Thoughts of a Freethinker

Pope Leo played out the script of a new Pope well. Good will to all people. The Catholic denomination, he implied, is one love, peace and the highest of callings. Not mentioned were the issues that counter this public relations manipulation. The denomination also thinks gay people, those who practice birth control, and women who get abortions are both the most vile of sinners and lesser than male clergy in one way or another. While the denomination would never say it hates you, it kind of does. You are a sinner that is not fully welcome.  The link was written by a lesbian woman who left the denomination but is trying to return. She points out that every year, gay babies are born to devout Catholic couples. Pope Francis advocated listening to all the groups barred from full acceptance. The link author wonders when the cans will no longer be just kicked further down the road. She wants out gay people to be accepted without conditions. Certainly, kicking the cans down the road by "li...

Abortion rights people like me have always been ageist at the tactics used by so the so called Right to Life. They shout prayers and show ghastly pictures to young women with no experience at dealing with such harassment. They used to physically block entrances to clinics until enough were arrested and convicted to make them stop. In this way they do not "play fair." Before Roe, parts of abortion rights did not "play fair" either. Hospitals had wings filled with young women who had acquired inflections getting illegal or home abortions. The book called "Jane" told of self-trained women performing an estimated 11.000 abortions in Chicago. They were part of the health community and heard of others in Chicago doing abortions including doctors who moon lighted with a side illegal practice. My elderly friend in Fargo who spent his teen age years on the street said everyone knew which doctors with offices attached to their homes did abortions. With laws in some ...

The daily topics of this blog are often about the decline of Christianity. While the decline is no longer "news" as it was a decade ago when I started blogging, what remains unknown is how its final chapters will look and what will replace it.  Christian pundits themselves use lots of ink writing about the decline. Seldom, however, do they look at themselves introspective. The usual theme is, "How can we present the faith so people come back to it?" Almost never does someone in the faith say, "You know, this product we call the faith was flawed from day one. People have found its flaws and are leaving it behind. We need to change the product to something people will buy." Today a leader in the Anglican Church of Canada came close to facing the truth. That denomination is declining rapidly. Staff reductions and consolidations have taken place. It was once huge in Canada. The denomination's person said, "Canadians are no longer very interested in th...

The New York Times today carried a fascinating story about how to avoid paying tariffs. It involves Trump's self delusion that he is negotiating "deals." While no doubt there are a few people prosecuted for not paying tariff duties the article says the volume of goods coming into the U.S. paying no or little of the legally required fees is growing rapidly. Those who pay the tariffs and try to raise their prices are being hurt and demanding justice. This justice borders on the impossible to deliver. Some Chinese firms are now advertising "low duty prices" or "all duties paid prices" to U.S. buyers. There are two and maybe more ways to pay less or nothing. Trump's "deals" include small countries who say to him, "Look, you are the most powerful man, and the smartest, on earth. We defer to you. We will charge no tariffs on U.S. goods imported into our country. All we ask is that you charge to lowest possible tariff when we ship to the U....

There are so many groups collecting money of the premise they are stopping abortions. The biggest one of course is the Catholic denomination. Often they issue press releases touting the several states where abortion has been made illegal. I'm reading a book After Dobbs that tells the stories of how abortion clinics around the country have coped with the new abortion restrictions and legalization. It is revealing to read about clinics on the edge of states where abortion has been made illegal. Many readers here know about North Dakota. It had one clinic that was located in Fargo. Fargo is on the eastern edge of the State. When ND went "no abortions" the clinic simply moved 10 minutes across the river to Moorhead, MN. North Dakota remains a state where abortions are available.  A clinic discussed in the book is located in East St. Louis, Illinois. This is across the river from St. Louis, Missouri. Sixty percent of the clinic's patients are from Missouri. This, and other...

A whacko preacher in Idaho has built an enterprise based on the belief the U.S. should be run as a theocracy. Biblical rules should be government laws and women should not hold positions of authority over men. It is said Trump and many in his circle like it. He is adding a new church in Washington, DC. Perhaps we can expect groups like this to thrive as the country splits further apart on social and moral issues. One reads about increasing hostility against trans people. This even though it does not affect for the most part anyone else. The anti trans merely want to harass trans people. Law makers are passing ever more aggressive rules against trans. Something similar is happening with abortion. There is no evidence anywhere suggesting anti abortion operations ever have or ever will prevent abortions. Yes, an unfortunate woman here or there cannot get the medical services she needs but most do. There are clinics in strong financial condition operating in abortion rights states that are...

