Thoughts of a Freethinker

Former President Trump grabbed this opportunity to play to the religious right. He noticed today, Easter Sunday, fell on the day that for several years has been Trans Visibility Day. Trump's chorus of empty heads joined in criticizing Biden.  Every week there is a murder of a trans person. This is a verifiable fact. There has never been verification there was a Jesus or that the Jesus character in the Christian narrative died on a particular day. Easter is a good marketing day for Christianity. Those in the faith probably feel they need to protect its popularity.  What we can celebrate today is that we have a President, Biden, who is unafraid of the religious right. He carries out his duties as if the religious right does not exist. While we know it exists, the less attention paid the better.  Trump cannot stop parents from taking their children to see the Easter Bunny nor search for colored eggs. The important part of Easter goes onl

The head preacher of a church that has several locations says he does not want to be off putting or make nonmembers feel like outsiders. So, in Easter advertisements he leaves out the bloody and magical stuff.  In what has become comical, the internet lit up with outrage. Many shouted Easter is about sin, blood, death and a magical resurrection. How can you have Easter without the gruesome stuff? The head preacher published a statement assuring everyone the story will be told in their Easter services.  It's smart to market Easter as about dressing up, bunnies, baby chickens and colorful eggs. At its roots, that is before Christianity, spring was a time of optimism. Its roots were not dead people hanging from poles. Today's Christianity is driven by the capitalistic market. If those who buy the product, people in the pews, want Easter to be about colorful eggs and bunnies instead of murdering people, it's going to be about the former. Year after year, I read Christian pundit

While no one will claim to be a source for this, word about DC is that anyone who works for the Republican National Committee and applies for a job there must say he/she believes the 2020 election of Joe Biden was a fraud. I wonder if the RNC woman dumped by Trump agreed to this or refused? This plays precisely into the hands of Liz Chaney. Chaney gave a talk a few blocks from where I live here in Des Moines, IA. News accounts say there was a big crowd. Apparently, she is touring to promote her new book.  Chaney's message is aimed at Republicans. It is genius. She says, "Joe Biden is terrible. But we can survive four years of him. Trump is throwing out the Constitution. He is worse than Biden. You must not vote for Trump." That Trump and his appointees continue to say the 2020 election actually elected him makes the case Trump and his cabal are a group separate from U.S. society. If Joe Biden forgets some things, his weaknesses are manageable. Whatever problems they cause

I remember as a graduate student another student from the deep south saying, "Don't Democrats understand they will lose the entire South?" She was referring to Democrats at the time, including JFK and Lyndon Johnson, who were forcing nation-wide integration on a resistant South. As the young woman predicted, Democrats have been losing the South ever since integration.  The Republicans, however, have had to swallow a poison pill to hold the South. That pill is a total ban on abortions. Could it be the proper question for Republicans hanging on to anti-abortion for dear life is "Don't Republicans understand they will lose the entire South?"   While, of course, one small election does not mean widespread change it certainly is something new to wonder about. An open seat in the Alabama legislature was just won by a woman who campaigned almost exclusively on abortion rights. She, herself, had an abortion earlier in her life.  The ironies about Forced Birth politi

Polls and surveys seem like a growth industry. There is more news about them each year. I get calls regularly wanting me to answer polling questions. I mostly hang up because they often turn into campaign calls. I have done surveys myself and know some about random sampling. How, I have wondered, do researchers today get random samples when people do not pick up calls or, like me, do not answer? Every month a new poll is published saying there is an increase in the number of "Nones", those who claim no particular religious affiliation. There is a category called "agnostic" which usually means one thinks there is an invisible being of some kind but does not claim it is one or some other. I don't understand the difference between a None and an agnostic.  A further question is whether an agnostic thinks there is evidence of some unknown being or whether there is none but simply "believes" there is such a supernatural being. The atheist, if I dare speak f

