phone. I text everyday and it has become quite ubiquitous. Polls inquiring about church attendance and praying using texts show lower "Christian" numbers than polls using actual people. In some cases the numbers are significantly different.  When I mentioned this to my wife, a sociologist, she immediately said young people are more likely to text than older more religious people. Since they are less likely to be church goers this tips data ...

Attacks on the German Catholic Church's intention to approval gay marriages are just beginning. It's going to be a bloodbath. But the Germans have figured something out that has eluded the world Catholic Church for a long time. It is that human experience has always influenced how the Bible was read. It is OK to do it today. Opponents of Germany will have a hard time putting down the German Catholic Church on this. Their case is strong. Mark Silk, a Methodist columnist, discusses the very recent declaration in which the Vatican declares clearly "blessings" of the church cannot be given to same sex marriage because it is not a marriage and sex out of marriage is a sin. The German Bishop said the Vatican's views would be considered along with  others. Silk chuckles at the Vatican's hopeless effort to stop the German branch of the Catholic Church.  A Belgian Bishop calls the Vatican ruling against same-sex marriage a decision that has intellect at "the High...

Conservative politics is filled with the same something-for-nothing it uses to condemn liberal politics. A few years back there was a conservative phrase, "There's no free lunch." Of course all this was aimed at government spending and higher taxes. Conservatives thought liberals did not understand government expenditures eventually had to be paid for. One of the things conservatives, especially religious ones, lament is the falling birth rate. This week numbers of births in the U.S. were released and showed that confinement of couples during the pandemic did not increase births and many predicted. Instead, there was a significant decrease in births. The birth rate was already lower than it has been for some time. My field of economics is at its core a behavioral science. What happens in the economy is determined by what people decide and what they do.  The economics of children changed with "modern" times. When my parents were children the reason couples decid...

The pending separation of the giant Methodist Church came into clear focus recently. A business administration student and candidate for ordination in the ministry  is also a public drag queen performer. He has appeared in drag as a part of a Methodist church service. One part of Methodism will allow this, another not.  This is one of those fascinating moments of clarity when conventional wisdom of some Christianity is confronted with choosing between reality and the myths embedded in ideas of ancient times. Why on earth would someone be denied ordination because he appeared behind the pulpit in drag? Why on earth be denied if he/she appeared married to a same sex partner? It would be ridiculous to deny ordination for either.  Let's speculate on the other large swaths of Christianity, the largest Protestant denomination, Southern Baptist and the Catholic branch would react. Would either grant clergy status to a man appearing in public dressed as a woman or with a same sex...

Christian pundits are up in arms about a proposed elementary curriculum change for California's public schools. If there is something similar it is Texas where Christianity is crammed into elementary books. In California, the curriculum will present the history of the North American continent accurately. It will explain native people lived here and were conquered by white Europeans. In religion, the white Europeans God replaced the gods the native people worshipped previously. It will name these gods. Children will, I assume, be required to learn and remember these gods and what each one of the stood for. According to a right wing Christian site children will learn chants made to these gods.  Some state legislatures have mandated their school systems teach "religion." I suppose the legislators who advocate this assume children will be properly indoctrinated with Christianity. That is, they are not aware of any other religions except Christianity. They also assume atheisti...

I posted recently about how the German Catholic Church has so far refused to bend to the Vatican and Catholic conservatives. The German Catholic Church is among the wealthiest of all religious organizations. I pointed out the German Catholic Church needs public support to keep the government collecting money and paying it to the Church. If the public turns against the German Church it is goodbye to huge amounts of money. The Vatican would be hurt, perhaps more than it can tolerate.  Another account of the dispute appeared on a site that seems much more a conservative insider's view. This site says the process which the German Catholic Church began a couple of years ago has been criticized by the Pope and many other officials. Yet, German clergy ignored all this and kept moving forward. Germany fully intends to give official approval to priests performing gay weddings and take other liberal directions. It will establish a theological and Catholic logic to its decision. The conservat...

