Thoughts of a Freethinker

The question of how or where the first life appeared on earth is weaponized by religious people around the world. In the U.S. Christianity most often weaponizes this question. I saw a piece recently which claimed "Christianity is growing because atheists cannot explain where the first life came from. It proves the Bible is right that God created life. " It is not true that "Christianity is growing." It is true that up until recently there has not been a clear or agreed upon explanation as to how what we think of as life was created in the universe. Richard Dawkins, a scientists and atheist author, has said repeatedly we will have an explanation about how the first life formed sooner than most people expect. A theory about how the first life may have come to be has now appeared in academic literature. An interesting side note is that amino acids have been found on debris from other planets. Since all the elements needed for life were present before life appeared, the...

An interesting exchange of ideas is going on in Christianity. Perhaps it is more accurate to say it has always gone on. One side says Christians should adapt to cultural change and fit in. The other is  Christians should be a group separate from the culture, sticking to their beliefs and not conforming. The link returns to the time when much of the world was Pagan. It argues that Christianity, it was not called "Christianity" in the early centuries, was viewed as radical because of its kindness and generosity. While the Pagan were sacrificing animals to their various gods, Christians were being generous and sharing with the poor. Apparently, that radical behavior gained followers. What do today's Christians think about tolerance and generosity? Would their views be so kind and tolerant they would be seen by the non Christian part of society as radically kind like it is claimed to have been the case back around 200 CE?  It seems to me today's Christianity trends heavil...

I've spent a few minutes of my life watching the conference of Catholic Bishop conduct their "business." They speak their own language. It is full of religious terms lay people do not use. They are so full of themselves they have left their flocks far behind. The link , an independent site that discusses the Catholic Church, explains the bad deal U.S. Bishops made with conservative politicians. They gave their soul to the Republican Party. Now the Republican Party is doing what political parties do, trying to survive. It cares not one twit what the Catholic Bishops want or think. Are Catholic Bishops going to advise the faithful to vote for abortion rights Democrats? They have painted themselves into a corner. In the link is mention of big payments to other anti-abortion groups. Many of these groups, the link says, are headed by bosses who receive lavish salaries. The of imagery of the church helping the poor is set aside when politics calls. Discussed also in the link is...

A few years ago I attended the last service of the rural church I grew up in. I was not part of those in charge of closing or disposing of the building or property. Recently, a professor who studies the decline in church membership wrote about the closing of the church he pastored as a side job. A church owns lots of mundane items with emotional attachments, choir robes, hymnals, pulpit, etc. Several of these disposals take place every week in the U.S. Of course there is an emotional attachment to lots of church items and sending them to the local dump is a painful thought. I'm sure it happens often. When one compares the economics of a church to other small businesses, it has failure written all over it. The offices are used every work day but the rest of the building costs a bundle and is used little. The beloved sanctuary is the biggest drag on a church's bottom line. I suppose the concept of a sanctuary goes back to the Catholic church in the old countries. The hierarchy co...

When Republicans let down fervent Forced Birthers and anti-gays with a luke-warm platform, many of the Christian faithful were angry. One of those who considers herself an insider gave Christians encouragement to keep trying to push politicians into Christian positions. There is a small army of people who make their living working against abortion and the link author, Suzanne Bowdey, is one of them. She wants the resistance to abortion rights to continue because then she has something to write about. In site after site that calls abortion "murder" the same appeal is made, "Don't stop the fight. Join our organization. Send us money. We will keep up the fight with you. Don't forget, send money." But fight for what? Fight so that a few states keep strident no abortion rules. Is it a success and worth your donated money to have all the middle income and up women drive and fly out of state for their abortions while a few sad low-income women are trapped into givi...

While Trump's selection of JD Vance means Vance will campaign all out for Trump and attack Harris, this appointment raises interesting issue around Christianity. Vance is miles from the orthodox Christian right views of his former VP, Mike Pence. When it comes to personal views of traditional Christian orthodoxy the implied answer of Trump and Vance is, "...let's move on to a different topic." The link discusses Vance's peculiar fascination with Lord of the Rings and its influence on him. Lord of the Rings, of course, is about spiritual and imaginary beings who come to be identified and good and evil. Surely the story fits the ancient art of story telling from back before the written language. The Bible itself has such a story line. I'm speculating on the mind of JD Vance when I attribute to him an interpretation of current events. Participants fall into good and evil, the latter being Biden and now Kamala Harris. Vance does not seem to categorize good and evi...