The internet is alive with speculation on Supreme Court Justices' comments to the anti-abortion lawyers. It could be the conservative members wanted to help anti-abortion, but the anti-abortion case was so far-fetched court watchers thought the judges wanted to toss them out. Of course, with this whacko Supreme Court majority even the most absurd religious right case may be a winner. From what I could gather, the argument from some Forced Birth doctors went like this: "We Forced Birth doctors do not want to find ourselves in a situation where a woman arrives next to death and we are forced to do an abortion that is against our religion. This situation could happen through widespread use of the drug that causes abortions, mifepristone. It is being used at home by millions of women. While it is used almost completely without problems, some problem could come up. If a problem came up, a woman might be sent to one of us. If we had to save the woman's life by doing an abortion

There is still a significant part of the Forced Birth group who thinks the way to stop abortions is by prosecuting women who get them. Their view is that Christians who do not want to prosecute women, and, of course, all employees to abortion clinics, simply do not take "sin" seriously. If all Christian took sin seriously laws would be passed penalizing, and thereby stopping, sin. The link quotes a good summary of how the pregnant woman seeking an abortion sees herself and her circumstances. She is not someone sitting around lamenting her pregnancy and feeling sad and guilty. Instead, she is like a trapped animal, pacing and looking for an escape. She sees herself as having no alternative but to escape and will keep pacing and looking until she finds one. I will say this for those who want to prosecute women who seek or get abortions, they recognize where the decision lies. It is ridiculous to prosecute abortion providers.  Even though this group of Forced Birthers recognizes

Who would have thought Kari Lake, one of the most conservative politicians, would advocate going relatively deep into the pregnancy to allow abortions. This is her new position. Suddenly she is talking about giving women opportunities in life. Oh yeah, times have changed. Another way Forced Birth has tried to change is to divert the argument away from religion. Of course, this has been done for decades but today the need is urgent. In this link the attempt is to talk graphically about how the fetus is removed. But it doesn't help because the same argument is being made, "Abortion violates my religious beliefs. One has to be quite old, as I am, to remember Ronald Reagan. He skillfully stole the moral argument from liberals and used it to argue for less government and lower taxes. Liberals had held the moral high ground for some decades, arguing that make the poor poorer and the rich richer was a moral issue. Along can the rascal Reagan and said, "No, the moral issue is gov

Forced Birthers came up with an idea they thought very clever, stop using the term "human being" to describe the embryo and replace the phrase with the word, "personhood." In Louisianna the legislature then assigned all rights available to a human being to the embryo. As is usually the case, the definition assigned the word "personhood" by the Forced Birth Community is not universally accepted. Its use is simply more smoke and mirrors.  By deciding the fetus is not part of the woman's body, Forced Birth has ruled out the woman as an important player in a pregnancy. She is just a bit player among the really important parties, the man who impregnated her and the fetus itself. Men must decide what happens to this part of a woman's body. Whatever happens needs to be in the fetus's interests. The interests of the woman do not exist.  Over and over Forced Birth operatives are asked to strike a deal so that both pregnant women and the Forced Birth Com

"If we can get Roe overturned it will be all downhill. We'll make one state at a time Forced Birth. Eventually we will have all 50 states. Overturning Roe will start the ball rolling." Now, discussion is about how to keep from losing all control over abortion.    Forced Birth fans should reminisce about past days when they were influential enough to pass laws in state legislatures that harassed women getting abortions. Even though the laws had nothing whatsoever to do with women's health, state legislatures passed laws requiring women look at ultra sounds and slide presentations that included false information. These went to the Supreme Court and were upheld. Forced Birth was more powerful then. Today when women are forcing public votes on abortion rights Forced Birth spends lots of money then is defeated.    Trump mentioned the other day that a ban on abortions after 15 weeks seemed about right. It was treated as an ad lib or off the cuff remark. Forced Birth operati