Conservative Christians have their undies in a wad because of people changing genders. To them is is a national crisis if a baby is called a boy by his doctor at the time of birth and later determines by herself she is a girl. Once this has been made clear to her family and everyone who knows Republican Christians can't stand it. They want to force her to use a men's rest room in school. The fact is there are thousands of people who change their gender each year. There are others who never arrive at either gender. They are simply both genders. Just because that is not discussed in the Bible does not mean it will not happen. The Biden Administration is working on a solution. One of his senior staff has said he, himself, is open to adding a third gender to official federal Identification Cards. It has not been decided what the third gender would be called. Two states are already in the process of adding a third category on Drivers Licenses.  It is too late to declare "there ...

Many of us need something big to think about. That is, our minds need something bigger than ourselves to chase. A world made up of what we do each day does not satisfy the need to be part of something bigger. Church membership and attendance held steady for most of U.S. history until the 1990's. Then is began to plummet. That is still happening. So, we switched from arguing about religion to other things. One big one is politics . Religion became small and politics became big. As one example, it is inconceivable any person who puts religion as number one in their life could support Donald Trump. Many claimed they are very religious and supported him. The truth has to be they supported him for some reason that was couched in religion but was actually tribal and political.  Demographics show us how this works. The group most rapidly leaving organized religion is that with less education. People who have or have not finished high school make up that group. As President Trump has said,...

The hand wringing continues in Catholic circles about Germany. The German government collects a fee or tax that is turned over to the German Church. Germany's Catholic Church is the wealthiest in the world. It sends a franchise fee to the Vatican. When a citizen declares his/her church the tax is collected and sent there. This entitles the German Catholic Church, from its point of view, to hold liberal views on issues like gay rights. "What ?" screams a publicity seeking Catholic pundit in the U. S. Its money gives the German Church no such rights whatsoever.  An old saying, "There's no free lunch" applies here. For any government, especially a democracy, to collect money there needs to be support for the money's purpose. If the German Catholic Church has policies or views far outside the mainstream of German society the cash flow will fall accordingly. This would harm the German church and by default Rome. The best policy is for the Pope to say, "...

JD Greear was for three years President of the Southern Baptist Convention. He had then and has today a sense of how the public perceives the SBC. It is seen by the public as sin condemning and Republican. He knows this is not a recipe for a bright future. Recently he gave an address to the SBC Executive Committee. Greear repeated what I have said here repeatedly, culture drives religion. If religion understands this properly it can help itself. If not, Southern Baptists and their side kicks Catholics will be driven into the ground. About Southern Baptist leaders who supported Trump and are on the front lines to put anti abortion and gay rights into law Greear says, "God did not call Southern Baptists to save the world." Southern Baptists are here, he says, to live lives of good and decent Christians. The Southern Baptist denomination should not be known universally as an arm of the Republican Party and the go-to source of expertise about sin. Greear is at the opposite end of...

I've never understood why some branches of Christianity are absolute in their prohibition against women pastors and priests. The only explanation I have ever heard is that Jesus allegedly had only male disciples. We know no one has ever testified he/she saw the Jesus disciples, no one has ever testified they even saw a Jesus. The whole tale is from people who wrote after Jesus was dead. So, the notion that there was a Jesus and that he had only men as disciples is not verified by any first person surviving writing.  The Christian narrative has been the faith is run by men. While some denominations had women as clergy as early as the 1800's men have successfully kept them in their proper place in many other places. Two large ones that prohibit women clergy is Catholicism and the largest Protestant denomination, Southern Baptists. To commemorate Women's History Month, a recent article listed other well known denominations that have women pastors. They are the United Church of...

As the Catholic Church becomes less powerful politically abortion rights has gained ground. It is happening not only in Latin America but in Ireland.  Anti abortion whackos still carry on in Argentina with many doctors refusing . With more abortions given by medicines their role is declining. Steadily abortions are being made available to poor and rural women. Another part of the abortion rights battle in Argentina is clearing the legal records of women convicted of murder because they had, or someone thought they had, an abortion. Latin America has been seen for centuries as a bastion of power for the Catholic Church. Its influence over politics there left anti abortion laws in place for a long time. While only a few cases of the many thousands of abortions that took place were successfully prosecuted they were especially unjust. It has been politically smart for governments to shop for cases. A perfect one is a poor women who does not have the where with all to hire a good attorn...

