Thoughts of a Freethinker

Mostly when I read articles by religious writers I find myself silently scoffing. But once in a while there is one so good it jumps out at me. This one is by a university president who is searching for a way to make Christianity relevant today. The first task, of course, is to correctly identify what has gone wrong. The link found a lot of what most of us would call "group think" in the politics of clergy in the U.S. It was present during the period of the War of Independence, clergy preaching uniformly that independence was the message of the faith and being a colony of England was not. Sermons, he found, were all but 100% in agreement about this. The logical question we have today is, looking back, what does the faith have to do with the War of Independence? He discusses several writers and personalities in religion who were able to separate themselves from the political group think of their trade. The one in my lifetime was Billy Graham. Billy honeyed up to politicians and...

A new survey says the number of Christians who believe the Holy Spirit exists is down to one in ten. It makes sense people don't believe it exists because it is something completely manufactured by the large number of people who have been paid to make things up in religion. An author/Baptist preacher friend of mine, now deceased Howard Bess, who continued to study the Bible all his life said he never really understood what was meant by the term "Holy Spirit."  The Holy Spirit is, most have heard, one of the three in "The Trinity." Yet, the Bible never states there is a "Trinity." So, what is the "Holy Spirit" and how did it become such a big deal? Further, how did this thingy which has been so big in the faith now become so small? Here is an outsider's (me) explanation. During the centuries when the stories and myths that eventually became the Bible was circulating, there was a lot of superstition. Still today a black cat crossing in fron...

  I've always been suspicious of those who pray in front of others. Why is it necessary?  One of the most obvious acts of prayer as performance is done at abortion clinics. People shout prayers that tell women going to doctor's appointments in these clinics are "murdering their babies." Now there are teachers in schools going through the motions associated with prayer in front of their students where prayer in school is not allowed. They are defending it as "freedom of speech." We all know people who simply cannot understand why they cannot make everyone else around them know they are Christian. It is an uphill battle for them to master the rules or to see things from a different perspective.  It is concerning, however, to see how blind the public is to injustice and how hard it is for it to become recognized. Slavery remained legal for some 400 years. Segregation and Christian prayers in schools went on for 100 years after that. Today we have to wonder if o...

Trump likes prosperity gospel preachers, especially blond women like Rev. Paula White. Paula announced that those who give her $1,000 before Passover will receive bounty in return. One can anticipate that in the coming days we will hear of someone who sent her $1,000 and the next day a rich aunt died and left $2,000. The script is an old one. It is not the worst script in all of Christianity, however. Following Paula's, and other prosperity preacher's scripts, the rich aunt and her $2,000 was so unusual there has never been anything like it. It had to be the prayed-for miracle. The thing is, the aunt actually died and left her two grand. Even though the two events had no connection they actually happened. The other promise made every day is that so and so died and is in heaven and you too will be there when you die. This one is worse. We don't know that anyone is in heaven. I'm trying to compare the ethics of the prosperity gospel and that of other "success" s...

I suppose there have always been cafeteria Protestants, Jews and Catholics. They are also referred to as Protestants (Catholics, Jews) "in name only." It seems like that makes all of them Pagans. Pagans had a different god in every town. The link is about "cafeteria Jews." When one thinks about it, the Orthodox Jew seems to make bigger sacrifices to follow that branch of the faith than does most any branch of Catholics or Protestants. It's an all or nothing world. The lost Orthodox Jew has died in the eyes of her parents.  The irony is the devout in any faith who hold their noses high and look down on others who are casual followers, the cafeteria group, are making a mistake. The devout should be grateful the cafeteria group stays in their group at all.  At atheist gatherings people share their background in religion. Once the shine is off the faith, there is the choice to stay in and enjoy the friendships made over time as well as relatives and just participate...

Since the beginning of recorded history there have been people killing other people over religion. There are two schools of thought about the ability of humans to navigate life together on this planet. One is they are getting better at it, the other there is no progress. When one reads about killing over religion still going on around the world the latter , no progress, seems most accurate. Certainly marriage across branches of Christianity and other faiths has increased as has inter racial marriage. We can put that in the "plus" column. When I was growing up in rural Iowa neither of these was considered acceptable. Yet, taboos continue in other places.  I recall going to a high school graduation night near my home town. The speaker was a prominent faculty member in a Department of Religion at one of the universities in the state. He told of a couple, one Catholic the other Protestant, who wanted to marry and came to visit him. "I had to tell them," he said, "R...

