Thoughts of a Freethinker

The uproar against required vaccinations reveals something in the U.S. psychic. It is that people here do not want the government giving them orders about their own personal bodies. The most aggressive resistance to vaccinations has been from the political right. It is exactly the political group that wants to take over the bodies of pregnant women. I've seen Christian sites that explain why it is the fetus must be treated as human being and the woman not. It is because women who want abortions are bad and fetuses have not sinned. What a minute. Doesn't the Bible say we are born sinners? And, is not a fertilized cell the birth of a sinful human being? Maybe a little background in logical thinking would help clear the fog of those in abortion prohibition. I have never read an abortion prohibition explanation of the rights of pregnant women. The only "right" pregnant women have is to increase the risk to their lives by giving birth.  Taking over the bodies of pregnant w

I've heard countless sermons about "witnesses" who saw Jesus after he was dead. If any of these preachers wanted to be accurate, they would have said, "Those who wrote the Bible reported there were witnesses."  No one who wrote any part of the Bible claimed they saw Jesus. Also, as someone on an atheist site wrote recently, in court testimony those who claimed they saw him would have been challenged, cross examined. Questions would have been asked, "Had you ever seen Jesus before? How many times?" "How far away from him were you when you saw him before? How far away from him were you when you saw him after he was dead?" etc. Of course, it was impossible to cross examine anyone who claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus because, so far as we know, no one saw him. That is, there was no one to cross examine.  Still, we are left with millions of people believing the resurrection happened. If it did not happen how could so many believe it did?

Scholar Bart Ehrman has combed ancient literature for decades. So have other scholars and researchers. Ehrman summarized what they have found about the Bible's star: In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman history or religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero, zip references.  When it comes to atheists, they have the upper hand in the argument of whether Jesus was some powering force at the time he was supposed to have lived. Except for the Bible's story tellers, there is not evidence of an important historical character.  This is a separate issue from whether there ever was a "Jesus." There is evidence of many characters roaming around preaching about this god or that impending doom. Probably some of them were killed by the Romans.  Ehrman believes there was a Jesus. But from what he has pieced t

One of the odd behaviors of anti-abortion protesters is to shout prayers within ear shot of women entering clinics. Prayers to end abortions are being ignored by God.  After several years of a decline in abortions due to better birth control technology, abortions are now rising slowly but steadily. The reported numbers come with a disclaimer they do not include all states and may not include all abortions in the reporting states. People who follow this data say, however, it likely represents an upward trend. Abortion prohibitionists are giving it their all. You can't drive very far without seeing an abortion prohibition highway sign. Vote seeking politicians are forever pandering with their legislation and promises to end abortion. How, then could abortions be rising? I've been reading a book about Al Capone. As a side note I'll mention why I picked up this book in Barnes and Noble. My tiny town, Lanyon, Iowa, gave birth to a somewhat famous person named George E. Q. Johnso

I enjoyed reading a writer's account of visiting a national convention of funeral directors. For some years I was invited to the North Dakota funeral directors' conference as the mayor to give a welcome. Once or twice I walked through the vender's room and saw displays of the various chemicals and tools of the trade.  A while back there was a reality TV show about a family who owned a funeral home that I found entertaining. The link observed two different generations of funeral home business people. One group was dominated by older men who didn't like to do funerals for gay people and who employ no women. They don't like cremation either. The second group included women, gay, trans and environmentally aware people who saw an entirely different future for the industry. Both groups attended this national convention but participated in very different seminars.  A month or so ago I got to wondering what options there are for "death services" around the neighbo

It's so common to repeat an old falsehoods, "Abortion is a sin" and "Christianity Opposes Abortion." There is no such thing as religious agreement about abortion. Polling among Jewish people show about 80% favor abortion in most circumstances. Of course, the central issue in abortion is the welfare of the mother. The Jewish faith is stronger on this principle than conservative Protestantism or Catholicism. It is one of the moral failings of the latter groups. Jews, like all religious groups, has disagreements. Orthodox Jews are more anti abortion than other Jews. Outside of Israel, Jews have not had a good experience when religion infiltrates government. Using religion to define when a human life begins is exactly the kind of religion in government they have learned is trouble.  Liberal Protestant denomination join Jews in endorsing the rights of women. Conservative Christians join conservative Muslims in this effort of men to control women. The audacity of cons

