Thoughts of a Freethinker

If it can come to a small place like Plains, Georgia, maybe it can come anywhere. Enlighted thinking is infiltrating the South. This church disaffiliated from the Southern Baptist Convention. Now it has stuck its finger in the eye of the SBC by the unthinkable, a woman as pastor. This woman sounds like an interesting preacher. She has been divorced and now is raising two children. I wonder if she lives in Plains. My wife and I spent most of a day in Plains several years ago. It is not a prosperous place, several boarded up stores. Driving around it is clear there is a part of town that is mostly where black people live and another where they mostly do not. There seems to be only one tiny restaurant where food was served in the kind of self serve hot pots we use in our own kitchens. There were no servers, a lady who seemed in charge walked around and looked at your plate and gave you a bill. There was several antique stores and Carter souvenir shops. When I saw the Carter administration

Understandably, churches are experimenting with new ways of persuading people to attend. One is to shorten the church service. As a preacher in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod recently in his podcast, the Bible does not say what is to be included in a service, in what order or for how long. I'm sure every reader has his/her own opinions about church services. Way back, we had a close friend who had, at age 50, gone back to college and become a Lutheran minister. After she returned to our neighborhood we would ask her what it is like to be a preacher and her stories were fascinating. I remember mentioning we did not like a new practice at the time in our downtown Presbyterian church where the minister would stop the service and say, "Now, everyone greet your neighbor." People would shake hands with those around them and mumble something. I always wondered if everyone washed their hands. We told our friend the preacher we felt guilty not wanting to do this. "Don'

For as long as I can remember, I have read that people with religious convictions have better mental health, better careers, fewer divorces, fewer suicides and so on. The link says therapists should get religion, convert patients and make patients mentally healthy. The link concludes more religious therapists is an answer to today's growing mental health problem. Today, the percentage of people in the U.S. who identify as atheist, agnostic or no religious affiliation is approaching 50%. In Europe it past 50% a few years ago. Of those who remain religious, some are of different religions. This raises the question, can people "choose" to be religious? If people "choose" to be religious, what religion are they to choose? Further, do we have any data that says people who were not religious but found religion have lower suicide rates? A hypothetical example of the problem is this. If you are a Christian and data showed you would be happier and have better mental heal

As the Trump trial focuses on whether or not he used a condom when cheating on his wife, there are those who long for a return to the way politics used to be." The link refers to modernity as a "shipwreck." Then the author goes on to talk about what he remembers as the past U.S. and what was good about it. We can't think about "who we were" versus "who we are" without thinking about winners and losers. Who we were included slavery and segregation. There is a conventional wisdom that the impulses to put Christianity into government were good ones but the past version put limits on how far this point was pushed. Reading books about the time of slavery makes me wonder whether there ever was a U.S. where there was a limit on how far Christianity can be drilled down into government and whether there exists any such limit now. The last two large books I've read about the time of slavery were by authors who searched every source available for news

One of my interests lately has been people who leave what we commonly call "religious cults." That term does not necessarily have a universal definition but using it describes behavior that is extreme. A young man who, with his wife, left the cult with no name, often referred to as "2 X 2", now interviews other people who have left controlling cults. His own former cult, "2x2", is hard to explain because it is so very different from anything we normally encounter in Christianity. But he is now interviewing some former members of a group we all know of, the Amish.  Within the last few days, he has posted two long interviews with a young couple who have been shunned by their Amish group in Northern Missouri. The couple explained the inside of life within their Amish group. They have a store which is patronized by tourists and local non Amish so they are remaining in the same house and community where they are under a sentence of shunning. Their former Amish

