Thoughts of a Freethinker

A standard fare in sermons and Christian writing tells believers what to do when they experience doubt. This problem, doubt, is so common it is discussed in the Bible. There must have been doubt about the previous hundreds of gods that have been worshipped because they are gone and forgotten. Belief invisible gods exist and doubts about them have existed at the same time since forever. All the writers and clergy telling others how to deal with doubt seem not to know there are people who have complete disbelief. Would they tell one to pray for the ability to set aside complete disbelief and even contempt for the old beliefs? I've had close believing friends and commenters of this blog recognize and acknowledge my disbelief but I don't remember any advice about how to change it. On the You Tube site, Mormon Stories, former believers describe in great detail how they came to leave that denomination. Most have left religion entirely. There seems a pattern that nearly all of them fo...

There are reports from preachers of single men coming to their churches. Women, we know, are leaving. There are questionnaire studies all the time asking things like "Do you believe in God?" and "How often do you go to church?" There is little information about who these young men are and why they find something in church. The information we have is not encouraging.  The link talks of a Christian male identity focused on masculinity. It includes anti women, blacks and tolerance of slavery. Those at the top of this movement are collecting money and building organizations.  For single young adults, men or women, who have leisure time, what to do? Surely the best choice is something that is pleasant. A church service needs that. Next might be finding new and interesting friends, something apart from the drudgery of the job. Taking all this into account, it is interesting, even a bit alarming, that more men are finding something in church than women are finding.  It fun...

After losing in court with an atheist group a few years back, something dawned on me. It was that atheists are not the right group to offset the Christian right. The right group to do this would be a non-Christian religious group. I was so convinced about this I sought out people from different religious traditions in Fargo, ND where I lived at that time and invited them to join in the effort we atheists were engaged in at the time.  People from other religious traditions, however, could not understand why we cared about the Ten Commandments monument on public property which was our issue at the time. They did not see the point of putting themselves, and their children, out in the light of public opinion over this stone object few people noticed. Now, events and the politics have changed. Other religious traditions are being pushed to the front of the battle. The change is most striking in Texas . Texas has just the right mix of in-your-face liberals to shout back at in-your-face T...

A woman who transitioned from her birth designated gender of male preached a sermon on gender that has exploded. She explains why God is neither male nor female and, as I understand her, Jesus was not either.  There has always been this mystery about God taking a rib from Adam, a male, and making it into a female, Eve. Isn't this "trans?" That this woman's church and denomination thinks it's fine for her to hold the post of priest, or priestess, is the business of those parties involved. I don't see any point for the Christian press to make a story about it nor for commenters to carry on about how heathen the church and the woman are. Really, if you are a Southern Baptist in Mississippi it will change your life not at all. The priestess has things to deal with more complicated than being bashed on Christian Post. It includes, for example, traveling and using rest rooms if she does not pass as a female. We know from experience this can be outright dangerous. Th...

There is an old saying in economics, tax something and you will end up with a shortage but subsidize something and you will end up with a surplus. That may be the future in religion. We all know churches are not required to pay property taxes. Churches compete with every other use of people's money so this keeps their costs lower than other businesses. As mega churches have grown, their need for parking has grown. This has increased their subsidies. While there are churches that close every week there are also some new ones in new or old buildings. There are also new religions. The Church of Satan is an example.  Local governments turn down, or try to turn down, religions they do not like. This cancels the property tax break for the newcomers. Then off to court they go. Courts have shown a pattern in approving new faiths and not approving others. The link says courts have dabbled in the "sincerity" of religions to decide if the qualify for no property taxes. A common reas...

I wonder if Trump has been taken and lost money in deals as often in his private business dealings as he has done as President. As President, he has cost us a bundle. Trump has met with Xi various times. They met a few months ago, yesterday and two more meetings are schedules in the coming year. Nothing comes happens or changes at these meetings. Perhaps the meetings crowd out Russia a bit or help each of them be famous. Nothing happens that is in the interests of the U.S. The U.S. would be helped by offering lower, instead of higher, tariffs. Hopefully, China would lower its tariffs on U.S. goods. This would help grain prices among other things. Trump said he would alter trade relations making the Balance of Trade favor the U.S. Instead, China's balance of trade has gained. Trump is obsessessed with the Balance of Trade and does not understand it is mostly meaningless. Republicans in Congress need to understand the person at the head of their party and who is President is not up t...