There are several Mormons and former Mormon women writing these days about their treatment by the denomination. They are symbolically patted on the head by church leaders and told how much they are appreciated then set in their proper place. With Catholics, it is often pointed out, there is this "fundamental difference" between the genders. Women have babies, they say. From that, the conclusion is made women cannot be clergy.    I recall decades ago there was a well-known Mormon at the time came from Washington DC to Fargo Moorhead to tell her story of speaking up about injustice in the denomination--I don't recall her name just now. She told of being invited to speak at a congressional hearing near her home in DC. After her testimony, a Moorman Senator cleared his voice and addressed her in a tone of voiced she had heard all of her life. Something like, "Mrs. Jones, we appreciate your life as a Mormon wife and your knowledge of how important wives can be to the live...

President Trump held another of his photo ops with Paula White and the preacher guys praying with him. They didn't gather in a circle as one might expect, they lined up to make a good photo. Jesus did the same thing to get the Last Supply painting. While Bill Clinton and maybe many others were photographed surrounded by preachers and it's tempting to overstate the importance, the lesson about establishing a national religion without passing a law continues. Countless comments on this blog and all over U. S. politics shout that unless Congress and the President adopt a specific religion the separation of government and religion suggested in the Constitution are being followed. The Constitution says our government may not establish a state religion. But what if the government created the impression there is an approved state religion but never adopts it as law? What if the public is led to believe one religion is government approved and courts do what they have been know to do, d...

I was in state universities for more than four decades. When people say, "Universities are liberal, universities are conservative, universities are this and that.." I roll my eyes. Most universities are a mixture of competing minds, vested interests, monied alums, student activists and concerned parents. All the while, administrators are dealing with a changing student populations, difficult faculty and money. What "universities are" is almost always something in flux. The self-righteous professor who wrote this  laments the place he taught which was founded by Methodists to teach the faith but was filled with faculty, students and administrators trying to move the needle to modern times. He remains angry but now makes his living by catering in writing and speaking to right wing Christianity. The case he makes is repeated often, if churches and Christian universities would just pound the Bible more people would flock to them. As pointed out here countless times, the...

New York City's Yeshiva University, called "modern orthodox," (I don't know what "modern" means] refused to recognize as a legitimate student group about four years ago. It said it had the right to refuse giving space and funds to the group as it did several other student groups. Yeshiva claimed it could reject the group's request based on its "religious beliefs." The case went on for four years and up to the Supreme Court. The LGBT+ group won and will receive funds and space to carry out its activities.  In the years around 2010 a student at Concordia in Moorhead wanted to form an campus atheist group. There was a lot of opposition. I think ultimately he was successful. I have no idea if the group continues today. Whether its Judaism or Christianity, trying to make an airtight case something is "part of our religious beliefs" is a challenge. The same things are endorsed and condemned in both the new and old testaments. Drawing lines ...

If we could look back at religion in pre history, or even early recorded history, we would find beliefs that were not written down. They were passed from one person to another and one generation to another in story-telling. Along came the ability to write stuff down in long hand. Each copy was copied be someone else and read aloud somewhere.  The written word limited somewhat the opportunity to improvise and alter as times changed. We know this was followed by the printing press and bound books which lasted a long time. The bound book limited even more the ability of a religion or folk knowledge to change as times changed. Christianity has its Bible, Islam it Koran. Hinduism has preserved papers going back earlier than either the Bible or the Koran.  Every religious person believes he/she knows "the truth." What someone hearing this "truth" needs to know is where did this "truth" come from? The two oldest sources are a.) an ancestor, parent, friend or sham...

I was the mayor of Fargo ND for 16 years a long time ago, 1978 to 1994. Today I was interviewed by The Fargo Forum newspaper about an auditorium in the downtown owned and operated by the City. It was built in 1960, part of an urban renewal concept supported by the federal government at the time. It has now closed and the journalist wanted me to recall the history of the place.  I did not live in Fargo when the Civic Auditorium was built but locals told me there was a lot of enthusiasm for a place where the local symphony and opera company could put on shows. It could host high school basketball tournaments, graduations and such community things. Of course, it could host traveling national musicians and other such events. By the time I moved to Fargo and was a candidate for Mayor, about 17 years later, it was the latter events, not the former, that were the hot topic. Religion and the Civic Auditorium got entangled and never separated. A decade before I ran for Mayor my wife and I w...