Some years ago I walked through a park in Savana, GA. I came across a monument to fallen Confederate Civil War soldiers at that site. The narrative on the plaque went into the unjustness of the Union army which had defeated the Confederates that day and, of course, defeated them in the larger Civil War. The Northern soldiers with their better training and superior fire power unfairly killed the Confederate heroes, the plaque said. Like Nikki Haley, it failed to mention the Civil War was about slavery.  Trump plays the lost cause mythmaking at every stop. He supports the criminals who are in prison for attacking the Capitol. In his myth the criminals were heroes fighting for some grievance, not common criminals breaking the law. It's a myth-making narrative much like the post Civil War Southern one that continues to this day.  Lost cause mythmaking has become part the anti-abortion narrative as well. A letter to the editor in the Fargo (ND) Forum complained rather bitterly about a r

A child insisted she is a female. Because of their Catholic beliefs, her parents insisted on treating her as a boy. Social officials removed her from the parents' home. Lower courts refused to overturn the decision. Now the Supreme Court has refused to consider the case.  She will continue her life as a girl but not in her parents' home.  I think we'd all agree removing children because of a determination they will be better off somewhere else is fraught with difficulty. Sometimes there is evidence of beating and starvation, rather easy cases to decide. When it involves mental cruelty or religious indoctrination it is not so clear.  One thing about self-determined gender, however, is that it is not new. Probably humans have self-identified as a different gender than they were assigned by birth since the beginning of humans. The first time I read about is was almost 50 years ago when a well-known academic economist changed from male to female. There are thousands of such peo

There are wealthy right-wing Catholics who are replacing, or trying to replace, the Pope as the voice of the denomination. These self-righteous fat cats own news outlets, hold their own conferences where issues are articulated and claim to hold the most legitimate Catholic view. One of these is the now defrocked head of "Priests for Life," Frank Pavone. I can't begin to unravel all the organizations who function under the brand of the Catholic denomination. Some of these, like Priests for Life, are outside the church umbrella with their own source of funding. There are countless Jesuit and Sisters groups that seem to have their own funding and causes but fall more under the denomination's umbrella.  The groups I think have the most influence are ones with lots of money but are outside church authority. I would guess that at this moment there are full time employees of these groups traveling the world talking to Cardinals. They have in mind certain individuals they wan

A study in Canada showed girls who are pregnant under 16 years old are in danger if forced, or chooses, to give birth. The death rate of girls under sixteen up to the age of 31 who give birth is twice that of other girls in that age group. This piece of information reinforces what has been said here and elsewhere repeatedly, saving fetus causes some deaths. Saving fetuses is not "prolife," it is choosing who lives and who dies. In the Forced Birth world, the fetus is the one always chosen to live. The woman not. The study does not attribute all deaths of girls under 16 to complications from pregnancy. Some deaths happen because of socio/economic circumstances caused or contributed to by the pregnancy. These factors contribute to the deaths of women who are older as well. The healthcare and support of women is of no concern to the Forced Birth community. Wait, I forgot, they will pray for all pregnant women . One of the most common cause of these deaths is injury, both self-i

When Kamala Harris was campaigning in Iowa to become the Democrats' Presidential Candidate, I wondered why she could not seem to say, "I'm running to be President because..." I recall a long article in The New Yorker where she admitted explaining who she is and why she was running was her weakness. My experience is that some people, both politicians and voters, simply do not think and then speak in a linear way. Harris seems like a person like that. My hope was that she would develop into a clear thinking and clear speaking politician. The abortion issue seems to be the vehicle she needed to present herself to the public. I like it that she has set off outrage from the right. This outrage will define her better than she has been able to define herself. Abortion has been a gift to Democrats and Harris that just keeps on giving. We all know outrage is heaped on Harris by Republicans. Outrage is heaped on Trump by Democrats. Trump is still there. My prediction is that Ha