A movie about women and spiritual forces opened earlier this month and is so far the highest grossing movie of the month. The link is a Christian post alarmed at this interest in the occult. According to this review the movie focuses on women's grievances and on the enemies of women.  For several years I have read about the growing industry of making and selling items of what can be called the occult. Now, perhaps, we are seeing the size of this phenomenon in a movie. While I don't know much about the items of the occult, I think of them as beads and the great one that made Superman, kryptonite. Kryptonite is a fictional material that was a creation of a story author who knew of an actual element in space called Krypton.  Learning about the growth of a new version of witchcraft which I will use interchangeably with Paganism is especially entertaining because it reflects the long history of what goes on in humans' heads. Paganism thrived when every community was quite isolat...

The part of the world is obsessed against trans people cannot keep their views to themselves. They feel the need to put their views into law and even into the United Nations.  A group in the United Nations wants to list crimes against humanity. This would allow international knowledge of countries which practice horrific acts against minorities. To do this, the practices hate groups use and the populations they target need to be named. There is support to name trans people as a group targeted by hate groups. The hate groups, of course, do not want this, they want to target trans people. The link reports over 100K signatures have been gathered opposing naming trans as a targeted group. Those opposed want the freedom to demonize those they dislike. After all, the hate groups say, God created only two genders and did allow switching. Every informed person knows there have been people not identified as either male or female. Ancient writing referred to such people. Those in the U.N. wa...

We're now a couple of decades past the best seller by Richard Dawkins. Its sales have fallen, new writers emerged and time has gone on. Now it is popular to claim Dawkins has been defeated. That is, conservative pundits, making a living selling to conservative readers, are claiming the existence of an invisible super-natural force is not a delusion but backed by science-based information.  One can see a pattern in the critics of Dawson. It is the same pattern that we have seen of evolution since day one. Someone, usually only one, person with science credentials will write somewhere the creation including humans is too complex to have happened without a "designer" or "creator."  Usually the critic has some way to justify the amount of time it would take for something like fish becoming bird or the human hand to develop and decide it could not have happened by evolution. There wasn't enough time, it the bogus theory.  Then there are comments made by prominent...

  Add together those who poll atheist, agnostic and None in New Hampshire and one gets the most secular state in the U.S. Surrounding states in New England seem to be a little under 40%. The average age of believers is higher than the general population so one could conclude the secular trend will creep higher in coming years. California falls roughly into this category but the New England states poll more secular. The population of New Hampshire is only 1.3 million.  The nearby states in New England have secular populations a bit smaller than New Hampshire. It seems like the liberal Christianity and secular populations are joining together. That makes is fun to speculate on how this will affect politics in that region and across the country. Beginning in the early 1990's New Hampshire swung from Republican to Democrat in Presidential elections. Nearby states have done the same.  A majority which polls non Christian would be a milestone in polling. Of course, the importan...

When I was a professor, students would often drop by and chats would drift off into topics they wanted to talk about. Probably too often, I gave advice it was not qualified, trained or experienced to give. During the Vietnam War period students were experimenting with ideas that challenged the status quo. I recall a young man asking me, "I'm living with two girls, a relationship with both. I'm thinking I should not do that. What do you think?" I don't know what I answered but I should not have given any advice. Countless times I overheard professors giving advice to students about topics they knew nothing about. That is something that happens when one often stands in front of a classroom, auditorium and on TV. I have to mention I am here writing a blog so before you believe what I write do your own homework. Clergy are people who appear in front of people and listeners may well see them as sources of help and information about many topics. I was reminded of that b...

James Talarico's Presbyterian pastor told a prospective church member in a private conversation; Christians should be careful which translations to rely on when reading the Bible. In a recording, made without the permission of the pastor, he used the words "stupid stuff." No one says he said this from the pulpit. He should have--every preacher should say it. Just to remind, James Talarico is running for the Senate in Texas. If we put on our polite hat, we would say it is disrespectful to refer to the tenets of the faith, any faith, as stupid stuff. But if we considered that a major reason people leave the faith is they can no longer believe the far-fetched tales it features. Maybe the most helpful thing one can suggest to those in the faith is to remind them of this doubt. The faith could be taught without featuring stories that are beyond the pale. Liberal branches do this. James Talarico, a seminary student, has said at various times the Bible does not condemn abortion ...

