Thoughts of a Freethinker

After the "Second Vatican" council which established that mass be performed in languages other than Latin, a protest group formed. Later, the conservative Pope Benedict appeased them by seating the clergy they had "ordained" and allowing Latin mass. Now, Pope Leo has again banned Latin mass and the group is planning to "ordain" more rogue clergy. The Vatican and this rouge group is headed for another collision. The link and suggest that inside the Latin Mass advocates is a political operation that worked against Pope Francis and now Leo. One would guess that as Pope Francis began to fail their hopes were the next Pope would be another conservative like Benedict. This was never a possibility, however, because Francis only named Cardinals who were at least somewhat sane and liberal. Now, the Latin Mass group is frozen out for a couple of decades and has decided to make a fuss. Latin Mass, no women in powerful positions, no gays, no abortions and no birth con...

The newspaper, Desert News, in Salt Lake City carries a lot of baggage for the Momon denomination. Today it published a piece originating from a Christian group that claims Nones, those who poll they are of no religion, are impressed with Christianity when they are told of Christian groups helping the poor and responding to disasters. The message is Christianity will do better with the public if it shows up doing good deeds. Lots of the Protestant Christian right has argued on this site that good deeds are of no interest to God. Jesus said on the cross, "Believe in me." He didn't add, "...and do good works." The Catholic branch is big on good works. It's a toss up. That doing good works and letting the public know about them will bring reverse the decline of the faith seems doubtful. A majority of those 16 to 30 something is disgusted with the right's condemnation of gays and abortion. I can't imagine hordes of them saying, "Yes, they condemn ou...

I look for Christian nationalism to be a theme of the right during our 250th anniversary. You can count of the religious right to forget that when the nation was established slavery was legal and justified by the very Bible used today. An outrageous example of such writing showed up today by a well-known Christian figure, Tony Perkins. The Hindu religion had been in existence for many centuries when white Europeans took the Americas from those who lived here. Hindu societies were doing fine. Why then, does the Christian right think our society, democracy and sovereign country would fall in a heap if the majority was non Christian? It has not been a perfect place with Christianity, slavery being one flaw. Countries with other religions are not perfect either. Some cultures are better for the human beings that live in them than others. The religions of societies come along after the culture is there and adjusts. One of the humorous events in U.S. history was the Treaty of Tripoli. That ...

A young man, now in the Texas legislature, is running to be the Democrat's endorsed candidate for the U.S. Senate. His name is James Talarico. He is so controversial, and perhaps attractive, he is being interviewed by national media. There are competitors, of course, for the nomination so he has not yet, and one would guess will not be, the nominee. Everything, of course, starts somewhere and that is why he is so interesting.  Talarico is a seminary student so he has taken courses in theology. The controversy he brings is the observation that abortion is not condemned in the Bible. Further, he ranks the importance of various kinds of behavior. The top ranked one is to accept and treat well your neighbor. Trump has no use for that part of the Bible. The neighbor has a purpose. By bashing the neighbor a party can get votes. In the discussion following the above link there are many pages using or implying the most used phrase in the Christian faith, "What this means is..." F...

  If you lay an electoral map over the results of a poll asking respondents about the proper role of religion in government over the electoral college, we have a good representation of the next election. We see Vice President Vance talking often promoting Christianity. He knows the map. An interesting poll recently indicated how far apart the country is on the matter of religion in government. The two coasts have little use for it. The South and Midwest poll in favor of political boss Jesus.  The link points out that the pattern shown polling in favor of a Christian nation matches closely the electoral votes for Trump. When Trump and Vance talk of a Christian nation the purpose is to hold on to that particular set of electoral college votes. One can see the campaign ahead in Midwestern states where agricultural prices have been hurt be stupid tariff policies. Voters there will be told, "Sure, tariffs hurt farm income and raised the prices of some goods made in China. But think...

