Thoughts of a Freethinker

It started under Clinton. Then W. Bush went all in. It was to off-load humanitarian work from government employees to the private sector. Faith based and non profits contracted with government to do this work and it appeared cheaper. Now we are now seeing it might have been better to leave it with government employees.  In Minneapolis there was a large theft. There was a contract that paid for providing meals. The meals never happened. That has increased interest and study of non profits taking over from public employees. In jail and prison across the U.S. evangelical groups provide Chaplains. Local sheriffs say this calms down inmates and makes the sheriff's job easier. Mixed in is the widely known conclusion inmates have made that buttering up the Chaplain may increase odds of an early out. Pretending to be in the faith is the key. The link tells of efforts by non profits in get new projects. These non profits or religious groups are not interested in making life better for down ...

A new college has started that combines the liberal arts with the trades. My wife, a sociologist, wrote an article decades ago about the prospect of this. She wrote that many kinds of "work" will be eliminated by technology, but the life of the mine could flourish. Discussing the classics over lunchbox sandwiches is not a bad life.  In our culture we have come to see intellectual life as living and working amongst books. Intellectuals become writers, teachers, academics, etc. The truth is intellectual life also lives among those who do not make a living in those professions. I remember a preacher saying his best church was in a rural area. Farmers thought about his sermons on the tractor. Later churches had white collar people who never gave such topics a thought after the Sunday sermon. One of the most famous sociologists was Eric Hoffer. He was a self-educated longshoreman who unloaded ships. He wrote about what he observed in people and his writing became textbooks. Perhap...

Quite often we see some Christian declaring he/she has finally found proof the founding fathers intended the faith called Christianity was to be the national religion in the U.S. Now a speech delivered by President John Quincy Adams is being pushed down the runway.  The speech is 65 pages long and must have taken a long time to write--and was long to listen to. It was delivered in the 1840's when Adams was 71 years old. Speeches and letters by politicians may have their own self-interest in mind. While in office, it might be getting reelected. After office, it might be justifying whatever they did. In any event, from the parts I read of Quincy Adams, it was the same old song and dance. The same old is not that we "know" there is a God and Jesus. It's that we should all agree on something so we can move forward. When we are all going in different directions things don't get done. What's handy to reach for is religion. Let's all grab onto that and we'll ...

Abortion politics follows a predictable cycle. In the U.S. several decades ago Roe was passed making abortion legal in all states. I don't recall much discussion about how many abortions went on before that but we know there were a lot of them. From what we can tell, abortions, even though illegal, were about as common as they became when they were made legal by Roe v Wade.  As soon as Roe made abortions legal religious political operatives, including the U.S. Catholic Bishops, began lying by saying there were no abortions before Roe. Before Roe made abortions legal there were wings of Catholic hospitals devoted to young women with infections from amateur abortions. Those records could be located today. Conservative branches of Protestantism joined in on the hoax. The lie was exposed after Roe was overturned and abortion was left up to the states. We have seen the numbers rise as the number of women in the fertility age cohort increased. Neither making abortion legal or not legal c...

Already the false history that the U.S. was founded as a "Christian Nation" has started. Recently a prominent Christian pundit falsely quoted Benjamin Franklin. The quote and its context is almost humorous because no one claims to have recorded the remarks. The link "quotes" Benjamen Franklin talking about the virtue of a country following Christianity. It seems to refer to remarks and a motion made by Franklin toward the end of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1789. The groups had been meeting all summer and was cranky. Franklin made a motion to start each day's business with a prayer. Instead of agreeing to this simple request, the motion set off a big argument. Ultimately it was voted down. So much for a group of pious Christian fathers founding a Christian nation.   No doubt we will see a lot of inaccurate history in the coming year claiming the U.S. was founded to have prayer in schools and preaching by its Presidents. That the founders purp...

Kid Rock is a MAGA star. He is rich from sold out concerts with music and ridicule of liberals. Now, he has lowered ticket prices by half . One concert was cancelled because of low ticket sales. Polling numbers tell us Trump is not popular. Those of us who don't like him have been blindsided by his supporters.  There have been several actual elections to state government won by opponents of Trump. These seem like more important events than polls. To me, a decline of hard-earned dollars spent on Kid Rock also are more important than poll numbers in revealing what the public is thinking. That Rock's ticket sales are down needs to be put into perspective with the entire concert industry. I've read it had a very successful 2025 but may be slipping a bit now. Kid Rock appears to be falling instead of slipping. Personas such as Kid Rock are perceived to be standing up to what we generically call, "The establishment." Every reader here has an idea of what is the establis...