One of the peculiar things that has happened since Roe was overturned is states trying to stop women from leaving an anti abortion state for abortions. Texas has a vigilante law giving citizens a bounty for turning in women. Other states like Alabama have been passing laws requiring their own law enforcement to apprehend women and doctors. I could not understand why few were pointing to the commercial implications of banning the rights of people in one state to travel to any other state. The Republican Attorney General of Alabama is trying to ignore the legal rights to do business across state lines and claim women to make appointments for abortions then travel out of state to obtain them are engaged in a "conspiracy" to break Alabama laws. He has charged a woman and her doctor.  I'm reminded of the history that eventually brought about our Constitution. As I recall, when what is now the U.S. was a group of colonies a problem came along about commerce between businesses i

There are lots of views about "nones", those who answer the question "What is your religion?" with, "none." Christian political operatives like to say, "These are people struggling with their faith. They are Christians but will not admit it." I heard a former President of American Atheists say at a convention I attended, "The nones are all ours. If not ours whose are they?" The percentage of people who identify as nones is growing rapidly. Questionnaire results, however, do not show a large increase in those who self-identify as atheists. Sociologists in the link tried to figure out why atheists polled so much lower than nones. We have to remember that studying religion is studying the culture and the culture is changing constantly. It always has so we would assume it will in the future as well. Thus, study of peoples' religious beliefs will be changing constantly in the future.  It turns out far more people say they do not believe

Countless times a theme is repeated in comments here and articles by Christian pundits. It goes something like this, "Atheism has no purpose. It has no values. It has no future." These have a grain of truth, atheism is not telling people about the future or guaranteeing anything. If it has a message it is enjoy your life. Within denominations there is a claim they will find their way forward. But it will be necessary to change in certain ways. These changes seem impossible. That is why the message in Christian denominations seems bleaker than the "message" of atheism.  Even though in my long life there have been several tension-filled times when the future was unclear, the Vietnam War being one, today's world is perhaps more exciting and interesting than any other. It is made even more interesting because I am retired and the internet allows one to poke inside institutions to see what is going on. For example, inside the Catholic church there are priests pointin

To an outsider, it seems like the same thing is happening across the Christian landscape in all denominations. One faction of the faith is becoming more conservative, made up mostly of older members and distancing itself from others. Liberal factions, like the Methodist church, charge ahead reflecting modern views and a sort of "suburban" set of young parents who are church goers. This probably applies to the huge Catholic denomination but its size and hidden statistics make it difficult to sort out what is happening. Prominent Catholic columnist Ross Douthat is also trying to figure all this out. He notes that Pope Francis' efforts to broaden the denomination's appeal has not stopped the decline in numbers. Francis has not been successful either in eliminating the desire of some factions to worship the fetus and hold Latin mass. Thus, Douthat concludes, both the conservative and liberal factions will continue on even after Francis is gone. Even if conservatives are a

I've been sparring with on-line comments about abortion for over a decade and several arguments to justify anti abortion have been run up the flagpole. All readers have heard the one which claims each fetus has "unique DNA." After it was pointed out the sperm cells from the same man and eggs from the same woman differ it was hard to continue arguing the DNA thingy. Before that were "unique fingerprints" and so on. None of these held water. Apparently, Force Birth "big thinkers" realized they needed to make a claim that was not testable and thus could not be refuted. Someone came up with "you can prove the fetus is a human being by using philosophy." Somewhere, apparently, is a person or two who went through a series of assumptions and came up with the conclusion the fetus is a "human being." I've asked but not received the sources.  One of my critics on this blog sited a young professor of philosophy in a small college who made

I have suggested here many times, somewhat with togue in cheek, that Sunday School lessons include a factual history of Christianity. This could include other great faiths like Hinduism and Islam. This history would include that there have been hundreds, probably thousands, of religions in human history. All of the previous ones died. The gods people worshipped in these dead religions died when that set of believers died off. One fact of life that must have been true of all the dead religions is that their death, and the death of their gods, happened after they ran out of money. That is not to say believers or their shamans were out only for money, but money is and always has been necessary to keep gods alive. I have never read a better summary of the marketplace for religion than this one. The academic discipline called economics dates to 1776 when the book, The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith was published. Smith spent considerable time discussing the economics of Christianity. Smit