Christianity Today published an investigative piece that sadly reflects so much of the trouble in both the Catholic and Protestant branches. It explains how Protestant churches who experience accusations about a sexually abusive Pastor often hire outside consultants for conflict resolution. A popular one is a woman from St. Louis. But it turns out she is the problem , not the solution. If you were a male church official and your male pastor was accused of sexually harassing women probably you would want the entire issue to go away. Why not hire a "reliable woman" someone might whisper to you? You would call Judy Dabler. Judy will come in and tell everyone, "What we want to do here is get to the truth. Once we have done that all parties can deal with it and move on." According to people who were in churches who hired Judy she is very persuasive at telling people she will find the truth. Abused women especially were hopeful. Judy listens to everyone's story. Slowl

I know there is a wide gamut of institutions of higher learning which call themselves Christian. Some, however, advertise themselves more forcefully as places where Christianity is very important and lead parents/students to think pious rules are followed. Alcohol and premarital sex, for example, are not tolerated it is implied. What could be better examples of such places than ones started by big time TV preachers. Regent University (Pat Robertson) and Liberty University (Jerry Falwell) are good examples. Liberty is now pointed to as a moral failure. Jerry Falwell Jr., as we all know, was finally removed as President after it was revealed he had kinky sex parties and drank too much. There is an alleged rape that Liberty tried stomp out of the news. Some years back I knew a couple of gay men who had meant at Liberty and told of the underground gay community there. They said it was a fun and exciting place for gay men. Decades ago I remember a letter to Ann Landers from a young woman wh

The world of witches is more varied than most people think. Not all witches are Pagan. Some are Christian and its history is more Christian than Pagan. Besides Christian witches today, there have been centuries of Christian-based witch magic. After forced Christianity, the black version of witchcraft used sources from the Bible for justification. Moses was a source of witch material. Parting the waters was magic. Witches identifying as Pagan is new, its tradition was Christian. A current advocate of witchcraft, a man, is admonishing fellow witches to stop self-identifying as exclusively female and Pagan and get back to the basics. The basics are both genders and Christian. We know the Bible teaches magic is bad, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, Gensis 22.  A most recent version was banning Harry Potter books because they were thought to cast a spell. Yet the Bible is full of magic.  The most common reaction of Christian leaders including Christian academics is that any practice o

Like all people my age I go to a lot of funerals. I will keep going to them until I myself am dead. I went to one yesterday in the Methodist church of a small town. I attend to honor the deceased and often there are friends and relatives I enjoy chatting with. Not feeling any relationship to the religion that is ever present I pass the time in the service by listening carefully to how the preacher maneuvers around his/her required message. The required message is that the deceased is in heaven.  They all handle is a little differently. Some hedge a bit. Others talk of something else leaving the implication the dead person is in heaven but not declaring it a fact. One said she never knew the deceased but from what she knew thought there was good reason to believe she is in heaven. The preacher yesterday said she had known the dead and joked about her eccentricities and her good deeds. Then she said, "I believe she is in heaven." She wasn't as certain as some preachers are.

The death of a beloved atheist woman in Los Angeles reminded me of the way atheists get find each other and need fellowship. She started a drop-in center for people considering leaving the faith or had already left and found themselves without friends or family. In the two communities of "outcasts" I have fraternized with, gay people and atheists, it is common to find people alienated from their parents and siblings. It troubles some more than others. Unfortunate it is that family members think the "outcast" can simply change and conform to what they are supposed to be.  The family members seldom consider changing themselves to conform to the outcast. It does happen family members reexamine their own attitudes and beliefs and open up to other ways of thinking. I remember hearing a father talk of learning about his son was gay. The family is New York Italian Catholic and was proud of that. The father was so distraught he told his wife and the other children to get in

  The denomination I grew up in, the Evangelical Covenant Church of America, has a full time staff member dealing with race and the roll of white privilege in and out of the denomination. This denomination bills itself as the fastest growing Protestant denomination in the U.S. I think a lot of its growth has come from this focus on racial equality and that topic's appeal in large diverse cities. That, in turn, may have come from its only university and seminary which is located in downtown Chicago. It's still a small denomination however. This fellow, Dominque Gilliard, is tasked with talking to other pastors, as opposed to congregation members themselves, about race. Instead of the word race, however, he uses the term "privilege."  He says pastors approach white privilege (and I suppose economic or class privilege) in one of three ways. One group simply does not acknowledge privilege exists and that way avoids the topic entirely. Another group of pastors admits it ex

