Thoughts of a Freethinker

I recall my mother coming home from Bible study in our little rural evangelical church and saying, "One thing I learned today is I don't like Paul." She was referring, of course, to his famous sentences which direct that woman must not teach or preach to men, the male is the leader of the woman and women must obey husbands. This somewhat isolated passage attributed to Paul is HUGELY important, no doubt repeated from some pulpits several times a year. It is repeated by the current Pope Francis.  I'm enjoying a book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became the Gospel Truth by historian Beth Allison Barr. She is part of a growing group of scholars who have looked anew at what Paul wrote. The group finds the one passage about men being rulers over women attributed to Paul did not correctly reflect Paul's opinion of women and condemns the paternalistic branches of the faith that uses Paul to justify their self serving practices. Those who ...

The requirement that one group of students, for example gays and women, must subsidize religious groups who want to take away their rights may end during the next few years. Discrimination, put in place by Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, is being challenged by the Biden Administration.  Reporters who covered DeVos, whose responsibility was public sector education, said she spent an unprecedented amount of time visiting and promoting private religious-based schools. Her disinterest in public education set it back and extra effort will be required to bring it back to it previous level. Neither Trump nor his rotating cast of Cabinet members had much interest in what they were tasked by our Constitution to do, run the government. Like the Cabinet of the Reagan Administration, Trump's Cabinet spent much of its time trying to torpedo government by making if inefficient and not effective.  A former staff member of VP Pence who spent many hours in meetings with key T...

Over and over today one reads and hears on podcasts Christian pundits and leader's explanations of the exodus of white people leaving their churches and denominations. The volume and frequency of "Christian explainers" surprises me. Also surprising, however, is the inability of Christian "explainers" and leaders to understand what is happening. The most common explanation of why there are a growing number of ex Christians given by Christians is that the ex people did not read the Bible or were not properly trained. And blame is handed out: parents, preachers other Christians failed. If only the fallen had been given proper training in the Bible there would be no ex Christians.  As a popular podcast producer who interviews ex Christians explains, Christian pundits and leaders have spent no time trying to learn or understand what is happening. They take their own opinion of how ex Christians think and make up worthless solutions: If ex Christians understood the Bi...

George Barna of The Barna Group has been making waves in U.S. Christianity for several years. To me he seems like a devout Christian who is also trying to find the truth of what is happening within the broader Christian slice of U.S. population. He never quotes from the book I refer to here constantly, God is Not One, by Stephen Prothero. In that book, Prothero tried to encapsulate each of the great world religions into a sentence or two. The sentence was not what theologians concluded each religion is but what people in the pews think it is. What George Barna does with his constant polling is ask people what they think Christianity is. Barna does exactly what Prothero did but through questionnaire research instead of paraphrasing.  In many respects, Barna of the Barna Group seems exactly like the normal Christian. He is supremely confident he knows what Christianity is or what it should be and compares that to what people think it is. Perhaps his strategy is to identify mistakes i...

An example of a national healthcare effort better than the U.S. is in the Central American country of Costa Rica. The New Yorker featured a long article about how that country used to handle its healthcare, how it changed and how its data illustrates it has a better health outcomes than we have in the U.S.  My wife and I received our Ph. D.'s from the University of Missouri. A senior faculty member there recently started a new way to improve health in nursing homes. The result was healthier people and lower costs for both the nursing homes and for Medicare. The doctor who wrote the New Yorker article about Costa Rica said the health-care system in the U.S. is an on-demand system. A health problem crops up and the doctor and staff deal with it. Preventive care is not central to the system. Both the Costa Rican and Missouri models rely of a much discussed but never quite implemented preventive care system.  In the U.S. there is a public health discipline. It gathers data and ma...

The U.S. has many time in the last few decades sent troops, equipment and aircraft to do battle around the world. We can barely remember the "Freedom Fighters," the Mujahideen, who fought the Soviets. We sent shoulder fired weapons to them to bring down Russian helicopters. In recent decades a theory of war developed that had the military visiting and respecting locals, all time trying to bring them toward Western thinking. Almost without exception, the places we have tried this things stayed the same in spite of billions of dollars and scores of lost lives. My own opinion is the West's biggest problem with Afghanistan is religion. A rogue version of Islam has enough organization to take over the reins of government. According to interviews with people on the street the biggest problem citizens have with the government supported by the U.S. was its corruption. It is far more corrupt, at least the eyes of many in the Afghan public, than the Taliban.  What can the U.S. do ...