A few years ago I attended a friend's funeral in a Protestant denomination that does not allow women pastors. The male pastor had had a stroke and was limited in what he could do. He did speak but a woman carried the service forward. I don't know what her position was or is today. The "work around" worked fine.  Today there is a growing shortage of Catholic priests. Some Protestant denominations that require male preachers need part-time but credentialed men are not available. What to do? The logical thing is to double the pool of people available to be priests/preachers. Out of that much larger pool could come the very few that might want to do this work or have economic circumstances that allow them to do clergy work part-time. The larger the pool the more likely some star will emerge to help save a church. The Catholic Church is inching it way toward women as clergy. Women are taking over higher level management positions.  Those who condemn the idea of women as cl...

We all know there are a gazillion surveys and interviews going on at any one moment. From these books and articles are published. I think it's correct to say doing survey work at either the professional level with random sampling or doing amateur work with volunteer survey are both cheaper and easier than it was in past times. Publishing or publicizing the results is also easier than in the past. There is a popular thing in our culture now also about knowing what's behind the door. We want to know, not just what happened, but why. I myself am deeper into this than many others. All of us need to remember there are things going on we cannot understand or will not understand until a long time from now.   A woman journalist just published a book about women leaving the Christian faith. Surely there is no variable in the faith more important than that. Many studies have found mothers have more than fathers in influence over the direction the child takes in faith. It is also true th...

My late brother explained to me various aspects of being a doctor. One was that when a tragedy happens, especially when it ends in a death, survivors feel they must blame someone. That is, random bad luck does not fill emotional need of the moment. The doctor's job is to listen to these explanations usually without arguing. I don't claim to have powerful insight into humans, but I have license like everyone else to toss in my two cents. Perhaps we all need someone or something to blame for every bad thing that happens whether it is about someone close to us or society at large. When something we don't like comes along, we need a universal and safe villain. It can't be ourselves, that would be painful. But it can't be someone we know either because then there is obligation to link cause and effect. So, we humans scan the invisible horizon and grab whatever is available. We find Satan or something else invisible.  Reading the link, written by what seems a self-promoti...

The Rutherford Institute in an old name in political and legal disputes. It's former leader claims it was established to defend the rights of all religious people in all religions. He now says he disapproves of Rutherford's current work to defend only right-wing Christianity and right-wing political causes. One should not allow the camel's nose to get under the tent. Back when it started, Rutherford defended all religions. Today, we know, right-wing groups defend only Christianity and demonize other religions. If you would like the freedom to be a Muslim, don't depend on Rutherford for help. You are on your own. The ignorance of religious groups, be it anti-abortion, anti-gay or anti Muslim, is astounding. It's leaders cannot understand they need allies. The fewer the allies and the more enemies the lower the changes for success. Right wing religion, Catholic or Southern Baptist, would have more members if they embraced gay people and women who have had or need abor...

There are few women who have unimaginable wealth neither seek nor are given wide publicity. A study of their foundations and what is known of their interests, however, reveal forces of change.  A couple of the best know women who are big players in philanthropic generosity are Malinda French Gates and McKenzie Scott. Their wealth came from Microsoft and Amazon respectively. Looking at the list of places they have given money one can see social change at work. A lot of money goes for women's health and promoting opportunities for low-income people. While we can't say for certain these patterns are different than they would have been for men, I think most would agree their interests and patterns are different than most ultra wealthy men. I've always been interested to know if there are "back channel" donations and, if so, where they go. Specifically, I've wondered if there are private donations from billionaire women to funds that pay for poor young women to tra...

I try not to bore readers with stories of being the mayor of the largest city in a small state. It was so long ago, who cares? Today, however, I will mention that several times individuals made appointments to see me for the specific purpose of praying for me.  As I recall, the visits had a pattern. The visitor thought he/she was the only person who had pondered the need to come in and pray for me. It was like the weight of my own salvation was their individual responsibility. They saw themselves at the center of events that would determine my ultimate fate in eternity. The visits would begin with visitors thanking me for the appointment and me thanking them for coming in. Eventually, I would try the line, "And what would you like to visit about today?" That would bring up the sins I was committing or were going on in the community that I should stop. Of course, my liberal views on abortion and gay rights were relevant. There was a legal porn store, shows at the city-owned au...