The nation of New Zealand is reeling from an announcement that for many decades, children and the elderly who were placed in the care of church or government institutions were abused. It is thought to have been over 200,000 who were abused. Those abused have been trying to get recognition and justice for years.  Another report done earlier said that of all the children placed in the care of church denominations, 42% had been abused. The estimate is that 14% of priests were abusers. The Catholic Church has come under particular fire for the practice well known in the U.S. as well of moving abusing priests from one diocese to another. Those Bishops hiding abusers used psychiatrist's reports to justify putting priest back on the job in other locations. I recall several years ago chatting with Catholic friends about priest abuse of children and the underground method used by Bishops of moving abusers from one diocese to another. My friends assured me these priests had been cleared by p...

In the last several Presidential elections Democrats have won the majority of voters. Republicans sometimes win the Presidential election because of the electoral college. As we saw in 2020, however, Republicans cannot outrun the majority all the time. The bigger the majority, the harder to outrun it with electoral college votes. An interesting article in The Guardian  pointed out questions in about current polling showing Trump leading in the popular vote. It asked what could have changed since 2020 to give Trump a popular vote majority? There is no explanation. Without an explanation, it is logical to conclude the polling is incorrect. Then there are the demographic changes since 2020. Twelve million people died, mostly old and mostly Republicans voters. During this period 16 million young people were added to the voting rolls. A big majority are Democrats.  So what happened to the undecideds? It turns out they are very few of them. I've always thought they were in the neigh...

Rural to urban migration has been going on since countries were established and organized. A decline in Christianity, and mostly all other religions, has been like a dog following its master. Why is this? I'm sure the answer is not simple. The first explanation I heard as a graduate student was that rural people are farmers and depend on the weather. When weather was not understood as a science it was considered part of religion, God sent thunder when he was angry. Local shamans, preachers, told people they could help control the weather be praying. Since this was the only information available, farmers went to church and prayed. In cities, people made a living by being smart, controlling their world. "If I buy at one price and sell for a higher price I get to keep the margin. What's a god got to do with that?" might be a narrative of cities. Once in a while, there is an angle pitched by clergy or pundits that fits urbanization. A preacher in New York City, Tim Keller...

The Biden age issue is gone. Harris gives Republicans little to pick at. Except for one thing: Her outspoken support of abortion rights. This puts abortion in the cross hairs of the voters more than ever in our history. If Trump wins Forced Birth might gain a little traction in Supreme Court decisions. It might affect liberal states a bit. But if Harris wins, the message will be the Supreme Court is out of step with the public. Harris and liberal legislators, both state and national, will feel confident to go around the Court's decisions. One thing I was struck with during the past few months is the impact of television. I'm so old I can remember when television with introduced to politics. The big even was a debate between Nixon and Kennedy. I had no TV in my little rented room in Brooklyn but listened on the radio. I felt Nixon, with his deep voice and careful lawyerly use of words sounded better than Kennedy. But punditry said Kennedy was much better than Nixon on TV with hi...

With a cash crunch going on, one would think the Vatican would clamp down on absurd expenses. It is not. Though it says it will no longer spend as much money investigating Mary's face or Jesus in broken windows, it's still doing it.  Does every Catholic know they can buy a toaster that puts Mary's or Jesus's face on every piece of toast? While the old rule was all sitings like this had to be investigated we know this was not happening. Faces in toast, I am sure, were ignored. Yet, the broken windows, tree trunks and wherever else something like a face shows up there are apparently priests spending their time looking and reassuring. As was discussed here recently, there has been a hiring and salary freeze in the Vatican for a while. The revenue from the vast denomination assigned to the Vatican has been declining. One analyst said current revenue is only enough to fund about 20% of the Vatican and it is being held up by temporary means which will run out within a decade....