The new theory is based on an assumption young people look to adults for guidance. This assumption is used to build a model of older "friends" influencing youth that will  push Christianity retention numbers up.  The program promotes itself, in the way Christian enterprises often promote themselves, with anecdotes of success. There seems no data showing it has reversed the large exodus of youth from their churches and from organized religion generally.   The recommendation it to befriend, then at the right moment spring the Bible. Long ago that made sense. Now young women, for example, might hear that Paul said women should not be preachers. Young women would want to give the faith the bird. When the mentor claims Bible verses find their young person's close gay friends were deep sinners headed for hell that would make no sense. Goodbye church. The mentor scheme assumes the culture had not changed the last many decades. It avoids the religious right's scoffing at gov...

Christian colleges receive federal money, either directly in indirectly. Often theses colleges have policies against premarital sex and homosexuality. Young people are approaching 100% approval of both. How will these colleges navigate the new sexual tolerance with their old Middle Ages ideas? It may not be a good parallel, but Christian colleges have bent to social change before. I recall when I arrived in the Fargo-Moorhead area in 1978 Concordia College did not allow social dancing. Then it did. There were expressions of outrage. Concordia carried on. I believe today their is a College-approved gay and lesbian club. This conflict between what universities feel they need to teach and what those to run and finance them want taught in a never ending tension. I recall an old story about a church-sponsored college from decades ago--might not even be true. A new professor was hired to teach history. A wealthy alum cornered the young man and said, "Now, I'm expecting you to teach ...

I just finished the book This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan. It is about his personal interest and research into plants which alter our minds. They alter in good ways when taken in proper amounts and bad, even fatal, when taken incorrectly.  We all know there are drugs we find acceptable and others unacceptable. Also, we know these change over time. Cocaine was legal and acceptable for a long time within the life span of my parents. It is said the women who spear headed the drive toward Prohibition enjoyed cocaine lased tea while passionate against alcohol. Cocaine was in all kinds of patent medicines, cough syrups and such.  Before pain killing medicines were produced, ancient medicine administered opiates found in plants. Opiates were the first topic of the link book. In the middle of the War on Drugs, late 1990's, the author wondered is he could grow poppy flowers in his garden, harvest a tiny bit of the fluid from one poppy and make one cup of opium laced tea. C...

I came across a sad but well written personal account by a young woman who had a miscarriage. She wrote of her feelings of abandonment and her questioning of why had God allowed this. She does not share her gruesome details of the event itself but the circumstances suggest it happened at home in a bathroom. She is fortunate she does not live in a state with draconian laws against abortion and that it happened before anti abortion activists are successful in banning all abortions. She would be faced with the investigation I have talked about here.  First would be the question of how she disposed of the fetus. One can assume most of the time an early fetus is flushed down the stool. If there were a law, as has been attempted in at least one state, to require a "funeral" for the fetus she would be in violation. One woman was successfully prosecuted for something called "improper disposal of human remains." This would have to apply to all miscarriages if it applied to a...

Some decades ago I was invited as the Mayor of Fargo, ND, by the Catholic War Veterans to the opening ceremony of their new bar. The Bishop and several priests were there. The Bishop walked around the bar sprinkling holy water. Coming from a childhood of temperance I was quite astounded this "sin" of alcohol would receive the Bishop's blessing. Over the years before the Catholic War Vets closed the place I enjoyed a few beers. It later became a gay bar. All of which brings me to the question of whether there is anything Catholic clergy will not bless. They bless pets and vehicles. They are not allowed to bless gay marriages. A German elected official , a Catholic, laments his church's isolating gay people as bigger sinners than any other group and refusing to grant gay marriages. He is gay and many clergy in the German branch of the Catholic Church bless such marriages. The church hierarchy is completely bonkers about homosexuality.  There is a business reason the Cat...

Even though most press coverage is devoted to national politics and personalities, governing of the nation is mostly done by politicians at the state and local lever. While a few national figures have served in these lower levels of government, most do not understand how difficult these political circumstances are and how much skill and patience it takes to hold these offices.  When I was elected Mayor of Fargo, ND, I already knew holding a local elected position ruins a lot of people. I had seen and knew of people who would become so deeply stuck in intense disputes they would neglect their professional livelihood and sometimes their families. My concerns were eventually confirmed when, years later, two colleagues on the Board tried to cut my salary in half. They were told they could not do this and it was dropped.  How difficult local/state politics can be was covered in a recent Atlantic article . A very conservative Michigan Republican in the State Legislature was put in c...

