Thoughts of a Freethinker

I'm sure it's universal in branches of Christianity which prevent women from being preachers, the Bible tells us only men shall be preachers. Catholics say it as well as a large swath of Protestants.  A Professor of Religion has looked into the Bible to find a consistent theme that men are to "lead" and women to "help." The Professor found an error in interpretation and selective choices of scripture have led to this error. The Bible says men and women are to be equals. Like everything else in the Bible, it takes more than one position. According to the link, however, a mistranslation is the reason it is popularly believed men are to lead women. You can read the mistranslated term.  It is only logical men were the ones who mistranslated. We need only look at much of Christianity today and see men, old white men in particular, crowding out everyone else to take leadership positions. I've read of Southern Baptist leaders who say the denomination can bend o

In one of the longest articles I can remember, The New Yorke r tries to understand Alito. What draws the author into Alito's head is not that he voted to overturn Roe. It is the bitter and sarcastic writing he penned in the decision. He is not a man fascinated with the law. He is a man out to slay his enemies. He has what are peculiar ways of weaponizing the law toward carrying out his revenge. In the long Dodds decision (overturning Roe) he finally reveals why the fetus is a human being. It is because the Mississippi legislature and Governor thinks it is a human being. That is, Alito himself thinks the fetus is a human being and this makes it a fact. Any other version of when life begins belongs to his enemies. It's his version of objective jurisprudence.  A former friend and classmate of Alito said she grew up in a middle-class Catholic Church and neighborhood like Alito. The difference between them, she said, was that he never left his parents' and his church's belie

That is the Republican Party today as well as "right-to-life" operatives. The quote is from a Republican House member from Michigan who was defeated by another Republican in the primary, one probably saying the 2020 election was stolen and abortion is the murder of a human being.  It's a mystery to me why some Republicans think telling a lie most people know is a lie will make voters choose them. Certainly conventional wisdom among leaders, candidates and the majority of Republican primary voters is that the smart thing to do is keep on lying. My theory is eventually it will extract a price bigger than they expect to pay. Some martyrs in the party are running on the truth and being defeated. Majorities of Republican primary voters prefer candidates who lie over those who tell the truth. Liz Cheney lost. Liz has simply told to much truth to survive. Her sister is a lesbian and for some years they feuded in public about gay marriage. Famous father, Dick Cheney lamented thei

  Google stepped up to help women who have been lowered to second class status by their state's legislators and governors. In post Roe states that have made abortion illegal women will be able to go online and find clinics in states around them and the distance. I assume they will be able to see available appointment times.  The Google announcement appeared the same day as more information about California's plan to pay travel expenses there to obtain abortions. Money to offset travel will help some women who need to go out of state.  While these two events leapfrog abortion availability to women in back-water states, my guess is they are only the beginning of ways to keep abortions available. We already know there is a network bring abortion causing pills into the U.S.  All of this leaves no doubt about one fact: A lot of women in states where it is against the law will get abortions.  What percentage of unwanted pregnancies will be forced to give birth? That we don't know

In many different religions and at different times in history, people have been preoccupied with dragons . The Old Testament refers specifically to a dragon, In that day the Lord with his sore and freat and stron sward shall punish Leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. [Isaiah 27:1] In the New Testament the more ancient dragon became Satan. Satan is portrayed in art as a cross between the old dragon image and and a human-like being. The horns and tail of the old dragon are always there. In China there is an entire genre of dragon ballet. There are scholars who study this and try to figure out why it has been the dragon and not some other creature.  We can speculate early humans saw skeletons. When you think about it, they look somewhat like today's version of dragons. Snakes seem to be a version of the dragon--the Bible puts them together. Snakes and dragons, animals that to the human with some kind of spiritual frame of mind, are evil. Th

Gifford is a wealthy celeb and can get attention. She has concluded the original Greek, etc,. languages have not been translated correctly. I looked up information about her. There is lots of it. I could not find what she thinks the Bible says about abortion and homosexuality. One article links her to a strong forced-birth position.  I'm waiting to learn how she links forced birth and the Greek writers to the Bible. Bible scholars like Bart Ehrman steadfastly maintain the Bible does not condemn abortion. Abortion was practiced during the period the Bible was written. It just does not appear there. Kathy Lee Gifford can join many millions of others who are confident they know what the original writers wrote, who they wrote it for and how it might apply to today. Every preacher who stands behind the pulpit thinks he/she is an expert. So does everyone who sits in the pews. President Trump told Pat Robertson, "No one reads the Bible more than me." If he reads the Bible more t

