Thoughts of a Freethinker

While official statistics are not available, evidence is there were a lot of illegal abortions before Roe made them legal. Doctor's offices back then were often small individual operations with no records required. Payments were in cash. Evidence of "bad back alley" abortions were the wings of hospitals serving only young women with infections. There were, of course, states where abortions were legal. My late brother was a psychiatrist in Missouri before Roe. The law there was women who were suicidal could get abortions if signed off by a psychiatrist. Often, he told me, sanctimonious doctors from around his large city would drop in for a sign off for their daughters. "I'm opposed to abortion, but my daughter has a great future and this will mess it up" was always their line. His experience was identical to a woman who grew up and still lives in the evangelical South. The woman author of the link tells of her experience helping young women in the South obtai

Christian voters have been suckers before. Gov. Desantis of Florida, running for President, is certain he can snooker them again. He is putting down the hammer down on drag shows. When there are serious problems to address, right wing Republicans always head for the exit by talking about sin. Gov. Desantis is using the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation to investigate drag performances where children are allowed. He is asking that the drag shows "be investigated." Desantis' spokesperson issued a statement that Exposing children to sexually explicit activity is a crime in Florida, and such action violates the Department's licensing standards for operating a business and holding a liquor license. You might notice "sexually explicit" is not defined. Nor is it known whether the touring show, Drag Show Christmas, has any such material. I looked at some of the show on You Tube and would call some of the numbers "naughty."  Years a

Everyone watching U.S. politics knew it was out there. Trump developed a fan base that remains separate from the Republican Party. A columnist recently suggested Trump could run as a third-party candidate if he does not receive the Republican nomination. Trump reposted it as a tease, maybe a threat. It is almost inevitable Democrats would win the Presidency regardless of who runs for the Democrats or Republicans if Trump runs as a third party or instructs his base not to vote. There is so much press these days about the findings of the Jan. 6 Commission and its conclusion there were things Trump did that are worthy of indictments. If the Federal Government does make any of these charges against Trump an actual trial would ensue. One of the reasons I think Trump will run in the Republican primaries is that he does not think the Federal Government will bring the charges. I happen to think he is right about this. States, such as Georgia, may file charges.  The Jan. 6 hearings had rules fa

Recently, a Republican Party fellow, George Santos, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. During his campaign he said he had graduated from an Ivy League school and worked for two different firms on Wall Street. The NY Times inquired about him and none of the three places had any record he had ever been at any of them.  This week he apologized for "resume embellishment." The Christian faith is accused regularly of embellishing the resume of Jesus. A Christian apologist recently scolded any Christian who might agree claims for Jesus were embellished in the Bible. To call yourself a Christian, he said, you must believe in the virgin birth and resurrection. He went on with the old trope as to why these have been "proven" to have happened.  Mostly the "proof" is someone who wrote part of the Bible said they happened.  Embellishment started with the Jews most of whom thought their history was the most important of all humankind. Along came the Chris

Off and on I've been reading a long book, Weavers, Scribes and Kings . This is a book based on surviving clay tablets used mostly be bookkeepers starting 3,000 years BCE. The area is roughly where Syria is today. While most of the tablets contain writing about administration of kingdoms and palaces there are also references to gods and the way society was organized at that time. There are records of what was bought and sold to conduct religious rituals. It is to me an accurate window into the economics and social life of that ancient time. It is much more accurate than what was presented in the Bible. The latter was a propaganda piece rewritten countless times. While there was plenty of preoccupation with gods back at that time, and I assume those gods created the universe just as the Judeo/Christian God is claimed to have done, those gods had different rules as to what was right and wrong and what was the "correct" way to organize society.  One side note, a clay tablet t

A survey of 1,000 people found that by a large margin respondents think others have lost the "True Meaning of Christmas." I wanted to know which "true meaning of Christmas" people have forgotten about. I read the article and never found a definition. There was a definition in the comments. It, of course, quoted some scripture. If millions of people think the true meaning of Christmas is something other than what was provided in the Bible, however, we still cannot be certain who knows the truth. Maybe those passing judgment are the ones who don't know true meaning.  In the discussion, a commenter quickly pointed out the question asked of respondents was about "other people." There was no exam of the respondents to hear what they themselves thought was meant by the term.  If you asked 100 atheists, "What is the true meaning of Christmas?," I think most would answer it has no meaning other than the celebration of winter solstice. If they were th

