Thoughts of a Freethinker

I often read about Christian groups who go to jails and hold services or their version of counseling sessions. Sheriffs who run county jails compliment these Christian groups saying inmates who take part are often easier to control. There is no evidence that inmates who receive Christian training are any better off for that experience than non Christians. The rate of inmates who have participated in "Christian training" are released and return to jail is no better than those who have not participated. I know there have been overtures made to the Cass County ND Sheriff to allow opportunities for atheist groups to hold meetings in the Cass County Jail. I understand those overtures have not been well received.  In Iowa, one of the State's prisons has developed an active atheist group . This is the Ft. Dodge Correctional Facility.  A member of the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers Society holds meetings regularly inside the prison. A library with atheist reading mate...

In England there are some churches built in the 1300's. How can they keep going when church attendance has fallen to historic lows? The link explains that one continues to function as both a church and community center. It holds four masses a week but houses a restaurant and hosts concerts. The shortfall of donations has been offset by business ventures. When President Bush II approved many kinds of contracts with denominations to provide social services these became profit centers. I suppose the tax exempt status and clergy paid below prevailing wages helped to provide services at a lower cost than traditional private firms. In Canada many years ago, our local scout troop was hosted by a Canadian troop in a downtown Winnipeg church. Originally it was a traditional church building. The church sold its building to a housing developer who tore it down. A large senior citizen housing building replaced the church but the congregation was provided some modern space to gather. ...

It's fun to speculate about "what if" things had turned our differently. Along with that, it's serious to look at why they did turn out as they are. I'm talking, of course, about religion. In graduate school I became fascinated with the native groups who inhabited parts of what is now Mexico, Central and South America.  According to archaeology digs, the groups we know about existed about the same time as those written about in the Bible. There were at least 200 different peoples. Later the more commonly known empires of the Incas and Aztecs dominated the region. These latter groups, like the Jews, Greeks and Romans of the Bible, were conquered by yet others, the Spanish. While it is obvious people of European heritage and religion came to the Americas and defeated the natives who lived here, it is not obvious why the social structure and religion of Europe and before that the Middle East continues of dominate the minds of people here. If native religion an...

There are articles almost daily about the decline of church membership. Those who want to defend the importance of their particular brand of the faith counter do so with survey results saying the majority of respondents still claim to "believe in a god". The majority does not say it believes  specifically in the existence of the Christian God. The problem with these assertions is the assumption a majority supports the hot button issues of anti abortion and anti gay marriage. When the largest group in surveys believes in no particular branch of religion it means there is no central authority passing down judgments of moral issues. It means, it can be said, each person carries his/her own religion is carried about in his/her own head. We don't know which god people believe in. We have no shortage of self appointed "leaders" who tell us they speak for all those that "believe in god." The wider variety of gods the wider the variety of positions on ...

The question Protestants and secular people are asking Catholics is "Why do you stay in your church (when it has so many scandals)?" So, some of its big thinkers have wondered that themselves and invented an answer, "Because our church is about Christ. Christ is unrelated to the scandals." The link author found this to be a curious answer. He points out that the traditional Catholic argument is that their branch is "the true Church." In fact, they capitalize "Church". They refer to issues of theology as coming from "The Church", not Jesus. Making this argument even more ridiculous is that Jesus is what Protestant churches also claim to be about, making no difference between Catholics and Protestants. This takes away any justification to stay in the Catholic scandal-filled denomination. In the end, most Catholics are Catholics because their parents were Catholics. Their social and sometimes professional circles are made up of C...

In the Bible the question is asked why doesn't God show himself? Endless explanations have been given. The link dances all over the floor saying God does not show himself because God decided not to show himself. The writer does the old dance we hear endlessly about tragedies, "Why does God allow these to happen.?" The automatic play-back answer is we cannot know the mind of God. If we cannot know the mind of God how can Christians make this argument over and over: "We cannot understand why God allows tragedies because we cannot know the mind of God. But we do know the mind of God when we say God offers comfort to the survivors." Wait, if we cannot know the mind of God, then we cannot know God is giving comfort to survivors. Maybe God hates the survivors. When one tragedy is sort of forgotten another one comes along. This might be evidence God hates us and will pummel us with tragedies forever more. In fact, that will happen. There have been, and con...

So far as I remember, all Presidents of the United State through history have managed to understand world trade. Maybe some came into office campaigning to raise tariffs to "protect American jobs" but they came to realize this was not a sustainable idea and began to promote lower tariffs and more international trade. That was until Trump came along. He has been unable to understand the mechanics of world trade. He makes mistake after mistake and the general public is slowly recognizing the harmful ramifications. In 1776 Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations.  The reason this book, written by an absent minded professor who stumbled about, has remained the bedrock of economic thinking is that the logical ideas it contained have never been buried by the sands of time. His book was controversial at the time because the topic of economics mostly had been addressed by clergy. The clergy talked of the unjust treatment of the poor, the evil of greed and the righteousne...