Years ago I traveled from northern Switzerland to southern. Northern, of course, borders German with its culture of order, focus and purpose. Looking out the train window in northern Switzerland everything is neat, in good repair and orderly. As the train comes closer to Italy one starts to see buildings in disrepair and long-standing piles of trash. I saw two men greeting each other in southern Switzerland with the traditional double kiss on the cheeks and exaggerated hand gestures. From German to Italy the culture changed.  Just now I'm reading a long but wonderful book about the beginning of World War II. Recently the Vatican opened files of records about WWII that have been closed until now. Previously, the Vatican published an exhaustive book on the church's role in WWII. That book ignored much of this newly released information to present a more favorable narrative of the Pope's role. What is interesting to me is the cultural difference between Germans and Italians le

The new claim is votes were counted wrong. This was after abortion rights swamped anti-abortion nut cases at the polls. Trump is still using this deceptive practice to raise money. Now forced birth nut jobs are doing the same thing. In Kansas abortion rights hammered forced birth crazies. Yet, they stay in the news by demanding a recount. One county is finished and the vote count is almost identical to what was released election night. The forced birth advocates have spent about $120,000 and raised about $56,000. The $120,000 was raised by credit card debt. I'm guessing the forced birth gang will default on the bill and local governments will be stuck. So, the idea of a democracy to Trump and anti-abortion true believers is that every time they lose an election they scream "fraud." Every time they win it was an honest election. Is it any wonder the net is full of articles wondering if the U.S. can remain a democracy? Certainly, there a millions of voters who do not believ

Free speech is a cherished right in the U.S. There are some restrictions of course. You cannot stand up in movie theater and yell, "Fire! Fire!." There are limits on how untruthful an advertisement can be. In Fargo, ND, an abortion clinic took a forced birth to court and stopped the latter from advertising it provided abortions. It had advertised "Abortions" hoping to lure young women into lectures and finger pointing about the sin of abortion. Now Mississippi is trying to stop billboards and TV ads which merely provide a phone number and site where women can buy pills that cause a miscarriage. The advertisements provide true information. Will conservative judges put their religious views and its requirement to spread the gospel and protect free speech?  Mississippi forced-birth politicians seem to believe the only way they can reduce abortions is to block information about their availability. It is apparent that before Roe, when abortions were illegal, there were l

I never realized how many celeb Republican women have taken public stands again Trump. The list is long. It includes deep pockets.  Cheney raised $13 million to run for reelection. Apparently she saw early on spending all of it would be a lost cause but a more fruitful cause may lie ahead. She held back $7 million for the post-election effort to take Trump down. An organization headed by a female personality and funded largely by women is an entirely different setup than was the "Never Trump" effort. Never Trump may have helped Biden's victory. But it did not leave Troop wounded enough to stop robbing the vulnerable of their money. I think a group of influential women headed by Cheney would be a whole new ball game. A couple of billionaire women who have held Trump at arm's length are Elaine Chao and Betsy DeVos. While they will not bend on some issues and it may be hard to bring them into a united front, they certainly will never agree to Trump's crazy notion the

Almost always Christian pundits refer to atheists, or people of other religions, as sinners who do not want their sin-filled lives to be corrected. They enjoy their sinful lives, believers say, and don't understand the consequences of an eternity in hell. Another version is that everyone is raised in the faith but some leave because their church, or someone in their church, was unkind or abusive. It seems to me there is some progress among the faithful in understanding where they stand in the eyes of non-believers. That is, the Christian view of how the non-believer thinks has mostly been wrong but some improvement is happening. An example is a piece I saw today on a Christian site. It reviews the various ways non-believers see a church. One way they see a church is that is does not exist. They don't notice the churches they drive by any more than row after row of houses they take no note of. They don't encounter church people in their lives so it never occurs to them there

After decades of effort, anti-women activists in North Dakota were able to pass a bill prohibiting abortions in their state. The state's only abortion clinic was in Fargo. That clinic closed and moved a short distance into Moorhead MN and is now open. The new location is more difficult to picket than the former place in Fargo.  With loads of money to splash around, an anti-women group funded a rally in Moorhead against the clinic. An outdoor venue with a rented tent was set was set up and a celebrity speaker flown in. All of this illustrated the uselessness of the decades of lobbying in ND and the huge amount of donors' money spent doing it. Now even more donors' money is being spent for a useless high budget rally.  Reality has to be all the rallies, speeches, harassment of women entering the clinic, letters to the editor and donated money has not stopped one single abortion. With clinics available in states bordering anti-women states the same thing is happening in many p