A woman in New York State was told her five-year-old son was required to be vaccinated. The mother refused, not on the basis of evidence about the effectiveness of vaccinations, but on a religious theory. Vaccinations, she told the court, violate God's plan.  God made humans to be separate from animals. Vaccinations take fluids of animals and mixes them with the blood of humans. Because God set humans aside and made them different from animals this violated the woman's religious rights.  This is a peculiar religious theory. First, humans were originally animals and then became something else through evolution. Second, humans have eaten animals since day one. To eat animals, even eating them raw, does not seem to violate her rule. I wonder if the woman has ever eaten a rare steak. Drinking milk from animals or eating their eggs doesn't seem to violate God's rules. On a hot day, a human who rides a horse bareback sweats, so does the horse. This mixing of fluids outside th...

A columnist noted that 9/11 sparked a craving for revenge. We started down a path of Afghanistan, Iraq and now Iran. Now, our prices are going higher. We have a President who is bat$hit and a Congress running for cover. The link says we need to refocus on the "common good." Yes, but what is that? Every politician including Presidents thinks it can master the concept of the "common good." The best example I can think of that represented what a majority of voters agreed was the common good was World War II. There were dissenters but Germany and Japan were generally seen as villains and the country's interests were served by armed force. Korea worked OK but ultimately the "common good" was redefined from eliminating North Korea to drawing a line on a map and saying the common good is served by the North staying on its side. That's where it was before the war started. Then came Vietnam where Democrats and Republicans both preached the common good of de...

Is prejudice in human brains there because of evolution? That is, was it helpful for survival somewhere deep in history? Or is it there because it is the easiest explanation for some problem? Whatever, it seems like it has always been there and is something we all should work harder to eliminate.  Christianity, at least some people who self-identify as Christians, can be the first to point fingers and hate. The faith was used to justify slavery, segregation and condemnation of interracial marriage. Certainly, Christianity did not invent this. From what we know of "prehistory", this kind of thinking was in the human brain before Christianity arrived. Some in the faith just glopped on to it. I know atheists who buy into myths about people different than themselves. A portion of humans enjoy myths that point figures of hate at people who are different.  One group facing prejudice today in the U.S. are people of the Islamic faith. Islam has been practiced in this country since it...

Evidence keeps piling up about the unreliable claims made about the Bible. As it slips in importance and believability, its defenders get more aggressive in their claims . The link runs through the old series of arguments. The ancients, it says, gave their writing to scribes who copied and recopied it by the thousands. All of the surviving copies written by scribes agree on a few things telling us the entire faith is mostly in agreement.   This is not really true. The writing in the Bible does not agree across the book. There were new ideas over the time the Bible was written. It is not necessary to know much about the Bible because it says so many different things and is interpreted in so many ways. Some of the various messages in the Bible are from interpretations from one language into another. This is often complicated by changes in the languages themselves from ancient times to the present.  There have been best sellers in recent decades written about Alexander Hamil...

What gets published and what not is always a surprise. A headlined article today was a formula to a Republican victory in the upcoming Midterms. The first thing Republicans need to do, according to the Republican author, is to stop the rise in the cost of living. Republicans have the Presidency, House and Senate. They could do that and win the Midterms. Readers know what that would entail. It would be the complete humiliation of Trump. Republican lawmakers are too timid to do that. To end the rising prices of fuel and food all oil shipments need to roll around the world. This includes the Strait. It might involve paying Iran for safe passage. Iran's uranium needs to remain with Iran. Tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada need to be dropped so goods coming into our country are cheaper. They would drop their tariffs and we could sell grain, software and services to them. Restrictions on workers coming into the country need to be lowered so we have an adequate supply of workers.  These ...