I got to thinking about "heaven" when I read an article about outer space. The article says if aliens received a message from earth, it would be 3,000 years after the message was sent.  I have read on Christian sites a person who dies will find him/herself in "heaven" the next day. So where is this place if it can be reached in a day. It takes a day or more to reach space where the satellites are. No one who has visited space has ever seen heaven. It must be further away. They have seen a lot of cast off garbage from other space projects floating around up there but no heaven.  The fiction of Christianity used to say a person was bodily moved to heaven. Later, after corpses were seen rotting in graves the story was changed to souls. Thus now heaven is supposedly inhabited by souls, not bodies.  Yet the "second coming" is to be of Jesus, body and all. So it has to be Jesus, body and all, is located somewhere and will have to pass through the death defying ...

There is plenty of figure pointing these days about the withdrawal of our military and civilians from Afghanistan. There is not enough recollection of the W. Bush Presidency in the 1990's along with his VP Dick Chaney. The neocon (new conservative) view went like this, "We have a better intellectual understanding of those Eastern countries than weak-headed liberals. Those countries respect force, the more of it the better. Then, they need roads and bridges to build their economies. Once force and infrastructure are in place locals in the countries will take over and run them as good democracies."  Bush was so much a believer in the ideology of neocon he demanded daily briefings on a new highway  the U.S. helped to fund. It, he thought, would change the country. He also had a roster with pictures of War Lord/Taliban leaders the U.S. was trying to assassinate. He put an X over the picture of each one killed. The road today speeds Taliban military operations around the count...

Apparently every year a high official in the Republican Party wishes Happy Pride Week to gays everywhere. This year, however, it drew push back from various Christian individuals and groups. Gone is "The Sanctity of Marriage." Now it is "Gay Marriage is OK." How could the party of God have fallen so far? The Christian right has been rolled. It made an all out endorsement of the Republican Party and did not leave any room to bargain. The Republican Party leaders did what the Democratic Party would have done, or any politician would do. It boxed in the religious right so it had no bargaining power. It could be taken for granted. The right could plead, "We are your base. You have to please us first. After that you can look around for voters that might like us and court them." It is laughable that anyone would think in such a way. Richard Nixon had a good way to summarize the strategy of candidates and parties. "If your base is not complaining about what ...

During these turbulent times lots of things that are true are seldom mentioned. The history of racial brutality is a topic many states have ruled shall not be discussed. It falls under Critical Race Theory. As climate change hammers us with no rain, too much rain and extreme temperatures, human contributions to this are absent in many cause and effect discussions. As famous author , Michael Pollen, points out generally the public prefers to believe things they were first taught even if they learn later they were not correct. He was talking about drugs. We use all kinds of them to lift our moods including caffeine. But we make similar ones illegal because we were told they were harmful. We'd rather not learn the ones were were told are harmful are no more harmful than those we like ourselves. Another one is population size. Early on a large part of U.S. society were climate change deniers. Now it seems they have to believe the climate has changed. Their back up position is humans ha...

The "teachings of Jesus" or "the words of Jesus" must always be taken with a grain of salt. No one who quoted Jesus has ever claimed to have been present when Jesus said things. In fact, no one who wrote anything about Jesus ever saw him or claimed to have known him. That has allowed Jesus to become an industry. Many thousands of people make a living arguing about what Jesus said, what Jesus meant when he said it or whether Jesus ever existed at all.  The link makes the argument Jesus believed heaven was not an ambiguous place in the sky but was right here in the minds of people in real time. He quotes from two of the gospels that did not make the cut to be included in the Bible. He quotes the text of what appeared in ancient writings, some predate those that appear in the Bible, and then goes into the obligatory "What this means" mode. What this means, he says, is the mustard seed flowers and grows and individuals find the heaven in their minds where it g...