  While the scores of Mormon people I've known well for decades are among the best individuals that exist anywhere, there is no doubt that branch of Christianity is strange. It starts with Joeseph Smith's tale and goes downward from there. While Mormonism has grown around the world, it, too, has hit a brick wall among young people and, one would think, will experience a long and slow decline. There are a host of bloggers and You Tube creators, Mormons or former Mormons, who produce a steady critique of the faith. They face losing their friends and families but see the flaws. A couple who produce videos about the faith had the choice of resigning or being removed by officials. They chose to resign . One half of the couple, Valarie Hamaker, has been councilor to Mormon women and author for a long time. She has been in the Christian press. Women in the Mormon faith struggle from the demands made of them. Hamaker's work with women did not encourage them to leave the faith but t...

When the Bible is treated as merely another example of ancient literature, its role as a religious document evaporates. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people now make their living studying and writing about the Bible as merely an ancient tale. This reenforces the view of people like me that Christianity ultimately will be buried in the sands of time. A good example of a critical review is this one about the tale of Moses. The story of Moses fits well among the other ancient stories of heroes. The ancient hero returns home. He is met with opposition and danger. After experiencing this and that danger he prevails. Happy ending.  While these stories are similar, they are not all identical. It's like authors wanted to apply the same hero story to their hero but it needed a little revision to fit the audience of message the writer was trying to reach. Mose's hero story had such a adjustment. The creators of the Moses tale wanted the ultimate hero to be the "people of Israel...

It was fun to read a review of a book about Catholic confession. The book reviews the demise of the practice and, with the reviewer, speculates and laments its demise. Why is it Catholics no longer do much confession? The book and reviewer speculate on what happened. In the 1960's "the pill" came along and Catholics gulped it down. Since nearly all Catholics were now committing a "serious" sin, what's the point of telling the priest about it. If he says yes, it's a sin, you are forgiven, it's all a stupid exercise for nothing. About then also came the environmental thing. A large part of Catholicism and Protestantism grabbed onto it as a part of their faith. Here was the entire society sinning by harming God's good earth. Am I, the good Catholic, supposed to tell the priest I drive a big car when the entire society is sinning? And, Mr. Priest, you drive a polluting tank of a car yourself. I don't have to mention all the cases of priests passi...

I've lived too long to think I know absolutely the future. Nevertheless, all experience from the past and knowledge about the present indicates Trump's policies on government and trade will drive down the economy. All of our experience is that trade helps lower the cost of living and research in science helps us live healthier and safer lives.  Why is this logic, which seems reasonable to me, not even close to being acceptable to some in the Christian right. A columnist recently reviewed an appearance by Sen. Bernie Sander. The writer did not say much about the Sanders speech. Instead, the focus was on a warm-up musical group that included lyrics with profanity and ridicule of Jesus/God. When Sanders took the stage he thanked the performer. The link writer concluded the Christian choice is between an oligarchy where the rich run the economy into the ground for their own profit and a society that is Godless. The suggestion is that for Christians the oligarchy is the better, or t...

Ronald Reagan was a master at story telling. When he wanted support for lower welfare payments and lower taxes he said we should look at the groceries bought by the welfare mom in front of us at the super market. Probably most people have had an eye roll about that. While story telling is not a good practice for decisions on policy, it meets the political needs . One source says liberals need to improve their story telling skills. Certainly, there are attempts at good story telling on the left. Just now, trans people are telling about their lives and what it is like being born with a body that does not conform to the mind. Liberal churches, parents and friends are needed to tell the trans story. Surely we all have to agree that story telling by gays and their families are part of the reason gay life is better than it once was. Still, of course, conservatives are trying to roll back that progress.  Individual stories are powerful. The big story about welfare, public education and pu...

The "original" Presbyterian denomination, Presbyterian Church of America, the one that existed before the split over gay marriage and remains in business today, has voted to accept gay members and preachers. Presbyterians who split off because they want to discriminate started a different denomination. I wrote "original" Presbyterians because even that organization is the result of arguments and splits going back hundreds of years. I was a Presbyterian for several decades. I was even a deacon. For a long time a right-wing publication published by an angry group of Presbyterians came to our home. It hammered on the gay rights direction of the denomination. I learned later a wealthy member of our local church paid to have the publication sent to all local members. The group cranking out the publication was holding its own meetings and making plans. It then split off taking a large number of churches with it.  That this split took place is not important. Both groups wi...

Funding for the Agency for International Development (AID) has been slashed by the Trump Administration. Many religious groups got into the money from this agency and now they have been frozen out. The lesson repeated here and other places has always been, if you don't want government to hurt your religion, stay out of government.  Big religious business entered the Federal Government went W. Bush was President. He had farmed out some government services in Texas to church groups at low prices and deemed it a success. When he became President, he spear-headed use of church groups as providers of social services instead of government.  As the decades past, eager Christian groups who thought providing services to the public would bring not only income to denominations but new church members as well. Pat Robertsson has an enterprise. So does Franklin Graham. The money part has worked well but numbers of Christians has fallen. Now the revenue part of the deal is falling as well. D...