For decades the scenario of world population has been known quite well. World population will keep growing for several decades. Eventually it will peak and then began to drop. In the U.S. we will have a growing population for more years than many wealthy countries. It is almost staggering how much we yet will grow even though our birth rate is below replacement. We are growing because of immigration.  Around the world, huge differences will have taken place in 75 years. China will have become a much smaller population than it is now. It's population is plummeting. The largest populations in 75 years will be in counties we today seldom talk about.   Korea's birth rate is so low its population is expected to fall by half be 2100 from its current of about 60 million to about 30 million. Turkey, Brazil and Vietnam will rise for a couple of decades and they plumet. Nigeria, India and Pakistan are countries with the age distribution to see rising populations. India will  r...

I can see already; JD Vance does not understand right wing Christians. He told them they will have a "seat at the table" in a Trump Administration. Right wing Christians and Forced Birthers do not want one seat at the table, they want all the seats at the table. Anyone else who gets one needs to leave the room. Right now they are angry the Republican Platform does not conform precisely their views of a government enforcing the only correct religious dogma.  Trump and Vance have wisely avoided the concept of a nation-wide ban on all abortions. They know they will be defeated and so will most Republicans who go after this. The Republican Platform does not call gay marriage a sin with punishment in hell as right-wing Christians insist is the case. If Vance says right wing Christians have a "seat at the table," he is referring to the table in the adjoining room. There is no place for them in successful politics. Why on earth would the right-wing religious operatives thi...

I'm curious about micro decisions being made by people about no-abortion states. Today it was announced the number of OBGYN residents preparing for careers are choosing states other than no- abortion ones. I think we will see corporation after corporation, maybe without large announcements, locating elsewhere. If the majority of women are voting for abortion rights why would they not choose where to invest the millions under their control? The convention/tourist industry is one of the first to react to something like this. Everyone knows conventions can be held lots of places. Lots of people with many views attend them. When a set of people in an industry say they will not attend if the annual convention is held in a state they are mad it affects decisions on locations.  When corporations move their headquarters there are cost and logistical issues. But there are also personnel issues. Will the staff move to that location or go to work for someone else?  I can't tell you how m...

I can remember my mother's remark after a session of Bible study, "I don't like that Paul." Most know that in a letter sent back to one of the churches he had started Paul made general comments that women are not able leaders and should not hold church offices. Was there a Paul? If there was and he actually wrote that letter, did he mean for it to be public or did he think it would be read in that church and nowhere else? For their own selfish reasons, men have decided it was meant for general application and women should be banned from some positions in the institution of the Christain church. That, along with anti-abortion support and dufus anti women politicians, have caused women to leave the church faster than men. Men used to leave more often, that has now reversed. It is absolutely bonkers that large parts of Christianity believe women cannot hold positions of intellectual authority. There is but one source of that view, self-interest by the men in authority. T...

[A note about this blog. I had a small injury (a bite from our family's Chiwawa) and the treatment process used a day or so. Now that is behind me but our condo's WiFy system is down. I can walk to some coffee shops where I am just now but the heat discourages that a little. Blogs may not be on a regular schedule just now but will return. Thanks to all who read here.]  This argument has been going on since the beginning of Christianity. The facts don't change, the same ones just keep being brought up again and again by both sides.  Yes, there are plenty of references in old writing. But, no, there is no writing by anyone who says, "I saw Jesus." The link makes all the old arguments there are historians with credentials who believe there was a Jesus. There are others with credentials who say no.  The link then makes case I have not encountered. It says the little rural area where Jesus and the events claimed about him took place were very rural. The big news of the...

New York Times columnist David French is a prolife attorney. Yet, he sees the dilemma of the Forced Birth operation. He notes nearly all Forced Birth operatives support rights to carry guns. In addition, they support the right of someone to shoot to kill if the person has reason to believe his/her home is being broken into. "Stand your ground" rights mean you can kill a person if you believe that person was about to harm you. Abortion abolitionists, French says, do not believe a woman has the right to kill her fetus if the fetus is about to kill her. The only interpretation of this is the fetus should kill the mother whenever it is one or the other. I'm well aware of a line Forced Birthers use often. It goes something like this, "Oh, we support the lives of both the woman and the fetus. So, we're making a huge concession. An abortion can happen to save the life of the mother." Then they, or their judges who want women forced to give birth, put is rules about...