The Governor of one state is trying to pass a law requiring funerals for fetuses resulting from abortions. Never mind funerals are going out of style for adults who die. It is not the norm anymore. There is no law requiring funerals for adults. Never mind, either, the millions of fetuses that die from miscarriages. No demand for funerals there. The demand for funeral for abortion-related fetuses is demanded for only one reason, to punish women. Women are punished because it raises the price of an abortion. But, of course, a funeral would act as punishment by casting of shame on women who had an abortion. That is its purpose. Its purpose is not to honor a "life." If it were to honor a "life" funerals would now be held for miscarriage fetuses.  All of this goes back to the earlier days of anti abortion politics. In an earlier time, its politics focused on demonizing doctors and clinics that performed abortions. The reason there were abortions, these political operativ...

Olympic athlete Simone Biles made it know publicly she is in favor of abortion rights. She posted, "Her body, her choice." Anti abortion critics dumped on her. She pointed out anti abortion is all about control of women. Sometimes people in religion and politics leave a hole in their logic large enough to drive a truck through it. The Bible is that way. The vague and incomplete way it was written in ancient languages in ancient times left many issues unclear. No where does it condemn abortion. Nor, does it condemn people who are homosexual. So people on both sides can claim divine guidance.  With anti abortion, the big hole in the argument is when does a human life begin. Roe v Wade took a stab at a rule as to when abortions needed more contemplation and reflection. Religious anti abortion zealots need no contemplation or reflection. They assign a religious definition as to when a human being begins. This is totally an arbitrary definition--about as meaningful as picking seve...

Conservatives are frustrated with their inability to destroy Biden. Biden has not delivered on some campaign promises and stumbles when he speaks due to a stuttering handicap. Yet, he won the election and polling shows him doing well in popularity. I know all this could change but in real time he is shedding the barbs thrown at him. Why is he successful? The link is one of the best political articles I have seen. It explains that Biden and his speech/political team have substituted the word and concept of "soul" for the word and concept of a God. He uses the word "soul" often, "God" almost never. Biden no doubt has seen the numbers, people are dropping out of churches. The unifying concept of one god is going into the dust bin of history. Another concept, that there is some unifying spirit or common goal for U.S. citizens, remains. Some will call it religious, others not.  What fascinates me is that Biden's persona, old, religious and an orthodox pol, ...

If some standard were available for "sin," surely it would include taking a story in the Bible and twisting it to mean something different than what it meant. Equally sinful would be assuming one knows what a passage means when no one knows what the writer was trying to convey. Either would make it a sin to use the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to condemn homosexual people or homosexuality. The link outlines the problems in using the Bible to claim homosexuality is any kind of "sin" let alone a serious high ranking sin. There is simply no place whatsoever in the Bible that declares someone with an attraction to the same sex is a sinner. Collection plates have been filled and denominations split over a mistake in understanding the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and other stuff in the Bible. A favorite verse of prejudice Christians is Leviticus 18:22, it is an abomination for a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman. Every anti gay Christian site I ever looked at co...

Frustrating as it is to see some of Christianity insult, badger and push back progress of women, gays and minorities there can be no doubt conservatives have consistently lost over time. There was once slavery and segregation. Japanese were jailed. Women could not vote. Unions could not organize. Schools could force non Christian children to pray Christian prayers. Atheists, Hindus, Muslims and Wiccans could not open public meetings with their statements. The  list is long of improvements for those who were wronged by society but ran over their enemies is surprisingly long.   Based on this history one has to be optimistic about the future. Yet many current circumstances remain obstacle to justice for minorities and women.  Conservative people and their politicians, especially conservative Christians, are trying to stop opportunity for those they dislike and enhance it for their favorites. Their favorites are white males. The most personal of services is that of medic...

Reading about various religions and branches of old ones we can see a pattern. If I wanted to start a new religion or a new branch of an old one how would I do it? First, it would be best to build on an old one. Selling a revised or "reformed" version of an old faith is the easiest way to establish a new faith. It will be about some a new insight or interpretation of an old one. Christianity is the perfect model. There was an old faith, Judaism, that had a sky god. Along came a story of a personality who claimed to have talked personally to the sky god and was told he was the guy to carry on the god's mission. Out with the all important circumcision. Away we go. There are more contemporary applications of this model, individuals who have met personally with Jesus and have been handed the keys. One is Joseph Smith. Jesus let him know there was unfinished business and Joseph was the guy to finish it.  Another application of the Christian model is Reverend Moon of the Moonie...