Maybe everyone knows some people like this. I've known many. They may not believe anything about the faith but they like to be in and around a church. There are other church members who do not want them there. A prominent writer who is Mormon tells readers she has her doubts about the faith but stays in it. It's OK she says if people such as her choose to either stay or leave.  She points out the sociology of her denomination is such that the most loyal and undoubting people are looked upon favorably. Being popular, this kind of person rises to the top within the denomination. This surely represents most denominations in the faith. While it might be popular to think that is how it should be, a denomination could ultimately be harmed. Viewing the faith's tenets with some skepticism allows one to understand others who experience skepticism. These are folks the denomination needs to survive. And, people who don't believe but enjoy being around a church want the church and

We all know elections can turn out differently than poll predictions. Nevertheless, polls remain interesting to follow. Polls are now showing Democrats surging in some Senate races that were supposed to be easy for Republicans. The only explanation is the Supreme Court's overture of Roe. Since there is no law against speculating on politics I'm allowed to do that. I've not seen my speculation anywhere else--though I haven't looked for it either. It involves the defeat of Liz Chaney. Trump Republicans are cheering about it. I think they would have been better of making certain she was nominated again in the party and reelected. Now she is a feral politician with revenge on her mind. She says she is "thinking" about running for President. Surely she is not thinking about competing with Trump for the Republican nomination. She has to be thinking of running as an independent. That would be dramatic. As an independent, her message would be, "Republicans who ha

I happened to get a slick telephone scam call at the same time I was reading an article about the self-evidence of God. It struck me how similar the caller was to the article I was reading.   The caller said he was a representative of the Republican "movement" to take back America. Would I send $50 or $75 to help this important effort? When I asked what the "movement" or "effort" were about he over and over talked of election fraud, integrity of elections, illegal voting and so on. He said things that are just preposterous like, "There are states that never update their voter rolls." I pointed out that absolutely is impossible but it bounced right off of him. He said "There are dead people on voting rolls." I pointed out that when a person dies the day before an election the dead person's name will be on the roll--of course there are dead people on the voting rolls. There were other things he said about elections that were patently

The concept of a life with fewer and fewer face-to-face encounters seems the future in so many ways. It is universities and marketplaces. Now, churches without buildings are growing. Certainly, churches with both buildings and online gatherings will remain for a while. Inevitable, however, is the "church" where people never physically meet each other. Several of these churches are discussed in the link. It seems hard to generalize about whether these on-line groups are more conservative or more liberal. There is some of each. Most common are those without a denomination to establish the core beliefs--these may morph around a lot. One interesting aspect of this which is discussed in the link is the question of who "owns" the church. The infrastructure is owned by the likes of Face Book. Perhaps Amazon will offer a church. Making money is the goal of whatever company provides the internet to believers. It is not the same as a group of like-minded people putting up a b

Abortion is not just for atheists. Polls show a majority of Catholics favor abortion rights. Knowing little about "new age" (or old age) religious thinking, I found it interesting to read about a professional in health care helping women who might be conflicted about abortion through the experience. When the national Satanist group began its crusade to call abortion part of its religion, it struck me as a little absurd. It should not have. Nothing, so it seems to me now, is off limits for religion. If there can be a host of gods, heavens, hells and who knows what else, why not a spiritual abortion. These women helpers are called doulas. As I understand it, they are women with less training and experience than midwives but assist in pregnancies and births. Perhaps they are to some extent comfort helpers. The set of them discussed in the link are sympathetic to abortion and help women by listening and offering advice. There is a spiritual component to their services and some ri

  My guess is the during all of human's 2-300,000 years stories of the origin of the universe and of humans were told. There is an inbred curiosity about our origin. Many different stories of the first human are repeated today. The link tells of the Cheyenne Native American version. It is so similar to the Bible's story it seems copied. The Cheyenne story, however, almost surely predates the Bible. "Myth" is the label given the Cheyenne version. Calling the Bible's version myth is fightin' words.  I've written before about the tribe that is identified as the early inhabitants of the Black Hills area in South Dakota. In its written history is a creation story. It doesn't seem to be written about much elsewhere but if it were it would, of course, be referred to as a "creation myth," I wish it were possible to know the number of prerecorded history creation stories. One would guess each isolated tribe or clan would have its own. Human nature is

A news story says the Department of Justice is poking into the history of sex abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention. Conventional wisdom in U.S. politics is religions must be left alone to commit their crimes and terrible deeds. DOJ looking into the Baptists seems unusual. In response, an official in the Southern Baptists said there is nothing wrong with "our beliefs." In fact, "our beliefs our strengths." I suppose there are Catholic Bishops saying the same thing about the powers of clergy there. In both cases, the belief men are superior to women has to be a big contributing factor in continuing sexual abuse in churches across the country and specifically among Catholics and Southern Baptists. What is interesting about this Southern Baptists defense of "our beliefs" is that he feels the denomination is on the defensive. The idea women cannot be clergy is so foreign to modern U.S. society it is scoffed at. Southern Baptists would be smart to wake up an