An article on the web was taken from the latest Pew Study of religion includes a color coded. I found it fascinating to quickly glance over areas of the country losing religion. South Dakota is the only state gaining, not losing, religion.  Probably a professor somewhere is now comparing the small and large loss of religion to other demographic variables. For example, one would predict a state like Rhode Island, which has long been a bastion of secularism, showed only a moderate gain in secularism. Then there is migration from one state to another. One would expect states with little in migration to show small or no increase in secularism. The age of that population will rise instead of fall. Nebraska, North and South Dakota are states that do not attract large numbers from other states and show little decline in religion.   A lot of young people are moving from California to Texas. Texas has a birth rate higher than many states, a young state in that sense. It had a subs...

The results of some new polling came out recently which showed to growth of "nones", those who claim no affiliation with any religious group, is slowing. Some religious pundits jumped on this concluding the growth of nones is stopping and, thus, the percentage of Christians will stabilize as well. A Christian publication has pointed out that, no, the decline of Christianity in the U.S. will continue. It is all but unavoidable.  This is about demographics. Everyday some people die and some children are born. The odds are better than 50-50 each person that dies came from a group that was majority Christian. That group becomes, day by day, smaller. The odds are the baby who was born will enter a group that is, or will be in time, majority non-Christian. One group slowly becomes smaller, the other larger. One of the most amusing things in the Christian media is people explaining non believers should "hear the gospel." I suppose this means quoting from the Bible which to...

Oklahoma, the home of Oral Roberts University and a host of right-wing Bible thumping preachers, has turned down a demand from its State Superintendent of Education to fund Bibles for every child in a public school. This after the Superintendent tried to force school districts in Oklahoma to pay for the Bibles from their own budgets. Surprisingly, the Oklahoma legislature and its Governor did not endorse spending this $3 million. When we tally up 2025 and look for the most ridiculous news stories about fundamentalist religion this one will have to be at the top. It's funny not only because the Oklahoma Superintendent of Education is off his rocker but also because even the Bible quoting Governor won't go there.  The Superintendent of Education apparently does not realize Bible reading is down. Maybe he has never been on a college campus, as I have been, where Giddeons were handing out free New Testaments. Around the corner from the Giddeons, only a few feet away, the trash rece...

In my long career as a professor, a host of approaches to life, business and current times came and went. When I started teaching in a Department of Business there were no courses or subdisciplines called, "Mission Statements" or terms that referred to setting broad purposes for businesses or institutions. Economics provided the only broad goal for businesses, "To maximize profits." The consumer, in turn, was assigned a broad goal, "To maximize utility (satisfaction) from his/her finite income." There were, of course, disagreements about these.  One of my professors said a business' single goal was not maximizing profit but to "survive." As time moved along departments of management began to refine this task of defining the purpose or goal of an institution. Courses in mission statements, etc. were introduced. To illustrate how important knowing a mission or goal, I recall an interview with a billionaire who was expressing disgust about a cro...

Popular Fox personality, Maria Bartiromo, reported recently that business numbers are getting worse and the business community is starting to blame Trump. She continued to repeat a recession would be Biden's fault but still reported blame on Trump in other quarters is growing.  It will not be possible, of course, for Fox personalities to continue indefinitely to blame Biden. If things continue to slide Fox will have to eat the bullet. It's obvious they do not want to criticize Trump. It will be entertaining to watch the squirming.  In all fairness, the economy is so complex assigning cause and effect for everything that happens is a bit dicey. A billion moving parts each seeking its own advantage make it quite unpredictable. Until Franklin Roosevelt came on the scene and started telling people he would save them in the Great Depression the conventional wisdom was one's economic well-being was regulated if at all by local politicians, not national. Now Presidents claim, thus...

Trump constantly comes up with new ideas that hint of military projects. Hamas, invading Canada and Greenland, securing borders, etc. While he has never mentioned reinstating the military draft, it seems to be out there. The process to start up the draft is known . That brings up how Trump would handle a large scale call up. We can be certain he would offer wealthy people a chance to buy their way out. Anyone who wanted out or wanted to protect their children would simply meet his price. Bone spurs would be an automatic out. Those left to be taken would fall into Trump's category of "losers." Would Republicans in Washington really endorse a draft even it Trump wanted it? There was a time I thought they would not. Now I don't really know. 