I think it was almost a decade ago when I first read of brisk sales of tarot cards, astrology books and other such items that have long been assumed to be "fringe" or strange. Now perhaps we could call them "mainline." Nancy Reagan was a believer in astrology. It is said she advised President Reagan when the time was better or worse to do certain things. Eventually, the President made a slip and mentioned this and an uproar followed.  "Systems" that have something to look at, something people can see, give orthodox Christianity a lot of competition. The Prosperity Gospel, Trump's brand, gives people examples of people who prayed and then got rich. Or it suggests some, like Trump, are rich because God favored them.  An astrology calendar or a Tarot card it something anyone can see. They cannot see an invisible god.  When someone says he is "spiritual but not religious" does that also include Tarot cards and astrology? I have no idea. I doubt s...

There is crowing among anti abortion operatives that the bill will reduce money to Planned Parenthood. From what we know about the history of abortion, the number remains about the same regardless of whether abortions are legal or illegal or funded by government or not. Certainly, there are more abortions in states that provide some funding for abortions, total numbers across the country remain about the same regardless of the political cycle.  I've become curious about the impact of personal or business donations to pay for the costs of abortions. I pay into three or four different funds. One such fund provides grants across the country to women who need abortions. They pay for some of the costs at clinics and travel, housing and child care. One, National Abortion Fund, coordinates donations and grants across the country. On its website are photocopies of its Federal Income Tax documents.  So far as I can tell this organization gives away between $30 and $50 million a year. P...

This week it was a New Jersey diocese, 1,000 alleged cases. Then there was the New Orleans parish which has agreed to pay $180 million to cover 500 cases.  I mentioned yesterday an experience from several years ago when a priest friend told all of us at the dinner party that the Catholic denomination is so well organized. If it exists to do good  and it well organized how could such widespread wickedness go on and on for such a long time? Yes, child abuse happens in every profession. But the cruel nature of it in the church and the claim of being well organized and worth of praise and importance puts it in the category of the worst. While it may be difficult to document, it seems to me these never-ending sex scandals have to be hurting the Catholic denomination and all of Christianity. Efforts are being made to put it in a good light but with no end in sight the future is dim. The denomination has a policy now to turn over to law enforcement priests who have been accused of c...

As a rank amateur in religion and philosophy I think I see patterns emerging in Christianity that lead to something different than its past. One is the all Jesus all the time. That is, a belief that the mythical Jesus accepts all people regardless of gender or past sins. Another one highlighted in this link focuses on the mythical history reviewed in the Bible and not a literal history. Apparently, there are millions of people who when asked, "What is your religion?" answer with something like, "I'm spiritual, not religious." The link does not refer to this answer but says there is a long history going back to pre Christian times that finds humans fascinated by the mysterious and mystical. The spirits, ghosts and witches all qualified. Christianity harnesses this pony with tales of the dead coming back to life and places to live after death. They were part of the pagan spiritual life that preceded it.  Where Christianity lost its way, if I understand the link co...

  Working my way through the book, Ends of the Earth, I have gained some understanding of the worry scientists are experiencing about global warming. When I first started writing here I wrote a little about Antarctica though I could not at the time get my arms around how its geography and ice shelf. This book gives us non scientists a bit of perspective.  When I first wrote about Antarctica climate change deniers all repeated what they had read on denier sites. It was that the ice shelf was growing and climate change was a liberal hoax. Snow and rain still happen on Antarctica but it is melting rapidly. The amount of melt water entering the ocean from there is 170 times as much and the flow of all the rivers in the world. There are caverns under Antarctica that go deep below the level of the adjacent ocean. This melts the ice from the bottom. It has been observed in real time by underwater cameras.  The ice accumulation there is so large it starts at sea level and goes ov...

The very Christian site, Christianpost.com, published an unusual article today. The author chastised "the church" (I guess he meant anti abortion Christians) for spending it resources hammering on Planned Parenthood.  The link says there is a culture that does not condemn sex the Planned Parenthood is merely the beneficiary of that. I remember a conversation decades ago with a woman who was an executive in a company that owned about ten clinics that performed abortions. She said anti abortion was all about anti sex. The link confirms part of that. It says there is sex that is morally ok, that in church approved marriage, and any other sex is immoral. It ignores the fact that there are perhaps millions of couples in committed relationships that are not married. And, of course, millions of others who have sex in casual relationships but do not see sex as a moral issue. What the link author does not understand is right-to-life industry has taken advantage of its fans claiming Pl...