Just three or four years ago, the Bible Society of America sold a building in NYC for $300 million. Its thinking was that Philadelphia had better imagery for linking patriotism to the Bible. It spent $60 million and hired staff to open a state-of-the-art museum. It turned out visitor numbers were but a fraction of that projected and the place hemorrhaged losses. It has now closed . There must have been lots of prayers for the museum's success. Certainly, there were no prayers for failure because atheists don't pray. When people drop in the phrase, "Everything happens for a reason," what might be the reason traffic at the museum was too low to keep it open? There was a study before the museum was built projecting visitors and revenues. I'm wondering if those who did the study looked at the many studies I look at which say fewer and fewer people read the Bible. Interest in the Bible has been falling for years. Wouldn't it be logical to apply this fact to prospec

If there were a way to plot the likeability or appeal of the term "Evangelical," I'm sure it would show a constant decline for the last several years. It has become associated with the words, "cruel," "mean" and intrusive/invasive. A recent book by a celebrity news personality reviews her journey out of evangelical world.  I watched a video that addressed the question, "How can we Lutherans get people to attend church?" The answer had nothing to do with theology. That is, the old con job which said there is heaven, hell, sin and redemption and the only way to win. The video from a declining branch of Lutheranism was an interview with a young man located not far from where I now live in Iowa. He had done a survey, not of people who attend church to find out what they liked, but of people who had stopped attending church. He drilled down into why they had stopped attending. The large answer he found sounded like a class in economics. A large gr

There is at least one ex Cardinal, or someone who claims to be an ex Cardinal, writing anonymous scathing reviews of Pope Francis. The criticisms are that the Pope is not enforcing to old rules about gay marriage, abortion, birth control, divorced couples and so on. In reality, the Catholic Church, like all of Christianity, is on the decline. Neither mad ex Cardinals nor Popes can stop it. There are so many polls being conducted about Christians and non Christians. There is a question I would like asked of Christians, especially its celebrities and leaders. The question addresses what I believe to be true, that the more controlling is Christianity the more its membership falls. So, the question is, "Is exercising control over members more important than maintaining membership numbers?" Obviously, a large percentage of Christian leaders would answer YES. Within the laity there are also many YES people. Control of others is an appealing part of being a Christian to many. It als

When I was a boy on the farm I imagined another life, one where I dressed in a suit and went to an office. There was everyday for 15 minutes on the radio what we would now call an inspirational thinker or philosopher. His talks were not about religion but about being happy and successful. One talk started out, "Today I'm going to tell you the secret to success, to having and achieving what you want in your life." After stringing out the intro for several minutes to fill the 15 minutes and drawing in my interest he revealed the secret. It was, "You are what you think about." The word in religion, manifesting , has so it seems to me something in common with this.  When a college student I signed on to sell pots and pans door to door. There I learned about what is called in higher levels of thinking, manifesting. It is to will yourself, your mind and brain, to think of only one goal and push aside all other interests or responsibilities. There were other sales peop

The Sin of the Week in Christianity changes so often it's a little hard to keep up. It seems like just yesterday the most grave of sins was same-sex marriage. It's still not approved of by some branches but it has fallen out of favor as a favorite issue to bash others with. Now the Pope says priests can bless gay individuals about to be married.  What has taken its place on the Sin Leader Board is trans. Conservative preachers/priests cannot talk enough about that sin. States are passing laws against trans. I remember some years ago watching the conservative Catholic--can't remember just now what it is called--during a discussion of when the Catholic Church had been wrong. One of the famous cases was its belief that the sun travels around the world instead of the opposite. The was challenged by the famous Galileo. The Catholic TV personality said, "Just because the church has been wrong in the past does not mean it is wrong today." That is correct but in evaluatin