I suppose politicians in Bismarck congratulated themselves by putting in place legislation that made it difficult to impossible to perform legal abortions in North Dakota. The only clinic in ND was in Fargo. It moved five minutes across the Red River to Moorhead and is happy with the move. First, the clinic raised a huge amount of donated money to pay for the move. After the move it finds itself in a better financial position. It does not have to deal with the same level of harassing steps like forcing women to look at ultrasounds so patients move through the clinic faster. This improves the financial picture.  The layout of the clinic and parking means patients do not have to walk past anti-abortion protestors shouting their prayers or trying to engage them to condemn abortion. This makes it easier for patients to get in and out.  Fund raising to help pay for low-income women to have abortions has also been successful. The clinic has had donations of $175,000 to pay for abortions. Sev

A sociologist, who is a Christian, is not surprised at the shrinking faith. He is surprised it did not happen sooner. I was a practicing Christian for decades, but I also have now begun to wonder, also, how it has lasted so long.  The link author mentions something not discussed on the Christian sites I follow. While all the sites now acknowledge number in the faith are falling, they do not discuss the seemingly inevitable cliff that lies ahead. With the percentage of young people who are not religious being much higher than older generations, the decline in those who claim to follow the faith will not be in a steady decline. It will be a dramatic drop. He predicts a decline that would normally take place over a couple generations. This one, he says, will require only 20-30 years. One has to include the disclaimer that no one can predict the future with certainty. One thing seldom discussed was the end of the cold war. It made sense that to oppose godless Communism one should embrace a

If one can set aside the various versions of a new god figure as seen by Christians and go with the many ways it has been interpreted around the world, it can be a bit on the eerie side. The powerful bearing down on the lore was the darkest day of the year son the expressions of darkness vary widely.  The Bible version in Luke of winter solstice has angels telling assuring someone to "fear not." The writer was smart to realize the story he was to tell was a weird one. Then from nowhere there appear three uninvited wise men. That all happened when the day light hours were strangely few.  In Italy, a witch named Befana has since way back been attached to the wise men lore. Befana turned down an invitation from the wise men to journey to the manger. She has regretted it ever since. She tosses toys down chimney's hoping to find the baby. This witch lives in the same country as the Pope. Then there are areas of the world, Northern Europe, who have seen darkness in sex during t

Back when the Bible was written, there were many gods. Many of them came from virgin births. That the myth of the virgin birth was applied to Jesus was quite reasonable. It was so unremarkable, it was only mentioned twice, once each in Matthrew and Mark. By hey, if others got to hold that title, why not Jesus? There is controversy was to whether the Bible claims it was a virgin birth or not. The original Bible stories were written in Hebrew. According to Hebrew scholars the Hebrew word used to describe Mary translates to something like "a young woman." This could mean she was conceived in sex. Only when the Hebrew was translated into Greek, the language of New Testament writers, was to tale the Mary was a virgin introduced to the faith. In other words, if the Hebrew had been accurately translated into Greek, we would have no virgin birth nonsense today. I must qualify that to say there were other strange ways to pitch it and people would believe it anyway. A couple of other b

The Trump appointed judges to the Supreme Court are eerily similar to the moral police parading around Iran and killing people for not following prescribed religious views. It is estimated about 500 people have been killed and over 18,000 arrested for violating Iran's various "moral laws."  Our Supreme Court judges are now substituting the word "morals" for "religion" when trying to hide decisions that are bases on nothing but religion. This cannot have a good end. Christian morals and what we think of as the common good are two different things. In my long life I've seen Christian morals change quite often.  The overturn of Roe was based on a Missouri law. The politician who sponsored the law said "children are a gift from God." During the lead up to the Supreme Court decision this politician told supporters to pray to God that the justices recognize the pain felt by fetuses during abortions. The role of this religious justification in t

The overturn of Roe v Wade a few months ago is part of a sad pattern in the U.S. Women receive inferior health care compared to men. It is also inferior to what women receive in other high-income countries. Maybe inside some parts of Christianity women receive more prayers and that is supposed to compensate.  The place this should be addressed is the part of society which claims to be on a higher moral plain than the rest of society, the Christian faith. Ironically, that is the very source of the inequity. Anti-abortion is aimed at making women's health worse. Anti women behind the pulpit is there to keep women in their place, inferior to men. The death rate of women in the U.S. is several times higher than the rate in ten of the other high-income countries. It is higher than Canada and the U.K. Morality from pregnancy is much higher in the U.S. If the U.S. would follow the medical protocols of these other high-income countries one assumes we could reach their levels of health care