The head of U.S. Catholic Bishops railed recently against other Bishops, branches of the Catholic faith and all other Christians who have a different take of what the faith is about than he does. He is Jose Gomez, Arch Bishop of Los Angeles.  One of my favorite authors summarizes Christianity this way: It's about sin. That is how Bishop Gomez  summarizes it also. Catholic Bishops must not allow themselves to be concerned about the poor and disenfranchised, he says. Instead, they need to concentrate on babies born sinful and how as adults they need beg clergy for forgiveness. He didn't say this, but giving money would help make your case.  The Bishops who become interested in helping the poor don't understand they are being manipulated, Bishop Gomez reports. They have lost "the truth" that "...humans are maimed by sin yet called to forgiveness and healing." In other words, if Catholic clergy don't get off their high horses trying to help the poor and

The propaganda mill that churns of false claims abortion continues is spite of clear evidence it is lying. The risks of giving birth are greater than having an abortion.  The darkest side of anti abortion politics is the lack of effort to get better care of women. Many fewer women would die if they received proper medical care. The U.S. has a rate of survival down with third world countries, the worst among wealthy countries. The resources are here to lower the death rate. There is no interest. All the political money flows to anti abortion.  One irony is that anti abortion zealots often accuse women's choice groups of being raciest. That is because early women's rights focused on poor women. Today we can see clearly it is anti abortion that can be accused of being raciest. Women of color are more likely to die in child birth than white women. This could be equalized by sending better health care to areas where these poor women live. But there are no political juices in anti ab

The folk group Peter, Paul and Mary were a national treasure in so many ways. Elitist folk music critics of them during the 60's and 70'scoffed at their slick harmonies, perfect diction and pop music popularity. Real folk music was more crude and unpolished like Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger . However, a folk music icon deep in the Bob Dylan tradition, Arlo Guthrie, would have none of that. He said Peter, Paul and Mary would take stands on controversial issues when they did not need to. They performed free at the most controversial of events. "They had more to lose than the rest of us" said Arlo. Then there was the political right and rumors about what the song, "Puff," was about. The craziest was that it was written to promote drug use.  After their retirement, each of Peter, Paul and Mary did some solo performing and charitable work. Paul Stooky came to Fargo to help with a Lutheran fund raising dinner which I attended. He mixed easily with everyone and then s

We humans have a grim future. That's treated as a joke among atheists. They say if God, and all gods, only exist in the minds of humans they will disappear when humans disappear . And, there is not a shadow of doubt the earth will one day fry. Will God fry at exactly the same time as humans? There can be no doubt god will not survive if the minds of humans goes up in smoke. Scientists who study stars, there are at least thousands of them visible from earth, have plotted a predictable pattern. They can find stars that are burned out. There are stars newer than the sun and have certain characteristics. Knowing all this they can estimate the life of our sun. Fortunately they say we have a few billion years left.  How long we have left is beside the point. The point is earth has a shelf life. God has exactly the same shelf life so far as anyone knows. Christians, and all the other religions, should be supporting space travel. Instead of sending money to missionaries in developing count

A new poll shows an extraordinary part of young adults do not believe they are clearly man or woman, gay or straight. While this polling is new, I first read that gender and sexual preference have always been thought by those who study this as on a continuum. Back in the 1980's when I was publicly involved in gay rights I remember reading this and thinking others would like to know such information. I said it a couple of times in public and the reaction was so hostile I didn't mention it anymore. This was before the time of celebrity Chaz Bono, former daughter and now son of Cher.  Today when I talk or overhear my children and grandchildren I realize how common it is to consider oneself gender inconclusive. I wish more people back in the 1980's had heard what I heard back then.  The Christian polling celebrity, George Barna, thinks this has happened because young people have been subjected to unhealthy peers and information. He does not really know this, however. He is just

Governments around the world are using advanced internet technologies to prosecute Christians. By grabbing key words off internet messages, facial recognition and such anti Christian governments can locate Christian that otherwise would go about their worship freely.  This is not a good path for the government of any country. Best governments everywhere fix the roads, maintain law and order and run things without either corruption or religion. We all know, however, religion of nearly every stripe wants to get its foot in the door. After the foot, the knew and eventually the whole door. Elements of Christianity are doing this as we speak in the U.S.  This even when complaining about it in other countries. It would be so better if all of Christianity proclaimed, "We are staying out of government. We will not push our religious views into what is taught in public schools, even if children are taught the reality of gay and transgender. We will ignore the reality that women need access