When I first started this blog about ten years ago, I mentioned in passing that there were as many abortions before they were legalized as there have been since in Roe legalized abortion across the U. S. I had read and heard this so many times I assumed everyone else know this to be the case. Did I ever get an ear full. "That's false propaganda from the 'abortion industry'" many wrote on the comment page. Eventually, I figured out that force birth propagandists, including the Catholic Church, have been peddling the notion for years there were only a handful of abortions each year in the U.S. There were also a handful of prosecutions, many half a dozen across the entire U.S. per year. The forced birth propagandists claimed the only abortions that happened were detected and prosecuted. The facts are otherwise.  Across the U.S. are hospital archives with records of many thousands of young women admitted for reproductive organ infections. No reputable researcher attri

While it is not important to know precisely how life came to be on planet earth, it is important to know how the difference between the plausible and the implausible. Random events among forces we know existed is plausible. Miracles and imaginary gods are not. That's why it is most interesting to read about theories that involves forces that, so far as anyone can tell, existed those many millions of years ago. I'm not a scientist, but experience in the kitchen, the college lab and my workshops convinced me the intense heat causes reactions that change things from what they were to something different. Theories have been around for a long time about the minerals and elements that existed before life on the planet earth and how, if high heat had been applied to them could have triggered reactions that eventually became something alive. The link article suggests the source of the necessary heat could well have come from the center of the earth where is now exists. Cracks or fissur

The wonderful invention of You Tube makes available such a variety of people doing things and talking about their views. Recently, a preacher from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod was holding forth about his pet peeve. It was those who believe each person has his/her own god. "That is so wrong," he said. That denomination's numbers are plummeting. This is the logical outcome of being out of synch with, not only current U.S. thinking, a good share of the U.S. population since white people arrived and chased out the people who were here. Reading my growing shelf of history books I've been surprised at the popularity of secular thought in the U.S. at least since the middle 1700's. One historian scoured newspapers for meetings of secular groups between 1750 and 1800. These groups were more common then than they are today. Just now I'm reading a new book, American Visions. It is about the variety of groups which formed and debated religion and politics between 18

The evidence keeps rolling in that anti-abortion will kill Donald Trump and help Democrats win a few seats in the upcoming election. Trump got into a poker game where card sharks knew how to count cards and he did not. For decades Republican forced-birth operatives played a game with forced birth voters and mostly won. The game was for politicians to say, "Elect me for just one more term and I'll see to it Roe is overturned. One more term and there will be no more abortions." Anti abortion groups like "Priests for life" etc. told something similar, "Open your hearts for the babies as well as your pocketbooks. We are close to overturning Roe. There will be no more abortions." Neither the politicians nor the forced-birth groups really wanted nor intended to overturn Roe. Both took in money with tiny gains like forcing young women to look at ultra sounds, etc. They both knew that if Roe was overturned the gravy train would be over. The politicians, of cou

In recorded history, Rome was Pagan until the relatively recent invasion of the Catholic Church. From what I'm reading, the Pagan roots run deep in Rome and the Catholic Church is not very popular. Catholic participation in Italy is in freefall. It went from 36% in 2012 to 19% in 2022. The percentage of people who poll "never practice" religion is at a record high of 36%. Someone reported that in a closed door meeting this past January Pope Francis said, "Rome is Pagan." The link is about ex Catholics that now enjoy Pagan rituals.  Whenever I see coverage of a Pope talking from the balcony in the Vatican there are always big crowds below. My impression has been these were mostly local admirers from nearby in Rome. After reading these numbers I have come to think those who stand to hear a Pope are mostly tourists and most of them are from the gullible U.S. Does anyone else think it peculiar that at the mother lode of Catholic propaganda, where "the truth&quo

One profession which must be at the cutting edge of change in religion has to be the college chaplain. We can all remember when there was one chaplain for each of the major denominations. As time passed there were fewer of them and Protestant denominations combined into one chaplain. As this chaplain explains, about half of students entering college today mark the box for "none", no religion. They do come to the chaplain, however, to ask interesting questions like, "What is a Chaplain?" The link explains today's students likely did not grow up in families where the tenets of Christianity were not practiced or even discussed. To them, Christianity is a foreign religion, believed by people who live somewhere else. I gather from the link the Chaplain answers questions as best he can.  He related that a student had recently dropped by to tell him of a conference she had attended in another state that discussed the relationship between psychedelics and religion. We k