Shoes keep falling after the victory by forced-birth political operatives on Roe v Wade. Now the Vatican has declared the bonkers priest, Frank Pavone, is no longer and never again will be a priest. He heads "Priests for Life." How could this be when the Catholic Church is "against" abortion? It's easy to explain.  The Catholic Church, like all political organizations, has to both change with the changing public while hanging onto it core of people who don't want anything to change. The Vatican does this by talking up its affection for those who think in new ways, inviting dialogue with them and not finding fault, while at the same time retaining official positions exactly the opposite of those it is courting. It does this dance well. The Pope recently demoted a Bishop who told a reporter the Catholic Church could not endorse gay marriage because it cannot endorse sin. This Bishop was merely repeating the official position. He and other Bishops are not to do

There are Christians promoting their right to discriminate against gay people and women who want birth control and abortions. They claim they are not discriminating because it is their religious views that are the basis for their demands. It is not, they huff, intolerance. The same is true of parents who demand their public school turn down requests by students who want to have a Satan Club. The Satan Club students point to Christian clubs promoted by national Christian organizations. Sometimes it seems Christian groups come from the densest cross section of society. When they demand prayer in public schools, after school Christian clubs, and baccalaureate ceremonies in churches they are playing into the hands of other competitive groups. More religions are being created daily and these will get in line to use public facilities. The Satan group is just one. We've already been through the litany of LGBTQ groups wanting to have student clubs on college and high school campuses. The

I've covered commentary of pundits trying to explain why people are leaving Christianity. I have said here many times those who would gain the most by knowing why this is happening should not study it from the Christian point of view but study people who have left. That is, ask people going out the door what they think. A person who has left the faith did just that. He asked an open-ended question, "Why did you leave?" rather than having people pick one from a variety of options offered by the survey. When options are offered, they come from those running the survey. This is a source of bias. While bias can also occur from open ended questions, it has the advantage of avoiding the boxing in from choice in the survey design.  The link author coded the answers into various categories that made sense to him. In his coding the anti-gay position of much of Christianity was the most powerful force pushing people out of the faith. I don't recall any Christian pundit concludi

Ever since World War II, politicians in the U.S. made a living bashing the throwing billions of dollars at "Godless Communism." Congress put the words, "In God we Trust" on our currency to give voters the message "I hate Godless Communism more than the other guy." Putin saw a God opening and took it. Now he and his orthodox mucky muck are in lock step invading Ukraine for God.  The President of Ukraine wants to ban religious services involving the God Russians like. Other versions of God are OK. How many times have we commenters here on this blog bragged about the good Christianity has done?  In the name of God, 40,000 Ukrainians have been killed or injured. Tens of thousands of Russian troops have been killed. I'm fully aware people not in the Russian Orthodox faith are saying it worships a false version of God. As we know, this is what every group in Christianity says about every other group. During the Vietnam War we had soldiers pledging to "K

The period around 1840, a few years before the Civil War, church members and churches themselves were arguing about whether it was OK to be both a Christian and a slave holder. Some wanted their denominations to condemn slavery but officers were afraid of offending some. Others wanted members who held slaves to be removed from membership. Those who held slaves used the Bible to defend themselves. It's easy to forget slavery was practiced in the U.S. for 200 years.  Before all of this heated up, Protestant Christianity was so popular it took in as much money as the Federal Government. Needless to say, leaders liked the huge membership and the money that came with it. But like most every time in history, a huge disagreement was coming to a boil. The public was made up of church members mostly and a big part of it began to ask how anyone could hold humans as slaves the call himself "Christian." This when a Bishop in the Methodist branch himself owned a couple of slaves. Spli

For years, religion, especially Christianity, has inserted itself into substance addiction. This has been mostly about alcohol. The organization called "Alcoholic Anonymous" has spread a particular notion of what alcoholism is about and how to cure it. Imbedded in the theory, but not stated in its stated principles, is that drunkenness is a sin. If you are drunk too often or drink too much you have a spiritual problem. In AA the alcoholic is to beat up on himself as someone too weak to defeat the problem by himself. The solution is to bring in an invisible force, the "higher power." The "higher power" is not supposed to be stated as God or Jesus specifically, but in a culture where the higher power is always God then that's what it is for nearly all people. I know people who have attended AA meetings across the country and they find God stated specifically in some groups. But, whether the Christian God or some other god, the concept is help from some i