While political preferences are not recorded in clinics that perform abortions, there is one thing we can be quite sure of, a vast number of women who are Republicans and vote for candidates that oppose abortion have themselves had abortions. There can be no doubt.  Such women might have conflicting feelings about abortions. The link author is one of them. (Link may not be working. The source is:    Opinion | More Republican Women Than You Think Have Had Abortions. Here’s How I Know. - POLITICO    ) Every year the Republican Platform contains several sentences about the evils of abortion. The majority of those who vote Republican prefer abortion rights. Polls show the majority of Catholics support abortion rights.  The amount of hypocrisy in these two institutions is higher than a mountain. They both try to pick off voters and donors of extreme anti-abortion views so they have the money to keep legislation for lower taxes and less business regulation going strong.  The link author is a

I wonder how many Catholics, thousands or millions, ask what this professor asks? He wonders if his church has the ability to grow intellectually. Its public is growing. Almost 3/4th believe in abortion rights. Nearly all practice birth control. It is no longer the case clergy are producers of theology, members are consumers. Instead, it is the opposite. The Pope in on a worldwide "listening" tour. That is almost heresy. Clergy are supposed to preach, those in the pew listen. The Pope is doing something so much in the best interests of the church but is being trashed by some of its whackos.  I remember watching an interview on the conservative Catholic TV channel. I think it's called EWTN. A young earnest personality said, "Just because the church was wrong in the past does not mean it's wrong today." Technically correct but being wrong many times about issues central to it existence is not reassuring.    When the church's views and secular views were di

We all know sexual abuse happens in all groups, religious, secular and family. What makes religion the worst place for it is the "holy" justification and the need to cover up and hide to keep the facade of "holy" in place. Catholics use the ridiculous myth Jesus told Peter he was Jesus' guy to build a Jesus empire. Mormons have something similar, the church boss has the authority to hear from God and tell others what's up. Sexual abuse stories are pouring out of Mormonism. The pattern is the same , "Don't tell authorities, it would be bad for the church." Stopping a child from being sexually abused is less important than protecting the image of the denomination. The Bible has a valid insight into human behavior. Its writers noticed money changes people and they wrote about it several times. I suppose the writers had no idea of a huge and very wealthy faith when they wrote. They just wanted to control the poor who were below their status. How go

Sales for pills used in medical abortions are up. Access to doctors is down. It's not hard to figure out the reality right in front of us. It was inevitable before the Supreme Court went off the rails. People who track this are finding information, medicine and I would guess surgical abortions themselves are circumventing the medical system. Spreading information and pills around the country is far easier than it was back before Roe. Certainly, it would be better if it stayed inside the system but that has become an option not available in many states.  If forced birth laws actually work and more women give birth we should see that in about a year. Official birth numbers take about a year to collect. Of course, births can rise and fall for reasons other than abortion but if there is a pattern across several states it may reveal whether the number of births changed very much.  Another variable is how many clinics open near where women need to travel. Some are relocating on the borde

When non-believers attack religion the response is, "It gives us our national values" or "It brings us together" or "We'd would have no hospitals." The founding fathers, even those that appear as not religious, said religion keeps people united. Any number of kings and dictators have embraced religion for this very reason, it makes a country more governable easier to stay in power. The link is a modern version of this old argument. It says religion, now it is acknowledged there are many religions in the U.S., in some way unites us. If one looks at this factually, there can be no conclusion the religion "unites us." Slavery, the Civil War over slaver and the segregation that followed was religion based. I suppose there were preachers during that entire period who were saying, "Let's unite behind the truth that the black man is inferior and will rape white women." Now, it may well be there would have been slavery without Christian

When a person who did not grown up with the Bible reads about its talking snakes, donkeys and trees, he/she must do an eye roll. Then, there is the God who loves us, but murdered nearly all of us. Let's move on to the many times witches are real. Oh, there is Satan the current Pope even talks about. I didn't mention the flying serpents, dragons and the long dead skeletons who walked out of their graves. And there's more, the unicorns.  There are those, even the main character, who is dead for days and temporarily comes back to life. I'm running out of space needed to discuss the invisible places, heaven and hell. It seems to me, the faith's growth or status quo is and always will be limited to the minority of people who can hear or read the fantasy book, the Bible, and get some warm feeling. The rest of us, I believe the large majority, does not want to waste our finite years of life and finite amount of money on utter nonsense. Surely there is something in the fait