A year ago, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech to European delegates that ridiculed and criticized them while praising everything Trump. Vance seems unable to write or employ writers of his speeches that make him appear a student of history. Secretary Rubio seems a bit smarter and can package himself better. Yet, as this link written by a European explains, Rubio presented the same package in Trump attitudes as Vance. The package is, the white West is superior to the rest of the world. The Christian religion is superior to all others. The fact that Europe was Pagan before it became Christian and that the continents of North, South and Central America were not Christian until conquered by brutal slave owning Europeans seems not to be known by Rubio, Trump or. Then we need to reflect on the "superiority" of these Western values. Slavery and witchcraft were sent here by Europeans and enthusiastically practiced for hundreds of years. Perhaps opening the borders today would imp...

During the past couple of years, Jehovah Witness has had several dramatic changes and challenges. It has also started reinventing itself into a new money making machine. It has been rocked by sexual scandal. A huge case made national headlines. It was black balled by the Norwegian government. Norway, like much of Europe, collects money people voluntarily pay to denominations and passes it to those denominations. There are 20 some in the country if memory serves. The faith has had a rock solid policy that Jehovah requires shunning of any family member that leaves the faith. Thousands of families have been destroyed by this. The Norwegian government decided this was a form of discrimination and denied collection of funds. The faith quickly reverses its stand on shunning while appealing the ruling. It eventually was reinstated but the retained the new attitude toward shunning. Now, those who spent decades in isolation from their families are bitter for their lost family lives.  The Je...

I read a very long post on a Christian sight written by a retiring professor at Notre Dame. The professor is obviously a devout Catholic and vented his frustration that Notre Dame, which bills it Catholic roots prominently, does mostly nothing to keep the Catholic tradition embedded in the institution. To the contrary, he says nearly everyone from its Presidents to its Deans blow off, even make fun, of the faith. This goes on, he says, even though Notre Dame claims it considers its Catholic founding very important. The retiring prof says institutions, especially those of higher education, should not be different than what they say they are. If it says it's Catholic it should be Catholic. He ignores the fact that in its documents one will find all kinds of goals and aspirations listed. The prof says as many practicing Catholics as possible should be hired. While it must not discriminate, the secular people who have been hired should become familiar with the history and tenets on Cat...

  Looking at the travel plans of Pope Leo, we see no trip to the U.S. is planned this year. When the Pope travels it must be really expensive. I can imagine there are endless hours of disagreement at meetings deciding where and when to spend this money. The last Pope visit was Frances in 2015.  If I was an executive in the Vatican, I would want the Pope going to places where there is a chance to beef up numbers and increase revenue. I suppose there would be some appeal to go places where the publicity would stem loses that are occurring, but those places would be less profitable.  The conventional wisdom on Christian sites is that Christianity is growing in Africa and that is where the faith's future lies. Pope Leo is planning to spend a lot of time in Africa in 2026. It is tempting, I'm sure to go where big crowds turn out and there are converts. These are invariably countries with low education and incomes. When incomes rise, people tend to drift off.  Visiting the...

The Catholic Bishops condemned the video used by Trump of the Obamas portrayed as monkeys. Why cannot they find the same juices to condemn sexist portrayal of women? My prediction is every branch of Christianity, denominations, individual churches and groups of churches that consider women not worthy to hold the office of clergy or higher, will slowly fall into the trash bin of history. This is a solvable problem. Every denomination picks and chooses which parts of passages in the Bible it chooses to believe and follow. I've never heard of a denomination that forbids clothing made of clothe with different materials in the threads. We all know of the ancient food taboos.  But, some the men in the faith cling to the mythical views about the "proper roles" of genders. Of course, a current hot button issue is defining gender. All the stuff about gender can be written off as ancient myth and ignored. When there is self interest at stake, we will see men putting women in second...