The rich mega-church preachers are mostly rather boring people. They preach prosperity or hell-from-your-sins, pass the collection plate and that's about it. One, though, stands out as so outrageous he entertains just by existing. That is Benny Hinn. Benny is of Middle East heritage and was born in Israel. He speaks with a slight accent. You can find clips on You Tube of Benny healing huge numbers of people just by waving his hand. People came in wheelchairs and walk out. According to some who wrote about it, there was a bus load of "sick" people who were hired to go from event to event as stage props.     Benny made millions and lived big. Then complications began. He divorced his wife. Then the fake healings and his flashy lifestyle were made public. Eventually, he remarried his wife but divorced again recently. Apparently, the showmanship of his healing events has lost its appeal. But, not to worry. I saw on Benny's website he has big healing events coming up this ...

Hearing and watching the "Sec. of War" makes one wonder if he is a actual official or someone performing parody. The constant God and war talk is from way back when. It turns out Hegseth belongs to a denomination that is all in for the same things. In that branch of Christianity there is no separation of church and state. There is no state except the church. The denomination, Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches is more an association of churches than what we think of as a denomination. It's founder, Doug Wilson, preaches at a church in Idaho where the central office is located. It preaches we are in a great war with Jesus fighting at our side. Women should not be allowed to vote and are to submit to men sexually. Needless to say women are not equals.  Hegseth's public pronouncements about bombing Iran reek with holy religious overtones. It's as if victory over Iran is a victory for Jesus. It's too bad we cannot hear a billion eye rolls around the world ...

When the President's cabinet meets each member present takes a turn at lauding the President. There are a very few Republicans in Congress who criticize him. Readers know most prominent Republicans speak no ill of him. The news day after day is about his mistake after mistake.  Following the news like our readers here do, I noticed something curious. After the bombing of Iran and the chest beating about how successful it was, Trump said Iran would call an end of its attacks in other countries and would turn over its uranium to the U. S. The political theater of such a development requires Trump or someone he assigns the task to to meet with Iranian officials, draw up such an agreement and come home to announce and brag about it.  Suppose you were one of Trumps cabinet members and knew Iran would not agree to this nor could be forced to agree. In other words, you knew it was not in any way possible. There had to be two men Trump would logically turn to to meet with Iran and pul...

In the past few months I've read three recently published books about China. Perhaps some readers have been to China. I have not. We have friends, a couple from China who were our students, that offered to host us on a trip there. That would have been wonderful but the time when we could do that has passed.  All of the three books were written by Chinese people. The first one explained how a person from the U.S. might understand the economic system. He wrote that China is like the U.S, would be if we took the presidents of the largest companies in the country and assigned them the highest posts in government. If we did that, without our kind of elections, he said, we would be China. Bill Gates would have the budget of the Federal Government to build the U.S. tech industry. The trucking exec for government truck policy, the road contractor, car manufacturer, housing, etc. Each industry chases its own growth without a broader view. This is why China has hundreds of skyscrapers that a...

Christian sites keep reporting on the rise in abortions. Those of us who comment on these sites point out that all the money going to anti-abortion groups and to politicians like Trump who say they working to end abortions is wasted. While Christian sites have staff that do investigative reporting, I've never seen an article that talks about the total amount donated and that it has accomplished nothing. I would think liberal politicians in liberal states might score political points by bashing these unproductive anti-abortion groups. Perhaps some of this will play out in the upcoming midterm elections. As Trump falls into deeper holes of mistakes, it is a good time to remember how much chest beating there was from anti-abortion about his election. "He would not be in office were it not for us" was repeated often. Now, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, an anti-abortion group, grapples in his weekly column for something good to say about Trump. All of us who foll...

Many pundits say Wisconsin will vote for Democrats in the midterm and next Presidential election. Wisconsin has a variety of industry but its rural areas have lots of dairy . Half the labor is done by immigrants. Almost 3/4th of the milk is produced by this immigrant-dominated labor pool.   I have no idea how many micro economies in the U.S. depend on immigrants to stay afloat. Just scanning the news one can see there are lots of them. To some degree, I suppose, businesses do not publicize this problem because they don't want to be raided and arrested.   It doesn't seem like immigrants, legal or illegal, are a huge problem. Most of the jobs they take on are not desirable to U.S. born people. School districts have to deal with large numbers of children without English language skills. They have been doing this for a long time. People living "underground" need medical services and with no insurance this is a problem. There has to be a solution to this.  All of thi...

While history has had an endless stream of atheists, all with something good to say and all getting their fair share of publicity, I can't think of a new one since Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. This is the era of the video. I came across Promise Backlund , a You Tube creator.    She describes herself as a former believer but now calls herself an atheist. She has been on other platforms doing atheist videos for a while but now is tackling You Tube. I gather making videos is her full-time work.  While the non belief demographic of the U.S. has been growing steadily, an attractive, persuasive and hard working personality would help move it along. You Tube creators often say it take a hour of work for each minute of video so be to produce 10 or 20 minutes is a project. Ms. Backlund has been posting lots of material.  The video I linked is one in which she describes the strange practices of her former life as a Christian. I found the video to be entertaining. But the Ch...