  If you would like to visit the place where some religious leaders once argued, compromised and finally agreed on the Nicene Creed, the tourist department of Turkey welcomes you. You will not find, however, a Christian church in the city where you can recite the famous creed. They are all gone.  At the time Christian men gathered in Nicaea to make deals about what the faith is supposed to be about Christian numbers were big there. Then there were wars, Christians were out then they were in and finally out for a long period of time. It is a Muslim city.  Reciting that creed in still big in some branches of Christianity, ignored in others. That being the case we could expect the creed would rise and fall in importance. Of course, what happened in Nicaea where armies changed the religion is not uncommon either.  Readers can look up the various versions of the Nicene Creed used by various branches of Christianity. It is a form of oath where a person claims to believe in...

Trump and his circle in DC are following an unsustainable path. During the Great Depression there were plenty of "Trump-like" people who were against benefits to the poor. The thinking was the same, "If we give the poor help, like those terrible soup lines, they will not want to work and our whole country will fail." How, then, did Roosevelt and Congress get help programs like the Conservation Corp, food assistance and help for farmers funded? Political support came about due to self-interest. Even though a significant part of the population was doing well when things were really bad, a political light came on in the heads of the prosperous. A voice in their heads said something like, "Look at all those people in the soup lines. Others are forming groups shaking their fists. There are so many of them it's scary. What if they come for us?"  My field of economics is a part of the group of academic disciplines called the "behavioral sciences." T...

  A man who bought the empty Catholic church building where Pope Leo attended as a boy in Chicago hopes the Papel label will bring investors to save the building. So far, he is up to his neck in debt with no solution.  So often abandoned churches are proposed to be "community centers." This keeps an element of its former life even if the church use in gone. Any city has a limit to the number of community centers and there is no end to requests for taxpayer dollars. If is understandable former church members do want their former house of worship be turned into a gay bar but sometimes that is the best use. Arlo Guthrie wrote a song about a church that became "Alice's Restaurant." The Chicago diocese has been closing churches and schools across the city. According to the link the neighborhood where Pope Leo grew up has changed a lot and is one of the locations that can no longer support a Catholic church.  Readers may have different thought about preserving buildin...

Christian Post today published a hit piece about a faith healer named Kathryn Krick. She once was an aspiring actor but saw better opportunities in faith healing. Why not, it is a growth industry. She has been preaching and doing the internet for several years and some speculate has accumulated more than a million. She is only 34. I had forgotten how many branches of Christianity have had and depend today on the "magic" of using faith to heal. There is Christian Science, Scientology, Catholic and so many individuals and groups in the charismatic branch. Need I remind anyone here the Bible claims Jesus was a faith healer. When so many see Kathryn Krick get rich by making videos why wouldn't they see opportunity? Maybe this has already happened and is under the radar. The old method, of course, was filling an auditorium and putting on a healing show. Oral Roberts fixed people with a limp caused by on leg shorter than the other. While the victim was lying on a stage he would...

A person who bills himself as an authority of such things recently published a dramatic essay warning Catholics that AI represents a threat to their faith. Readers who want to open the link and read his essay may have a different take than I do or may know a lot more about AI than I do. The link seems to fall back on the faith's old saw, believers are people with good motives and a broad understanding of humans, society and the life of the unseen and invisible while others, like operatives in the field of AI, are "materialistic" and harmful and ignorant of sin and the afterlife. The link sort of maneuvers around the great big threat AI poses for Christianity and most religions in the world. It is that when scientific data, like the minerals and chemistry of sand and rock, is plugged into programs that can simulate the creation of life from objects that were not "life" and then design actual experiments that do this over and over again, religion is dead. The link...

Everyone here and around the world thinks they can understand what is in the mind of Donald Trump. It seems none of us really know, not even his children. Why would he think he could stare down Xi of China when he, Trump, needs political victories in the upcoming midterms Xi has no such pressure. Trump seemed to think Xi would be under pressure when goods could not be sold in the U.S. Trump was wrong about that. Xi correctly predicted political pressure would force Trump to fold and Trump folded. Why didn't he see it coming? I have my own theory about Trump's mind. He is a very slow learner so much of his behavior goes back to the only experiences he has had in life. One was buying and selling real estate. There, he got by by overstating value when selling and understating value when buying. We see him doing these two things almost daily.  The other was his experience in show business as a character on The Apprentice. Elvis Presley mastered is bit of show business marketing whe...