Back in the 1990's there was a lot of news about a boycott by the Southern Baptist Convention of Disney theme parks. The main personality in the boycott was a Baptist preacher named Wiley Drake. Drake died this week and it brings back with amusement his determination to get the SBC to "boycott" Disney which it did for several years.  The reason for the boycott and its failure are fun to remember. Wiley Drake was a preacher at a Baptist church four miles from Disney in California. With thousands of gay people in California, some started encouraging their community of attend the Disney park on certain days of the month. They advertised the gay days at Disney. I recall reading that Disney itself never advertised the events but did not discourage them either. They simply welcomed the gay guests.   The other thing that bugged Rev. Drake was that Disney provided spouse benefits to gay couples just as it did to straight ones. This was medical and pension benefits.  It would...

It seems like most places where Christianity is losing ground, things move along slowly. The numbers fall a little each year. Some Christian taboos, but not all, tipped over. Ireland seems like the exception. A few years ago, there was a nation-wide vote to made abortions available. From what one reads in the press, the defeats of the faith, including ridicule, continue s. To preface current Irish events, we need to revisit a topic discussed almost continually for the past few decades. It is about forcing abortion into government and into the politics that ultimately run governments. I can't recall how many times in conversations among my liberal friends someone pointing out that, "If government can stop abortions, government can require abortions. Anti-abortion would be smart to leave politics and government out of its efforts." Ireland is a good example. For decades, abortions were outlawed in Ireland. The Catholic hierarchy called the shots about abortion. It inserted ...

In his book, "God is Not One " Professor Stephan Prothero presented a simple but profound question. Is the faith about what denomination officials claim it to be, what its seminaries teach it to be or what those in the pews think it is? The last one is most always different than the first two. He thinks the last one is most important and the book is about what religious people in the pews think their respective faiths are about. For Christianity, he says the faith is about one topic, sin. That is, the people in the pews talk about and worry about sin more than any other topic. This seems especially important to me, an economist, because people are buying the church membership and expect to get what they value. Prothero says they value worry about sin. What people talk about and worry about are the religious issues that find their way into local, state and federal legislation. Sin brings passion. Elected people respond to passion. Theological hair splitting is not addressed in...

Outside of arguments on policy such as health care, taxes, debt and budget, each party needs some terrible villain they will defend against. President Trump has rolled out many in his years of the Presidency. There have been the election crooks, immigrants, the Godless. the Chinas, Obama, Biden and readers know of the others.  Democrats have it easy. Trump is the villain. Then, there are the anti-abortionists. Trump and preachers/priests will be there for them for quite a while yet, so Democrats do not have to keep looking for new villains. The Republicans' problem is they need to keep finding new villains. The courts are taking away prosecution of some of Trump's favorite. Others, like workers in Mexican restaurant kitchens, do not seem like villains. Certainly, the innocent citizens killed by ICE in Minneapolis have not appeared to the public as villains.  The unspoken, of course, is that non-white people are villains and that will work to some degree for Republicans. Its sh...

An almost poignant essay by a woman who had an abortion decades ago was published in Christian Post today. The woman heads an organization which wants the entire anti-abortion establishment to stop demonizing all women who have had them. The link author believes abortion is murder and wants to work to abolish it. But, she continually runs into what she calls the "abolitionist" branch of anti-abortion. She thinks this branch, which I am certain represents the majority of people who make a living in anti-abortion, drives away women who have had abortions, but who regret it and want acceptance inside the anti-abortion establishment. By rejecting these women, she writes, the "movement" misses those who would help it. The link author says she should be cut some slack by anti-abortion because she had been forgiven by God for her sin. Further, she claims, she was "misled" by those providing the abortion and by the man involved. In the comments following her essay...