The title of this blog is an old one. It has bounced around for a long time but remains a force.  Let's take two claims made by Christianity. The first that there was a preacher in Canaan who went about saying the end is near. This is not an extraordinary claim. There is evidence many such individuals did this talking of different gods and different futures for humankind. It does not require extraordinary evidence to claim one of these was later called "Jesus." But, it's a different matter entirely to claim the Jesus was dead for a few days and came back to life. That is an extraordinary claim. There is no extraordinary evidence this happened. No individual ever wrote he/she personally saw the back to life version of Jesus. There were the long dead that walked out of their graves in Matthew, walking on water and parting the seas in the Old Testament. None of these pass muster.  All of use these days receive calls from hucksters wanting our Medicare number, to extend o

  A professor in a Southern Baptist Seminary knows how to express hope for Christians who see gloom and doom. He likes the term "evangelical" because it cuts across several factions and denominations.  His preoccupation is which the evangelical branch that went off the rails into politics, social influence and current affairs. The faithful should return to orthodoxy of individual faith not practiced alone but within the context of church institutions. That religion is best practiced within institutions has been expressed in comments of this blog often. Ad lib religion, bad, accepting what the institutional church tells you, good, is the narrative. The link author makes his living inside one of these religions, Southern Baptist. It's only logical he would think it a requirement the faith center on churches and denominations. Others , especially young people, will tell you it is the institutions that are wrong about religion. Individuals without the institutional baggage ar

Russell Moore is quite a well known person in Protestant circles. He held a high level position in the Southern Baptist Convention for several years. There he insisted the denomination and fellow travelers should not support Trump. Understandably he eventually resigned. Now he works for Christianity Today and I think is a preacher.  He published a piece today lamenting that abortion is slipping in polling data as an issue of importance to Christians. It is wrong, he writes, for Christians not to place abortion at the top of their concerns. Of course he goes through the usual song-and-dance about the helpless fetus and how "Christian" it is to hype this. In this entire and rather long piece he avoids the obvious. The obvious is the rights of the mother. The obvious is the role of public law enforce in monitoring and prosecuting the mother if she claim miscarriage but in some way creates doubt. If Russell and his ilk cannot resolve, or have any solution whatsoever, to this prob

The New York Times, in my amateur observation, devotes more inches to religion than any other paper in the U.S. Maybe more than any paper in the world. The print media has it tricks to get readers, but it is not as emotion driven as the video on a screen. It was so refreshing to read an interview with a writer about religion whose work appears the the Times as well as other places. He admits writers like himself can influence how a particular kind of religion, or branch of Christianity, is seen by the public. He also knows religious groups often use the media to publicize themselves. This fellow, Sam Kestenbaum, agreed with the link author he is attracted to religious groups out on the edge. When the author asked if it was a slur to call some of them "cults," Kestenbaum agreed one of the most condescending practice of any religious group is to refer to another as a cult. Mostly, it is the ultimate insult. But he noted this is not universally the case. There are religious grou

One of the best articles about politics made the case it is not about economics, at least directly. It is about distinctly different cultures. If the data on how people voted is accurate the role of culture cannot be denied.  Decades ago as a young man, I was involved up to my ears in local disputes in Fargo, ND. Fargo is the largest city in ND and a media center in that part of the U.S. so the Mayor becomes a little bigger in prominence than most other Mayors of small cities. I knew well a former Mayor, Herschel Lashkowitz, who had been Mayor for 20 years. People would say about Herschel, "He would walk into a room of people who all said they hated him. But he would move from person to person confidently, always whispering about something." I learned what was being whispered. It was prominent men (mostly men in those days) with position and stature whispering complaints about being frozen out of the "insiders" circle of influence. So many whispered to me this griev

It used to be said or implied all gays in the U.S. lived in San Francisco. Slowly it became know gays lived in other large cities. The truth is, gays live everywhere. In small towns mostly they have stayed unseen or in the closet. That has changed . Small cities, including some in the Bible Belt, are having Gay Pride events including parades down Mainstreet.  Gay Pride has reached into Mississippi. Starkville has an event. When it was first planned, it was on the City Council's agenda as a consent issue like all festivals and parades that require the City government's approval. A council member pulled it out to discuss. Then the council approved other festivals but not the Gay Pride event. It took a letter from a national civil rights group to change minds and it was quickly approved. When will the religious learn, this country is not here just for you. The Gay Pride events are an opportunity for gay people to appear in public as gay. The same for supporters of gay people. That