The large cities in Georgia turned the tide against Herschel Walker. No doubt it happened for many reasons but the increase in black voter registration was larger than for any other group. Black people moving from North to South are empowering those who never left the South to register and vote their interests. It's like a political earthquake. Of course, Herschel Walker is black. He was pushed to file as a cynical political maneuver by white Republicans, especially Donald Trump. I read he got about 3% of the black vote.  Then there was the black woman, Stacie Adams who lost to the white Governor Kemp. Probably Kemp got lots of black votes. There are reasons people like one candidate and not another. My guess is that Kemp worked to get the black vote just as he worked to get the white vote and he was successful. There is and has always been lots of migration in the United States. I have heard most cities have so much in and out migration that the number in and out equals the total

When Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock thanked God for his victory, one could almost hear anguish of Republican God operatives. "He can't talk like that. We own God-talk and Democrats are not allowed to use it." Whether it's gay marriage or abortion, God-talk is available to every branch of Christianity. It's folly to think God-talk is owned by anyone or any group. We half to remember politics, especially elections, are art not science. When a politician paints a picture it had better look the way voters want it to look. Portraying oneself the way voters prefer is the goal. When Obama first landed on the national scene he chided Democrats for not declaring their religious convictions. "I'll show you how it is done," he implied. But Obama, for all his intellectual and professorial creds, could not pull it off. Scripture did not roll off his tongue. He was not a Baptist but of the liberal United Church of Christ. He comes off as a Unitarian. Couching his

We know there have been humans who found themselves neither male nor female or were both in Inda since very ancient times. India, before the British invaded, considered those of neither gender to be revered, or, we would say, holy. They represented the souls of gods who transcended the human bonds of male and female. Once western society took over India and began bashing this ancient idea things got worse for bisexual and trans people. Today they struggle. Yet, history gives us insight into this human experience. There can be no doubt whatsoever non-specific gender is part of human history, part of the human experience. The ultimate cruel joke that has been made from pulpits is that "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." It turns out the Christian version of a god is not the only game in town. Other gods made Adams and Steves. A wise preacher does not think of himself as a world class standup comedian. Indian philosophy has long considered the soul as a station beyond g

The days of Bjork and Originalism are over. New conservatives, like the new Trump appointees, believe they have higher moral standards than the general public and feel they should use their appointments to put their religious views into law. It is a legal theory they call " Common Good Constitutionalism." They are using it to put religion into government.  Even without training as a lawyer, I found the language used by the new justices peculiar. They use political terms when giving legal opinions. In recent opinion one of them accused the government of using indoctrination instead of providing government-based information. The entire overturn of Roe seemed to me more of an exercise forcing a moral view on the public than it did a legal opinion. Separation of religion from politics makes no sense to a judge who sees her assigned task as putting proper religious views into law.    The irony in this development is it turns the former conservative legal view on its head. "Or

I admit to not understanding religious people--even though I was a church member the majority of my life. I'm unable to understand why some Christian people think that when they are able to succeed in putting their religious views into law and everyone else with a religious axe to grind will not do the same. Several religious groups have made an effort to list abortion as a religious right. It was inevitable some group would succeed with some judge or jury somewhere. In time, a religious argument for abortion rights will succeed at the Supreme Court. Really, every argument about religious liberty has a fatal flaw. "Legitimate" or "Sincerely Felt" religions can be most any thought or worship anything that exists. Since religion is a product created in the mind there are no built-in limits to what defines it. I realize people who are very religious cannot see it this way but the law ultimately has to agree. This case took place in Indiana. Indiana allows abortions

My hobby as amateur historian looking into life and beliefs during the time the Bible was being written has carried me to different threads of ideas and evidence. The total picture of the few thousand years BCE will never be revealed. I have quoted Bart Ehrman, a celebrity New Testament scholar, here many times. Often there are readers who scoff at my references to Ehrman. He apparently is a thorn in the side of orthodox Christian history. At the risk of misstating him, Ehrman's sees Jesus as a local itinerate preacher who was convinced the world would end in the very near future. It would end during his life. He might have had fans who were so devoted they thought he was a low-level god. Certainly, after he was dead, the low-level god status would not have been unusual. But quite a while after he was dead Jesus became a big-time god. He went big time when a story started that he had come back to life. Ehrman's low-level god idea came from handed down writing done during the pe