  We know the Old and New Testaments were originally written by wealthy goat herders. Only the extremely wealthy were literate. After that, this writing was copied over and over by another set of wealthy people, scribes. They corrected and revised according to current thinking centuries after the original writing. Buddha was said to have existed long before Jesus. Millions have read about him or written about him. No one claims to have known either Jesus or Buddha. New evidence is slowly coming out about the earliest people who wrote about Buddha. The suggestion is the version of Buddha that emerged was influenced by ancient Greeks. While I know little of Buddhism, I make the assumption it is like all other belief systems. That is, there is a religious figure and the human mind assigns human views to that figure. Ancient literature has Buddha saying he himself is not a god, has no super-natural powers. Within yourself lies the strength to deal with whatever bad events comes your wa...

I don't remember anything more interesting than  this posting today. It is the Vatican's charge to Bishops who will be attending the second "Synodal" conference this fall in Rome. Supposedly, it represents a synopsis of listening meetings held by local priests across the world. These were then passed onto local Bishops and then into a body of Bishops who drafted this charge for the upcoming conference.  Bishops across the Catholic system have been unenthusiastic about these listening sessions and the synodal process engineered by a crafty Pope and his inside circle. They rightly saw it was a process that would take away authority from clergy and replace it with authority from those in the pews. This is exactly what is playing out. The dilemma is, of course, a declining Catholic Church which needs to change. It's rules, however, prohibit the changes that need to take place. The synodal process the Pope has designed uses a tried and true method the Catholic hierarch...

These are days of "I told you so." Tony Perkins of Family Alliance has made a good living promising abortion would be outlawed forever in the U.S. His message has always been, "Keep sending money. If you do, we'll win this thing." Just the opposite has unfolded recently. President Trump is demanding the Republican Party Platform include language allowing states to have abortion rights laws. Now Florida lap dog Sen. Marco Rubio has announced support for Trump's position. Tony was taken by surprise . Wake up, Tony, smell the coffee.  Let's explain it slowly to Tony. In a democracy, if you take rights away from a set of voters, if you make their lives worse in order to appease other voters, those losing rights will vote for someone who supports their rights. There Tony, do you understand now? Conservative operatives thought they were smart when they switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican. It would have been smarter to be independent and flirt ...

A court case in bouncing around in Ohio involving a divorced couple who stored 19 fertilized eggs in a frozen embryo facility. A dispute developed as to who those fertilized eggs belong to. The man wanted possession of all of them so he could "give them to other couples" or, it is implied, destroy them. He wanted no role in the ex-wife's life and opposed her using his sperm cell to have a child. She wanted all of them as well. Apparently this has happened before and one "solution" has been to consider the frozen embryos "property" just like the cars and furniture and give half to each. Another is to give them all to the woman. The man objected to these because it does not solve his problem. There was some kind of a contract the couple signed about a hypothetical divorce, but it did not resolve the disagreement. Not mentioned in the dispute is custody of future children and money for child support. The couple has two children which were conceived with i...

According to some historians, the Spanish military which invaded South and Central America were ordered to destroy papers telling of history and the religious ideas of the people there. The destruction was to eliminate any non Christian information. Those societies were sophisticated people with literacy and organizational skills. Their eventual defeat was caused by superior military equipment brought by the Spanish and also the diseases brought from Europe into the area where there was no immunity.  As archeology continues, more permanent carvings and pictures are being uncovered depicting the history of the area before the Spanish conquests. The cave art I like to refer to is not, however, the only information available. New laser technology is allowing scientists to look deep into the ground and see the remains of societies far older than those even of cave art. Another new science is that of studying layers of soils. By carefully removing and studying the history of wind, rain ...