Readers are welcome to correct my understanding of AI. Seeing it work, I see it as a way to summarize lots of information and present it in a way that has been predetermined by those who program the reading and summary. Wikipedia was/is similar in that readers can edit what appears and monitors can correct of challenge what is written. The difference is that Wikipedia posts were written, hopefully, by individuals and not by a computer.  It was fascinating to me to read an analysis of AI on a Christian site, Christian Post. The link is a discussion of a survey which, apparently, asked various parts of Christianity whether they used AI to interpret the Bible. Included were preachers who were asked if the approved or disapproved of those in the pews asking AI their questions about the Bible. A majority of the preachers did not approve of using AI to learn about the Bible. They are afraid the interpretation provided by this computerized summary of published views will be incorrect. A m...

Trump is already sending some cabinet members to the Middle West to improve his polling. The local paper which covers most of the state of Iowa posted an article asking what I've wondered, why should rural Iowans, or rural Midwesterners, vote for Trump? There is a pattern of imposing tangible losses and offering in exchange abstract and unmeasurable benefits. The reporter asked several Republican operatives what the message is from Trump and his Republican messengers. What all the local Republicans said was the message is not clear. The tariffs on Chinese goods caused U.S. farmers to lose much of the Chinese market. The "unfair" Chinese trade terms prior to Trump has\d no harmful effect on rural America. Trump's efforts to "correct" the terms of trade has done tangible harm. Precisely the same pattern has been seen with Iran. That Iran owns some uranium has the abstract threat of a nuclear weapon. This weapon is of little to no threat in the U.S. Middle West...

There was a headline article in the heugh Iowa paper today about the damage done by Trump's tariffs. Unfortunately, it was mostly about small businesses who import products and not about low farm prices and high farm costs which are even more important. Trump, as readers know, carried states like Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota 60-40. Trump voters in these states need to heed the advice of the late columnist Ann Landers, "Wake up and smell the coffee."  There has been a pattern in U.S. trade policy Since trade policy is largely under the control of U.S. Presidents, it is important they understand the basics. The basics are that countries have unique weather, soil and people that make it advantageous to produce some things and import others. This is counterintuitive because our instinct is to believe it is better if we product stuff ourselves instead of pay others. Republican Presidents come from an ideology that markets generally make better decisions than governments...

For the decade I've been reading Christian sites, books about religion and entertaining myself by writing this blog, I've become convinced the Christian left would survive the downward drift of religion longer than the right. If history repeats itself, neither will last forever. A new unexpected development is  several "mainline" preachers running for high political offices and polling well. While predicting the outcome of elections has been embarrassing for me and many others, I think some of these mainline preachers will win. When they do it will energize, perhaps only a little, the view that Christianity is not exclusively gay bashing, anti women and anti abortion. The term "real Christian" or "genuine Christian" will broaden to include something besides the right wing. One of the pleasant recollections of my many years as a mayor was sitting at head tables of conferences and banquets waiting to give a welcome from the city. Often, a pastor was ...

Where is the line that gives a each divorced parent the same right to child's religious instruction? This case is fascinating .  The mother is a devout member of a Calvery Christian church. The couple has a daughter who is now either a teenager or nearly so. While the article does not reveal much about the charges and counter charges a commenter writes that the father says the mother has taken the girl to church for services several hours a week. The child complained of being frightened by threats of fire and hell for non believers and had physical problems because of that. The father's lawyer had retained a sociologist who studied religions. The sociologist labeled that church a cult. The court's decision was that since the mother's religion is a cult, the father's decisions about the girl's religious instruction must prevail. That is, the court ruled in favor of the father and against the mother. Of the thousands of divorces that happen every year, there must ...

I suppose since the first imaginary god was invented someone advised another person, "I believe in a god. See how happy I am. If you believed in a god, no make that my god, you would be happy too." That advice never stops and I suppose never will. The link provides us with the most recent of a gazillion surveys which show religious people are happier than those without religion. We have to ask about the old correlation versus causation question: If two things happen at the same time, does this mean one caused the other." Maybe happy people are prone to like religion. Or maybe religious people learn they are supposed to say they are happy. I've heard it said, not true so far as I know, that the less one knows the happier he is. Old people like me tend to get a little cranky. One thing I have less and less tolerance for is advice that our country would be better off if more people were Christians. A person cannot be a Christian, Hindu or Jew unless the person believes ...