All skeptics have thought or heard the view, "The Bible doesn't make a good case there is a God. But I think there's something else out there." The view there are things we don't today know is a good one. To be a good skeptic we should be skeptical of the skeptic. On the topic of "Where did the universe come from?" Richard Dawkins wrote we don't know for sure know but he is confident we someday will know. I'm engrossed in a book, Ends of the Earth, by professor Neil Shubin. The word "End" refers to the North and South Poles where Shubin has spent a lot of time. While the word "End" does not refer to the final days of when humans live on this planet the book forces one to face the ultimate end of the earth and human life on it. Readers have all heard the thought experiment from philosophy, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it did it make a sound?" The book by Shubin indirectly asks if there are no humans...

The new Pope thing is related to Matt. 16:18. I've heard and read Matthew 16:18 endless times and will hear it the rest of my life. Perhaps few Christians have heard it or paid any attention if they did hear it. The verse contains justification used for various purposes. While different Bibles vary just a bit, the verse has Jesus saying to Peter, "Upon this rock I will build my church...." If I were hearing this sentence for the first time, I would conclude Jesus is talking about sin and his view that his ideas about the end coming soon and everyone needs to quit sinning or end up in hell. The "rock" is a set of ideas he believes are true and correct.  Various branches of Christianity, however, smell opportunity in the sentence. The Catholics, for example, say this was Jesus naming Peter to be the first Pope. Not only that, Jesus meant Peter would name the all clergy to follow and this gave these clergy license to claim they were originally hired by Jesus. It ha...

There are endless articles these days about the new Pope Leo. A popular theme is whether he will " unite " the several factions in the Catholic denomination.  To suggest there is an opportunity to "unite" the denomination suggests there is something to unite around. What would that be? There is a Latin Mass group who somehow sees the language of Latin as the only legitimate one for Catholic ceremonies. Another group, including the late Pope Francis, are strong advocated of using English. The two groups are far apart in many other issues, one being in favor of never changing anything and the other wanting to reach out to the modern world. To say these two groups can "unite" around someone or something is ridiculous. For all practical purposes, they are members of different denominations.  A majority of the denomination's members favor abortion rights. Anti abortion remains a stupid position put up in lights by Popes and other leaders. What is it these t...

  I have a new interest in parsing more carefully what Christians say about themselves and about non Christians. While I may be wrong and nothing has changed, my tenacles are picking up something is different. It started a day ago when the new Pope made some opening remarks. Most of it followed the script probably written by Vatican staff or his own new staff. He thanks everyone and talked of prayers and unity. But then in a remarks elsewhere that were given little coverage he sounded like he was revealing a concern, what was on his mind. He said Catholic missionaries must stay out there beating the bushes to convert those in other religions because those of other religions are defacto atheists. They need to understand, he said paraphrasing, ours is the real god and those other gods are fake. My recollection is that earlier Popes would not have acknowledged this competition. The message of the new Pope is that lots of people just don't believe us anymore. Then, there is a conferenc...

Since I started this blog so many years ago I have discussed many times world population growth. Regularly there have been critics saying, no, there is plenty of room on the planet and in the U.S. for many more people. This whole discussion, of course, centers on abortion rights. Aside from giving women opportunity to control their lives, preventing some births has a public benefit of reducing the odds of major death and suffering should the consequences of over population make themselves more obvious.  Climate change is making over population obvious as we speak. Shortages of rainfall in some areas, too much in others, is or will make the problem obvious. Right now, U. S. major cities in the U.S. are sinking . This is due to pumping out ground water. Water in the ground is being pumped out because rainfall in some places does not support the huge number of people.  When I have brought up the issue of too many people on the planet, anti abortionists have always countered with ...

A conservative Catholic columnist is calling for the next Pope to rid the Catholic hierarchy of "The Lavender Mafia." This is about a conspiracy theory that a large number of gay priests are promoting each other and moving into powerful positions to further the Catholic "gay agenda." The author acknowledges there are celebrate gay clergy who are not part of this perceived power struggle. He has decided the latter can stay. That there is a conspiracy, both inside the Vatican or in society at large, has been promoted since forever by gay-hating Christians. The conspiracy claims gay men are trying to court straight young men and make them gay. Also, it is claimed there is an effort to make gay "normal" and gay people given the same rights as straight people which the right says would be a sin. What is amusing with the effort to eliminate all gay men who practice gay sex from the Catholic clergy is how they will be found, tried and convicted. The church acknow...