A few decades ago, Dr. C. Evertt Koop was appointed Surgeon General by President Ronald Reagan. He was personally opposed to abortion and was pressured by many in the Reagan Administration to make regulations against it. He refused. Ultimately, he helped make abortion available to more women.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a general distrust of vaccinations. He has refrained from promoting no vaccinations contrary to the expectation of many anti vax people. He advises people to follow the advice of their doctor. It would be better if he advised and promoted vaccinations, but he is instead keeping his head down.  Other appointees of Trump who are anti medicine and anti-science are also facing the sober reality they have been wrong all along and are holding back from preaching their religious and anti-science views. We can be grateful federal employees are apparently pointing to the unavoidable facts that public health is best protected by using religious free science. They will be ...

The Southern Baptist Convention is as association of churches, not a "denomination" in the sense of Catholics or Methodists. So, when it passes a "rule" or declares "the Bible says (means) this" there emerge various responses. All of its theology and "rules" come from motions passed at its national convention. There are officials, employees of the organization as well as Presidents of its seminaries, who write position papers discussing what the various motions passed at the convention mean in practice. The convention has passed a rule that women cannot be "pastors." Yet, little has been done to define who or what is a "pastor." Apparently, when the Convention's dues are sent in by each church each year a little information is collected but not much. It says in the link    that there have been churches with female preachers that might have carried a different title but in reality, were "pastors." No fuss was rais...

The web is different now than only a few years ago. The decline of Christianity was not discussed but now is discussed. In Europe Christianity has fallen to next to nothing. But in Europe the government collects a voluntary tax that is given to the faith. This turns out to fund a lot of clergy. Everyone knows U.S. politics plays footsie with Christianity but the big public funds are not there. This makes possible, in my opinion, a fall in the U. S. faith greater than that in Europe. I never tire of reading columns by Christians that address the decline and offer ideas the authors think will reverse the downward trend. One appeared today in a somewhat thoughtful site that was so typical it was almost embarrassing to read. The Catholic author correctly noted two things, that the decline in the Catholic branch is worse than it appears in the raw numbers and that until the cause of the decline is identifies there can be no solution. Then he makes a mistake by advancing his own solution whi...

After the next Pope is selected, anyone who might remember reading this can have a chuckle at how wrong I was. Just remember no license is needed to make predictions in religion or politics so I am qualified.  The rule for selecting the next Pope is that the candidate must get 2/3rds of the over 100 Cardinals from many countries who meet in Rome for three or four days. I suppose every Cardinal comes to the conclave with his mind on troubles or problems back home and hopes the new guy will give him more help than the last one did.  For sure there will be among the 100+ Cardinals some basic politics. That is, among the well-known Cardinals will be some who have made an impression, good or bad, on many others. There are many kinds of gatherings where one of them might have spoken. There will be networks of Cardinals passing along thoughts and impressions to others, "My friend whom I trust has another friend who said he chatted with Cardinal X and he was a nice fellow."  One ...

Sometime, millions of years ago, something happened that changed earth from a place made up of rocks to a place where a form of life appeared. There was no god or supernature thingy involved. We don't know precisely how it happened, we only know for certain it did happen. For decades, scientists studying this have known that wherever the first life happened there had to be a lot of the element phosphorous. I don't understand this but, apparently, it is widely agreed upon. The problem of figuring out where and why there was phosphorous continued because in today's bodies of liquid there isn't enough present. A new theory is now being discussed . It is that life could have started near a volcano or near several volcanoes. Volcanoes spew out a lot of phosphorous and a lot of heat that could accelerate chemical reactions that would not happen otherwise. It is known there were many more volcanos on earth back millions of years ago.   The scientists working on this hasten to ...

 Iowa has its fair share of corn-fed people in politics. A set of Republicans wants to stop allowing children to see drag performers. I assume that means men in dresses. Lots of male clergy wear dresses. Back in the 1970's, the period of antiwar and hippies, it was popular to become members of the Hary Krista branch of Hinduism. They walked around places where the public gathered and performed chants. I recall seeing a group of them at the Red River Valley Fair in West Fargo, ND. They also had a booth selling their garments. Both men and women wore the same garments, gowns that reached the ankle tops. Catholic Cardinals, and many other male clergy, wear gowns to the ankles. But men in drag wear makeup you might argue. You can bet TV savvy Cardinals wear TV makeup.  Maybe the law will exclude male clergy by saying they are not impersonating women. There are lots of female clergy preaching and praying. I'm not sure they do anything different than male preachers and priests....