Nothing is more fun than seeing the pompous and self-righteous preen themselves in anger. Just now a student women's rights club at a Catholic University in California, Loyola-Marymount, is holding a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. Let's add up the individuals and groups condemning them.  First is Jesus' favorite political party, Student Republicans at Loyola-Marymount. Those students know sin when the see it. Then there is a California Statewide political party. It says it is all for freedom of speech but not when it comes to abortion. A prominent Catholic author told the President of Loyola-Marymount to stop the event. The University Administration has no plans to cancel it. Loyola-Marymount was founded by out-of-control Jesuits which may account for some of its lack of discipline. It has ten thousand students and tuition of about $50,000 per year. That may explain also why it cares less about what the Republican and Catholic political operatives think. Among it's

While some readers of this blog have passionate views about theology and religion, they do not represent much of Christianity. The Methodist are splitting into one branch which forbids gays from being their preachers. The other side is splitting into several factions. The link says most of those in the pews don't care, ya or nay, about gay or straight pastors. They just enjoy dressing up on Sunday and seeing people they know. Sometimes this latter group is said to follow "folk religion." Roger E. Olson, a Baptist professor I quote here often told of a personal experience. He was a member in a Baptist church somewhere, he moved several times during his long university career. The church he belonged to was pondering its policy of only allowing members who were baptized full emersion. There was the potential of several new members if they relaxed this standard.  A committee was named to consider this. Olson may have been the most qualified to advise on the theology of the is

The ongoing push and pull within Christianity goes on decade after decade. Martin Luther King wrote and preached about the morality of racial equality. This was in response to the doofuses who preached God did not want interracial marriage which meant segregation was holy.  Out of the segregation swamp came Jerry Falwell. For several years after Roe he preached Roe was correct. Then he switched and along with anti abortion and anti gay he called his followers the Moral Majority. Neither position of Falwell's was moral and in many ways not the majority. Along came Donald Trump, a person who openly and proudly crossed over the border between morality and immorality. More accurately, he stomped on the border so it no longer exists. Slowly, an argument is being advanced he and his followers can no longer be a "moral majority" because they lack good morals. What would have been called the Moral Majority no longer talks of "family values," "marriage" and &q

One of the things I get weary of in the political season is reporters going into coffee shops and asking people what they think of this candidate or that political party. "We went out on the backroads to find out what people are really thinking." Without exception, what people in the coffee shops say is what was in the news yesterday. It's a meaningless exercise. It allows the reporter or the management to conclude the public agrees with them, "People out there don't like candidate X." The link delves into this interview technique when used to assess the state of Christianity in the U.S. He sites specifically an article in The Atlantic  in which a Christian writer lamented the role of Trump in evangelical Christianity. The Atlantic author writes of how Christianity used to be the "true Christianity" but that wonderful religion has been hijacked and made into a false version. The Atlantic then interviews dozens of preachers and church members all o

Catholics and many Protestants have made up a new rule in religion: Abortion is a sin. It is not . It is not Christian to force a woman to carry a fetus against her will.  I mention often how late much of Protestantism was to condemn abortion. The link lays out the history. In 1970 a Southern Baptist group surveyed Baptist preachers. Seven in ten approved of abortion in nearly all cases. Their main concern was for the mental and physical health of the woman. In 1976, 1977 and 1979 the Southern Baptist Convention passed resolutions to limit the role of government in the abortion decision. This was anything but a condemnation of abortion or the bonkers notion abortion is murder of a human being. The reversal by the SBC has been so wide and far reaching we at this moment have the religious view of abortion enforced by vigilantes. The Bible does not state with any certainty life begins at one fertilized cell. It does not say abortion is a sin. I've read comments by readers on this blog

  The 1775 earthquake and tsunami in Lisbon, Portugal, killed between 60,000 and 90,000 people. Voltaire, the French philosopher who was in  Portugal at the time, wrote the event disproves the loving God who looks after us. Voltaire was a constant throne in the side of Popes and rich nobility who got cozy with each other during those centuries. Voltaire would have had a great time had he lived today. Think of what he would have said about priests and preachers who had sex with children and with their parishioners. Atheists today are following the heritage provided by Voltaire and those intelligent writers in the centuries before who properly scoffed at not only the Christian faith but all others as well. Many Christian pundits criticize today's prominent writers like Dawkins saying they do not represent the powerful logic and deep philosophical underpinnings of the Bible, Christian philosophers and thinkers. They fail to acknowledge Dawkins and company are part of a linage in Chris