Much to the chagrin of "The Old Time Religion" groups, Christianity is becoming understood differently than in the past. Since I'm not in the Old Time Religion group, I'm left to paraphrase what it is about. Using author Stephen Prothero , God is not One,  Christianity at its core is about SIN. Yes, to some it is about the forgiveness of sin but even this starts with sin. Then there are details like the virgin birth, resurrection, trinity, Mary, etc etc. While there is writing and commentary on You Tube almost daily by Christians trying to outthink the decline in Christian numbers and influence, few capture what is happening. At least what is happening as it appears to me. Recently there appeared a good summary of how younger people still in the faith see the faith. Even as The Old Time Religion group dies off, there is a chance to celebrate those who carry on. The problem is they have a different, and it is considered alarming, idea of what the faith is about. They d

If the Catholic Church would tone down its claim about being a "moral authority" and just admit it is another business trying to survive in the competitive capitalistic world this would help offset its failings. Of course, it cannot do this because it exists to make claims about its superiority. Within its huge number of employees are the normal number of gays and trans. What's different is that God is supposed to choose those men. Why would God choose men to condemn homosexuality as sin when they, themselves , are practicing homosexuals?  The link is about a conservative religious publication that was just shut down. Several years ago its main priest was found to be a practicing gay man. He "renounced" his attraction to men and became a railing anti-gay priest. This is a pattern repeated in both the conservative branches of Catholicism and Protestantism. Especially in Protestantism we have religious "treatment" places. What records there are show they

This must be one of the biggest questions in all of Christianity. Countless atheists say there can be no being with the characteristics of Jesus or God, all powerful and all loving, if the being allows billions to suffer. Every devout Christian will have an answer, many similar to the famous preacher who provided  his  recently.  The link author, a preacher, lost an adult child. He felt angry at times that Jesus had allowed him to suffer this misery. Then came the usual "understanding": Jesus was there to help him with his grief. That is the canned Christian answer to why Jesus allows tragedy, he is there is help in the aftermath. If you believe this nonsense you are being taken for your time and money. Here's why. Both atheists and Christians have tragedies, as well as Buddhists, Hindus and Pagans. Do Christians get through these tragedies but the others do not? They all deal with the tragedies. The ones with made up spiritual beings use them, the ones without just get

I've been to Buddhist countries but I can't say I know much about it. Like all belief systems, it seems to have good in it offset by dark sides. There is wisdom offset by control. I find the part of it that is supposed to help replace misery with happiness a little helpful. That is to say, part of it agrees with what I thought before I read about it so that causes me to conclude it's smart stuff.  We don't really know it there was a Buddha or have any of his original writing. There is no first-hand testimony of what he said. This is the same history we have of Jesus, really none. Supposedly, Buddha lived in Northern India roughly 500 BCE. What we have, then, is a cultural history. That is, we have what people in the culture that admired Buddha thought then and what they think today.  One can read the link and learn the author's summary of ideas from the Buddha. I read the article but didn't find it as helpful as other things I've read about Buddhism. I suppo

The Hunter Biden hearing was publicized as BIG. It was going lay bare all manner of illegal things done by Hunter and Joe Biden. The old timers, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said Republicans did not have an impeachable case. Endless requests by the press for facts never brought anything important forward. Even though Hunter gives the general impression of one who is not in control of his personal life, drugs, alcohol and divorce, he seems now to be a person of some considerable ability. The national press concluded he got the best of the House ultra conservatives.  House conservatives don't seem to realize they will face ultimately a comparison between the Biden family's alleged corruption and that of the Trump family. It seemed to me Hunter let them off easy, but he did not let them off. In the NY Times review of the transcript when Republican Committee members drilled down on appointments and payments Hunter received when his father was a VP, Hunter asked why they had no problem w