Countless drawings, inscriptions and objects, as well as the Bible, tell us ancient religion was about plants, animals, stars, the moon and the sun. Plus, pictures and objects had life and powers. The Moses story was about his anger that the "golden calf" was worshipped. It's obvious that if there actually was an Exodus, some people in his group worshipped the "golden calf" instead the god Moses worshipped. The Old Testament, written for the Israels, scolded them for putting other gods in front of the Big Guy.  When every aspect of their lives, their food and danger from animals or other tribes, came from places or reasons they did not know, they believed some god was the source. For each food or danger a different god was in charge. So, for the growing and cropping season it was the crop god. The hunting season a different one. Battles yet another. Each god required a ritual.  These observable events and the sun, rain and stars that each required a god to influ...

  I binge-watch too much of Mormon Stories Podcast  because there are discussions of religion I don't see other places. I'm watching an episode now interviewing an anthropologist who goes over all the territory I've traveled before but in an engaging way . At the risk of misquoting or misstating, he says this: 1. All religions from prehistory were verbal. Nothing was written except surviving drawings. 2. All religions were based on the interplay between growing food, mostly corn, and the sun. The sun, the plants and the animals held spiritual powers.  3. Religions were passed down to the next generation by learning rituals which were practiced at various periods of sunshine. The sun, sky and crops held all religious ideas, they were the "Bible." Religions were not about prayers and scripture, they were about rituals. 4. The written word did not come along until about 6,000 BCE. Any claims of written or recorded text before then could not have happened.  5. All rel...

There is an irony that 1776 is the year of both the founding of the U.S. and the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Few people pay any attention to the latter. Smith is mostly worshipped by anti-government conservatives and disliked by liberals who find more confidence in the collective exercise of government powers. The Wealth of Nations was and remains widely influential. Smith said that when each individual seeks his/own best interests, there is a benefit to society at large they may be unaware of. The benefit is the production and distribution of food, goods and services is organized and carried out. Smith recognized to some extent businesses seeking their interests might form monopolies that exercise power over working people. He was naive about costs businesses could avoid paying, like damage to water, air and soil.  A hundred years, later Karl Marx published an equally powerful book about economics, Das Capital. Marx said we could not trust businesses to orga...

The sands of time bury some things. Asking people their views on religion may be different in the future.  The link discussed the difference in how people who have no contact or experience with religion versus those who grew up in it but left might answer questions like, "Do you believe in God?" or "Do you believe in a live after death?" Those with no experience or background may not know what the questions are about and answer from a different place than those who know the source of the question. I tried to come up with a way of imagining how questions about religion would strike someone who has no idea or experience with the topic. I looked up my birth date in an astrology site. I am Virgos. The traits attributed to Virgos seem not at all like me. If a pollster asked me questions about my life's experience as a Virgo I would be dumbfounded. My impulse, however, would be to be helpful and try to help out the person by answering even though I have no idea what t...

  Where I now live, the state legislature is debating whether to allow the practice of "Conversion Therapy." This is a type of counseling that claims to convert gay people to being straight people through a religious experience. It has been outlawed in various places at various times. Outside of a few who claim to have been changed, the consensus of people who have been subjected to "Conversion Therapy" is they were left harmed by it.  The message most who have been in it say they are told if they are strong and devoted to God they will be attracted toward the other sex. When this doesn't happen the only conclusion is something is wrong with them. Self-worth is at its lowest.  There has never been a reliable set of data on the percentage of people who "graduate" from conversion therapy and remain straight. People who have left it say it is unusual for people to change permanently. It happens for a while then gay people return to being gay. This happene...

It is amusing to read the never-ending solutions to the decline of Christian numbers. The elephant in the room is the majority of young under 25 who leave the faith every generation. With one exception I have come across, those inside the faith cannot possibly reverse the decline. Most cannot stop telling people what people are not allowed to believe. The exception that appeared recently was written by a man who claims to head an organization devoted to bring young adults into the faith be listening to their views. The idea is to listen to young people but not pass judgement on what they have to say.  In the comments that followed the article, most Christians were appalled at this idea. Young people are the very ones who need to hear an earful about their sins and the consequences, eternity in hell, that awaits them was the most common reaction. The link author claims his group listens to young people, but he never tells us what they have to say. Most of us can guess they talk abou...

About 20 years ago, wife and I visited a Federal Park in New Mexico called Chaco Canyon. Unlike most Federal sites it was accessible only by about 15 miles of gravel roads. It was a wonderful experience. The site is a large expanse of ruins, parts of walls and outlines of many little structures plus bigger ones with many rooms. Besides being on the backroad, the location in a high desert is very desolate. Obviously a large complex society had built it. But who were they, what did it all mean and why was it there is such an unlikely place? Since our visit, research has discovered who was buried in Chaco Canyon and how the society was organized. Plus, the mystery of why it was abandoned is known. Analysis of burial sites has revealed the Chaco Canyon was the center of a societies we now call Pueblo and Hopi. Drought ended about 1,000 years of prosperity in the early 1100's.  The royal people buried there reveal of royal linage of women. The royal linage not male. Power was passed fro...