There was a big city of native people in the region that is now the St. Louis metro. Mounds and evidence are it was 50,000 people making it perhaps the largest city in the world at that time. Around the year 900 it was all gone. Theories abound. The most popular is a large drought. Now two anthropologists say there is not sound evidence there ever was a mass movement out of the area nor that there was a crippling drought. They think it was gradual and had many causes.   The Bible's mythical story of Jews migrating out of Egypt and "out of slavery" is one of the most repeated stories of migration. It is supposed to be a historical event that led to other events in the Bible that probably most Christians believe were historical.  Two or three decades ago, the government of Israel decided to prove the migration out of slavery and Egypt took place. It granted a big budget to a prominent professor in Israel. For many years he looked for evidence of a large migration across tha...

They sound so kind and gentle. "Come visit us, get a pregnancy test," "Free diapers" and "We'll help you threw it" are the marketing gimmicks. There are countless examples of false results of pregnancy tests where those who advise the young women, "The results of your test show your pregnancy is too far along for an abortion."  This is not to say all of these places are dishonest about the pregnancy tests. It's that women have taken the test at some and taken the test at a legitimate place and found pro-life place was either incompetent or lied.  There were news items in the Christian press when Roe was overturned which declared an urgent need for more of these pro-life pregnancy centers because it was believed there were going to be many more women carrying pregnancies to full term. Since then, we all know, the number of abortions has increased so the number of pregnancy centers needed must have dropped also. This has a financial angle o...

Benny Hinn is mostly known for his outlandish "healing" events. He says he was "anointed" with a healing power and that his why he can pack a stage with people who need "healing" and heal them all with the wave of his arm. When he was on tour, a member of the "sick" people on stage said they entire lot of them were hired. They were put on buses and moved to the next "healing" event. Benny's anointing powers are not limited to healing the unwell. He also says he can protect your savings from loses. He announced yesterday that if people send him money, their savings will be safe from an upcoming economic crash. I recall other years when sending him money was a way to heaven. He also said he could make your savings grown, but only if you sent him $. The strange thing is a couple of years ago Benny said he would no longer preach the prosperity gospel. He said chasing the almighty dollar as he has been doing for decades was not right an...

A headline which said someone claims he will teach the next generation of Christian leaders caught my eye. It implied it was about someone who claimed to have a way to bring back the faith from its decline. Even Christian Post has its share of tricks to attract readers. The article, which you can read if you like, was from an interview with an 80 year old retired math professor in England. Apparently, his lifelong hobby has been promoting Christianity and in the interview he said he would continue to mentor the "next generation of apologists." To me, this is code language saying, "I will continue to tell people about my interpretation of the Bible because it is the only correct one." This is the same message that comes from behind pulpits in hundreds of thousands of churches every Sunday. Yet no one, including this retired math professor, has found a way to move the needle of decline. We cannot say with absolute certainty, of course, what the future will bring. We d...

 Once a year Catholic churches around to world take up a collection that is ear marked for the Vatican. The Vatican also owns real estate and a commercial bank. Vatican salaries and hiring have been frozen for several years. Bishops visiting the Vatican for meetings were told recently they will have to pay for Vatican lodging. With all of that, the Vatican is running unsustainable deficits . The deficit runs about $50 million per year. If we assume salaries are not huge in the Vatican but many employees are provided housing and offices, I'm guessing the cost of each Vatican employee is something like $100,000 each. Check my math, it would take one million to fund ten employees. Fifty million would mean 500 employees would need to be cut. An insider said cutting employees to make up the shortfall would require closing 43 of 53 departments.  Pope Francis and the bureaucracy has options to kick the can down the road. The Vatican gives money to various pro Catholic projects. It ha...

From the Judeo/Christian view, as I interpret it, history began about 6,000 years ago. This is when the Jews appeared to adopt the view there was only one god. This contrasted with other groups in that region who were Pagans and had lots of gods. There must have been other gods in other parts of the world, though there is not the same written record. What we have elsewhere are pictures on cave walls and evidence of rituals. The cave art has been dated back to 30,000 years ago, long before the one-god Jews. Of course, neither the Jews nor the 30,000 year old cave art were on this continent. Is there any evidence there were humans on this continent going back into the BCE time? There certainly is. If is evidence of humans living for long periods of time here about 13,000 years ago. These humans had no link to the Jew's God. Each had separate gods.  The evidence we have is in the Black Water Draw excavation site and state park in New Mexico. The site shows clear evidence of humans hun...