Critical Race Theory is a study of institutions, including all of those under the heading of Christianity, at arm's length. It is an effort to understand see how some institutions used race for gain but those in the institutions might not have been able to see what is now obvious. Criticizing Critical Race Theory is an effort to avoid dealing the racial injustice, both past and present.  On this blog Christian commenters have tried to deny the role of Christianity in justifying both slavery and segregation. Historical records show those with racial hatreds heard thousands of sermons and quoted scripture, lots of it, to justify their practice. Today the same technique is used to justify hatred of gays and women. A recent one is the sin of people changing their gender self identification. Oh, we have scripture to quote about that too. Others are coming. There is always scripture available to demonize the group of choice. That the religion, Christianity, has a long history of racism c...

Sometimes wisdom comes from sources one least expects. Recently a Jesuit Priest made an impassioned case for the Catholic Church to get over its obsessiveness with the "sin" on homosexuality and and be a part of help instead of harm. The Priest's proposal seems so much more like the Jesus character in the Bible than does much of his church. Suicide rates are high among gay people. They are estranged from their parents at higher rates than any other group. Instead of forming a circle of support around gays the Catholic church, and many Protestant ones, forms a circle of hate and condemnation. "You have sinned" is the message. Shame on the Catholic Church and all others that preach homosexuality is a sin. It harms individuals who cannot be different than they are. I read a poll recently, can't find it just now, which asked Catholics who have left the church the major complaint they had. Over 60% said their major beef with the Catholic Church was its attitude ...

When it comes to which kind of religion is best it is imperative to lay all of them out there and look them over. The most popular ones in recent generations have been about sky gods, invisible and imaginary beings that hide from us but live somewhere in the sky.  I've only heard there are native religions on this continent that are about spirits in undomesticated game animals. They are hunted and eaten but only after appropriate deference to their superior rank. Going back to ancient times there has been ancestor worship. I did not know it still existed until I read this New York Times piece . When we see the burial chambers in other parts of the world we know they existed back then. Still today there are ancestor worshipping religions. The link discusses the author's family experience with the religion Druze. It is a 1,000 year old faith now practiced in Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan. People of the faith believe our bodies are only shells holding the real person. The pers...

Parts of conservative Christianity still preach "complementarianism." This is a way to side step saying men are superior to women. It says, instead, women and men play different roles in relationships and they compliment each other. Since the rules were written by self-important men, it is not surprising men make the important decisions and women compliment men by keeping a clean house. What is happening among Christian women reminds me of what happened to atheists and gay people. When Richard Dawkins and others wrote books on atheism, the first ones by large publishing houses,  they sold in unprecedented volumes. Those dumped on by society found their voice and pushed out opposition out of their way.  Just now, there are two books selling very well challenging the idea the Bible endorses "complementarianism." When the authors appear in public the events are standing room only. Women "put in the place" by husbands and preachers are thrilled someone gives t...

In the somewhat distant past, Popes made public statements inviting non Catholics to convert. Not a single Pope has done this for years. It is said few among either Catholics or Protestants invite friends and neighbors to their church. Probably we all agree on some of the reasons why this is not done much anymore.  For most church goers it is uncomfortable to ask others to their church. It is seen today as kind of pushy or invasive of another's space. But there are other reasons as well.  As the necessity of multiculturalism and critical thinking has grown, it seems obvious what was formerly a strong thread of thinking has mostly evaporated. That is the belief the soul of another person needs my particular religion. People are less sure of the heaven/hell myths and thus are not convinced others are headed to hell if they are not saved by "my" church. The link suggests even among professional clergy like priests there most likely is doubt about the absolute exclusivity of ...

Thank goodness there is a little more press coverage just now of discrimination against women. It must be easier to cover discrimination against races and gay people than against women. These latter must be stopped also. But, in plain sight is one of the most obvious statements women are inferior anyone can make: The Bible says women are not to be behind the pulpit.  The computer has made it easier for women in abusive marriages to find escape routes. I hope it is true for men as well.  World-wide discrimination against women continues. Very recently the problem has been pushed onto the back burner once again. As the U.S. pulls back from its military involvement in various places fundamentalist religions are moving back into power and carrying with them the repressive societies that existed before.  A famous women's rights conference has been held annually for several years and has attacked international attention. It now faces headwinds from the recent Trump Presidency...