The self-centeredness of antiabortion Christians continues to amaze. I can paraphrase what various leaders are now saying, "Gosh, we wanted those anti-abortion judges. But we didn't expect it would end with a wholesale attack on democracy. Maybe Trump took advantage of us. That wasn't fair of him. We are victims."   Evangelical leaders, Trump did not use you. You were trying to use him and you chose to wear blind folds. There were thousands of news pieces warning you Trump was a cheat and liar, but you suffered from something you could not and will never cure yourself of. Your hubris.  Christain hubris is taught from the earliest childhood training. Tiny children are taught God/Jesus knows them personally. This notion of self-importance follows some through their entire lives. Those involved in politics feel entitled to have their religious views put into law. They believe it is only right their political enemies do not get equal opportunity. Women, for example, sinne

It is not possible for Christians to breed their way out of falling numbers. Neither is it possible for atheists to increase their numbers through lots of babies. These facts were highlighted today by Christian author Russell Moore. As I see it, people grow up to be religious, or not religious, when certain ideas make sense to them. What makes sense is influenced by the culture into which they were born.  Moore admonishes Christians not to believe having large numbers of babies will have save the Christian faith. He tells Christian readers people, including children, need to become Christians by themselves as individuals.  A study I read recently shows that Christian numbers are not falling because of non-Christian parents. A large majority of young adults who are now leaving the faith have Christian parents. They leave the faith for other reasons. In many cases they leave against the wishes of their parents. This fact throws under the bus the idea the more children Christian parents h

A cleric in Iran announced the morality police unit is being shut down. This is the outcome of the world-wide protests of women against political and moral rule over them by men. We are seeing it here in the U.S. where women are standing up to men who want control over women's bodies by outlawing abortions. Women have made abortion available in several countries and voted for it in several states here in the U. S. When is this to end? Maybe it will go on until women win equality everywhere. I hope during my lifetime I can watch conservative denominations, including Catholicism, eat crow and ordain women for clergy. Male leaders will say they heard from God that this is the right thing to do. So far, several have heard from God that only men shall be clergy. They need to improve their "discernment." It's amusing to see all the reasons men use to justify withholding high positions for women. Jesus had only men as disciples, I have heard. Or, women are designed to have b

Our narratives about where we came from, what we believe and how we got here are often buried by new information. Even the new information that comes along leaves big questions. A wonderful small bit of information was recently removed from an ancient shipwreck. What was aboard the ship gives us a window into history not available elsewhere and shoves aside some long-standing historical narratives.  One of the narratives tells us that the stone age was placed by the bronze age which was replaced by the iron age. It turns out stone was more useful than bronze and iron for certain applications. Bronze continued to be used for many purposed after steel became available.  The Broze Age is said to have existed from roughly 3,000 to 1,000 BCE. After that until the present is the Iron Age. The shipwreck was from about 2,000 BCE, toward the end of the Bronze Age. It contained lots of tin and other metals. It is clear it had been to several ports to offload commodities needed at each one and ta

Higher education has always had competition among its institutions. For many decades, however, there was a big flow of graduating high school students who a.) thought college was the only option for them and b.) had parents or some other means to pay the cost.  Now, both of these variables are sinking for various reasons and colleges are scrambling to operate in this new situation. Smaller private places, including Christian, are faced with more headwinds than public ones because interest in religion is wanning. Administrators have to walk a tight rope between the changing secular values and the "old time religion" of their donors, parents and some faculty. The link focuses on the Christian institution Wheaton College in Chicago. Students today come there with less understanding of the basic theology. Their primary interest is in getting a job after graduation. They don't take courses in the liberal arts college so enrollment there, including religion, is falling. Those d

In the past few years, religious conservatives have had a cow over public libraries inviting drag queens to read stories to children. These events were selected by library staff. No doubt they had discussions about it and heard views from the public. Parents who brought their children chose to do so. If no children/parents showed up the problem would quickly end. Having those involved, libraries and parents, has not been good enough for these religious people. They feel it their duty to decide what is good and bad for other people. In Iran, religious zealots harass men and women for how the dress. A version of this goes on in this country. There were three prominent stories about the decline of Christianity in the U.S. All the stories repeated what we have discussed here many times. What is note able is that the link story about wringing hands over drag queens reading stories in library appeared today also. It illustrates how out of sync conservative Christianity is with the majority o