During several decades of being an active church member and in the decades since, I've looked about and wondered why I went to church and why others do so. What is it people get from the church experience? I was taken back a bit by an emotional essay written by a professor of religion I have followed for a decade.   This professor, Roger E. Olson, is from the Arminian branch of evangelical Christianity. Arminianism is, to my layman's understanding, some combination of Calvinism, Methodism and Dutch Reform. He has taught for several years at Baptist Baylor University. What Olson, approaching retirement, laments is the evangelicalism he has enjoyed and made his living in for decades is all but gone. When I stand and look around me, he grieves, I see nothing but wreckage. Believers are fighting one another, there is no sense of community among believers and the tenets of the faith are being ignored.  He writes a blog and a few months ago told of trying to find a church where...

The Catholic bureaucracy, along with many in its laity, waste so much time talking about their high toned morality one wants to suggest they find something more useful to do. Just now they are wasting their lives discussing whether or not they should get vaccinated against Covid. "There is such an important and grave issue involved. Way back at the beginning of the vaccination research fetal tissue was used to develop the vaccine." they lament.  This reminds me of the piety of the church of my youth. There was serious discussion about the mortal sin of using a tractor of Sunday on whether one alcoholic drink caused an eternity in hell. Those discussions were silly and so is pondering the relationship of vaccines to aborted fetuses. As someone quoted in the link explains, a huge part of future medical advances will be dependent of fetal tissue. The future of longer and better lives is based on the most "evil of all sins," abortion. Drawing a line in the sand about ab...

There are often debates between a Christian and a skeptic/atheist. You can see any number of these on You Tube. Bart Ehrman is featured several times a year at these events. But a different kind is issue has arisen. We've discussed here a sphere of debate called "Critical." That includes many issues like Ehrman's field of Critical Bible Scholarship and Critical Race Theory. There is critical theory of other Christian issues. Critical studies refers, at least as I understand it, looking at an issue from a secular perspective. In the case of Critical Bible study it is reading the Bible in the same way one would read other literature. "What was the author's goal? What events might have influenced the author? Is there a different way to look at the motives of the author? Does today's experience, culture and knowledge change how we see the author's work?" The believer may see the Bible as "God's word" and reject critical views. Or, a bel...

I recall way back when candidate George W. Bush made one of his first appearances in a Presidential debate. Candidates were asked their "favorite book." Bush said the Bible. Jesus, he said, was the greatest teacher the world has ever known. I wish he had gone on to tell us what Jesus taught. This is necessary because it is often entertaining to learn what claims are made about Jesus. One of the most fun items I've come across lately reads: The metamorphosis of Jesus from a humble servant of the abject poor to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti science, limited government that neglects the destitute and fierce nationalism is truly the strangest transformation in human history. Maybe some readers recall better than I when this remarkable transformation started to take place. I'm so old I remember Republican Presidents back to Eisenhower and then Nixon and Ford. I think Jesus was still the humble servant of the poor back then. Perhaps Jesus be...

Every year we get a Christmas card from a gay man who years ago stayed in our home for several weeks. The card always has a picture of him and his adopted daughter who is now a teenager. He stays in touch with the single biological mother as well as with the girl's biological sister. I don't know of an adoption anywhere by anyone that turned out better than this one. A Christian adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services, just announced it will place children with gay adoptive parents. It had been doing this in Michigan after a court order a few years ago. The comment section of Christianpost is filled with nasty anti gay comments. One of them talks of the harm done to children when being raised by gay parents.  That gay adoptive parents are harmful to children is one of those cruel myths spread by some branches of Christianity. If anyone claims Christianity is not harmful to society this myth can be referred to. I debated Catholic celebrity Ryan P. Anderson years ago in Fargo...

  When I saw the ban on interracial dating was banned on this date I guessed it was about the year 1950. I was surprised to see the ban existed until the year 2,000. This attitude from the Middle Ages was still with us until then. Much of Christianity is still in the Middle Ages. These peculiar beliefs, like the ban on interracial dating, will be gone in time. The Middle Ages attitudes center of one concept, the righteous or morally correct are to control the lessors. It is men who possess the ability to be righteous and morally correct. Women are a sorry lot. So we have only male clergy in much of Christianity. Forget about EVER allowing women in these branches. Oh yes but women really run things men say. If this is true why cannot they be clergy? We discuss here often gay marriage and abortion. They moved up on the important sin leader board a while back. Probably they were not leading sins in the Middle Ages but are good proxies today for Middle Ages thinking--they are about co...