Maybe it's an inaccurate observation, but I don't think there is as much discussion or debate about sin as there was in times past. When I came across an academic who was writing, not in an academic publication but a Catholic one, and was discussing sin I realized it has been a while since I've seen a focus on what was once a favorite topic. Not that it's necessary for readers here, but I'll review why there has to be "sin" in the faith. Remember that Jesus suffered and died on the cross and said he did this to forgive us for our sins." Now, he supposedly said the deal was between himself and those who believed in him. If the old sins are no longer sins, there need to be news ones. Otherwise, the "suffering on the cross" accomplished nothing.  I grew up in a community and church where sin was topic number one. It was a thing. Working a tractor on Sunday was a sin as was playing cards, ballroom dancing and any alcohol. It was taught that when...

An appointment to an institute that gets grants and publishes research about Asia would ordinarily be of no interest to outsiders. At the research university, Notre Dame however, the appointment of a new head of this small subsidiary is making headlines. The prominent professor from within Notre Dame has spoken publicly in favor of abortion rights. I recall from back when conservative air-head, Benedict, was Pope. The hammer was down on abortion in every corner of the Catholic denomination. He made certain everyone knew the bishop of the local diocese where a university (or Catholic hospital) was the ultimate authority in charge of that institution. During that period there were examples of Bishops inserting themselves into higher education and medicine. Apparently, things changed somewhat with Pope Francis. I've looked up the profile of the Bishop of the South Bend diocese, and he looks like a guy who will not be poking his nose into the internal business of Notre Dame. It may hav...

The country of South Korea has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. If this continues the population of the country eventually will be much smaller. Koreans today of child-bearing age know all about this. They know that if the population becomes too small it will be difficult for its government to operate and for its military to defend it. Merging, or being invaded by, with some other country may be inevitable. So why don't Koreans of child-bearing age "do the patriotic thing" and have and raise more children. The answer has to be that it's not in the interests of young people, especially women, to have children. They just don't want them. Restaurants find that customers complain if there are noisy children.  What can Korea do about this? Really, not much. There have taken a few measures but none have many any difference. Anti-abortion groups, like the author of the link works for, are shouting the U.S. "needs more babies." The U. S. eventually co...

I'm reading a book with a long title, Spellbound; How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump  (2025) by Professor Molly Worthen.  Later perhaps I'll reach the part about Trump and write about it then. What I've read so far is her definition of who and what is charisma and where it showed up during the first part of our 250 year history. Certainly it appeared in politics, George Washington for example. But it also appeared many times in religion. She relied of paper records of preachers, what was in newspapers, so there were no doubt countless other preachers who held audiences in the palm of their hands and took advantage of that.     She limits her study to individuals who started and maintained movements. Mostly these are people in religion and politics. As a general overview, she ponders why some individuals are so persuasive they cause others to follow them, often against their own best interest. People with charisma who persuade ...

What does the inside of Trump 's mind look like? Anyone can see it by following what little we know about his tariff "deals."  A consistent position of the Republican Party for many decades has been that the market is the best mechanism for deciding prices of things, who has a job and what people and businesses spend their money on. The worst thing, the Party has said, is for government to make these decisions. With tariffs , however, Republicans has decided market forces should be replaced by government. And, not just government in general. Trump has become what we used to refer to as the " Federal Government ." The New York Times  published a great article attempting to answer the question, "Who still pays tariff, who does not and why?" The answer is the large corporations with lobbyists who can get into the While House , sometimes talking to the President himself, can get tariffs on goods they buy from other countries reduced or eliminated. Small ...

An academic in religion who is also a preacher has posted using a word I had not encountered, apatheism. Even my spell check did not recognize the word. It refers, of course, to people who do not care if there is or is not a god nor care about the narrative the surrounds religion.  Another academic/preacher who write on religious pages has described his experience of taking on, probably as an unpaid volunteer, the pastorship of three churches that were almost closed and trying to keep them open as long as possible. He wrote about the common experience of pastors who notice people stop coming to church but do not show up in other churches. They are not against church life; they just lost interest.  I asked one of my adult granddaughters, who grew up going to Sunday school and then was confirmed, why she no longer goes to church. She said, "I just could not see a place for me." This may fall into the category of apatheism. The link author, who dislikes apatheism, wrote that it ...