In 1970 the movie The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight was the talk of the town. Variations on the title are used yet today for hapless groups we still encounter. One of those is leadership on the Christian Right which always thinks it has a new shiny idea but steps in a cow pie. An early one I can remember was a "boycott" of Disney World. Some Christian right blowhards said Disney World was catering to gay people by designating a "gay night" when many gay people showed up to enjoy the rides and restaurants. Leaders called for a Christian boycott. It turned out Disney had never designated such nights but said it welcomed gay people and everyone else. Nothing changed. Disney prospered and eventually some Christian official said the boycott was no longer in place. Gay marriage was such a sin it must be stopped. Instead, it went forward and is seldom mentioned today. The biggest step in the cow pie by the Christian right was abortion. We all know Christian Right l...

We 're living in a period that seems like two freight trains headed for each other. One is conservative Supreme Court judges that are inching over the line and permitting more religion in government. The other is a slow decline of Christian (and other religions) denominations. It is healthy the press is  discussing this. Currently in Iowa and perhaps across the country it is possible for receive taxpayer money to send children religious-based schools. Nearly all of these schools are Christian. I don't think it would be inaccurate to paraphrase the motive for this advocacy as, "If more children are exposed to the Christain narrative the more likely they will be Christians in adulthood." Public money for religious education ultimately will turn out to not serve the cause of Christianity. First, it must inevitably take money from public education. It seems inevitable a less educated society will be one where both religious and secular citizens will be worse off. Second, ...

This afternoon I watched a pre-season game of the Women's National Basketball Association. It was played here in Iowa because its premier star, Catlin Clark, is from near where I am sitting. She played at the University of Iowa and now is a professional playing for the Indiana Fever. It happens our daughter from here was in Iowa City and attended the game. The marketing TV advertisement for women's professional basketball was interesting to watch after a week when I watched videos of women who have left conservative Christian denominations. The women's basketball ads featured little girls practicing basketball. Over and over again it was said, "You are strong," "You can do this" and "You can do anything." That is, women can do anything.  Other times this week I watched "Morom Stories." a site mostly about people who have left that denomination. Stories from other demanding denominations are also featured. So many of these carry the me...

I suppose this theme has been repeated for a thousand years by someone somewhere. It is that "religious freedom" means political leaders can endorse one religion and ridicule others, prayers in public and public money given to the religion that gets politicians the most votes. The link repeats the argument that religious people are better citizens and that's why the more religion the better the country. Quotes from the founding fathers are used to "prove" this latter point. Politicians giving money and support to one religion while telling people not to follow other religions does not seems like the "religious freedom" envisioned by the founding fathers. They wanted every religion to have a chance. The link reviews the bad history of religion in government. In the 1500's in England the approved religions were variations of Protestantism. It quotes a triumphant politician who told of murdering lots of Catholics. The politician sounds a lot like a cu...

The Vatican's relationship with the government of China must be a fascinating thing to see from the inside. There is speculation the Vatican Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, is among the top candidates to follow Francis as Pope. He is the architect of a flexible policy toward the Chinese government. The Chinese government names some of the Cardinals in that country and is holding several Catholic clergy in detention for criticizing China. This is a far cry from the concept of Peter standing on the rock with Jesus and being handed the keys to the denomination forever more. Apparently, there was a dictator of China on the same rock getting the same instructions from Jesus.  A press release from China tells the Cardinals in Rome the appointment of Parolin would be good for Chinese/ Vatican relations. We know the Chinese want to not only name the Pope but follow up with what the next Pope does.  If the politics now going on at the Conclave are like politics everywhere else, att...

All the data on religious participation I've ever seen has been bases on questionnaires. We've all be queried by those doing questionnaire research. We've been asked by phone, on our computers and from knocks on our doors. We all know the weaknesses of doing this. When we are asked how much we eat, what we spend our money on, how often we pray or how often we go to church our answers might not be completely candid.  Something new has come along. It is tracking people's locations by cell phone data. If we know how many cell phones went presents at a specific location at a specific time we have a good idea of how many people were there and when they were there. When asked how if they attend church often, that is most Sundays (or other designated religious day), the percentage of the population that is in a church each Sunday has been around 20% for several years. A pundit recently wrote that Christian numbers were holding steady because regular church attendance is holdin...