The "Sea of Galilee" is really not a sea as in "ocean." It is a lake--there lakes in Minnesota about the same size. The surrounding area where Bible stories were supposed to have taken place is desert. Oceans and floods are really big in the Old Testament and in the story telling lore of that time. So the Lake of Galilee had to be turned into a raging ocean for the setting of the old stories passed down to New Testament writers. It was a new version of old fictional tales. The oldest version of scoffing at the New Testament was in the 3rd century. Writing attributed to Prophyry of Tyre is quoted as writing that passages in the Bible are " ...devoid of sense and full of implausibility."   It has been scoffed at ever since.  The Iliad attributed to Homer is thought to have been written about 8,000 BCE. In that period of time a wealthy lad learning to read and write Greek was instructed to write stories that were original but followed the pattern of the Iliad

In his opinion overruling Roe, Judge Alito wrote in a rather cocky style indecision about the legality of abortion has languished too long. It is imperative, he wrote, a decision be made once and for all.  His words imply he thinks, or thought, legal abortion would be eventually outlawed across the U.S.  That is, states would one by one choose to make it illegal.  That scenario is exactly the one preached by forced birth operatives. I've read countless times of the long battle ahead to convince one state after another to make abortion illegal, collimating in a country where there are no abortions. We now know this rosy scenario did not happen in Kansas.  It would be ironic if Alito was responsible for making abortion more legal across the U.S. That would happen if Kansas if repeated several times. I'm experienced enough to not predict this, yet past experience is abortion rights are popular when voted on directly.  Today I read several Republicans running for Congress are back

Abortion rights people have labeled organizations which oppose abortion rights the Forced Birth Party.  It is indeed very much like a political party. The minority of Catholics who favor an outright ban on all abortions is the Forced Birth Denomination of Christianity. All of this comes from an answer given by Supreme Court Judge Amy Barrett (and thousands of others) to the question, "What rights does a pregnant woman have?" The answer is, "To (be forced to) give birth." While the Forced Birth Party has all along thought it could eliminate all abortions by going state to state after Roe, it now has confronted a new reality: It will not win state by state. Forced Birth has changed its strategy. It will throw a hail-mary, try to pass a national law outlawing all abortions. The next election might provide them that opportunity. The old argument to overturn Roe was "state's rights." It turned out that in Kansas the state used it rights to put a finger in

Abortion rights continued its series of wins with one in Kansas. It won in Ireland and other countries. This is the first popular vote since Roe was overturned. I had to chuckle when I recall a national columnist who said overturning Roe was "instructive," meaning it would persuade people they should be against abortion. Almost 60% of voters in Kansas voted to retain abortion rights? That is what I call "instructive." A big majority of women, and probably a majority of men, want to retain abortion rights. Donald Trump won Kansas by 15%. That alone would signal that anti-abortion would win. What Trump's win, nor polls showing anti-abortion would win, did not anticipate was a huge surge in voter turnout. The turnout was a record. Turn out is something that has happened in other public-wide votes where one segment of the population has something definite at stake. Obama's elections illustrated this. It has been seen before in women's rights. When women are

Catholic Church worldwide has been holding meetings where ordinary members express their views about the Church. Not all dioceses held the meetings. Comments were summarized. The idea is to hold a world-wide conference this Fall to address the findings. The criticisms addressed by members illustrate the problems everyone but most pious Catholics already know. They are that clergy have taken powers they do not deserve, serving as the gatekeepers to the divine and women are excluded from serving the church in many ways. If the Catholic hierarchy thinks it has solved the Church's public image problems by turning over a few pedophile priests, it is missing the mark. The problems are they, themselves. They need to hand over their most precious asset, their power.   The Catholic Church's rules could not be more out of sync with today's society. What other large institution excludes woman from the highest positions? Certainly, there are many without women in high positions but the

What exactly does a law mean which allows an abortion when it is necessary to "save the life of the mother?" Is it why the probability of life loss is 5%, 50% or 100%? The laws never say.  There are records of women are dying in Catholic Hospitals and its coming in anti-abortion states. The death of a woman in Ireland was the driving force that won a national referendum to legalize abortions.   We had two pregnancies in our family the past two years. I advised both mothers not to give birth in a Catholic hospital. Thankfully, neither did. The notion a dead fetus cannot be removed until the nerves called "heartbeat" stop firing is both dangerous to the mother and absurd. It not a decision most women would make for themselves. Men, however, making decisions as clergy or legislators have no second thought about this barbaric reasoning.  The link, written by an anti-abortion attorney, says  We cannot write laws that incentivize doctors to err on the side of allowing the