When I was a student, I recall a female student from the deep South wondering if Democrats knew that by supporting integration of schools and universities they were going to lose all the Southern states? She was right about losing those states. Since then, both Democrats and Republicans have done OK at times. Right now, Democrats seem to have the edge. They stayed competitive by being champions of change instead of refusing to change. As a Democrat, I hope the party is still on a winning path by refusing to pander to religions.  Neither of the parties has much control over how its members think. Information and cultural ideas keep churning and changing the political landscape. I can't say I understand how it happened, but somehow Democrats ended up with more voters with a long view of our society and Republicans ended up with more of the short view people. When the Southern young woman predicted Democrats would lose the South, both the Democrats leaders, Kennedy followed by Johnson

The Arizona Supreme Court had upheld its legality. Forced birth advocate had cheered. Now their cheering has ended. The old 1964 law has been tossed into the dust bin of history. It was a law which all but banned abortions. Carri Lake of Arizona, a fire brand anti-abortion Trump endorsing Republican, recently lightened up on her anti-abortion position. Abortion rights is walking across the deserts of Arizona.  One of the entertaining parts of the Forced Birth political groups is its newly acquired reservations about allowing states to determine abortion rights. Now commenters try to appear thoughtful and say things like, "Gosh, we were all for overturning Roe. But we really need to think about whether states should be allowed to grant abortion rights...."  Forced Birth has always been outright stupid about politics. They keep on insisting abortion prohibitions should be passed by governments. Once they wanted states to prohibit, now they want the Federal Government to prohibi

A little history of corruption in the Catholic Church. Some years ago, Tim Dolan was the Bishop of Milwaukee. The diocese was hit with a huge bill for damages by molesting priests. Rather than sell off assets to pay the victims for the harm the diocese had inflicted on them, Dolan thought it would be clever to turn the Diocese's assets to a board that still oversees about six Catholic cemeteries. The board had not asked to the money. Eventually, courts saw through the shame and stopped Dolan. In the meantime, Dolan's clever manipulation reached Pope Benedict. Benedict himself was accused of hiding abuse by priests. Benedict was so pleased with Dolan's tricks he promoted Dolan to the prize diocese in the U.S., New York City.  The New York diocese, like many others, had a murky history. Former Bishops had received reports of priest who were child molesters but, instead of turning them over to law enforcement, had moved them around hoping they remained hidden. Then the dam bro

If you believe Forced Birth is about "babies" you need to realize you are wrong. It is about controlling women. A right-wing religious podcast recently featured a religious leader saying "...put her down."  An interesting and rather unexpected twist in the explosion of the internet is the ability of whacko pundits to publish their views. The issue of women in the abortion decision was carefully controlled for decades. Both the Catholic and Right-Wing Protestant leaders declared a moratorium on saying the woman was responsible. The accepted version placed full blame on an obscure entity, "the abortion industry." I still see "the abortion industry" used as the villain but in these modern times it is impossible to control what is published. "Dig a hole..." can get the same number of readers as "the abortion industry."  Those original leaders who thought they could get away with calling the villain "the abortion industry"

Actors, athletes and politicians often stand before cameras and carry on about their god and their book, the Bible. It is unusual for any celebrity to use an interview, especially on a conservative site, to bash the foolishness of religion and highlight all the problems it has caused. Scottish actor Brian Cox was interviewed on a podcast call "The Starting Line." He said religion has sold humans a false story and contributed to their stupidity. Religion is contributing to events which could bring an end to humans being able to live on earth. The examples he gave are well known. Religion is at the heart of the killing going on in Gaza and Ukraine. It is deep in the college campus conflicts. How could anyone believe, as was widely believed after World War II, God had given the land now called Israel to the Jews. There is plenty of evidence Jews have lived in the area now called Israel continually since recorded history, but, apparently, so have Arab people of various religions